Hey, Cedar, or anyone interested in FOO (Family of Origin) issues. Cedar, WHY NOW???

[InsaneCdn]

Like it always is even when I am talking about myself in the present or myself in my childhood, I do not understand how they can view what they are doing as a win. What could their motivations possibly be?

It's not about winning. It's about making sure YOU lose.

 

[BusynMember]

I think the winning to them means getting in the last word this time around. Usually they come back for more, but this time they win if they get in the last word. And, yes, it's mostly about you losing. But losing what? Abusive, mean, dysfunctional people who are morally bankrupt?

It's not our loss. If we can't do it ourselves (disconnect from them) they are doing us a marvelous favor by doing it for us. Let them bask in their "win." They have to be who they are and that is a terminal loss. I can not speak for my brother, who at least has his students (although no significant other ever, which is kind of a loss in my opinion), but my sister lives a miserable life in which she suffers every day because of her need for attention from t he wrong men. She has told me, "I like th e attention." Doesn't matter if the guy is a kid, is married with no plans of leaving the wife, has kids, anything. She NEEDS males to think she is beautiful and to tell her so. And most charmers are abusers, like her boyfriend of five years. She is madly nuts about him although he has never treated her well for any length of time. He does the abusive cycle...nice then mean then she seems to maybe want to leave so he sucks her back in with lies that you think she'd think ARE lies after so long. She runs back, they drink, he has another alcoholic confession then shes cries. Typical abusive cycle. Five years. Tears. Grief. Hers.

Some people make their own hell then need to take it out on other people. I'm glad my life's journey did not go there. I do not care about "male attention" nor abusive men. So she got the last word in with me, I think (it is rather vague). But even if she did...

Who lost?

Copa, Cedar, Insane...WE are not the ones who lost.

I am so glad I was able to get the help I needed to see this and I'm sharing it with all of you. My awesome therapist isn't awesome for nothing

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

You are not fooling yourself that you can change them. So they disgust you.

Oh. That could be it. After daughter was beat, I did go through that time I described as a loss of faith. I am believing people the first time they tell me who they are, now. Sometimes, I wonder what is wrong with me. I suppose I believed in people before because things as they are do often seem so ugly.

What about compassion?

I find that I have no compassion.

I am tired of being Pollyanna.

It could be that this is the beginning of wisdom; of some core change in the way I see and think.

They are #1. Maybe it's healthy, until they look down at others, like us.

The question would still be why they do that, why they find satisfaction in that. The answer would have to be to soothe some internal wounding. Addressing the wounding, loving the person and ourselves out of the hurt of it makes sense to me.

Or am I wrong on that.

You know, it could just be that I am not likeable. It could just be that everyone is sick of my addicted or otherwise weirded out kids. (Lord knows I am sick of all of us, sometimes.)

:O)

But that does not explain my mother, digging into the roots of the hostas or my sister, stalking my daughter on FB and then, taunting me with what she "knew". Why would she do that, I wonder? FB is quite the public place. There is no one who did not know whatever they wanted to because daughter was open about what had happened and its effects.

So, why would my sister PM me for details and then, respond that she already knew?

Was it done to hurt me, do you think?

And where is the win in that for her?

It can all look so ugly.

Ours is an ugly story.

Hard to believe it could be what it looks like, but of course, it is. I am beginning to circle, here. How could it be what it looks like and of course it is what it looks like and on and on. Usually, this is where I decide to believe in all of us.

Not this time.

It is what it is; it is what it looks like.

Why doesn't matter.

As well as rooting out false beliefs I need what I will call a dedicated structure of self-care.

For myself, I must do all of the things that a good mother does:

Most crucially, to encourage tender reflection. I was showering and cleaning the bathroom this morning (now that the pipes are clear). Daughter woke up, so I began trying to hurry and you should have heard the way I treated myself!

So, we need to watch for things like that. Though I was aware of it, I still felt so freaking crabby and frustrated and ugly. The difference now is that I understand this is how I was taught to see and treat and talk to myself. It seems I have been taught that I mattered less than perfect cleanliness, than everyone's full belly. This seems extraordinary to me, that I have found that bubbling toxicity and been able to touch it.

So, that's what happened to me, this morning.

The connection between everything perfectly clean, between breakfasts and lunches and dinners and everything clean and the laundry done and the sense of satisfaction I feel there ~ that is my mother's negativity and hatred that fuels that sense of satisfaction.

That is what I am trying to describe, this morning.

It has to do with all those years of my life when establishing order in her house mattered more to me than I mattered to me.

I found the core of that spot.

And it is self-hatred.

So okay you two. It looks like I am transforming myself into someone quick to criticize people she will never believe can to better and a sloppy person, too.

Probably I will stop cooking any day now.

D H will be so surprised.

:O)

But it is true that I was taught these endless external chores matter more than I do. It is true that my mother's contempt for my writing had to do with what my "proper" role should be.

How extraordinary.

Oh for heaven's sake. Looks like I am angry and resentful, again.

How unattractive.

Cedar said, connecting to another of her mother's teachings: not just that appearance matters, but that it is the only thing that matters, once someone (else) has cleaned the house.

More resentment.

Good.

What kind of mother does the things my mother did? Distaste for her, sadness for her, shame at her, embarrassment and maybe, even hatred. Resentment, for sure. I wish I had known. Things are coming together, now.

Still, we know when we deserve punishment. When bad things happen to our children. We know we have caused it. Perhaps even wanted it (in my case.) We punish ourselves for the bad things we have caused.

We have been programmed to beat ourselves up.

Our built in judicial function assesses our children's condition. In accordance to how we assess their condition, good or bad, we assess ourselves as mothers and we assess our value as people.

This justice meting reflex is so conditioned, and so brutal, as to be killing of vitality, of hope, of enjoyment, and in my case, functioning.

This is very good, Copa.

Remember my posting about having chosen the school I did to prove once and for all whether I were stupid or evil?

We are amazingly strong, to have stood up the way we have. Self condemnation is a horrible thing because we are blind to it. It feels so much like the exactly right thing. Do you suppose that is because it feels like our mothers, Copa?

Where else could we have possibly learned to view and to treat ourselves this way.

This justice meting reflex is so conditioned, and so brutal, as to be killing of vitality, of hope, of enjoyment, and in my case, functioning.

I love this.

But I think there are two prongs to this. The one is hatred and punishment; the other, guilt and recrimination at having foolishly broken something perfect.

***

Copa, your post is extraordinary.

We are doing such incredible work here on this thread.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Self condemnation is a horrible thing because we are blind to it. It feels so much like the exactly right thing. Do you suppose that is because it feels like our mothers, Copa?

In my case, the self-condemnation is wordless.

For me, it just is.

This week or last I came to the decision that I would ask for psychotropic medications.

I had not found a way to get out of bed and stay out. Each time my son seemed vulnerable again, any steps I had taken, any functioning I had achieved was again wiped away. This has happened dozens of times. Dozens of times I had taken steps to change. Doing this or that I had felt I was beyond the worst. Only to go right back to bed. To start over.

I had begun to believe that only a biological intervention could help me.

I first went to bed 2.5 years ago when my mother started screaming. I got up to take care of my mother as she died and went to bed again when she did. How many times has it been that I have gone back to bed? Dozens. This is almost 5 percent of my life.

I started looking at myself as if my condition was so intrinsic to me as to be biochemical. Even starting to think of an atypical depression akin to that experienced by those with bipolar illness, in their depressive episodes.

What I think now is this. I may be regressing to a state that is pre-verbal, at least to a time I had few words.

It seems Cedar that you do have words, that you actually speak to yourself cruelly as part of your punishment. I do not.

When I feel as I do at the low points, there are no words there, and words do not help me or motivate me to get out of it.

I am absolutely felled and subdued by this punishing feeling.

And the only thing that stops it is a Sleeping Beauty kiss.

Instantly I can become almost happy if I hear my son's voice and it is not mean, and he sounds OK.

Cedar, what I think you are saying is that the punishment feels what they call ego-syntonic. It meshes just exactly with who we think we are, at that moment. Perfectly fitting, just exactly right. It unlocks a place in us that is ready and waiting. For punishment. Cruel punishment.

As if there are receptors waiting in our brain that are shaped and formed exactly to receive self-condemnation and self-abuse.

Because sometimes there is no resistance in us at all to the judgment and sentence. No dispute. No conversation. We just lie down and pull down our own pants, to be whipped.

In my case I as if die to myself. I like voluntarily climb onto the gurney to receive my fatal injection.

I think you are right that this happens in such a beautifully synchronized manner because of our identifications with our mothers. There was a time when the only way we knew who we were and what we were about was through identification with our mothers. We did things like she did, and we were who she told us we were. A time when there was as if a direct affective link between her feelings and our own.

Like little scenes learned by tiny actors, we put these scripts away somewhere inside us, at a time when we lacked the skills or capacities to understand, evaluate or reject them. These brutal, tragic scenes or speeches or reenactments, we store away as part of ourselves.

These are basic components of who we have come to be and are. In times that are normal, these internal prototypes function as self-talk by which we regulate our behavior and selves. They may feel slightly noxious and unpleasant because we feel shame or guilt or self-disgust or fleeting self-hate. As you describe, they shape our sense of ourselves, what becomes important to us, sometimes the only thing that can be important.The only things we allow ourselves to want.

In times of crisis, it seems in my case, they have come to run the show a cruel master of ceremonies in a circus, with a whip. They no longer help me function, or to achieve, they have killed me off, to want or have anything at all. They have become a death sentence. It seems I do not deserve to live for failing my mother and my child.

This is all mind-spinning, that something so powerful could operate in my mind, our minds.

This seems extraordinary to me, that I have found that bubbling toxicity and been able to touch it.

It seems almost as if we have touched some third rail, gotten in touch with a power, heretofore unknown. There is a scariness about knowing. A vulnerability. Like knowing this, in itself deserves punishment.

Why would she do that, I wonder? FB is quite the public place. There is no one who did not know whatever they wanted to because daughter was open about what had happened and its effects.

Here are my thoughts on this. We have to assume that your sister's psyche has elements that correspond to yours and to your mother's. Except in her case, you were there first, so her psyche is shaped by interactions with both your mother and with you.

There was a time when she existed only in space, in crevices, where you did not. She existed only in the not-Cedar space. She was an energetic and smart little girl who craved to be seen, to be heard, to be correct. She craved to fill the not-Cedar space. To win some of the little approval and kindness your mother had to give, if she had any at all. She craved what SWOT calls a win. The goes for the gold, in relation to you Cedar. She always has, she always win. She wants to know better, know more, be more. If we look at the little girl she once was, this is only a craving to be somebody and to feel good.

It only got ugly because this quality was taken over and manipulated and twisted by your mother. And because your sister, it seems, never moved on, in feeling and believing that she exists only in the not-Cedar spaces. And never moved much beyond this.

Thank you Cedar. I am glad you are back. Hi SWOT. I will check in with you later.

 

[BusynMember]

I am actually doing MUCH better.

Without "them" I don't hear the voices telling me I'm worthless. It's miracuous and proof that it IS them. They are lethal to me.

I'm going off topic a little to bring up a few rather incredulous and crazy controlling that my mother did to me as a kid.Whether she continued it with my sister, who is seven years my junior, I either don't remember or don't know. But she did control me and, in the process, made dang sure that the teasing and bullying I got continued. I WAS different anyway, but she went out of her way to make me MORE different. Sadiam? Stupidity? No excuse for either.

1. She sewed my clothes. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, she sewed well. The only thing is, she didn't like the styles so she deliberately sewed me clothing that made me stand out as an outsider and I got teased for my clothes. She refused to sew me trendy clothes as she said they were "cheap" and other things. She made them way too long when girls were wearing mini-skirts and they were styles all her own.

2. I was not allowed to own a Barbie doll. Why? Mother thought they were ugly and made fun of theml, mocking them in her way. I LOVED DOLLS. I had a bunch and put them to sleep each night,k even up to twelve years old. But I could only have dolls my mother approved of. And that meant she never liked the ones I wanted the very, very most.

Remember when Chatty Cathy came out? Everyone had her. Even her very few friend's kids. But I couldn't. Because Chatty Cathy was ugly and a dumb idea. Eventaully, years later, I did get a Chatty Cathy, but I didn't get to pick it out and it looked different from my few friend's Chatty Cathy's and in child world it matters.

3. I fell in love with something called a Thumbalena doll. It was not trendy. She had a thing against trendy. I was supposed to be "different." (And, boy was she ever successful there and did the bullies at school let me know!). But Thumbalena was just a soft, cuddly baby doll with hands and legs and a head that was not stiff. I had to hold the head like a real baby. I always loved REAL babies too, by the way. Not sure why. Certainly did not inherit THAT from mother.

She did not allow me to buy a Thumbalena. "It's uglly." Then she would do her Thumbalena imitation, lolling her had and arms and laughing at me, as she often did. I don't know if she eventually let me have one, but I think I wanted a Thumbalena more than any toy on earth and I couldn't have one the easy way because Mother didn't think it was a cute doll.

My toys were contingent upon Mother's liking them. It had nothing to do with thinking they were bad for me. She didn't CARE what was bad for me. They had to do with what SHE liked. Even now, at my age, this makes no sense whatsoever.

I was a junior in high school before I wore clothes the other kids wore. And I did consider myself unique and do to this day. I never wanted to be "Just like everyone else" although what business was it of hers if I did? I just wanted to have a Barbie so I could fit in and a Chatty Cathy because I liked them and wanted to fit in and a Thumbalena because they reminded me of the real babies I used to coo over in the nighborhood.

What do you feel she got out of that? What was the win?

I forgot about that horrendous bit of my childhood...the having to be diffrerent when I already was...which lead to more bullying and teasing from my peers and sadness when she got me presents SHE liked rather than that I liked.k I look back and remember trying hard to get the presents for holidays that my kids WANTED a nd whether I liked them or not was not the issue.

And I certainly made sure my kids dressed trendy. Getting bullied is no fun. That is part of my complex post traumatic stress syndrome. When I first had to go to school with Bart I would have panic attacks just stepping inside a school. I really never did get comfortable going to school in my children's elementary school years. I'd be thrown back to the past and the bullying, which even included some physical violence, and my mother not doing squat about it, although I told her.

She sure fought for Golden Boy when he got beaten up.

Just my thoughts.

I am getting so much stronger by not acknowledging the existence of "sthem" that eery day has been a good day here for a very long time. I hope both of you (and anyone) can try what I did to see if it works. If it doesn't work to do an Operation Oblivion, you can always take it back. Nothing is irrevocable.

 

[Copabanana]

I hope both of you (and anyone) can try what I did to see if it works. I

SWOT, I had the impulse today to check on my sister's house. I thought about you. Don't Cheat. And I didn't.

she deliberately sewed me clothing that made me stand out as an outsider

A seamstress by training, my grandma sewed our clothes. They were identifiably home made because they were so good, french seams, made of flour sacks from my father's donut shop and perhaps 50 years behind the times.

But they were made with love. She made my doll clothes too. I have one little doll shirt still.

But to deliberately craft your child's clothing so as to stigmatize them with their peers seems sadistic. SWOT it seems as if your mother labored to impose her sick control over you. I am sorry SWOT that happened to you. Despite her sickness and cruelty you have lived a victorious and highly meaningful life, I think.

I LOVED DOLLS.

Me too, SWOT. And paper dolls even more.

she would do her Thumbalena imitation,

How cruel SWOT, as if a grown, adult woman would have better things to do than to mock her own child, and to control and mock their desire for toys. As if she was trying to humiliate you any way she could, by making fun of the few little desires you had? How low can one stoop?

What do you feel she got out of that? What was the win?

SWOT we may never understand why she did it. It was sick. She was sick. The only thing I can think is that she hated herself. She must have suffered horrible humiliation as a child, which she felt she deserved. She used you SWOT, as a way to suffer less. If she got you to suffer, she suffered less. Sick.

Because you looked like her, and perhaps shared some of her vulnerabilities, she transferred some but not all of her self-hatred on to you. She did not hate you. It was herself that she hated. She came to believe that it was you that had the attributes she disliked in herself.

SWOT these are horrors, you describe. You deserved to be cherished. These traumas revisited and honored, kissed and left behind, as your mother's pathology, not your own.

I know that trauma can be so horrible that it is never left behind. Like concentration camp survivors. Their children come to bear the pain almost as strongly as did their parents. But some break the chain. And soar. In so many ways you have. I hope for us that we can honor the pain once we recognize it and leave it behind.

Mocking me was one of her biggest abusive acts. I can still see her doing it. It made me feel so much shame...and anger.

SWOT, we will work on ditching the shame. She dumped her toxins into you. They are not yours to own. Nothing in the world to do with you exist you got dumped on.

She had no boundaries at all SWOT. All of you kids existed only as extensions of herself, it seems. Could it be that she knew know other way to be a mother?

I am own my way to my own wonderful life. I even combed most of the knots out of my hair today, and may not even cut it. I looked pretty with silver mink hair in a pony tail down my back, a tiny bit of makeup. I love my wrinkles, mainly two lines on each side of my chin. The same as my Mother had. My skin is good. I have lost 15 pounds, 4 lbs last month. It is still slow but I have stepped it up. Already I look better, if I may say so myself. I feel like I have myself back. Almost back.My hair when I was young was a golden red chestnut color, with copper. As I aged I lost all of the warm tones. But I was wrong, Cedar it is not dull ugly gray iron gray today. It is silver mink. I will look on google images and try to describe the color better.

Today I am going to plan what I will do fun for the first couple of weeks I am in the NEW CITY. Gee I sound Chatty Today.

M is in so much pain. Remember he was run over by a car when he was 5. He is doubled up with pain but still had to go and clean the project mid job, because the people want to have a party. And pick up his heavy machinery. I feel so bad for him.

And for PASA and her son today. Too much for any one person to deal with.

 

[BusynMember]

But to deliberately craft your child's clothing so as to stigmatize them with their peers seems sadistic. SWOT it seems as if your mother labored to impose her sick control over you. I am sorry SWOT that happened to you. Despite her sickness and cruelty you have lived a victorious and highly meaningful life, I think.

No, she didn't do it to make me stand out. She did it for HER. She didn't like the styles of t he day so she made them HER way, whether it impacted me or not. She did what SHE wanted to do. Always. She wanted me to dance, I took dancing, but I was so bad she settled for singing and drama, which she liked. If I had wanted to do something SHE thought was stupid or unacceptable, I wouldn't have. My life was all about her. Just like she told my sister that s he could not become, say, a Scientist because SHE didn't approve of it and wanted her to go into something else or SHE wouldn't help her go to college. Too bad my sister didn't see this, but she was like that to both of us. The only diff is my sister was younger and my mother was broken in a bit by me as I was not the type to stand by t he sidelines and take it without fighting back and tears.

But our lives were all about her. Even Golden Child when he did her proud by graduating with honors from a very good school.

 

[BusynMember]

How cruel SWOT, as if a grown, adult woman would have better things to do than to mock her own child, and to control and mock their desire for toys. As if she was trying to humiliate you any way she could, by making fun of the few little desires you had? How low can one stoop?

Mocking me was one of her biggest abusive acts. I can still see her doing it. It made me feel so much shame...and anger.

 

[BusynMember]

Because you looked like her, and perhaps shared some of her vulnerabilities, she transferred some but not all of her self-hatred on to you. She did not hate you. It was herself that she hated. She came to believe that it was you that had the attributes she disliked in herself.

Thank you for this, Copa. Actually, she hated both of us...herself and me, who reminded her so much of herself and whom her own mother openly felt was second best. Mother wasn't strong enough to take her mother on about that most of her life...still felt she had to do what her mother said...so maybe she took it out of me. We'll never know why they did what they did, but it certainly wasn't to be a loving mother.
;;

 

[BusynMember]

And for PASA and her son today. Too much for any one person to deal with.

I hope that it's not as bad as I'm afraid it is. Poor pasa. Like she hasn't been through enough...

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

There was a time when the only way we knew who we were and what we were about was through identification with our mothers. We did things like she did, and we were who she told us we were. A time when there was as if a direct affective link between her feelings and our own.

Yes. Not just a time when there was a direct affective link, but a childhood spent, not in exploring self-efficacy, but in an all encompassing global reality in which the mother's feelings mattered more than our very lives.

Literally, in my case.

Abusive, mean, dysfunctional people who are morally bankrupt?

Good phrasing, SWOT.

Morally bankrupt.... I have believed for so long that my mother did what she did because of some terrible woundedness of her own. I believed that about my sister, too. As I've watched what has come about for my family since my father's death, one of the most disturbing aspects has been the question of intent. It looks for all the world like they know what they are doing and that they mean to do what they do.

Morally bankrupt....

Surely this is not true.

Dissonance.

Whether my son can ever stand alone, the expectation will be mine that I will stand alone, not requiring the admiration, devotion or reflection of my child or any other person, to feel OK.

I feel that way too. Choosing love or gratitude or forgiveness over vengeance or hatred or resentment is a choice, isn't it. It really has nothing to do with the other person. I get so mad about the dysfunction in my Family of Origin but the truth is that it has nothing to do with me. I think I do not feel badly anymore about what I don't have, or about oh, what a terrible thing happened to me. That phrase "morally bankrupt" keeps playing through my mind.

Ilanya Van Zandt writes that each of us is as attached to our "story" as an addict is enamored of his drug. If "morally bankrupt" is true, then those old stories we told ourselves to interpret our horrifying realities are over. Morally bankrupt.... As often as I have tried to figure out the win in what has happened, I never thought that phrase "morally bankrupt".

I think I did not have the capacity to think it.

My mother did not use addictive drugs, did not drink to excess, and yet...there was that affair. There was the way she used it to destroy my father before his employees and business partner.

There are so many things that make perfect sense when filtered through that potential reality.

If "morally bankrupt" is something that fits when we think about our families, then there is nothing to salvage. If there is nothing to salvage, if that dinner I am always posting about truly could never happen...then that old story and everything it represents regarding "True North" is over for me, now. There is a thread on P.E. about "True North". It is a topic worth considering at length. We were taught True North by people who may have been morally bankrupt.

For heaven's sake. I just keep tripping over that phrase.

The potential truth in that phrase "morally bankrupt" frees us to sever even the echoes of our emotional ties to our Families of Origin.

But we will need a mentor figure, a role model of some kind, lest we slip back into the old ways of thinking and seeing and valuing ourselves and the people and things that matter to us.

It's not about winning. It's about making sure YOU lose.

That could be, IC. In fact, this is a common theme in fairy tales, isn't it. The morally bankrupt exploit the Cinderella, the Sleeping Beauty, the Snow White or the children Hansel and Gretel. I will need to read some fables and fairy tales. Or that old classic, Women Who Run With the Wolves.

That's the one I will read.

There is a story in that book about singing the bones to life.

I will try to find it, and will post it for us here when I do.

***

I have posted before that if my sister and brother were not taking care of my mom, I would feel it was my responsibility to do so. I think that is not true anymore.

And I wonder who that makes me.

I do.

I wonder who that makes me.

But losing what? Abusive, mean, dysfunctional people who are morally bankrupt?

I think it has to do with having been seen as successful. In a power over system, in a system of scarcity the mother is determined to continue ~ and this is key, the adult sibs would be encouraged, by the mother, to turn against one another. We posted about that at one time ~ that each of our mothers has either reached out from the grave or has determinedly spoiled the family coming together while she is still alive.

We posted about the strength there should be in family, and about how each of our dysfunctional, abusive mothers, though recognizing and demanding and laying claim to the status of matriarch, are actively working against the family coming together.

Divide and conquer and...power over.

Nothing has changed about that. Nothing will ever change, about that.

I see that determined wrecking ball mentality in what is happening as my mom and my sister unite; I see them changing the dynamic from "we can do this" to "accept the lesser role and then, we can do this".

But why would a mother do that.

Well, a woman who did the things my mother did to her own children might do all kinds of things. Where my sister fits in there, whether she is guilty or a victim, too....

D H says she is not.

He tells me I will need to be wary if anything happens to him.

I believe this is true; that is why they hate him.

You know, I actually like this new way I am thinking. I don't feel disturbed by who they choose to be. Always before, I made allowances for the way we grew up. But lately, I am feeling less like helping us all come together in spite of it and more like...a sense of distaste. I keep posting that I don't get the win. That is where the distaste is. They are choosing this pattern over and over again and it is the same pattern my parents set up in their home in the first place.

Scary, to think it might be true that we do not change.

So, here is what I know this morning: I did write, once I had everything else under control. I have done that all my life, until I put it away, thinking that is why the kids messed up.

So now we know how that kind of thinking was justified.

That I had dared step out of the purpose my mother had decreed for my life, and that is why I lost my kids.

Copa, there may be something here for you regarding your own choices after your mother's death. Compound that with the vulnerability created by your child's lifepath.

***

This is us. This is what we do.

http://www.starofthebards.com/laloba-wolfwoman

 

[Copabanana]

As she was dying and my Mother lost control of her life, there was a brief period during which I took a stand for myself.

I put my needs first. My Mother became enraged.

I reacted dramatically and immediately. I went to bed.

I had horrible, intolerable psychic pain. I had caused this to happen to my Mother.

This was the first time.

When she died, I felt grief. I had lived my life apart from her, and now that she had died, that choice had become irrevocable. That was a very hard time.

But still I was more or less OK. We had turned our house into a hospital to take care of her. We had put her and her needs first.

Within a couple of weeks, I took that online Color Art Class. I was OK enough to do that. I did fall back. But a month later when the instructor wrote to ask what had happened to me, I responded. The work I had done when I started had gotten her attention. I decided to finish the class. I was still enough OK to decide for me.

For 6 weeks or more I worked night and day feverishly producing meaningful images. I used the Art to grieve my mother and celebrate MY life.

Then my son went off the rails. I think that was when he was homeless the first time.

I went to bed. This time in earnest. And except for a few hours to do this or to do that, I never really got up. There are days I can work in the house pretty much all day, but do not sustain this for more than a few days at a time. I may go do an errand or a few. But the locus of control of my life is the bed. It has been such for over a year and a half.

My default is in bed. Still.

Wednesday my son called to tell me that he had voluntarily entered a mental health treatment facility. He sounded strong and optimistic.

And the only thing that stops it is a Sleeping Beauty kiss.

Instantly I can become almost happy if I hear my son's voice and it is not mean, and he sounds OK.

I was then strong and optimistic. All day yesterday I felt strong and optimistic.

Last night I called him. He was in a funk. He was angry. He seemed hopeless. He will not take psychiatric medications. Still, he has not resumed the anti-viral for his liver. He saw not one good thing on the horizon. And after the phone call, neither did I.

Again, I have sunk into gloom.

Copa, there may be something here for you regarding your own choices after your mother's death. Compound that with the vulnerability created by your child's lifepath.

Yes, Cedar. You are right.

a childhood spent, not in exploring self-efficacy, but in an all encompassing global reality in which the mother's feelings mattered more than our very lives.

I spent a lifetime exploring self-efficacy. Essentially a cripple emotionally, I did it anyway. I did way more and I did it better than my mother and my sister combined.

And then when my Mother fell ill, and my son fell apart, I felt as if their conditions were an accusation of me. That I had failed first one and then the other. Instantly I renounced everything about me that I had achieved in defiance of the basic rule that my

mother's feelings mattered more than our very lives.

My son's vulnerability took over as the siren song, after my Mother's voice could no longer beckon me.

Looking at it now, it seemed at the time as if the same voice which said the same thing. It was my mother's voice and she was enraged: How could you abandon your mother? Leave me like I am garbage. Leave me to rot here alone like garbage.

My mother's words in my head. Which are so deeply buried I do not hear it. As long as my son is vulnerable, I am vulnerable to that buried voice in my head.

And as long as I do not respond to his need, by sacrificing myself, I will suffer by my own hand.

It is as if my options are these: worse or still worse.

Either you sacrifice yourself or I will sacrifice you. And that were the rules of my mother's home. Which almost 50 years after I left it, still seem the rule.

While I hope my son will mature and stabilize, I have no reason at all to believe that he will substantively change.

That would mean a life sentence, for me. My choices will be these: to sacrifice my life for him or be sacrificed at my own hand for not doing so.

The only thing to save me, a sleeping beauty kiss.

If I continue as I am, my life will be tied to his moods. He is diagnosed with a mood disorder, for which he refuses medication. I understand that should I not change, I will suffer alongside of him and be subject to his lifestyle choices, as well.

M and I will go to the new Big City. We have decided. And he wants to go fairly soon, before the climate begins to cool. His idea is to go by the end of August.

That was his plan last year, too. I had told him as August approached, It is not realistic M, to believe that I can make this trip and make a life in a new place. After all, I do not get out of bed. So we did not go. For one more year I did not leave my bed.

AA has a concept called a geographic. As I understand it, people believe that a move away from somewhere to somewhere will give them a new start, a new beginning. It does not.

I understand that the change needs to be in me. But first I have to get out of bed. In the new Big City, this bed will not be there. If only for that, I will do a geographic. There will be dozens of Al Anon meetings. If only for that, I will go. I must. But there is the hope of much more.

I will have one goal and that will be to leave here by the end of August. While I am bed now, I will get up soon, and do something, anything each day to meet that goal.

I am clear that the dynamic we are describing is true in my situation.

The thing is, I do not know how to change it. Especially involving my son.

 

[BusynMember]

I have posted before that if my sister and brother were not taking care of my mom, I would feel it was my responsibility to do so. I think that is not true anymore.

I did not have this dilemma. In reality, I don't know what I'd do with an old, sick mother with brain damage who treated me like poop all her life if there had been nobody else.
I like to think I would have respected myself enough to do what I'm good at--finding a good facility and letting them do the caretaking so that my own family did not suffer because she was sick. I feel it would have been morally wrong of me to deny my husband and children the best I had in order to take care of my mother, who hated me, in her diminished state. I don't even WANT my kids to take care of me that way. When/if I ever get that incapacitated I want them to find me a place and to go on with their lives. It was selfish, in my opinion, of your mother to expect you to do all the stuff my daughter does in nursing homes. My daughter, however, gets paid and it is not personal to her.

I don't want my kids to remember me as somebody sad that they had to wipe and diaper and change. Ewww.

So I would not have left my mother on somebody's doorstep, but I would not have taken care of her or visited either. She had her chance to be nice to me when she was healthy and in her right mind (if she even HAD a right mind). She chose not to. I think her groveling to me at the last would have been pathetic for her and for me.

The time to be nice to those who love you (and I loved her f or a long time) is when you are able to have a relationship and if you have problems you talk about them. My FOO never talks about anything. Trying to will make Sissy hang up and do a cut off. Brother writes a letter. Wow. That is fruitful. We were taught to hide things. Not to talk about it. And you NEVER criticized the Queen. Although she was pretty nasty to her own mother as I heard both from her mother and out of her own mouth at the nursing home just before my grandmother died.

I'm getting off topic, but this hit a chord with me.

Morally bankrupt to me means to not care w hat you do as long as you benefit. Not everyone in my family did this often. My mother certainly did this to me, yet she would not have cheated on my father with a married man and have thought it was ok, like my sister did. She was a mish-mosh, a hodegpodge and nothing came together. As I knew her, when I knew her, she was the same mess as I was. And my sister is still there...morally incapable of thinking about how her actions affect everybody else if she wants to do something. When she divorced, she still had a minor son at home who spent most of his time with his father, who actually paid attention to him. Where was she?

With abusive boyfriend, of course. Almost every night. Even in front of me, with him in the car, she'd be talking in code about abusive boyfriend instead of talking to her son.

To me, you look at "morally bankrupt" you see her picture. She is lucky he's a good kid, yet I know from experience that once a spouse pops into the picture or time passes by and your neglected child is all grown, things don't always stay rosy. But that's her circus and her monkey, not mine.

 

[Copabanana]

It was selfish, in my opinion, of your mother to expect you to do all the stuff my daughter does in nursing homes. My daughter, however, gets paid and it is not personal to her.

I don't want my kids to remember me as somebody sad that they had to wipe and diaper and change. Ewww.

Hi SWOT. You are right. I just posted about this on the TRUE NORTH thread that COM started this morning, I think.

I agree with you in much of what you say.

My mother did not insist that I take care of her. It was me that did it to myself. I could not find the personal power to tolerate her suffering, and could not not sacrifice myself to fix it.

If I was THEN as I am now, I would still have cared for her, though. I would have decided to do it. For me. Not because I could not stand her suffering.

I recognize that the best relationship I ever had with my mother was as she died, because this was the only time that I did not subordinate myself to her domination.

But unfortunately, this was not because I got stronger. It was because she was weaker. And no longer triggered me, because she could no longer do so.

I am seeing my life in new ways these past few days. I am still not doing much differently. But seeing differently.

I do not want any longer to give in to the impulse to remain in bed so I will get back to you later. Thank you SWOT. And Cedar.

COPA

 

[BusynMember]

I'm so glad you got out of bed!!!! Now live it up with M!!! Have a blast. For pity sakes, Copa, you SO deserve it!

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I am seeing my life in new ways these past few days. I am still not doing much differently. But seeing differently.

Me, too.

SWOT, I know you also see everything from a better place.

We are doing this, you two.

:O)

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

If I was THEN as I am now, I would still have cared for her, though. I would have decided to do it. For me. Not because I could not stand her suffering.

Ok, but here's the elephant in the room.

Copa, she could have said, as I would say, "I don't want you to take care of me. It's too hard and I want you to go on with your life, be with your son. Just visit me and make sure I'm in a good place and I'll be fine. All I want is your love."

If she said that, you could have cared for her by visiting and bringing her companionship rather than taking care of very difficult needs that many seniors don't want their children to do. Not all. But many. Would you want your son to care for you that way?

You did not ever in any way abuse your mother. You went above and beyond and had to see her turn into an infant, and she allowed you to do it because she wanted you, even at the end, to care for her. I'm sure she appreciated it, but this is just an abusive mother, at the e nd of her life, allowing herself to be cared for by her daughter who she didn't treat well when their were alternatives that would have been more efficient for her and easier for you. You have nothing, NOTHING to feel guilty about. In no way have you EVER let your mother down. She let YOU down.

Copa, I am starting to see this in my family of origin too. I did what I coudl to help them. I fell all over myself trying to make things better, in the best way I knew how, with my limitations and my poor social skills that were not helped by my parents. And I got slammed for them and my intentions were misunderstood. By my sister w hen I told my mother what was happening to her so that she would stop being a teenager and at least stay home the few days my sister was home from college...maybe it would have stopped my sister from getting into some stuff that was not good...maybe not, but she didn't even try and, of course, I got blamed. For my brother because I thought he was still in NJ and when I called his apartment, giggling kids, who sounded high, said he didn't live there and hung up twice so I asked the police to do a wellness check on my brother. I was seriously afraid for him, but that too got turned on me. It never crossed my mind that he'd allow young people, students, to stay in his apartment. I will try to think the best of him and assume they were over 18, otherwise no wonder he was angry I asked t he cops for a well visit. He wanted to be the student hero, at all costs. And he is. His students love him. But I didn't mean anything bad by it, no matter what he thought. And, although we bordered on homelessness during my father's 85th scheduled surprise party, with I orchestrated (none of the others would have) I couldn't go to Illinois...circumstances I could not have seen prevented it. I got the entire blame for that from siblings AND father, but since reconciled with father and told him f lat out that I didn't feel guiltly and did what I had to do. We had to think of our safety before his party. The party neededn't have been canceled. My sister and hers, my brother, my kids were ready to go. I still don't get why they blamed me for that other t han that they needed to blame me.

Copa, let it go. You were not the abuser. Your inensions were not to abuse. Hers were. Cedars are. My FOO looked at every corner to see how innocent acts that I felt were the right thing to do were to stick it to them.

Time to stick it to them, not in actuality, but in your mind. Let go of your mother. You did more than most would have done for her and she wasn't even nice to you until she was too feeble to resist and didn't want you to go away...finally. Cedar, you have gone out of your way to try to please everybody...a daunting job. You did not even realize you were being abused. You thought you deserved it. WE ALL THOUGHT WE DESERVED IT!!!!

F "them"--the "thems" in our lives.

July 4th has already come and gone, but I like to think that next July 4th, it will be our independence day as well as our countrys. We are set free by our knowledge of what REALLY happened. Yes, it took us long enough, but it is never too late to stop abusing ourselves and blaming ourselves and letting other people, who are damaged, define our lives, no matter who is trying to do it.

Think of a giant toilet. Flush down the abusers in your life. Watch them twirl around, slowly at first then faster and faster as they are pulled down, until they disappear with the water and go to the sewer, our own personal sewer. Mean picture? Compared to how they have hurt us, I don't think so.

I am still doing well. I should not, however, have checked to see if my sister if posting about me, even though I didn't read even the titles of her posts. Just seeing her fake name---deaux sous---gave me the chills. I don't even know what it means, but that's what she uses. I will try very hard never to see if she is posting again.

I did not check to see if she is still whining about her boyfriend on that site, but have no doubt that she is glued to him and does not have the self-esteem, self-love, or willpower to walk away from the trainwreck. And that is how I will remember her because it is the last time I will know of her activities. Brother? I don't care. He yanks my chains less because we have been so distant for so long...who cares? He knows nothing of me and my intentions. Mother? Dead. And I have to bury her for real, even in the voices that speak to me in my head.

I notice that Operation Oblivion kind of erases those nasty voices in my head and I am no longer saying to myself, "You idiot." "You lazy loser." "You're seflish." The bottom line that they are telling us is, "I am a better person than you."

No they aren't. Far from it. I don't think anyone in my FOO, except grandmother who did volunteer, has ever done anything for anybody who needed them in their lives. I call them selfish. And I can.And they can't tell me they aren't because I won't be reading their posts or hearing their conversations. But they don't understand things like adoption and dog rescue because it is not something they have the hearts to do. My brother has helped his students, sometimes in my opinion in unhealthy ways outside of school, but I can not know that for a face. He did have a picture of himself and a close sixteen year old sudent that he sent to my father in a frame, as if they were a couple and it gave me an icky feeling, like maybe he had a crush on him. I do not believe anything bad happened, but I think he may have liked him more than he should have. Even my mother was upset about that. But...not my circus, not my monkey and I could be drawing the wrong conclusion, MUCH LIKE HE DID WITH ME.My capricious sister also thought it was weird, by the way. Yes, at the time, Sis thought it was very odd.

I don't know or care about that now. I want to be clear--I don't believe my brother would have done anything wrong, even if he had fantasies in his mind.

Coffee almost done. I have to work today. I will be back later, ladies. Have a good day, knowing you are GOOD and WHOLE and have been tricked by your abusers into thinking otherwise. Shoulders back/head high/chin up

 

[Copabanana]

"I don't want you to take care of me. It's too hard and I want you to go on with your life, be with your son. Just visit me and make sure I'm in a good place and I'll be fine. All I want is your love."

SWOT, the contrary was the case. I quit my job to go to her where she lived and help her and stayed 3 months away from my home and my family (pets and M.) I left to come home for the Christmas Holiday, and called her everyday. She denounced me as having abandoned her. One could say this was due to her already deteriorating condition and capacity.

But the thing is, this was her personality. She had learned to not go there, because to manifest it cost her too much.

And I cannot stop remembering, she left her own parents to die alone. I, when I was 28, ended up taking off from work to go to my grandmother, who died of a heart attack in front of me.

Thank you SWOT.

The thing is I am back in bed, since I called my son on Thursday night.

He was in a foul and negative mood.

I seem absolutely unable to not suffer with him, if he is not with me, and I am not helping him.

But lately when he stays with me I get ill. Not just psychically distressed and hiding in my room. I do not want to go to my kitchen which happens to be part of a great room and central to the house. I lose my life when he is here. I as if lose my life when I feel guilty that he is suffering.

Nomad has a thread about what to do about GERD and stomach acid. And I force myself to remember that when he is here I feel as if somebody is pouring pure acid down my esophagus and it is traveling into my stomach. I was taking 4 times the Prilosec that was prescribed me and still suffering this way. It took months to get this under control.

The thing is, I am sick and tired of being in the bed and forfeiting my life. This is not a way to live.

I think I understand my psyche more than I have before thanks to this thread. What I do not know is how to change it in a way that is enduring, when I cannot and do not want to go no contact or oblivion with my own child.

I understand that is what I did 35 years ago with my Mother and my sister. And it worked. And when I again had a relationship with my mother with limits, this worked too.

The thing is that my son does not accept limits. And I guess I do not either, with him. Because I become flooded with self-condemnation and dread when he is distressed.

I do not know how to psychologically separate myself from my son's distress. I can do okay if I do not know about it. But if I know about it, if I hear his voice, I dissolve.

M wants to help my son. The idea is that we buy a fixer upper home to remodel. We compensate my son only for work done by allowing him to live in the space. If he does not work sufficient to pay for the designated rent, he pays. If this works with one property, the idea is to repeat it. In this way my son has a place to live, the expectation that he will be productive, he learns a trade, and he is involved in a project with a constructive goal and positive result.
And it is away from where I live.

There are mothers on this board, I know, who have changed in the way I need to. But they it seems have become okay with letting go of how their children live their life. I do not think I am able to do this. I cannot, it seems, let my son fall, and still tolerate it.

My son has suffered a great deal in these past couple of years where he has not had a safe haven. Up to this point, I think the learning from it has exceeded the costs of his suffering. But he has paid a real price. He has de-compensated. He stopped taking anti-virals for his liver. There is a point where the losses will accelerate I fear. I do not want this to happen.

My son wants to go to the new Big City, too. At first he didn't because of his fears about the apocalyptic event. It seems he told M that he wants to go.

This could be a solution. The city has a large population of Brazilians and portuguese speakers, the culture with which my son identifies. Like us, he likes big cities. This city could be a place he likes. (He hates the smallish city in which we live and there is nothing here for him.)

Thank you for your patience with me. It helps to write it all out.

SWOT and Cedar, you are both sounding so strong, each with such a sense of gratitude for your life, and what you have done with it. I am happy for you both.

COPA

 

[BusynMember]

Copa, we had a head start. In my case, I had several starts and setbacks because Sis would go (and things would get better) then she'd come back (and they'd go south because without a doubt s he'd get mad and call the cops and I'd be devastated). But it was still practice. You didn't have that. Plus I do love therapy and it has helped me tons. I don't expect everyone to go to therapy or to like it, but I guess it is good for ME. Also, I have no trouble take psychiatric medication to rid myself of the black hole I call depression. Without this medication, I'd be dead. I have no doubt about it. It does not change me. It makes my moods more stable, period. I am still myself. But all that is me, not you.

You will need to do what both Cedar and I did and that is to start to see the abusers in our lives (dead and alive) as truly who they were. At first you had this romantic story with your mother just because she allowed you to care for her when she was feeble and dying. She let you because it was for her benefit. It helps to take off the rose colored glasses and to see these people straight as WE see them. Our perception in life is our life, period. If others see your mother as God, then to them she is, but it has nothing to do with how she was to you or to how you see her. Hope you get what I mean.

Secondly, somehow, and this shocked me when I first read it, you MUST be able to remember that you and yoru son are two different people. His emotions should not be yours. Yours should not be his. I have four kids who I talk to almost every day. WHAT IF I HAD TO TAKE ON ALL THEIR EMOTIONS???? OY VEY, no? At certain times two of them can be sad and two can be on top of the world. What a bipolar mess I'd be...lol.

You don't go Operation Oblivion with your son. Your son is more important to you than "them" is to me and it isn't necessary. You don't even need to never let him come home for a few days or a night or meet him for dinner. It just means you have to learn ways to detach from his emotions. I learned in therapy and from self-help books.

Let me recommend one book you just have to read It's called Codapendent No More by Melody Beattie. It is the starter book for many of us. Also start listening to tapes on detachment on YouTube. They are like therapy sessions really only you don't have to be there, really, and no answers are required and you are safe at home. I LOVE YOUTUBE.
I learn so much on everything and everyplace on YouTube.

Do not even think in terms of going Operation Oblivion on your son. You can only do that to people you truly never want to see agaian, but feel compelled to check up on. It is not for you or your son. Maybe itt would be good for you and your sister, but never think in terms of not seeing your son anymore. Take that pressure off of yourself. Do what feels right for you and your son. If something doesn't work out, it's not th e end of the world. It is a lesson learned. I never thought of going Operation Oblivion with my children, even Goneboy. As much as I don't think we could ever find any common ground, I never would have tossed him out. He did it. Remember that. I don't think any of us are interested in wiping our children out of our lives as we love them and could never do that.

What you probably could benefit from is learning to detach from your son's life and choices, not from him. Yes, it can be done. Read Codependent No More, please, if you have not.

Cyber-hugs and great thoughts.

SWOT

 

[BusynMember]

Wow. Did any of you check to see how many people are following this thread? I just looked today for the first time. Must sadly be a lot of people who can relate. My heart hurts for every one of them.