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

[Scent of Cedar *]

I asked M, then, would you consider that SON stay in the house while we go to the NEW BIG CITY and watch the animals? (This M had not wanted in the past). Yes. If you want that, I will go along with it. Are you sure? Yes.

Copa, we do not allow either child to live in our house while we are gone.

Either house.

D H was very correct when he made that decision and fought me for it.

The kids who do not have their own homes have no homes because they are choosing to be who they are choosing to be. If your son (or either of my children) were responsible persons willing to stay in our homes for our sakes, that would be one thing.

One very wonderful, acceptable thing.

Our children will not care for our things. They will destroy our homes and our possessions.

They may even sell our stuff.

All of it.

They will come to feel entitled. Your home will no longer be your home. It will be their home.

Until our children are better Copa, we have to go into our lives with them with our eyes very open. There is no right or wrong, here.
Good things or bad things may come. Maintain control, absolute control, over your home and finances. Rent a room for your son if you are reluctant to leave him where he chooses to place himself.

When we tried to do that for daughter the last time she fell, we learned she had been blacklisted. We learned horrible things ~ unbelievable things ~ when we did come back that summer.

You were not here with us yet, Copa. I was in a very, very bad place, that year.

And that was when I could see how very correct D H had been in refusing either child access to our empty, beautiful, filled with things precious to us and to our lives little summer home.

Copa, with all my heart and everything I know, I think you should not allow your son to stay in your home. If you do Copa, take your animals with you or find them appropriate homes or board them.

Until our children prove themselves trustworthy, we must proceed in ways that seem callous but that will prove, over time, to have been absolutely correct.

I'm sorry, Copa.

Our daughter was in and out of Intensive Care, was homeless in winter...and there was nothing we could do.

There is nothing easy about any of this.

Whatever you decide, you know we will support you absolutely.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

My Gosh, there is so much going on on this thread it is freezing up on me. I am wondering if the thread is too long and we need to begin Volume II.

Other than a call from my mother, who said: "This is between your father and D H. We can and should have a relationship without your D H in it." And I said no.

How utterly horrible. In fact hateful. I would never, ever forgive her. She sought to cut off your legs from under you, and render you helpless so she could stuff and carve and eat you up. At that dinner you post about.

I learned later ~ years later, that my mother had gotten all kinds of support for herself through presenting me as some heartless, misguided daughter married to an abusive husband who had destroyed her relationship to her child.

OMG. Stunning in its horribleness.

Oh for heaven's sake. I still have 44 messages to go to catch up with everyone.

This makes me laugh.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

If you do not react. They escalate. They will do whatever it takes to get some kind of reaction. No human has that kind of control. Because nothing for them is off limits. Everything is fair game. And they will eventually hit upon something that hurts. Something that you must defend. And they will see blood. And go for the kill. There is never ever survivability here. Because they go for the kill and nothing else.

OK, let me back off from here. Maybe there is a tinge of paranoia here. So I will get here from another direction. Indirectly.

Nope.

Think of what my sister did to my child when she was beat and brain damaged and dying and addled.

These people are evil, Copa.

That is why they could beat their own children.

***

My sister is the same way you describe yours as being. She zeroed in on my aging grandmother in the most shameful ways. My father was alive then, and prevented even worse depredation, I suppose.

Cedar

 

[nerfherder]

I know you meant Insane Canadian. It made me laugh though, to read this. Have you seen it, Nerf?!?

Yep, I did. Not sure how long I'll be regularly on; I've been neglecting a few things. And this morning one of the hogs, probably scratched him or herself against the hose hydrant. So I have to dig down there a couple feet and redo the elbow in the pipe. That's _with_ a heavy duty T-Post wired to the standing pipe of the hydrant. Not hard, just muddy and best done with an extra pair of hands. Imagine trying to mate a 4' long 15 lb top heavy chunk of plumbing hardware's 1" elbow coupler with the water pipe at the bottom of an 18" hole. I've done all of them, it just goes better with someone at the top holding the fixture.

 

[Copabanana]

And that was when I could see how very correct D H had been in refusing either child access to our empty, beautiful, filled with things precious to us and to our lives little summer home.

The thing is I am in a space now where I seem unable to tolerate at all my worry about my son. And I am in a space where I want to treasure him more than 500 houses, and all the things inside. (Except many of these things are my mother's and I do not know how I will feel if they are destroyed.) I can divide my home so that he is restricted to one or two rooms, with his own entrance.

When M left this morning I said to him: I am so worried about son (as if he didn't know because neither one of us is sleeping. I because I cannot, he for the same reason.)

And M replied: You cannot let SON stay here just so that he has a phone and you can call him. I will not allow it. You have to find a way to rise above these feelings. Because we cannot go across the country with you as you are. *I think he means a helpless mess.

If you do Copa, take your animals with you or find them appropriate homes or board them.

There is the implicit question here whether our animals will be well taken care of. And the other very legitimate question of whether I will worry about them, and that will affect our trip.

We have left my son with 2 animals and they were fine. But that was for 2 or 3 weeks, not for months. And for almost a year he took care of the animals 4 or 5 days a week, sometimes 2 weeks at a time, when we came home on weekends. I don't know.

And then there is the question of how to travel with at least two animals, and how that will be. Because neither M or I will consider parting with the Boxer and our cat. Only poor Romeo seems to be negotiable, and I for one, would rather not part with him, either.

 

[nerfherder]

This is from a book entitled The Martial Arts by Ransom.

It is a beautiful book. It is this book and the belief systems espoused in it that fired my curiosity regarding martial arts philosophy and discipline.

from thought (mushin) I make my sword.

"mushin" is "no-mind." It is more accurately the state where one has the ability to act correctly without stopping to think it through.

In a sword-fighting context, if you are facing your uke (opponent) and you have to stop to consider uke's sword, your sword, and how to best deflect or avoid uke's strike, you're already defeated.

I'm no blackbelt, I've moved around too much and have really limiting muscle-memory - but I've trained a fair bit in a variety of arts.

I spent a year with like-minded friends studying the Dokkodo of Musashi. Below are his 21 precepts - he retreated into a cave when he felt his end was near, and gifted his students with this: Dokkodo can be variously translated as "The Isolate Way" or "The Way of Being Alone." It was written in the year 1645. This is one translation; there are others. My friends and I sought to look at the Japanese and think through how to translate the precepts in ways that would reflect on our present day needs and desires.


1. Do not go against the way of the human world that is perpetuated from generation to generation.

2. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.

3. Do not, in any circumstances, depend upon a partial feeling.

4. Think lightly of yourself and think deeply of the world.

5. Be detached from desire your whole life long.

6. Do not regret what you have done.

7. Never be jealous of others, either in good or in evil.

8. Never let yourself be saddened by a separation.

9. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for yourself nor for others.

10. Do not let yourself be guided by feelings of love.

11. In all things, do not have any preferences.

12. Do not have any particular desire regarding your private domicile.

13. Do not pursue the taste of good food.

14. Do not possess ancient objects intended to be preserved for the future.

15. Do not act following customary beliefs.

16. Do not seek especially either to collect or to practice arms beyond what is useful.

17. Do not shun death in the way.

18. Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age.

19. Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help.

20. You can abandon your own body, but you must hold onto your own honor.

21. Never stray from the way of strategy.

The word for "Strategy" is the Japanese "Hyoho." It's somewhat more complex than the simple English word, I encourage you to look it up.

Assignment: You feel the end of your life approaching. You retreat to your cave, and want to create your own precepts. Limit it to nine (the number of days Odin hung from his tree, the number of the original Neteru of Egypt, the parts of the soul). What would they be? In a year's time return to this exercise and review these precepts that your Self gifts to your self - are they still good? What has changed?

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I am do dang glad I basically got left out of this clan when I did. I could have been this sick too. At least, I *think* it's sick.

As I put the pieces of my family of origin together, I am shocked at what I see too, SWOT. It could be that the brother can miss and love and imagine the mother he needed, now that she is gone, in a way he could not when she was alive. Imaginary mom is kinder woman, is someone who can love and be loved in a way the real mom could not, maybe.

There is some wound there that your sib is trying to understand and heal, I think.

Is the brother religious?

The tone here suggests an almost religious devotion. It is as though the brother is creating what he needed and then, believing in what he created and taking some warmth, there.

How sad and lonely he sounds, to me.

A secret life would do that, SWOT. Perhaps he thinks his mom would understand now, in a way she did not, while she was living.

The thing is you do not know how important you are to him, really. They hide it. Especially from themselves.

True.

Knowing you from your posts here SWOT, your brother would have found good witness in you. Your sister will have subverted the brother in the same way my sister has. (Remember my postings about the difference in my brother when my sister was there. He seemed to slip into child mode. While my sister would sit back and smile, my brother would be all about how rotten I was in having locked them out of the house once it was clean. Remember those posts? And now that we know my sister in a way we did not back then, we understand how and why that happened and in whose name it was done. We still don't get the win.)

My brother is following the family line in this time, too.

I think it has something to do with having been dominated by the mother. (Remember the tire rimming machine incident.)

D H was well loved, and is able to be brutally honest with his mother and his sibs because of it. D H is responsible. He is the one the others turn to for the final word on pretty much everything. He is the one who is honest with the mother and always has been.

I feel badly for your brother.

I think you are concerned for him, too.

If you have let him know already that you are available to him, there is nothing more you can do, SWOT.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

But he needs his mother to love him and treat him with love. And for the first time in a long time I am feeling that my son is a wonderful person and that he can be. I am seeing the glass half full and not empty.

And I think this might be an important insight. Actually more than an insight because I think there might be a chance that I may be able to act towards him from this place, instead of the desperate and frightened FOO-self that I have been.

This is true, Copa. How we see our children and that we can respond from that true vision of who we know them to be is a beginning.

That is why we can say: You are better than to do what you are doing.

Because we know it, we know it, to be true.

And because we see that in them, they will have that belief for themselves. Just as surely as we are discovering the horrifying longevity of our abuser's voices and belief systems, we may and we should, give to our children truths that will name and strengthen them.

We get to do that.

We are their mothers.

I am happy for you, Copa. You are seeing through your own eyes now. Believing in our children is never wrong. If we believe in them, if we believe in the goodness in them that we know is in there, they are made stronger because of it, and we are made stronger because of it.

I forgot that, Copa.

I am going to change my thinking, too.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

When he was akid, and sick with Crohns (and not minimizing Crohns) they would lie on her bed together watching TV in a way t hat made me and sister kind of shake our heads.

It could be that those were the only times in his life he felt safe, SWOT. Maybe that sense of safety, that sense that someone who loves him is there and that he is safe for just a little time, is what he mourns.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Assignment: You feel the end of your life approaching. You retreat to your cave, and want to create your own precepts. Limit it to nine (the number of days Odin hung from his tree, the number of the original Neteru of Egypt, the parts of the soul). What would they be? In a year's time return to this exercise and review these precepts that your Self gifts to your self - are they still good? What has changed?

I will do this assignment.

Thank you.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

But I know at the very heart of what is going on is foo stuff. My son keeps putting himself in abusive relationships because his fsther was abusive to us both

Belle, I love that so much better than allusedup.

:O)

There is a certain way for us to see what happens for our children in their lives, Belle. It is very hard for us to get to that place. Part of standing in that strong mother place is trusting ourselves; trusting ourselves, and believing in ourselves that, whatever our circumstances were, we taught our children well.

They know right from wrong Belle, because we taught them right from wrong.

What they do as adults is about their destiny, is about the paths they will choose to follow. We can advise. We can question. For instance, you might open a conversation with son and the woman he loves about abusive behaviors and respect and etc. If you try to separate the two of them Belle, your son will cleave to the woman.

He will protect the woman. Perceiving you as a threat, she will draw him away.

How does the girl respond to you now, Belle? Could it be that she was poorly mothered, and that you could become a mentor or mother figure for her?

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

I am happy for you, Copa. You are seeing through your own eyes now. Believing in our children is never wrong. If we believe in them, if we believe in the goodness in them that we know is in there, they are made stronger because of it, and we are made stronger because of it.

How we see our children and that we can respond from that true vision of who we know them to be is a beginning.

This is the thing that makes it hard. Somewhere along the way I lost sight of who my child was. I refer to that in my post of last night. Where the way that I held my son became tainted both by his own behavior towards me, and where I sunk to in Foo-ness as a result.

SWOT has been trying for awhile to get my attention. At first I reacted defensively. Now not so much.

She has been trying to tell me I think that I have other choices. That I do not have to personalize my son's limits or behaviors. That he may have important differences from many of the adult children on this site, meaning that the course open to him had been delimited by and because of intrinsic limits placed by his birth and early development.

Because of those differences, detaching may not have the same results, for me or for my son.

What I have been struggling with the past few days in particular is the idea that my hostility and defensiveness to my son backed him into a corner, where he did not as much choose some of his behaviors but was as if forced to them. And this process only escalated when there was no one else to take him in. And even then I may have been rejecting of him, or at least inconsistently accepting.

So the idea of how I hold my son in my heart while extremely important is confusing. Because my desire to hold my son in my heart as adored, at least today, can only be sustained when he is lost, and I do not know where. I know on at least one or two levels I do adore him, but I am less sure it is in the here and now moment when I interact with him or see or feel the consequences of his behaviors. I am human.

And then there is the more confusing question still, in that each of us, cannot but see my son through the lens of their own adored difficult children. SWOT and Cedar, you cannot help but respond to my son and my situation based upon your own experience with your own children. And our situations while, similar, are different.

And I am left with my own. And I am the only one who can rightfully and fully see him as he has been, was, is, and as I want him to be.

If I am confused, where does this leave me? With a choice of a stance about who he is to me and who I want him to be? Or a reality defined by a set of facts?

M has been for a long time trying to get me to see this. He has counseled me and pleaded with me that I have it within me to choose love and act from love. Not fear. Not hostility. Not doubt. With hope. With trust. With responsibility. With strength. Steady state. Like his Mother does with all of her children.

But what he has seen so far is a me, as if Bi-polar. Cycling. Manic. Frantic. Reactive. Furious. Depressed. Desolate. A hundred different pathological states, all of them fueled by love and fear.

I can know where I stand, but I do not know where to stand. Because I for a long time have not worked out so well as a parent or a mother. And my son is floundering and at risk and vulnerable and I do not know where to stand. Or what to do.

I want to take my son in and trust him. And help him stabilize and give him a hand as my family and my beloved child. And when I am in this space there is nothing that matters other than this. Except I will not put M in a position that he does not want to be. And it seems he may have doubts about my son in the house. Despite his assurances.

So I guess this is how a decision will be made. Negotiated. Somewhere between choices for what we want and hope for...and what we know as reality.

PS You do know how worried about my son I am and how hard it is to not know where he is. This is the exact thing that M and the psychiatrist point out as what I need to change. That I cannot yet but must be able detach my emotions from the person running around on the street somewhere. I tell myself if he was only on his liver medicine I could handle it. Because I did so for long, when he was actually homeless. I am uncertain what has changed. Could it be that I have? And that I am getting worse, not stronger, but worse?

I am grateful for your support. Thank you.

 

[SeekingStrength]

Thanks, Copa & Cedar.

There is such poignancy on this thread. I can only read a couple pages before needing a break. A lot of pain in the words....and strength shines, too.

You know, my parents never cared for husband. My mother would to cause friction between husband and me. She is not talking to him, either. My dad is pleasant enough to husband, but has never been a fan. They would be thrilled if we divorced and I would come to them and say, You know. You were the right ones all along. I sure wish I had listened to you! It makes me half smile to think how happy that would make them. Horrible. horrible. husband and I will celebrate 35 yrs of marriage later this month. It's been a very good match - husband and I.

Like every other story I have read on this thread, my latest drama is full of so much history & junk coming from multiple directions. It seems impossible to unravel and get to the real center, but you guys seem to working at just that unraveling thing. I am impressed.


Thanks again,

SS

 

[Copabanana]

Hi SeekingStrength,

Here is something rather extraordinary. Here from the trenches the pain is not so great once expressed, viewed and understood, and most of all shared with others.

Would your husband be accompanying you to the family get together at the restaurant? If so, how does he feel about going? How does it affect him the feelings your parents have had of him all of these years?

My mother would to cause friction between husband and me.

They would be thrilled if we divorced and I would come to them and say, You know. You were the right ones all along. I sure wish I had listened to you!

When I have read your posts on other threads about your son, I have been struck by the unity and strength you hold as a couple.

Perhaps that could be part of the reason for your parents' feelings. With your husband you became stronger and less vulnerable to them, their ideas, and influence. Perhaps there is jealousy there.

That said, I would say that any decision about the family gathering is best made by your husband and you as a couple.

If your parents do not respect you and your husband as a couple, what do you do with that? So we go back to Cedar's post to you.

The marriage itself may be the elephant in the room. And your son might be giving ammunition to your parents to fight a covert battle against the marriage which would really be a battle against you. That your worth as a person, a grown adult woman to decide for herself about your fundamental interests, is what is at stake, at least in your parents' eyes.

Now as far as I am concerned, you could still go or not go to the party. Because the important thing is to know what is at stake, that what is the real subject at hand being discussed.

For us on the thread what hurt us most of all is that we did not accept or understand the fundamental, covert conversation in our families of which we a part (or in my case apart.)

If you are with your husband and both of you know and understand, going in to the party what the whispering and the hidden conversation is really about: Your right to be a grown self-determining woman and to choose a husband. No matter what they cannot touch you and the two of you together. Because you will always know. It doesn't matter the specifics and the content this particular time.

PS I am adding a postscript here which completely turns on its head my earlier post. Your son may well be empowering a toxic conversation knowingly and with malice. And your parents may be hearing and using this toxic and destructive information with the same malice and intent.

So, I am coming to stand with Cedar on this. Who could or should withstand this toxicity directed towards her marriage by a united front of this sort?

You suspect an alliance between your flailing and destructive adult child and your equally destructive but focused and deliberate FOO. I am sorry, SeekingStrength, I barely know you. But I find the idea of this to be very ugly indeed.

The idea that my parents might be empowering the destructiveness my own child who I love, as a way to undermine me and my marriage. Not a pretty picture.

Cedar's instincts are unfailingly good.

 

[BusynMember]

I think the difference is not that our sisters don't matter.

In what way do they still matter?

 

[BusynMember]

Hihihi, Seeking Strength!!!!! Welcome!

 

[BusynMember]

Please, please give me some feedback/advice. I am at my wits end.

On this thread we are extremely candid, moreso than on other threads.

Regardless of what your son went through, this is now his battle to fight (his past). I'd take the puppy. Nobody should buy a pet for a child. The child is not mature enough to care for it. You buy a pet only if you are willing to care for it. Pets die at the hands of kids, especially young kids. They should be our pets only.

Poor puppy!!!!

There is absolutely NOTHING you can do about your son's choice in a wife. Do you understand? Nothing.

But do please rescue the baby dog.

I'm glad you are here

 

[Copabanana]

But do please rescue the baby dog.

SWOT, do you want Romy, our Yorkie? I am only partially kidding. He is a wonderful dog.

Glad you are home.

COPA

 

[BusynMember]

Like every other story I have read on this thread, my latest drama is full of so much history & junk coming from multiple directions. It seems impossible to unravel and get to the real center, but you guys seem to working at just that unraveling thing.

Feel free to share your story too. We are here. We are "listening." Mindfully.

 

[SeekingStrength]

Perhaps that could be part of the reason for your parents' feelings. With your husband you became stronger and less vulnerable to them, their ideas, and influence. Perhaps there is jealousy there.

That said, I would say that any decision about the family gathering is best made by your husband and you as a couple.

Honestly, Copa, I think you nailed it. Just read your post to husband. Thank you, thank you.