In a totally new place and need perspective? Cedar? Anyone?

[Copabanana]

Since others have noticed it, I have had a lack of desire to hurt HER

Serenity I wanted to comment upon this because I did not attend to it before.

We have commented upon our common experience in our families:

We have felt singled out and targeted.
We have felt without protection.
We have also felt powerless to stop it.

With this one act by the Borderline (BPD) moderator to discipline your sister all of these feelings were neutralized and reversed.

You were no longer alone.
You had an ally.
Who stopped it.
You were protected.
Others stood with you so that the targeting would stop. And it did.

It is remarkable that this is all we needed. Somebody to stand with us.

To me this demonstrates that you never ever had a desire to hurt your sister. Like Cedar said above by revisiting the place you knew you would be hurt you were attempting to master and resolve your trauma.

I believe your feeling and thinking that you were doing something wrong or bad to your sister must have been taught to you, perhaps by your mother. To hold you responsible for things that were not your fault.

Stop hurting thing #1 or #2, SWOT. Stop being a bad girl.

And in that way you were scapegoated. And it may well be you internalized it.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

While we do not want it to dominate our lives, or to overwhelm us these feelings are part of and honor our lives. We need to remember.

"...these feelings are part of and honor our lives."

I agree. Yes. But thinking about it brought so many questions, Copa.

"...and honor our lives." I am still in that place where I am overwhelmed by it sometimes. Not like it was when we began, but...I am still in a place where I feel betrayed, or really foolish. I don't see how, unless I had been a stronger person, I could have behaved differently and still seen them.

roar

I began this response last night. I am really so angry about all of this, this morning. Yesterday, I felt guilty and responsible. This morning, I am very angry at my mother for what she has done.

I am seeing all the ways everything was so mixed up and hurtful.

I am confused around this issue, Copa.

To honor our lives....

What did you mean, Copa? How do you see that? I conclude that ours (mine) has been an ugly story. In so many ways it has. It comforts me to just admit that true thing. It takes the shame away, when I see it that way. You are right. To honor our lives, to honor ourselves.

Maybe this is something that will come for me, in time.

I will be thinking about that very much, Copa.

Well, is that any different than my telling you all that my sister is a narcissist with psychopathic traits?

It is different, Copa.

My mother would speak from a mother's position of authority and presumed good will. The things she said undermined my sister's emotional integrity and her cleanliness, her soundness, to her husband.

And that was my mom's purpose. Her children were her victims. Husbands interfere. I am feeling badly again about all these bad things I post about my own mother, this morning.

Ours is an ugly story.

Not understanding what is happening to us, knowing there are unresolved traumas and determined to be stronger both for ourselves and for the sakes of our so troubled kids, we are here to share our stories, to learn from one another, and to heal. Anything goes for me, here. I post shaming, broken things and every time, bar none, you both have been here for me and we got through it. If you needed to post a diagnosis, or if any of us did, we would be coming from a place of integrity.

Anyway Copa, you have not diagnosed your sister in clinical terms to my knowledge.

Even if you do or if you had? Even if that was part of what you needed to do to heal? None of us knows who she is.

So, that would be okay, then.

No harm done; the exchange the potential to heal.

The only way our families or origin could be hurt by what we have done here is if they stumble onto it and recognize either us or themselves. I hope that never happens. We don't want to hurt anyone, Copa. We get it that if we were stronger, that if we were operating from intact centers, we would be stronger women, stronger mothers, and our kids are in trouble. We would be remiss in not trying everything we know to help them and ourselves.

So I think we are clean, on that one. I am embarrassed, feel I am betraying shaming, secret things, too.

But the site is anonymous.

And I am getting better.

First, Cedar, I will comment upon how I see this: It sickens me that you would allow yourself to be used like this.

To offer refuge in this way is to extend trust. It is based upon reciprocity and safety. I have not read one thing in my time on this board that demonstrated safety, trust or reciprocity by your sister towards you.

Well, that's the position of pseudo mom I think, Copa. Not mom, but better than no mom when real mom has been having at you. And then, you are resented because you aren't mom, and because they had to come to you again when real mom was killing mean. I didn't realize about trust or reciprocity until we started posting, here. I always excused and believed, and believed in my sister in the same way I always excused and believed in my kids.

I wish I'd been stronger, sooner.

For my kids. For my sister, I don't know what I could do differently. I hate it when she cries. After a time? The only thing I remember is that she was crying.

Like in that last phone call.

I am pretty much only remembering that I said mean things, and that she was crying, and had gone silent, and that I hung up.

It's difficult to keep all that in perspective.

I feel terrible that I did that. It had to be done. Something had to be done. And the terrible things I said that made her cry were true. They are excluding. There was a pact. Her behavior is inappropriate and I will not stand for it.

Okay.

I'm better, this morning.

:O)

Thank you, Copa. It was good to review that. I am always forgetting to stay on my own side about why I do what I do.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

We will seek out a trauma to gain mastery over it, and confront it over and over until we do.

That's courage. We humans are amazing creatures.

But this does not bode well for me, Copabanana. This loving and hating and puzzling things out and etc is not good for the digestion.

So I will have a cigarette.

:O)

To offer refuge in this way is to extend trust. It is based upon reciprocity and safety. I have not read one thing in my time on this board that demonstrated safety, trust or reciprocity by your sister towards you.

I know, Copa. It is so hurtful a thing to know. That's why I posted this part, twice. Some things are just hurtful things. All we can do is sit with them, then.

Ouch.

She actually is very mean, my sister. And like it always is with us, I knew, and I didn't know. There is so much that is unbelievable unless we can see, unless we really do get it, that what they feel for us is hatred; and was never love, at all.

I am forever forgetting that true thing.

But here is the other true thing: I cannot possibly love her in the way sisters love, either. My love for her is all twisted, too. It has to be. That is why I hate it when she cries. Seriously. It has a feel of trauma to it. That sick feeling at the pit of the stomach. I remember someone posting to me once that my kids would willfully traumatize me to weaken and confuse me so I would do what they wanted them to.

Copa, do you remember when your son exploded about something in your own past when you first began to stand up to him and would not back away from it?

Like that.

And of course my mom must do that all the time. Just as I never once suspected that my kids were doing the things they were intentionally doing until it was pointed out to me, I need to remember my sister (and my mom) do that, too. I had just posted about the time she drew her arm back, a though to strike me. They must watch and assess us, our abusive family members, to keep us where they want us emotionally.

Afraid; that is where they want us. Not independent of them, but always filtering the air, our attention on them and their emotional states ~ just as it was when we were little, and so completely in thrall to them.

And we are here, learning about our reactions and where they come from and how to be strong. How to be invulnerable. And the answer is in that Monty Python clip.

"We already got one. Oh, yes. It's very nice. Now, go away; or I will taunt you a second time."

That's the answer. For me, it is. To see them, and myself, for who each of us is, and for the roles we played that were never real things, but have been hurt into us to further the aims of the abuser(s).

You know? I am going to change my avatar to Monty's Frenchman or something similar.

"Now, go away. Or I will taunt you a second time."

Thank you, Copa. I needed to find solid ground around these issues, again.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

There are two things going on here, I think. First, the effects of victimization. Your mother was a bully, Cedar. Leaving aside the fact that she was your mother, Cedar, and the one in the world who was responsible to care for her defenseless babies, she was a neighborhood bully. And bullying, like rape, and other kinds of crimes with a victim leaves predictable often lifelong scars.

Once you decided to confront the reality of your lifelong situation and little by little climb out of it, and away from your Mother and Sister, you became a survivor.

"Survivor guilt (or survivor's guilt; also called survivor syndrome or survivor's syndrome) is a mental condition that occurs when a person perceives themselves to have done wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not." (Wikipedia)

With this, another kind of dynamic enters the picture. Effects of victimization and the feelings about surviving the trauma when others did not.

Victims of crime almost always blame themselves. This is probably a similar dynamic to children blaming themselves for abuse by their parents'. A whole dimension of other self-torment arises when you do not suffer as others did. Like with your brother.

All of this is self-blame and self attack, for surviving:

I am still in a place where I feel betrayed, or really foolish. I don't see how, unless I had been a stronger person, I could have behaved differently and still seen them.

Yesterday, I felt guilty and responsible.

the shame

I am embarrassed, feel I am betraying shaming, secret things, too.

I hate it when she cries. After a time? The only thing I remember is that she was crying.

I am pretty much only remembering that I said mean things, and that she was crying, and had gone silent, and that I hung up.

I feel terrible that I did that. It had to be done. Something had to be done. And the terrible things I said that made her cry were true.

But here is the other true thing: I cannot possibly love her in the way sisters love, either. My love for her is all twisted, too. It has to be. That is why I hate it when she cries. Seriously. It has a feel of trauma to it.

And there is a third layer, too.

I was thinking as I wrote this of the intentions of people that capture other people and take them as prisoners or hostages. The Stockholm Syndrome is what happens with their victims.

But think about what the captors want to induce in their victims. Self doubt. Fear. Weakness. Dependency. Surrender of their autonomy, of their individuality and personhood. Confusion. Disorientation.

This is what our parents sought, Cedar, with us. And our children, too, when they seek to subjugate us by their taunts and their control and their hazing of us:

Afraid; that is where they want us.

I remember someone posting to me once that my kids would willfully traumatize me to weaken and confuse me so I would do what they wanted them to.

Copa, do you remember when your son exploded about something in your own past when you first began to stand up to him and would not back away from it?

I think we have to be very, very careful to not blame ourselves for feelings that come up.

Let's spell it out:

1. Somebody terrorized you. There are memories of this.
2. There are long term psychological effects of the traumatic experiences. Apart from the memories themselves.
3. Survival when others did not.

How could there not be feelings?

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Except for this: it is not normal to set about to destroy anybody or to put them at a disadvantage. Only predators do that.

As my mother and my sister joined to do, to ridicule and humiliate in private and then, to celebrate what they'd done to the point that both described the eye rolling viciousness the entire family engaged in as the poor woman left to spend the night in a motel because, after having driven the entire way, she was too tired to drive further. Enough to tell, and retell it, to me.

Enough for my mother to describe the behind the scenes actions she'd taken to disparage and destroy this woman to their mutual friends.

And that, of course, is what they do to me, and to everyone in their circles.

And to my D H.

D H says I should have protected him, as he protects me.

He is correct.

I do not think my sister has the emotional intelligence to anticipate the precise emotions she wants to induce in her victims.

This is accurate. For both my mother and my sister.

I think she has intent to win. I think she has intent to pin down and put down. I think she has intent to evoke in the other the sense they are her victims. I think she has the intent and necessity in fact, to evoke in others the acceptance of her superiority over them and her absolute control over the situation. My sister plots to disarm her opponents and to create conditions where she is safe and has the advantage. Then she exults. And she preys.

These are ways my sister sees her world and her place in it:
Low rent. You are low and without options. She is superior.
I gamed them. She deprived her adversaries of negotiating room. She took from them what they wanted and needed. On purpose she destroyed them. Through her superior skills and attributes. And she wants them to know that she did it to them on purpose. Because she could and she wanted to.

When somebody deliberately tries to trick you, to dehumanize you, to victimize you and to cut off your humanity, the normal person will of course feel: Hurt. Confused. Alone. Excluded. Humiliated. Victimized. Degraded.

They will wonder: Why, what is it about me that would make my sister treat me like this?

Excellent post, Copa.

Right down to "low rent". This is what my sister was doing throughout the entire Padre Island experience.

Huh.

Isn't that something and when am I ever finally going to see it. Serenity is right. A clean break is best; they do what they do with malice aforethought.

Malice.

And you are right, Copa. These are not the finely executed actions of someone plotting revenge. These are the actions of a clumsy fisherman, throwing chum into the waters.

And then, dynamite.

And then, they laugh, at the stunned and blasted creatures that float to the surface, gasping for breath.

Idiot savants, in a way.

And that includes my sister. Praying her Ring of Thorns around me and my children. And all those things I used to believe, about my sister needing to do these things to establish some core of authenticity for herself after the way we were all brought up.

I was wrong.

Now, what to do, about that.

Cedar, I do not think we feel lonely for them. I know I miss my sister. But I cannot remember one time in 40 years that did not involve some kind of wound or degradation at her hand. I miss the idea of a sister...but not my own sister. With whom I can never expect a sisterly relationship. Because she will always inflict pain or humiliation...because that is how she operates.

Yes. This is true too, Copa.

Abusive people abuse because that is who the twisted little freaks are. And if we do something as simple as speaking the truth, they explode into tears, playing the victim. Claiming they don't understand. Roaring about how we've hurt them; about how good and innocent they are...and about how they are done trying to "help" us.

About how they have done all they can "for us".

When what they mean is "to" us.

For now.

Twisted, evil little freak persons.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

As my mother and my sister joined to do, to ridicule and humiliate in private and then, to celebrate what they'd done to the point that both described the eye rolling viciousness

Cedar, I just posted this on another thread:

Your son may not recognize this (I am sure he does not, actually) but he needs you to be strong and to not betray yourself. He needs you to act from your values. He needs you to not compromise. He needs you to not be weakened by his pleas and his manipulation.

By staying strong and separate you model to him what he needs to do for himself. With this he is reminded of who he is. The person you raised him to be. When you fold, it creates a moral mushiness that reinforces his own lack of purpose.

I was channeling the article on betrayal of self that you had posted yesterday or the day before.

As I read your post here, I realized again, how the pain for us in our families is that to be with them, they force us to abandon and betray ourselves. We as much as consent to their bad behavior, by witnessing it. And witnessing it, degrades us. Just like witnessing your mother with your brother.

Our families force us to accept their terms, their view of the world. All you want, Cedar is a voice, to say NO. STOP. DO NOT treat others this way. It is WRONG.

And for that you are marginalized and mocked. "What would Cedar do?"

We cannot be with our families and allow that they re-abuse us with their ganging up and triangulation, and odd man out. To not permit it is to stand up to evil. We cannot allow it, with our children or our families. There must be a stop put to it.

So the question is this, Cedar: What is it about saying NO to evil is so problematic for you and for me. Why could I not say to my sister directly: "When you speak about people with those words and that voice it hurts me. For you. Please do not do it around me." Of course I know that there would have been an attack against me. But so what? I am an adult. A Frenchman at that.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

The truth is so simple and that is why we missed it. And it is not a win for anyone. These incidents were just true events that happened because certain rather ordinary people decided to do them hoping they'd hurt us

It is, Serenity. But at the same time, what is really going on here, what is really going on with any predator, is so unbelievable that we reject the truth that is plain as day and wonder instead what is the matter with us that we are thinking this way.

I have posted that very thing so many times as we all have gone through this.

And that is the key too, Serenity. They seem to be such ordinary people. Not excessively intelligent. Transparent in their motives, even. So...just like it was with Security Boy therapists, we did know.

And we all know where that got us.

Could it be that, having survived so many betrayals, we seek them out, somehow? Something to do with Copa's post about replaying the various traumatic events until we have fully addressed them?

That would account for the willingness to engage.

Because you are right, Serenity. These are very much ordinary, and not extraordinary people, at all. Once we make it through the self-accusation, through the wondering what our part in it was ~ which we never do because it is traumatic to review another loss ~ then we see that they were nothing like we had believed them to be.

I am still into ferreting out the issue of self-betrayal in all this carrying on of abuse into our adulthoods. I suppose we must attack it on two levels: The initial trauma which created the internal labeling that leaves us vulnerable to twisted, freaky little people we should not even be having coffee with, and the parts of us that still believe, somehow, that the initial abuser had seen something in us that justified what they did.

We must name and name and name the abuser for the twisted, freaky little people, lonely and frightened and lying their pants off, to this day, when no one has to do that anymore, that they are.

Thank you.

roar

But we cannot discount our parts in this. We must seem very tempting indeed to these people.

Easy marks. Which fits their modus operandi very well.

So we have been remiss in not establishing our boundaries.

If someone is not worth having coffee with, they are not worth having coffee with.

Which makes me feel badly about myself, because of course we all have intrinsic value.

Immeasurable value, really. I know that as well and as surely as I know anything at all.

Circle, again.

I was dumb enough to tell her I'd met a man I liked.

My daughter and grands always tell us about who they like. My son came to us to review it when he was involved with the woman who, once he stopped using, he was so disgusted with himself for having been intimate with.

That is a normal thing to do, to talk with a mother about these issues, Serenity.

Your mother was wrong to do as she did. As happens with me too, in my FOO, vulnerability brings out the long knives.

And I am thinking again about what you said about these people being nothing special, being ordinary joes who stumble into being able to hurt us.

I am sorry that happened to you. You should never have been treated that way.

None of us should be treated that way.

It is a comfort then, to know we have not gone on to do what was done to us.

But you know? I don't think we could have. I am thinking of the way I was brought up and of each time, from the age of about ten years, that I realized the wrongness in whatever the action was, recognized even then, that I did not want to be my mother, and chose a different response.

No. We are nothing like them.

:O)

That is the fear, then. That is the heart of the trauma driving us to replay traumatic events, and I think we do it routinely. Are we like our abusers?

Her response was, in her nasty mocking voice, "you're a married lady and you're dating???? How cheap can you get! I could NEVER do that. That's wrong."

Me: we're getting divorced!

Her: but you're not. That's so cheap! How could you?

But this is the same woman throwing her youngest daughter to the wind over Thanksgiving to chase a man.

A divorced woman herself.

This is what my mother told me she said to my father when he was going to divorce her: "I'll see to it that you never see your kids, again."

I was thirty six or so, at the time.

No one lived at home.

And I liked my dad better and always had.

Twisted, freaky little people, ordinary to everyone but the children they hurt into complicity in their nasty, grandiosity tainted lives.

How cheap can you get! I could NEVER do that.

That must be exactly what she did do then, Serenity.

My mother insists to this day that I have had an affair during the time of my marriage to D H. I have not.

But she did.

I doubt she would have said that if it had been my sister. In fact I know she wouldn't have. To make it even sillier, she cared nothing for my ex . She knew he couldn't stand her.but any chance she had to try to make me seem bad, she did it.

It had nothing to do with ex. She was twisting the knife. The one she put into your back the second you let it be known your D H was no longer there to protect you.

From her.

My mom would do that, too.

I don't like my mom very much.

Reminds me of "you only adopted those kids because of the money they give you."

Ha! How she must have hated those good, fine things you did. Think of how you have changed everything about your life, and about the lives of those children you loved and mothered and are a loyal mother to, to this day.

That is an F you mom, if I've ever spit one out.

And I have spit out a great many F you moms, on our threads.

You're welcome.

I believe I chose to spend this lifetime with these people as an important lesson. I had to learn what love really is and to love all who let me. And to especially love the needy and downtrodden.

Maybe, we were here to witness and reflect back to them who they are choosing to be.

Once upon a time, in a faraway land where time and distance had lost all meaning, there were born to the peasantry a generation of female children whose task and whose talent it would be to unravel the tangled skeins of deceit, viciousness, and trickery that bound the hearts, the souls, and the bloodlines of those families into which each would be born.

This is the first paragraph of a story written so many years ago I don't even remember when I wrote it.

Like the poetry, it seems to be true.

The story says nothing about saving the families. It does tell of those for whom the breakage was not overcome.

Their purpose was still met; it was to teach the others of us compassion.

Or maybe, it was told to teach us to hold ourselves in compassion.

When I told her I had spoken to the social worker at the hospital my sister started screaming and denouncing me over the phone.

As did my mother, when I told her I had spoken to the nurses caring for my father, and already knew, not only that he'd had the surgery, but that he'd survived it.

She wanted control over my mother and her assets. That was the emotional and tangible win.

I know this is correct. But it is making my head spin, again. Surely I am seeing this incorrectly and blah and etc.

But I did know. And I took great satisfaction in having been able to say those words to my mother.

Even if she did have an explosion and hang up on me.

But I still feel pretty weakly around that whole issue. You protected your mom, Copa.

I wish I had done something courageous, too.

I agree that it does not take much power or skill to behave badly. At the same time, mediocre people can elevate themselves greatly by their willingness to behave very badly. Look at Hitler as an example.

That makes sense.

I had already refused to re-engage with my mother on her terms, before my father's illness.

Revenge for that, then.

Isn't that an awful thing, what's happened to all of us.

It really is.

Just awful.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I think my sister is furious that she can't control what I write and if she could she'd call the cops

She would, Serenity.

Isn't that something. That whole power thing, that drive to shame and publicly humiliate that they all seem to carry. Do you think it could be that they do that to prove to us that we are, as Copa describes it, "low rent"?

Looking for external validation of their fabricated worlds, of their grandiosity?

Isn't that something. That's how we grew up ~ in the service of that kind of thing. Boy, that makes me mad.

But you know, when I think about the way my mother talks about everyone in her life, or about the way they talk about one another, or about the way my sister talks about the things she does, because of her religious beliefs I suppose, for her friends...that is the theme that comes up there, too.

Maybe they think everyone is like them, and can't quite figure us out, either.

She'd like my dad to disinherit me because I haven't stopped blogging completely.

She would love for him to disinherit you completely, just on general principles, because that would service her need for grandiosity.

The blogging is just a ready excuse.

As is any claim that what you do or do not do, here in this anonymous place, affects her in any way.

She is the one who was reprimanded, by those on her own site, who are honestly trying to help themselves understand their situations.

And now that I am looking in this new way? I see those same kinds of behaviors from my sister, too.

And my mom.

With this, another kind of dynamic enters the picture. Effects of victimization and the feelings about surviving the trauma when others did not.

Victims of crime almost always blame themselves. This is probably a similar dynamic to children blaming themselves for abuse by their parents'. A whole dimension of other self-torment arises when you do not suffer as others did. Like with your brother.

When I read the first paragraph? Imagery of my brother.

BOOM

Imagery of my brother.

And then, I read the second paragraph.

And that imagery makes me feel awful to this very day.

I think we have to be very, very careful to not blame ourselves for feelings that come up.

Let's spell it out:

1. Somebody terrorized you. There are memories of this.
2. There are long term psychological effects of the traumatic experiences. Apart from the memories themselves.
3. Survival when others did not.

I will put this in my quote box.

To understand the dynamic of the thing is to give it parameters; to limit the wide-ranging effects.

To name it.

Thank you, Copa. This will be very helpful to me. I am always finding myself back in that place, in that FOG place, even when I think I am through it.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

And witnessing it, degrades us. Just like witnessing your mother with your brother.

I never thought of it that way. I do feel dirtied by the things my mother, and even my sister, have told me they've done.

I went to see my sister, once. And all she could tell everyone who would listen, whenever that visit came up again, is that she had told everyone I was "Minnesota married". There would be no going behind a bush, as is apparently appropriate in a Texas marriage.

And she thought that was really funny.

And I felt like I was not getting the joke somehow, but I laughed about it too.

D H did not think it was funny.

And for that you are marginalized and mocked. "What would Cedar do?"

Yeah. Wasn't that a nasty thing. To laugh at me like that, and be so mean. It is humiliating, to be seen like that. Like some dorky person, putting herself above everyone and seen as such.

You would think, that with everything else we've posted about, that one little phrase would not still leave me feeling betrayed.

I will work on that.

That has to be the flavor of interacting with those two shysters.

Once I get through it, I will be immune to much of what they have left lying around like psychic mine fields after the war.

So the question is this, Cedar: What is it about saying NO to evil is so problematic for you and for me. Why could I not say to my sister directly: "When you speak about people with those words and that voice it hurts me. For you. Please do not do it around me." Of course I know that there would have been an attack against me. But so what? I am an adult. A Frenchman at that.

Maya Angelou has discussed something similar Copa, regarding race and buffoonery in general. "...that hurts me. For you. Please do not do it around me."

This is a perfect response, Copa. It is putting responsibility squarely where it belongs for each of the parties involved in the abusive incident.

I loved the post Copa, but felt such delight at the Frenchman's appearance that I gave it a laughing face.



Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

It is D H birthday week.

We are going out for dinner ~ we are thinking at a greasy little hole in the wall diner that was noted on Drive Ins, Diners, and Dives. It is supposed to have the best burgers, and the worst clientele, imaginable.

I am wearing a dress and heels. D H says I should wear sandals, in case we have to move quickly.

:O)

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

Ok. Been out with family today but one baby is napping and the kids went out for a rare lunch alone.
I addressing colas insight. I am on tablet expect some funny word glitches.
Cola, I guess tablet will call you, you are right. All it seemed to take for me to finally be sure that sis is just plain vindictive and not hiding it was for a moderator on her site to figure it out. Must have been blatant and it validates me that she just posts there to hurt me. That gives me all I need to feel a bit of satisfaction and gratitude. If the moderator noticed, probably most posters do. So guess her facade is not so good.
The truth is nobody there knows me or would believe her diagnosis of me is they did. I probably have traits. She does. My mom did. Half the world does. So what?
While validation is comforting I still need too be on from this little war.
Sick.
Done.
I am not on that site anymore.
I will end the sister wars. You can't fight alone.

Meanwhile we all had fun taking little peanut to the zoo and then the park. It's always great to visit. It's very hot today!!! Well, hot for Chicago area, like 90s.
Post later. Have a great day.

 

[Copabanana]

About 8 years ago, I had gone back to work. This was after I returned from Brazil. It was brave of me to return to my work.

And there were a group of colleagues, bantering back and forth. Each of them (except me, of course) feeling like they were experts in all things. And this one horrible old man. Maybe 15 years older. A weasel if there ever was one. Said, "Copa has no boundaries at all." And everybody laughed that nervous kind of laugh when a boundary has been crossed. And I stood there. Whether I smiled or not I do not remember.

But I did not defend myself. For a couple of reasons. First, I believed that the comment reflected on the man, not on me.

However, it did reflect on me, too. Because he had labeled me in front of others as not enough. As missing something. As defective. He had attacked me publicly.

And the truth of it, is I did not know what he meant. What would it be, to not have boundaries, in this context?

I can be funny. Like Mel Brooks and Sensory Integration Disorder (SID) Ceasar funny. Dead pan. Sometimes a nervous energy funny. Not with M. He has a very, very specific sense of humor. On his terms. It does not involve banter and dissolving of boundaries.

So along with understanding and attending to my self, I need to think about what it means to have boundaries. Because over and over again I seem to be transgressed.

We must seem very tempting indeed to these people.

Easy marks. Which fits their modus operandi very well.

So we have been remiss in not establishing our boundaries.

what is really going on with any predator, is so unbelievable that we reject the truth that is plain as day and wonder instead what is the matter with us that we are thinking this way.

See, this is the thing. There is nothing wrong with us. I do not think so. Except that we blame ourselves for others attacking us. There is nothing more at all wrong.

Maybe in my case, it was naive and stupid to think I could tolerate working in prisons. But maybe I chose just this thing to come to know and master sadism and victimization. Maybe I had a plan. That I did not know at the time.

we did know

Yes, we did. But what were our choices, Cedar? It was a choice between bad, all bad options. Because each one involved the need for trust. We had no trust. No reason to trust anybody. But to go forward and to heal we had to choose among bad options...because each required the trusting of somebody....when we knew we could not.

having survived so many betrayals, we seek them out, somehow?

I am ambivalent about this. I do not think we seek out betrayal. We seek out relationship. And we seek out relationships that fit us and trigger our past. What I have called the lock and key. We look for the fit. We are not seeking betrayal. We seek mastery. We seek control.

There used to be (and maybe still is) a working theory, a branch of modern psychoanalysis with that name. Control-Mastery. The idea that we seek to have control where there was none. There is the urge to master those traumas of the past. We do so in our contemporary relationships. That is not the same thing as saying we seek out betrayal or hurt. We seek to have control in situations where in the past we were hurt and betrayed. In order to find mastery.

Once we make it through the self-accusation, through the wondering what our part in it was ~ which we never do because it is traumatic to review another loss ~ then we see that they were nothing like we had believed them to be.

I am unclear here. Cedar, you had no part in it. None. None of it. There must be a stand taken here. Thee is no culpability here. Start from that place.

With my therapist. I did think at the beginning. He could be weak like my father. There had been nothing that that man had showed me at that point to believe this. My thought only came from the desire to be better. For control and mastery over my past.

That man betrayed me because he was a bad man masquerading as a good one. It was not my fault. Nor was any of it yours.

I suppose we must attack it on two levels: The initial trauma which created the internal labeling that leaves us vulnerable to twisted, freaky little people we should not even be having coffee with, and the parts of us that still believe, somehow, that the initial abuser had seen something in us that justified what they did.

The initial trauma, was just that. Terror. Isolation. Confusion. Etc.
The psychological response to the trauma can be PTSD type stuff or the cognitive distortions that turn responsibility to ourselves. My fault. It was something about me. Wanting to hurt my mother. Wanting to compete with her. Etc. All of this comes afterwards, to make sense of the situation so that the child can continue to live. In the house. Where she is being abused and traumatized.

I do not see one twisted part in us, that led us to be attacked initially.

But we cannot discount our parts in this. We must seem very tempting indeed to these people.

My whole adult life I have been described as an innocent. As somebody that evoked care in others by my vulnerability. For my sensitivity. How is this bad? Would I give this up in order to not appeal to predators? No.

Because the positive side of this is that other people trust me. Trust that I am present. Open. Permeable. They can get to my heart. And feel it.This is you, Cedar. How is that bad? What is your crime, Cedar? Really?

We we the victims, Cedar. We do not deserve blame. We are heroes.

 

[Copabanana]

And then, they laugh, at the stunned and blasted creatures that float to the surface, gasping for breath.

I think there is horror here. Traumatic horror. Because of course this is not the first time you have witnessed this bad behavior. This is the repetition of trauma.

You know I find myself thinking again of the proposed Iran deal. And how I responded so viscerally against Benjamin Netanyahu when he denounced Obama to Congress. So humiliated was I when Netanyahu race-baited to hold onto his power. Shame.

Dirty fighting, I thought. And then when Chuck Schumer, the NY Senator I respect, revealed he would vote against the deal. And I read Dershowitz's arguments against it.

I learned about negotiating from power. Not weakness. So, now I am seeing Iran in another way, from the point of view of a Jew. Because before I read Dershowitz I had been cowering. I had been seeing the situation from other eyes, not my own. Shamed eyes.

The Israelis do not have the luxury to see themselves from others' eyes. There is no cop out possible there. Their survival is at stake. They must face down the aggressor. Or they are destroyed.

They cannot be as I am with my sister, watching and listening to her. Stunned.

Cedar, more than once you have as if slapped me, in your responses to my posts. As if to say, pay attention to what is at stake here. Your child and your self. There is no room here for squirming and hiding.

Now I am seeing Netanyahu and those who think like him as doing what ever it takes to face down evil, to survive. I am not taking a stand here politically. I am speaking about voice, ones own voice for themselves, to survive, and to speak for who we are and want to be.

That is what we do here on the board. We take a stand. And in doing so we both reflect and create ourselves.

Now, the place where we take a stand is for our children and for ourselves.

To decide to stay away from your family is to decide to not resubmit to trauma. To horror. There is no other way to look at it. Because your mother and sister as if force you to submit. There is no alternative to it. That and denouncing what they do.

There is a choice here. To try again with D H at your side, with your boundaries in place and prepared. To state your truth. There is nothing wrong with this. And perhaps something to be gained.

Now I am looking at the scene with my sister in the hospital from that light. When my sister left the room to do whatever she did with that doctor, I had a choice to submit and allow her to do so unchallenged. Or I had the option of speaking out. Thankfully, I chose the latter.

P is talking alone with the doctor outside of the room. I need to be present to hear what she is saying.

I could have stayed silent. I did not. And with that, the equilibrium changed.

 

[Copabanana]

I am wearing a dress and heels. D H says I should wear sandals, in case we have to move quickly.

Or you could tell D H, that you are going armed with a heel ready, and can run away barefoot. Have fun.

 

[BusynMember]

interesting option.

I think it matters of what one wishes to accomplish.

I don't have any desire to face my leftover foo. It is not my survival at stake to me. I already survived. To me it's about my decision to have a peaceful life.

I do have a choice and though we all have choices, this is the only solution for me that gives me a feeling of comfort. Maybe because I already tried to resolve things and I know foo is too dysfunctional to ever work. Maybe because I did not go quietly and tried to stick up for me, which was so much of a waste of energy on people which I feel are not worth fighting for.

So for you and cedar it could be different. For myself I want love and peace and harmony. And for the most part, since marrying my husband, my life has been that way...except for the few times I tried to interact with my siblings. My answer for me is clear.

 

[Copabanana]

He said Rosie was a bully and the only way to beat bullies is to smack them in the nose."

I win. It’s what I do. I beat people. I win.”

Donald Trump does not expect that the world be a loving and benign place. He expects attacks. He sees responding to problems as the way to be strong.

A bit later in this editorial (Maureen Dowd, NYT) he talks about beautiful people who gain privilege and rewards through their looks. They lack the problem solving skills of others, who have been forced to become tough, in order to live.

When Donald Trump is punched, he punches back. In fact he kills. He responds with a deadlier blow.

Donald Trump does not ask himself if it his fault. He does not look for the hidden flaw or vulnerability inside of him, his secret shame, that caused the abuser to target him.

He sees predation as part of life. He does not see himself as a predator. He sees himself as a nice person who does not attack until he has to to defend himself. And then he destroys.

I think there is something to be learned from Trump. Even though I would not emulate him.

I think in the beginning all of us are sensitive souls. But we branch off in numerous directions. We become like Trump. Destroying all comers. We become predators. We close off in other ways too.

Or we stay sensitive souls. That does not mean we are responsible for the bad choices of others who change and take a different direction. To become bullies and attack us. There are always predators in the world that attack.

It is our response that is the problem. We blame ourselves.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

So humiliated was I when Netanyahu race-baited to hold onto his power. Shame.

You are right, Copa. (I am letting my nails dry. Before we go out, I mean. So I have ten minutes, is what I am trying to say, and here I am.) We see ourselves exactly as you saw Netanyahu when he spoke true words from a true heart, too.

Dirty fighting, I thought.

And that is what we think of ourselves too, when we respond. Exactly the way I was feeling so rotten about making my sister cry, which we have agreed was a manipulation she has used in the past.

Why else would she have cried and then, just gone silent?

Waiting for capitulation.

But she waited just a little too long.

Good.

I would have talked to her longer about anything she wanted.

I learned about negotiating from power. Not weakness. So, now I am seeing Iran in another way, from the point of view of a Jew. Because before I read Dershowitz I had been cowering. I had been seeing the situation from other eyes, not my own. Shamed eyes.

Yes.

The Israelis do not have the luxury to see themselves from others' eyes. There is no cop out possible there. Their survival is at stake. They must face down the aggressor. Or they are destroyed.

They cannot be as I am with my sister, watching and listening to her. Stunned.

Yes.

Cedar, more than once you have as if slapped me, in your responses to my posts. As if to say, pay attention to what is at stake here. Your child and your self. There is no room here for squirming and hiding.

Yes.

Now I am seeing Netanyahu and those who think like him as doing what ever it takes to face down evil, to survive. I am not taking stand here politically. I am speaking about voice, ones own voice for themselves, to survive, and to speak for who we are and want to be.

Yes.

That is what we do here on the board. We take a stand. And in doing so we both reflect and create ourselves.

We are.

My nails are dry.

Have a good night, you two.

And all of us, reading here.

:O)

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

What did you mean, Copa? How do you see that? (honoring your life). I conclude that ours (mine) has been an ugly story.

In 1939 there were 16,728,000 Jews worldwide. In 1945 there were 11,000,000. While there have been other genocidal events, perhaps on a larger scale, this is the only one in which I can imagine myself to have been a part. There are approximately 5,000,000 Jews in the United States right now. That was the number, approximately, murdered. So, if we think about the Holocaust as occurring here, I would have been among those killed.

There are only two ways to go from this event. The first is to turn inward. To try to tone down whatever feature or attribute brings negative attention or enhances difference. To assimilate. To internalize shame and maybe even self-hatred. Some people think this is what happened to American Jewry in post-war America.

The other way is to look outside oneself, to the future and the past. To take stock. Of ones history and values. Of possibilities and options. To decide to honor your history. Proudly. Affirmatively. Take a stand for who you are. And go from there.

Learning. No denial. No hiding. No living in the margins. No second guessing. Standing tall. Speaking the truth. Rooting out vulnerability and shame and rancor. Standing among equals. Holding responsible without blaming. Never forgetting. Celebrating and insisting upon survival. *I was surprised to learn that Germany is among the staunchest of Israel's allies.

To me the latter is honoring ones past. The former, not so much.

What more ugly a story could there be than losing maybe a third of your people, slaughtered? With the world watching, as if in consent.

My Mother used to repeat throughout her life how Roosevelt would not let in ships that carried Jews escaping the death camps. Nowhere in the world would accept them. They died. Our family loved Roosevelt. My Mother could never accept this failure by him. Roosevelt only held the normal antisemitism of his class and his times. How does this affect somebody? Watching this as as child. To see one's country indifferent?

I think there is a failure of attribution at work here, with us, and with people generally. A "fundamental attribution error" is "the tendency for people to place an undue emphasis on internal characteristics (personality) to explain someone else's behavior in a given situation rather than considering the situation's external factors."

From the attribution error perspective the Holocaust happened because the Jews were weak people, who did not defend themselves. From this perspective they meekly, like sheep, went to their deaths. As if, they almost consented *which is certainly not the case. They did not fight back. Attributing responsibility to internal, personal factors. Not on the situation itself. As if it was the responsibility of those murdered to have done something to have stopped. And should of. There are those that think this.

They are very wrong, just as we are when we blame ourselves and feel shame for things that happened to us. We have taken on the viewpoint of the aggressor towards us. We look upon and act upon ourselves as if dehumanized.

If we take responsibility for crimes against us, and use our own victimization against ourselves we as if consent to those acts that sought to deprive us of humanity, spirit and personality. We dehumanize ourselves further by perpetuating our victimization by our own hand. And we feel the shame and responsibility of both the victim and the perpetrator.

And on top of everything there are now the Holocaust deniers. It did not even happen they say. A playing for sympathy and attention. They say. A manipulation. Of course we can see the parallels in our families.

With the attribution error the aggressor is in effect, off of the hook. The situation in which those people were put by evil and horrible people is downplayed. What could be seen as collusion by our leaders, is downplayed too.

When we see ourselves as responsible for the situations in which we found ourselves we identify with the aggressor and take responsibility for things that were done to us. We feel the shame. We spare those that did hurtful and horrible things. We take on shame that is rightfully theirs.

Honor is a choice. It is a point of view. About oneself. Think about a duel. In the moment someone was insulted, they could have walked away. Chosen to minimize or capitulate. One decides honor.

Here is part of the definition of Honor in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Adherence to what is right...

It can also mean treating with respect and keeping a commitment.

If we are talking about betrayal of self, we betray ourselves when we do not act towards ourselves from honor. To honor oneself is to treat ourselves with respect and adhering to what is right for us. No matter what. To make paramount our commitments to ourselves, and to each other.

Nobody but us can decide whether we deserve honor. Or whether we deserve to be betrayed by our own hand. The jury is always out. There is evidence to prove either side. We decide.

 

[Copabanana]

And if we do something as simple as speaking the truth, they explode into tears, playing the victim. Claiming they don't understand. Roaring about how we've hurt them; about how good and innocent they are...

I cannot in my life remember once when my sister took responsibility for her part of anything.

Maybe they think everyone is like them, and can't quite figure us out, either.

My Mother and sister knew that I was not like them. My mother had each of our numbers. I think what my sister could not abide is that I would not play ball with her. If she could have gotten me into the game, she knew she could win. Your sister, too. Now, with my sister, I think there is no possible game left. Because with my mother gone, and the stuff distributed, all that is left is us. I think I was never all that interesting to her as a person. Just a means to an end.

I went to see my sister, once. And all she could tell everyone who would listen, whenever that visit came up again, is that she had told everyone I was "Minnesota married". There would be no going behind a bush, as is apparently appropriate in a Texas marriage.

What in the world does this mean? First, I am blushing. I find this wildly inappropriate under any circumstances. Even privately. Does it mean that she wanted to shame you by exposing you as discreet?

My G-d.

It reminds me of tickling somebody. Did you know that tickling is a form of torture?

So, I had to educate all of us about tickle torture. (Your sister knew what she was doing. Malice aforethought. She knew you would have no option besides laughing at yourself. She knew you would never embarrass the group by confronting her. She tortured you. Wow. Did your sister ever learn at her mother's knee.)

Tickle torture is the use of tickling to abuse, dominate, harass, humiliate, interrogate or even "prank" someone. The victim laughs even if he or she finds the experience unpleasant because the laughter is an innate reflex rather than social conditioning. Tickle torture can either be consensual or forced, depending on the circumstances.[1] If tickle torture is consensual, it is usually done as a part of some sort of sexual ritual or another mode of affection. Forced tickle torture can either be used for mild interrogation purposes or simply for a method of dominating someone. (Wikipedia.)

I have to mention here that my father would do this to me when I was a little girl. I would be on the bed with him. I feel nausea at the thought.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I figured an important piece out.

Flexibility.

It has to do with Serenity's post about flexibility vs rigidity and that in dysfunctional families, each member was forced into a designated role. There was not fluidity of motion between the roles. You are all who I say you are. Forever.

Key.

That is the key.

Those of us who have been abused, whether in our childhoods or whether we have been successfully abused as adults, are frozen in the designated role on pain of the abuser's rage. On pain of retribution and punishment, sure and swift and without mercy, for the audacity of being anyone but the role we have been required to take, to survive.

In service to them. In service to the ersatz grandiosity of broken people. In service to their twisted need to be king.

They did that to us; to their own children. To their own lovers and parents and sibs and to every friend they ever had.

Look for the patterns.

Widen your scope.

Look up.

The proof is our response to the question: Who do you think you are.

The immediate flash; that is the role.

That is who you will be, that is the internal identity you will fight against and rationalize reality to become, in service to their grandiosity. Until we realize that every "Who do you think you are." must be traced down and eradicated we cannot be flexible. We cannot ask questions. We already know; we've been told and told again. Our identities in our families of origin were hurt into us. Our abusers were not above torturing our sibs to break us.
Or, if we are adults, to blackmail us with the safety of our children or pets or finances. Anywhere there is a possibility for us to break from the rigidly assigned role, the abuser will strike.

You were right Copa, about my mother dragging my brother out of the bathroom to hurt me.

It did.

There was nothing our abusers would not do, nothing too low for them, as long as no one would know, as long as they could do what they did in secret, to feed their insane grandiosity.

Flexibility. We never question the feelings. We justify them.

Why?

***

TJ Jakes: He is on Oprah Super Soul now. Tune in if you can.

"We all want people to think well of us. Just because someone thinks we are an airplane, that does not make us an airplane. Stop giving your power away."

Feed yourself before you meet them.

Shame, worry, busyness ~ get them out of your mind. Keep your thoughts. Integrity is in the way we think about ourselves.

This is how the predator gets in.

Flattery.

Feed yourself before you meet them.

That is the vulnerability. That we do not believe in our goodness, in our brains, in our courage.

Just like in The Wizard of Oz.

We had it, in spades, all along or we never would have survived what we've been through in one piece.

We have sisters who did not. Not literal sisters. Sisters, brothers, animals beat into subservience so that they never recover because they were taught to lower their eyes, to never look up.

I have seen them, worked with them.

So have you.

For each of us, the common thread, the thing that most shames us, is arrogance.

Why.

We looked up. Spat right in their eye.

They never broke us. We are not broken now.

We are on the verge of rebirth. Rebirth into who we always were, Copa and Serenity.

Just like that dragon we were posting about.

Time.

Feed yourself first. That way? No one will be hurt.

Our abusers are not above using tears.


***

So, I have been working on this all morning. Unless I decide differently, I will leave the how-I-got-there in this post for anyone who might be helped by it. This is the gist of it.

So, Copa. You were posting about Donald Trump.

I think there is a failure of attribution at work here, with us, and with people generally. A "fundamental attribution error" is "the tendency for people to place an undue emphasis on internal characteristics (personality) to explain someone else's behavior in a given situation rather than considering the situation's external factors."

A question of ego, then? A quest for the illusion of control?

A kind of closed-circuit Narcissism?

Or were we required, by the unmanageable anxiety the conditions of our upbringings presented, to create fabrics of illusion surrounding and excusing all things for the sake of what should be but somehow, never comes to pass.

As I have done with that family dinner.

(There is no longer anyone at the table. No one is expected. Interestingly enough, the linen cloth is a bright, everchanging pattern of glowing, flashing gold. A living, moving thing; so beautiful.)

It was always white, snowy white, before.

I don't know what that means. It has something to do with the Frenchman; with the thing they have seen that is "Oh, yes. Very nice."

***

There is a feeling of examination, in the presence of a predator. That is why we cannot relax; a feeling of forever overreaching or proving oneself to be as we are, only better.

This is key.

We are not stupid. We understand we are being fooled. the question becomes: Who is the liar here.

The answer, for those raised as we were, or for those abused in their adulthoods, is us. Surely the abuser could not be who they seem to be. Surely, they love and admire us. "We must be the liar, here." says the bruised woman, says the husband whose wife is pulling out the threads of his integrity. Says the abused animal, licking the abusive master's hand.

The answer, for us, is to remain humble; is to require humility of ourselves. Do not engage in what or whether others think of us. Hold steady; hold true. {{{ TJ JAKES: FEED YOURSELF FIRST. YOU WILL BE IMMUNE TO THEM; TO FLATTERY.}}}

"Treat me fairly." (Donald Trump)

"Let me win. If I cannot win, let me be brave." (Timothy Shriver; a member of the Kennedy family. Head of Special Olympics.)

Back to how the predator, the negative mother within and the pale facsimile of her represented by predators in the world outside of us, works.

The answer to this vulnerability: Feed yourself first. In the way you think of yourself, feed yourself first. That is invulnerability to flattery. That is integrity of thought and action.

Predators are opportunists. Like fungi. Or like mold. They fasten on and feed on the unprotected parts of us; on the dead or deadened parts. That is how they get in.

We let them. We say thank you. We say, "Oh, do you really think so?"

Flattery.

Not from arroagance or pride. Flattery only works when we believe a different truth, a sadder, more hurtful truth, than the truth of who we are.

Human.

***

It's like they find the limit and push it, push us over the line and into performing, into becoming caricatures of who we really are. That is why we don't get it. The very things they destroy us with are the truths we hope to live by; the truths we require ourselves to live by.

That is the sting of it, the thing that sets our heads spinning.

"What would Cedar do."

The answer: The kindest thing I know. Had I not fallen into believing they found value in me, had I not let that matter (which is one way of describing trust), then I would not have fallen. "The kindest thing I know." Not because I am wonderful, which is the predator's mocking trap, but because the world is a cruel, hurtful thing and I will do what I can to not add to that.

It has nothing to do with them.

Abuse never does.

A question of self betrayal, then.

"No one can make a fool of you without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt, right?

This is true.

Copa, had you not, because of the purity of the reflections in your own heart, believed in acceptance and welcome from a sister, or from a peer ~ you would have seen the underpinnings of a cheap, ugly trick from the beginning ~ from the moment the emotional undercurrents went wacky. And you probably did. If you search your heart, Copa, you did know. But we distrust ourselves. Examining our own internal truths, we discredit what we know and proceed from our best intentions, believing them to be reflected in the heart of the predatory other.

And wondering what in the world is the matter with us, that we think the way we do about our own sister, our own mother, our own friend or professional peer.

Or therapist.

***

There is a flavor of ridicule, a flavor of not having met some mark one was not aware existed, and cannot see, and does not understand.

How many times have I posted that: I don't get the win.

There is always a push for more; always a feeling that the mark has not been met. The predator pushed harder; is frustrated with our slowness or lack of capacity compared to what they'd hoped, compared to what they'd been led, so they claim, to believe we were.

Who is the liar here.

We keep trying to prove we are who we are until the thing we are trying to prove isn't us. It's some other, higher standard forever unattainable. Which makes us seem ridiculous, even to ourselves, that someone would have made such an assumption. But we recognize the truth in it because we have tried so very hard to be better than we are for them.

We are at a disadvantage we don't understand the beginnings of.

That is the feel of the predator.

Regarding M, Copa.

The sister knew exactly what she was doing. Like the predatory mother, the sister is trading on an integrity she does not possess. The best thing, the thing kindness dictates, is welcome acceptance and joy at togetherness. That is the freaking bait, Copa. Had you and M both not anticipated the pleasure of the sisters coming together to assist the mother both loved, you would have been prepared. You would have dealt with the situation differently from its inception.

You did know, Copa.

But you chose to believe in your sister.

That is why I posted: I believe my sister, but I no longer believe in her.

You knew and you did not know. You knew, and did not believe it could be so. The sister was determined to do as she did as surely as my sister too is determined to see me with my face in the dirt and she never once realizes she makes an idiot of herself in the doing of the thing.

And the question becomes: Who is the liar, here. And our abusive upbringings, the rigidity of the role assigned to us by the grandiosity addicted mother who would be king, dictate that the liar is us.

Look up.

***

And we refuse to see them doing what they do. Just as is the case with our kids. Maternal. Protective. Surely there is another explanation-it-must-be-a-status-thing.

It must be something about my hair. About my man. About...something. The feelings will have been familiar; this was the flavor of your growing up, Copa.

The Child was there.

She is there now.

Protect her, Copa.

Not your sister.

"Treat me fairly."

"Let me win. If I cannot win, let me be brave."

You merit honor. Discretion. Respect for the essence, for the human that you are, warts and all.

"Treat me fairly."

And your sister?

Said NO.

And you refused to accept it then. You fought bravely, and you protected the mother who broke you in the first place because that was the right thing, the ethical choice.

But the mother did not live.

You cannot fight that battle for her, or for anyone. We all are mortal, here.

I think this is the guilty secret the Child within harbors. That the mother did not live. She was in your charge, by your choice and you think you failed her.

And that is what she wants you to know.

But Copa. We all are mortal, here.

The charge you took on was never that the mother would not complete her time as it was her time to do. The charge you took on was to protect her, was to fight for and care for her throughout, til the end, undeniably coming before ever you entered the picture, was come.

And you did.

***

We see it all around us, as the weak attack the strong with who they are not, with what they've done that was not, after all, perfect. And so, bring them down, Liliputlians triumphant.

I am thinking here Copa of your professional peer's statement that you had no boundaries.

This is obviously, patently untrue. It was insulting and it required agreement from the peer group. Global condemnation, public humiliation in that no one contradicted the predator and you could not, without having considered the question at some length yourself, stand up for yourself.

"Treat me fairly."

That is the best boundary line I have ever heard.

If I am not treated fairly, I will assess my situation and make changes. Not to destroy the predator, but simply to see them.

And reflect that back.

I see you.

I see you back.

Who is the liar, here.

***

I thought about that alot, last night. It is a question of not seeing reason to take offense for someone else's bad action or social gaffe or again, addiction to grandiosity.

Which I have been addicted to myself, so I know what it tastes like.

Lonely.

Humility is its antidote. We don't know. We do lose. We did our best and lost anyway. Understanding there is no shame in losing, understanding that we all make mistakes and we are neither exempt from them nor appropriate targets for contempt because of them, because of our mistakes. ("Let me win. If I cannot win, let me be brave.") The lust of grandiosity. Greed; covetousness; jealousy. Humility is the antidote to most things.

"Treat me fairly."

***

The other side of that personality dynamic is the awe/patronization continuum. Awe, agape awe sometimes, to entice and create a reality in which the other becomes prey to what the predator never believed in the first place but loudly proclaims: that you are awesome, agape awesome.

Flattery.

So I say...maybe I am pretty nice, or pretty whatever the thing is.

Or, pretty.

That is the trap of "pretty". There is always someone prettier than, or smarter than or wealthier than or more valuable to the predator than, and etc.

That is the trap, the set up. Especially painful for those of us raised to believe we are less than, forever less than, in some way we cannot name.

As was, in their addiction to grandiosity, the abuser's intention for us, along.

That is the thing we must unravel. As turns out, it seems to me, to be always the case when we are in thrall to a predator: abusers abuse because they abuse. Nothing personal; just who they are. It is less about them than it is about us. We are surprised by their disdain. We wonder what is the shortcoming in us, that these fine things we've envisioned turned ugly and sour and worthless.

Patronization, from the predator, when the initially pleasing response is withdrawn, when the predator portrays, as was her intention all along, that you have somehow deceived her, that you are somehow so much less than she initially believed.

That she expected so much more of you, and that her initial assessment of your potential, of your being and of the core of who you are was incorrect. That you fooled her and she sees it now.

Donald Trump: "Treat me fairly."

If he is attacked ~ and here is an interesting thing: The attackers invariably bounce back, fall off the "Teflon" part of Teflon Don because his moral compass is: "Treat me fairly."

Flattery is a set up, every time.

I would say that is the difference between myself and D H, too. Where I would say I want us all to get along, to be happy, to have dinner I will happily cook and bask in the reflected glory of a job well done, D H would say: Treat me fairly.

That is what we will say, too.

To the negative mother within, and to all takers from the world outside ourselves: "Treat me fairly."

I too think there is much to learn from Donald Trump.

"Treat me fairly" targets dishonesty. Flattery is dishonesty. This is what that first therapist said to me: "You are a manipulator. I would never trust the compliments of someone like that." (This is much the same thing the abusive professional peer said to you, Copa. The assumption being that you don't have that core thing necessary to your profession. When did you stop beating your wife. That first therapist, understanding that his words would be taken as condemnation by a woman who identifies herself through kindness or compassion and who is all too familiar with the tinny sound a compliment makes, hitting the floor accused me of being the very kind of person I see straight through. This threw me into questioning my perceptions about myself. I did not compliment him. Other than the things I was paying him to do for me, there was no relationship between us. I got that. He must not have. Maybe that is what they mean when they say "counter transference".

I am getting beyond myself, here.

But the gist of the thing is we go searching out the truth of the thing, trying to piece together who we are when the predator says he is disappointed we are not who we said we were. (He said we were whatever it was; we did not: Key.) And the predator sees now that we were never what he was the one who told us, through flattery spoken or unspoken what he thought we were when he was flattering us, when he was feeding in the mother wound he had been employed to heal.

Who is the liar here.

That is the taste of the predator.

Who is the criminal, here.

The criminal, newly wakened
wonder
at its crime

Whatever the bargaining point ~ family acceptance, to heal wounds in therapy, to come together to discuss mutual perception of reality ~ the predator works in the ways outlined above.

In any event, that is a good motto for us to adopt: "Treat me fairly."

We will add that then to: "Let me win. If I cannot win, let me be brave."

1) Treat me fairly.

2) Let me win. If I cannot win, let me be brave.

***

So, I woke up thinking about the choice of vengeance, and about interpreting ourselves in these new versions of reality we are creating as we pull the dust covers off atrophied belief systems set in place by grandiosity addicts willing to do anything, compromise any value, to have that need met.

That is how and why we were hurt as children: To service an adult's grandiosity. Of course it is correct to tear those internal structures they left us with apart.

That is what is serviced in any interaction with a predator: an addict's lust for grandiosity.

I know the taste of that one, myself. There is shame beneath it. Face the shame, face the cheap nothing grandiosity is...this is why humility is the teaching required in so many of our religious belief systems, and why "pride goeth before a fall". Grandiosity, feeding that feeling, is as addictive as any drug.

That is the predator's addiction: greed; grandiosity. A flailing, starving reality of threat, of never enough, of fear.

An empty cup; a dead stick.

So, we must require humility of ourselves.

We are given the gift ~ the Universal gift perhaps, as the tapestry is woven ~ of addicted children. We love them. We cannot turn away. Literally, we cannot. We live through the hellishness of enabling and into a watered down version of detachment theory. Gutted and bleeding, but we get there.

For us, it is not a celebration of freedom.

It is a cold, hard reality we can barely stomach.

We do it for them, for our people that we love.

And once we do even that for our kids, the machinations of our families of origins, and of all predators in our lives, become cheap, transparent things.

Just a matter of time, Copa. Serenity is ahead of us. That is where we are going, too.

Free of it, all of it.

Cedar