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Family of Origin
Hey, Cedar, or anyone interested in FOO (Family of Origin) issues. Cedar, WHY NOW???
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 657953" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>She has been calling since I stopped wanting to be anywhere in the mix of whatever this is. As I have become healthier, I just stopped taking her calls. Prior to this time, she and my mother were not calling, not willing to talk when we called on Christmas (D H family always call everyone who is not with them on any holiday when they are together. Nieces and nephews call in ~ everyone speaks on those family feast days. We talk about what everyone is having for dinner. And it all works because that is just how they do it. When the mother would call her sisters in Italy?</p><p></p><p>They would talk about what each was cooking for dinner that night.</p><p></p><p>And that was back in the days when overseas calls were outrageously expensive.</p><p></p><p>And I never even knew it all those years, but that is such a perfectly beautiful thing.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, D H would always say: Call your family, now. Or, after those few disastrous first times: Call your family, too. Because no one who was not raised like we were can believe, in their hearts, that our families really are as toxic as they look and feel.</p><p></p><p>D H just never believed it could be what it looked like it was.</p><p></p><p>How could anyone not want to talk to everyone at Christmas or the 4th of July?</p><p></p><p>But we were decidedly made to feel weird for having interrupted whatever was going on at the holiday happening at my sister's or even, my brother's, now that I think about it.</p><p></p><p>And that was hurtful to me personally, and publicly their behaviors, that shocked, what do we do now why are you calling behavior, shamed me in front of my D H.</p><p></p><p>I digress.</p><p></p><p>Why did my sister call. </p><p></p><p>She has been calling. She would just leap into talking about her life or her kids or whatever as though my response to her had not changed. This was extremely disrespectful, but I could not see that at first, of course. But as I healed a little more, I found myself wondering why she was calling me. Not even in a nasty or hurtful way. I felt no response ~ not like the usual response I would have to my sister. (Which was a mother's response ~ I get that, now but could not understand what was happening with me, then.) And I said: "Why are you calling me." And I said: "I don't want to be who I have to be to have relationship with you and my mother."</p><p></p><p>And she ignored that.</p><p></p><p>Just never commented except for the forever lie: I love you.</p><p></p><p>Which was just enough of a lie that I kept trying to puzzle this thing out without the pieces I needed, to do so.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>After I had stopped calling either of them at all, and after I had stopped picking up for either of them, my sister left a message in a sad, haggard voice. Something about my mother. And I blasted into trauma response: Had she died or was she dying now and had I been wrong in turning away and on and on it went, Copa. Similar to the horrifying questions confronting you as you returned to and took responsibility for, your own mother.</p><p></p><p>I did not know you, then. And I did not have any of the pieces that I have, now. And SWOT and I had not begun exchanging information on our families of origin. None of that had begun to happen, yet. So I called my sister back, once I tried to figure out what I should ~ where I should stand, I guess.</p><p></p><p>It was a scary and confusing thing.</p><p></p><p>Very much, that is true.</p><p></p><p>And my sister said: Mom is getting frail and we are taking her to the seashore and we need you to be there, too. This has gone on long enough.</p><p></p><p>And I said that I would think about that.</p><p></p><p>But here is the thing: My sister played the mother-is-dying card <em>and my mother was not dying.</em> So even I could see the manipulation in that. But it was a true thing that my mother would be dying one day, and that I had chosen to turn away from her.</p><p></p><p>So, that was pretty awful.</p><p></p><p>So whether they went to the seashore or not I don't know. But I do know that D H and I live on an island, not only a seashore. And I do know that though my mother has been with us there twice, my sister would never come there, with or without my mother until after I had told her, twice, and after my mother was also given to understand, that we no longer wanted them to come to that place, to that beautiful place that should have been so special a place for all of us, anymore.</p><p></p><p>That is when my sister wanted to come</p><p></p><p>But even I knew by then that it was too late for those things, those happy things, I had envisioned for all of us, there.</p><p></p><p>In my bitterest recollections of how my feelings have changed for my sister: I was talking to her D H about a planned visit. I told him we were going to a rooftop restaurant on the Gulf to watch the sun go down together and drink and eat and swing at the swings they have at all the tables. And he was so happy to think it, and I was so happy to think it.</p><p></p><p>We had brought my mother to that place, D H and I, on her visits to us.</p><p></p><p>And that never, ever happened with my sister and I, while we were still young and strong and pretty enough to have really celebrated that rooftop sunset, those condos on the beach we might have rented on the same floor. None of that happened.</p><p></p><p>And I cannot even tell you how I resent that these things never, ever, happened, for us, for my sister and me.</p><p></p><p><img src="/community/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/Graemlins/9-07tears.gif" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":9-07tears:" title="crying :9-07tears:" data-shortname=":9-07tears:" /></p><p></p><p>Soon enough, I stopped believing her when she said they were coming. It wasn't long after that that I seemed to lose even grief or regret or anger or hope or pleasure at the thought of them, coming.</p><p></p><p>And then, I did not want them ~ not any of them ~ in our home, in that pretty, happy place with our neighbors and our lives and our sadness over what began happening when our daughter fell and fell and fell, apart.</p><p></p><p>But as I began to feel that way, and as I began first, making excuses for why my sister could not come right when she said she wanted to. (And she became very belligerent about that ~ about how I could say such things, about how I sounded like I didn't want her to come when she was making time, taking time from her eternal busyness, to make time for me, and how I never came to her house enough and for the rooftop and the sunset and what that would mean to our mother, to have us all there together.) And now I can hear the notes in those so exquisitely crafted manipulations? But then, I could and I could not, at the same time.</p><p></p><p>Denial, I get that now. That feeling that you know what you know but you don't know that for sure, so let's pick I never saw what I saw; let's pick I never heard what I heard and I do not know what I know.</p><p></p><p>So that is the nature of the game being played. My sister's last phone message to me was that she felt I was being foolish and stubborn, given that our mother has become so fragile, but that she would see me this summer, at the lake.</p><p></p><p>So I knew she would call. Unless she didn't. Or, I knew she would come to our door. Unless she didn't. But I was scared, Copa and SWOT. I could not think what to do, how to respond, where to stand.</p><p></p><p>Because it is an undeniable truth that my mother is in her mid-eighties.</p><p></p><p>That is the only true thing I knew.</p><p></p><p>But when the call came yesterday I picked up. And I did fine. And because I have all of you and this site, I am finding a place, a different way of seeing, and of knowing where I am.</p><p></p><p>Because it is an undeniably true thing that my mother is in her mid-eighties.</p><p></p><p>And one way or another, there will come a day when it will be too late to undo what I am doing, now.</p><p></p><p>And I need to know now, for that other time that is coming, how all these pieces fit together.</p><p></p><p>Lest I take to my own bed then, Copa.</p><p></p><p>And my mother and my sister too, it now appears sort of relatively almost clearly, have done what they have done. And they have done those things to me willfully, and with malicious intent, for a very, very long number of years.</p><p></p><p>And my sister hurt my child.</p><p></p><p>And this time, that lust of vengeance feeling I feel around what she did to my child when she was defenseless is correct.</p><p></p><p>And I don't even feel guilty about it except that I know it is wrong. So, okay. I feel ~ no, I know, that those feelings are wrong.</p><p></p><p>No compassion. Not yet.</p><p></p><p>Not when those to whom we are so vulnerable use that courageous and valiant thing that is very like mother love to excoriate and strip me to the bone.</p><p></p><p>No compassion; not yet.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>Okay. So, I don't know why my sister called. I only knew that she had made that threat, that she was not about to allow the family to fall apart; that she intended to work this thing out face to face. (Intending to work this thing out face to face when I could actually see her face, and remember her crying and her pain and my helplessness to save or to comfort or to protect her from, that thing that was my mother when my mother was not in her own eyes and there was no one and there was nothing, that could save any of us, now.)</p><p></p><p>I must be playing to my audience here.</p><p></p><p>Surely, things could not have been that bad.</p><p></p><p>But then...where, in all the Hells that ever were, did that poetry come from.</p><p></p><p>I thought about that yesterday, when I wanted to post that poetry for us, here.</p><p></p><p>It is so horribly, perfectly, correct in the feelings it names.</p><p></p><p>How could I know that.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p><p></p><p>Well, how could Leonard Cohen have known how to write "Halleluiah"? And how could kd lang have known how to sing it in just that strong and confused and vulnerable and broken and accepting way?</p><p></p><p>Thank you for witnessing for me, Copa and SWOT.</p><p></p><p>We are doing this thing, and it is a complexity of a hard thing to do.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 657953, member: 17461"] She has been calling since I stopped wanting to be anywhere in the mix of whatever this is. As I have become healthier, I just stopped taking her calls. Prior to this time, she and my mother were not calling, not willing to talk when we called on Christmas (D H family always call everyone who is not with them on any holiday when they are together. Nieces and nephews call in ~ everyone speaks on those family feast days. We talk about what everyone is having for dinner. And it all works because that is just how they do it. When the mother would call her sisters in Italy? They would talk about what each was cooking for dinner that night. And that was back in the days when overseas calls were outrageously expensive. And I never even knew it all those years, but that is such a perfectly beautiful thing. Anyway, D H would always say: Call your family, now. Or, after those few disastrous first times: Call your family, too. Because no one who was not raised like we were can believe, in their hearts, that our families really are as toxic as they look and feel. D H just never believed it could be what it looked like it was. How could anyone not want to talk to everyone at Christmas or the 4th of July? But we were decidedly made to feel weird for having interrupted whatever was going on at the holiday happening at my sister's or even, my brother's, now that I think about it. And that was hurtful to me personally, and publicly their behaviors, that shocked, what do we do now why are you calling behavior, shamed me in front of my D H. I digress. Why did my sister call. She has been calling. She would just leap into talking about her life or her kids or whatever as though my response to her had not changed. This was extremely disrespectful, but I could not see that at first, of course. But as I healed a little more, I found myself wondering why she was calling me. Not even in a nasty or hurtful way. I felt no response ~ not like the usual response I would have to my sister. (Which was a mother's response ~ I get that, now but could not understand what was happening with me, then.) And I said: "Why are you calling me." And I said: "I don't want to be who I have to be to have relationship with you and my mother." And she ignored that. Just never commented except for the forever lie: I love you. Which was just enough of a lie that I kept trying to puzzle this thing out without the pieces I needed, to do so. *** After I had stopped calling either of them at all, and after I had stopped picking up for either of them, my sister left a message in a sad, haggard voice. Something about my mother. And I blasted into trauma response: Had she died or was she dying now and had I been wrong in turning away and on and on it went, Copa. Similar to the horrifying questions confronting you as you returned to and took responsibility for, your own mother. I did not know you, then. And I did not have any of the pieces that I have, now. And SWOT and I had not begun exchanging information on our families of origin. None of that had begun to happen, yet. So I called my sister back, once I tried to figure out what I should ~ where I should stand, I guess. It was a scary and confusing thing. Very much, that is true. And my sister said: Mom is getting frail and we are taking her to the seashore and we need you to be there, too. This has gone on long enough. And I said that I would think about that. But here is the thing: My sister played the mother-is-dying card [I]and my mother was not dying.[/I] So even I could see the manipulation in that. But it was a true thing that my mother would be dying one day, and that I had chosen to turn away from her. So, that was pretty awful. So whether they went to the seashore or not I don't know. But I do know that D H and I live on an island, not only a seashore. And I do know that though my mother has been with us there twice, my sister would never come there, with or without my mother until after I had told her, twice, and after my mother was also given to understand, that we no longer wanted them to come to that place, to that beautiful place that should have been so special a place for all of us, anymore. That is when my sister wanted to come But even I knew by then that it was too late for those things, those happy things, I had envisioned for all of us, there. In my bitterest recollections of how my feelings have changed for my sister: I was talking to her D H about a planned visit. I told him we were going to a rooftop restaurant on the Gulf to watch the sun go down together and drink and eat and swing at the swings they have at all the tables. And he was so happy to think it, and I was so happy to think it. We had brought my mother to that place, D H and I, on her visits to us. And that never, ever happened with my sister and I, while we were still young and strong and pretty enough to have really celebrated that rooftop sunset, those condos on the beach we might have rented on the same floor. None of that happened. And I cannot even tell you how I resent that these things never, ever, happened, for us, for my sister and me. :9-07tears: Soon enough, I stopped believing her when she said they were coming. It wasn't long after that that I seemed to lose even grief or regret or anger or hope or pleasure at the thought of them, coming. And then, I did not want them ~ not any of them ~ in our home, in that pretty, happy place with our neighbors and our lives and our sadness over what began happening when our daughter fell and fell and fell, apart. But as I began to feel that way, and as I began first, making excuses for why my sister could not come right when she said she wanted to. (And she became very belligerent about that ~ about how I could say such things, about how I sounded like I didn't want her to come when she was making time, taking time from her eternal busyness, to make time for me, and how I never came to her house enough and for the rooftop and the sunset and what that would mean to our mother, to have us all there together.) And now I can hear the notes in those so exquisitely crafted manipulations? But then, I could and I could not, at the same time. Denial, I get that now. That feeling that you know what you know but you don't know that for sure, so let's pick I never saw what I saw; let's pick I never heard what I heard and I do not know what I know. So that is the nature of the game being played. My sister's last phone message to me was that she felt I was being foolish and stubborn, given that our mother has become so fragile, but that she would see me this summer, at the lake. So I knew she would call. Unless she didn't. Or, I knew she would come to our door. Unless she didn't. But I was scared, Copa and SWOT. I could not think what to do, how to respond, where to stand. Because it is an undeniable truth that my mother is in her mid-eighties. That is the only true thing I knew. But when the call came yesterday I picked up. And I did fine. And because I have all of you and this site, I am finding a place, a different way of seeing, and of knowing where I am. Because it is an undeniably true thing that my mother is in her mid-eighties. And one way or another, there will come a day when it will be too late to undo what I am doing, now. And I need to know now, for that other time that is coming, how all these pieces fit together. Lest I take to my own bed then, Copa. And my mother and my sister too, it now appears sort of relatively almost clearly, have done what they have done. And they have done those things to me willfully, and with malicious intent, for a very, very long number of years. And my sister hurt my child. And this time, that lust of vengeance feeling I feel around what she did to my child when she was defenseless is correct. And I don't even feel guilty about it except that I know it is wrong. So, okay. I feel ~ no, I know, that those feelings are wrong. No compassion. Not yet. Not when those to whom we are so vulnerable use that courageous and valiant thing that is very like mother love to excoriate and strip me to the bone. No compassion; not yet. *** Okay. So, I don't know why my sister called. I only knew that she had made that threat, that she was not about to allow the family to fall apart; that she intended to work this thing out face to face. (Intending to work this thing out face to face when I could actually see her face, and remember her crying and her pain and my helplessness to save or to comfort or to protect her from, that thing that was my mother when my mother was not in her own eyes and there was no one and there was nothing, that could save any of us, now.) I must be playing to my audience here. Surely, things could not have been that bad. But then...where, in all the Hells that ever were, did that poetry come from. I thought about that yesterday, when I wanted to post that poetry for us, here. It is so horribly, perfectly, correct in the feelings it names. How could I know that. Cedar Well, how could Leonard Cohen have known how to write "Halleluiah"? And how could kd lang have known how to sing it in just that strong and confused and vulnerable and broken and accepting way? Thank you for witnessing for me, Copa and SWOT. We are doing this thing, and it is a complexity of a hard thing to do. [/QUOTE]
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Family of Origin
Hey, Cedar, or anyone interested in FOO (Family of Origin) issues. Cedar, WHY NOW???
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