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In a totally new place and need perspective? Cedar? Anyone?
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 665524" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>Me, too.</p><p></p><p>First with daughter and then, like a nightmarish confirmation, with son.</p><p></p><p>Had I been stronger to begin with, had I been good enough mom, son may not have fallen.</p><p></p><p>Enabling may never have become the tangled mess it became.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Or, as is the case for me, <em>that it was the thing my mother hated, that thing that made her do what she did instead of loving me, that thing, that wrong, hated, left behind thing I was so sure no longer applied...had reached out and failed my child, and then, my children. Terminal. Some terminal defect in me that caused me to fail them. That had led me to miss some crucial something every other mom knows.</em></p><p></p><p><em>"Well, I guess you weren't such a good mother after all, were you."</em></p><p></p><p><em>How, in all the Hells that ever were, could my mother have known to say those exact words. Quick as that, she said them. I don't remember the rest of the conversation. I will never forget those words.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I fail. I lose. My child suffers.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>My child suffers! Because of that thing! A desperate quest begins, whose end is not visible until this very day.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p>One of the first indications of my healing: Damaged, not defective. I am damaged. Not defective. That makes all the difference in the world to our abilities to merit recovery.</p><p></p><p>Damaged; not defective.</p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I learned that in therapy with the lady therapist; with the ally of the poetry.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p>So, it shouldn't have been that difficult a thing for Therapy boy therapist to have accomplished that. I saw him for months. I healed, with her, within weeks. Healed enough to know: Damaged. Not defective.</p><p></p><p>Oh, roar.</p><p></p><p>Pray for their peace. Therein, find our own.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>D H does that. And I struggle through and I blame him and then...I succeed.</p><p></p><p>And I crow, like a rooster at dawn.</p><p></p><p>Because that is very true: Responsibility is our right, or adult right. Good things happen and bad things happen and no one, no one in all the world, knows which it will be. We are not exempt. We defy our mothers every single time we face even the small challenge of what to wear in the morning.</p><p></p><p>No one knows the courage it takes for us to take responsibility for an outcome we are not sure of. In our uncertainty, our mothers thunder in, making true thought impossible.</p><p></p><p>This is what happens to us, Copa and Serenity. That is the battle we engage in over every smallest choice. To drive. To choose the color of the dress. To remove a chest tube. (Which I have done, and very successfully, too.)</p><p></p><p>To start and I.V.</p><p></p><p>To know what to choose in a restaurant, for dinner.</p><p></p><p>Whether or not to answer the phone.</p><p></p><p>What to say, when we do.</p><p></p><p>All these things, we need to acknowledge how traumatically hard it is for us to do what others do so easily.</p><p></p><p>We are extraordinarily strong. We will come through this with a sense of certainty and ease we have never known; not in all of our lives.</p><p></p><p>Risk.</p><p></p><p>We will meet it alone <em>and without our mothers.</em> And we will be stronger, so much stronger for it. Isn't that something. Think of all the celebrities you know of who say: "Thanks, mom! couldn't have done it without you!"</p><p></p><p>Same for us.</p><p></p><p>Only in reverse.</p><p></p><p>F-you-mom-pray-for-their-peace-and therein, find our own.</p><p></p><p>It's really so unfair, what's happened to all of us.</p><p></p><p>How fortunate we have been, to have come together here as we have.</p><p></p><p>Thank you both.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think it will be like everything else we have learned here, Copa. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. And that changes everything. What informs us will change.</p><p></p><p>We will inform ourselves <em>but without their horrifyingly toxic influences ever again.</em></p><p></p><p>It will be life Copa and Serenity, good things and bad things. But we will not feel fraudulent in accepting the good, or like dead, guilty things, when the bad things come, as they do to us all.</p><p></p><p>After living our lives as we have? That will feel like life, rich and full and gloriously colorful. Like in that Disney film where you see the incredible beauty in the center of the red tulip. The camera draws back and BOOM.</p><p></p><p>A whole field of red tulips.</p><p></p><p>Mind blowing, and so heartbreakingly beautiful.</p><p></p><p>That will be our life, the good things and the bad things and us, fully present and without witch mom's sick insistence on the grandiosity addict reality she created in our heads, and in our bruised hearts, ever again.</p><p></p><p>We will love, and we will live from, our full hearts.</p><p></p><p>Imagine that.</p><p></p><p>It will be cool.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I read this somewhere: We are all lost. None of us knows. Those who pretend to are lying. Or worse, they believe they know and are therefore in a position to tell us (like my sister is, in the walk she and the Lord are enjoying), which is scarier still. Good things and bad things happen to us all. Had your psychiatrist lived the childhood you lived, he would be Basket Case Boy. This is true. We have been traumatized <em>by our own mothers</em>. How unbelievable is that. Who even knows what they did to us before we had words to remember it by. Now, your mom is passed on. How can you possibly review what occurred between the two of you as I can, hating her when I need to, being so disgusted by what she did when I need to. Loving her Copa, when I need to.</p><p></p><p>Knowing I could call.</p><p></p><p>How can you possibly come through this, Copa?</p><p></p><p><em>But you are. And you are doing beautifully.</em></p><p></p><p>And I will say it again, even though I know I say it all the time. Soldiers brainwashed and traumatized on the field of battle knew why what was happening to them happened; they knew that if only they could live through it, they would go home. They knew home meant safety and sanity and no more pain and like, clean sheets and really good dinners. And their moms; their moms wold be there. Family around them, so they would never have to be that frightened and victimized and alone, ever again. That is what PTSD is. Boom! They are back in that place to the point they cannot function in this time, even with their good people around them, loving and promising they are safe, now.</p><p></p><p>That it was bad, but it's over.</p><p></p><p>You are home now, with us.</p><p></p><p><em>We were home.</em></p><p></p><p><em>And worse yet, worse even than that...our families were there, too.</em></p><p></p><p><em>Knives flashing.</em></p><p></p><p><em>Mother on a rampage; men in her room. Little boys, screaming, their faces covered with s***.</em></p><p></p><p>Pray for their peace; and therein, find our own.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>What was the reason you chose to stop, Copa?</p><p></p><p>Which are the questions you will ask, knowing this is your last session. Rather than wait for him to tell you what you need...which are the questions you want answers to? Take full advantage of the money you are paying him to know these answers, Copa. A diagnosis, a recitation of why you need him, or someone like him, or whether you should taper or double up on sessions ~ those things will be his interests.</p><p></p><p>Which are the questions he knows the answers to?</p><p></p><p>Your money. Your time that you gave him because he promised he could help you understand.</p><p></p><p>What do you want him to answer?</p><p></p><p>We will all discuss him and what he says if you like.</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p>Right here. We are right here. </p><p></p><p>Maybe, you could ask Serenity's therapist whether there is a woman near you that she trusts.</p><p></p><p>I really like Serenity's therapist.</p><p></p><p>And I would not have recovered to the point that I did from the mess that first therapist left, had I not seen the Ally. Remember that poetry?</p><p></p><p><em>"...at the behest of the ally, gone before them</em></p><p><em>on the back of a white and a spirited mare."</em></p><p></p><p></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p>A clarification: When I posted what my mother said. (Looks like....) I should have clarified that. I did not mean for you to read it and at some level, take it into your heart. </p><p></p><p>My mother is such a sick, nasty little wiener.</p><p></p><p>Masquerading behind Universal Mom.</p><p></p><p>Typical.</p><p></p><p>Typical of her, to have done that. What did she do that I do not have words to remember, to pin down and see it.</p><p></p><p><em>Pray for peace for them and therein, find our own.</em></p><p></p><p>roar</p><p></p><p>Okay then.</p><p></p><p>On we go.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Oh, we are.</p><p></p><p>And whatever it looks like when we are through it, it will be so much better than where we have lived our lives from.</p><p></p><p>We really have been outrageously courageous. Just to drive a car, for us. </p><p></p><p>Whew.</p><p></p><p>But we did it; we do it and things like it, every day, every minute, of our lives.</p><p></p><p>Our beautiful, precious being alive.</p><p></p><p>A gift we were given; out of all the babies who might have been born...we were the lucky, lucky ones.</p><p></p><p>And now, after all of it, we are opening to the wonder of what is, of what it really is, just to be here, at all.</p><p></p><p>How lucky we are.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 665524, member: 17461"] Me, too. First with daughter and then, like a nightmarish confirmation, with son. Had I been stronger to begin with, had I been good enough mom, son may not have fallen. Enabling may never have become the tangled mess it became. Or, as is the case for me, [I]that it was the thing my mother hated, that thing that made her do what she did instead of loving me, that thing, that wrong, hated, left behind thing I was so sure no longer applied...had reached out and failed my child, and then, my children. Terminal. Some terminal defect in me that caused me to fail them. That had led me to miss some crucial something every other mom knows.[/I] [I]"Well, I guess you weren't such a good mother after all, were you."[/I] [I]How, in all the Hells that ever were, could my mother have known to say those exact words. Quick as that, she said them. I don't remember the rest of the conversation. I will never forget those words. I fail. I lose. My child suffers. My child suffers! Because of that thing! A desperate quest begins, whose end is not visible until this very day. [/I] One of the first indications of my healing: Damaged, not defective. I am damaged. Not defective. That makes all the difference in the world to our abilities to merit recovery. Damaged; not defective. [I] I learned that in therapy with the lady therapist; with the ally of the poetry. [/I] So, it shouldn't have been that difficult a thing for Therapy boy therapist to have accomplished that. I saw him for months. I healed, with her, within weeks. Healed enough to know: Damaged. Not defective. Oh, roar. Pray for their peace. Therein, find our own. D H does that. And I struggle through and I blame him and then...I succeed. And I crow, like a rooster at dawn. Because that is very true: Responsibility is our right, or adult right. Good things happen and bad things happen and no one, no one in all the world, knows which it will be. We are not exempt. We defy our mothers every single time we face even the small challenge of what to wear in the morning. No one knows the courage it takes for us to take responsibility for an outcome we are not sure of. In our uncertainty, our mothers thunder in, making true thought impossible. This is what happens to us, Copa and Serenity. That is the battle we engage in over every smallest choice. To drive. To choose the color of the dress. To remove a chest tube. (Which I have done, and very successfully, too.) To start and I.V. To know what to choose in a restaurant, for dinner. Whether or not to answer the phone. What to say, when we do. All these things, we need to acknowledge how traumatically hard it is for us to do what others do so easily. We are extraordinarily strong. We will come through this with a sense of certainty and ease we have never known; not in all of our lives. Risk. We will meet it alone [I]and without our mothers.[/I] And we will be stronger, so much stronger for it. Isn't that something. Think of all the celebrities you know of who say: "Thanks, mom! couldn't have done it without you!" Same for us. Only in reverse. F-you-mom-pray-for-their-peace-and therein, find our own. It's really so unfair, what's happened to all of us. How fortunate we have been, to have come together here as we have. Thank you both. I think it will be like everything else we have learned here, Copa. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. And that changes everything. What informs us will change. We will inform ourselves [I]but without their horrifyingly toxic influences ever again.[/I] It will be life Copa and Serenity, good things and bad things. But we will not feel fraudulent in accepting the good, or like dead, guilty things, when the bad things come, as they do to us all. After living our lives as we have? That will feel like life, rich and full and gloriously colorful. Like in that Disney film where you see the incredible beauty in the center of the red tulip. The camera draws back and BOOM. A whole field of red tulips. Mind blowing, and so heartbreakingly beautiful. That will be our life, the good things and the bad things and us, fully present and without witch mom's sick insistence on the grandiosity addict reality she created in our heads, and in our bruised hearts, ever again. We will love, and we will live from, our full hearts. Imagine that. It will be cool. I read this somewhere: We are all lost. None of us knows. Those who pretend to are lying. Or worse, they believe they know and are therefore in a position to tell us (like my sister is, in the walk she and the Lord are enjoying), which is scarier still. Good things and bad things happen to us all. Had your psychiatrist lived the childhood you lived, he would be Basket Case Boy. This is true. We have been traumatized [I]by our own mothers[/I]. How unbelievable is that. Who even knows what they did to us before we had words to remember it by. Now, your mom is passed on. How can you possibly review what occurred between the two of you as I can, hating her when I need to, being so disgusted by what she did when I need to. Loving her Copa, when I need to. Knowing I could call. How can you possibly come through this, Copa? [I]But you are. And you are doing beautifully.[/I] And I will say it again, even though I know I say it all the time. Soldiers brainwashed and traumatized on the field of battle knew why what was happening to them happened; they knew that if only they could live through it, they would go home. They knew home meant safety and sanity and no more pain and like, clean sheets and really good dinners. And their moms; their moms wold be there. Family around them, so they would never have to be that frightened and victimized and alone, ever again. That is what PTSD is. Boom! They are back in that place to the point they cannot function in this time, even with their good people around them, loving and promising they are safe, now. That it was bad, but it's over. You are home now, with us. [I]We were home.[/I] [I]And worse yet, worse even than that...our families were there, too.[/I] [I]Knives flashing.[/I] [I]Mother on a rampage; men in her room. Little boys, screaming, their faces covered with s***.[/I] Pray for their peace; and therein, find our own. *** What was the reason you chose to stop, Copa? Which are the questions you will ask, knowing this is your last session. Rather than wait for him to tell you what you need...which are the questions you want answers to? Take full advantage of the money you are paying him to know these answers, Copa. A diagnosis, a recitation of why you need him, or someone like him, or whether you should taper or double up on sessions ~ those things will be his interests. Which are the questions he knows the answers to? Your money. Your time that you gave him because he promised he could help you understand. What do you want him to answer? We will all discuss him and what he says if you like. :O) Right here. We are right here. Maybe, you could ask Serenity's therapist whether there is a woman near you that she trusts. I really like Serenity's therapist. And I would not have recovered to the point that I did from the mess that first therapist left, had I not seen the Ally. Remember that poetry? [I]"...at the behest of the ally, gone before them on the back of a white and a spirited mare."[/I] [I] [/I] A clarification: When I posted what my mother said. (Looks like....) I should have clarified that. I did not mean for you to read it and at some level, take it into your heart. My mother is such a sick, nasty little wiener. Masquerading behind Universal Mom. Typical. Typical of her, to have done that. What did she do that I do not have words to remember, to pin down and see it. [I]Pray for peace for them and therein, find our own.[/I] roar Okay then. On we go. Oh, we are. And whatever it looks like when we are through it, it will be so much better than where we have lived our lives from. We really have been outrageously courageous. Just to drive a car, for us. Whew. But we did it; we do it and things like it, every day, every minute, of our lives. Our beautiful, precious being alive. A gift we were given; out of all the babies who might have been born...we were the lucky, lucky ones. And now, after all of it, we are opening to the wonder of what is, of what it really is, just to be here, at all. How lucky we are. Cedar [/QUOTE]
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