Sites on Bullying and Emotional Abuse

[Scent of Cedar *]

We had addressed bullying, but not emotional abuse. We have talked about emotional flashback, but not emotional abuse. Those are the things we cannot see or hear, but feel deeply.

The last link is to a forum similar to ours in format.

http://www.bullyonline.org/related/family.htm

https://outofthefog.net/CommonBehaviors/EmotionalAbuse.html

http://outofthefog.net/forum/

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Cedar, I like your new avatar.

 

[BusynMember]

It's worse than being kicked around in the long run. You get validation if you are physically abused and people see it. Not the emotional abuse stuff.

"Oh, that's Mom being Mom. We all know how she is" (wink)

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

http://snickers.typepad.com/estrangements/guidelines-for-being-estranged.html

Hey, you two!

:O)

I found this one on estrangement.

These are the things I learned this afternoon.

Estrangement from family can be described as "psychologically homeless".

I thought that was an interesting take on it.

"I simply could not have a relationship with people who so consistently trampled on my boundaries."

One of the blogs I visited: We will feel better when we reach the point that we see what we are doing, or what others are doing to us, as alright because we will make it in spite of the reasons for the estrangement.

Another person: Pray for their peace, daily. In doing so, we will be given peace around these issues, as well.

In recovering from emotional abuse:

1) Hold yourself in high esteem; honor yourself.

a.) Does this honor me? (This behavior from others and more importantly, our behavior, either toward them in our thinking or actions, or toward ourselves.

b.) Am I honoring the truth as I know it to be in what I say or do regarding the estrangement? (I minimize actions and behaviors I should take seriously.) I will work on honoring myself. Today especially, I have been worrying about the things I've posted ~ wondering who that makes me, to think like this. It is hard for me not to slip back into believing the shortcomings here are mine. When I see the events listed one after another, that helps me but then, I am bac to "Who thinks like this?!?"

So, honor, again.

2) Re-evaluate Relationships

That is what we are doing here. Thank you for witnessing for me.

3) Ask for help.

This is where D H says: "She hung up on you."

The other thing we need to do is what Serenity has already begun. We need to got out into the world and create things. New interests, new routines, new people. Over time, we will grow into our larger lives.

Here is a funny joke: How many narcissists does it take to change a lightbulb?

One. But it takes a really long time because the narcissist will wait for the world revolve around him rather than unscrewing it himself.



Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Estrangement from family can be described as "psychologically homeless".

For a long, long time I felt haunted because I lacked a sense of place.

Estrangement from family can be described as "psychologically homeless".

I longed for my old neighborhood (where I lived until 13) and yearned for a sense of connection to place that I felt I had when young.

What I have realized is yes, I did have a connection to neighborhood, because that was the most positive thing I had.

Never once did I link the sense of homelessness to lack of family. But of course that makes sense.

We need to got out into the world and create things. New interests, new routines, new people. Over time, we will grow into our larger lives.

II guess this is the way to combat it. We better get going, Cedar. Thank you.

 

[BusynMember]

I didnt really feel emotionally homeless. I did feel an empty void but I clearly recall that it was not just becsuse of foo. It was becsuse of my peer ridicule too. As for sense of community...I hated my childhood neighborhood on every level so I felt I belonged better in my new neighborhoods. To this day I have no use for materialism and would not live in an area like my old one even if I won the lottery. Id probably build a large solitary house in the country and hire alice from the brady bunch to take care of it:
Id make sure my kids had their fair share.
The void was something I talked about with my illinois soulmate because she felt one too.
Both of us have good lives now and no void. Mine started when my husband met me and made me feel worthwhile and helped me correctly see my foo. So do my kids.
Allowing ourselves to let healthy people love us and loving healthy people back is so different from loving people who think badly of us. Some abused people get frightened to love an emotionslly available partner. That makes it hatd to heal. My ex just continued the treatment of my foo.
Im relieved that this horrible void is gone. I know who I am without my foo trying to tell me im not who I know I am, if that makes sense.
I think of myself as an individual who created my own identity. I feel low connection to my dna roots.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

did feel an empty void but I clearly recall that it was not just becsuse of foo. It was becsuse of my peer ridicule too. As for sense of community...I hated my childhood neighborhood on every level so I felt I belonged better in my new neighborhoods.

I am wondering here, about peer ridicule and its effects on those of us already so damaged. Think of the difference the Kennedy family made in the way we see challenged kids. Think of the differences in how they must feel about themselves today, having been exposed to ~ I don't know. To having been seen as humans, whatever their challenges. Not as defective or sub-human, but as humans with challenges and the courage and chutzpa to do their personal best.

The question becomes whether we are strong enough to question the rightness in having been targeted. Or, do we find validation in what we'd already been taught in our so weirdly twisted families of origin when we are targeted.

I was accosted once by a nasty little fat man at the beach with my granddaughters, one time. He said the most obscene things to me. I was so ashamed. I was almost too ashamed to call the police. I did, but I was just sick about it.

D H could not understand why I would feel shame because of something someone so clearly a jerk had said.

I felt targeted.

I was on the site for son in those years, and I posted about it, here. And no one could understand why I felt so devastated by something some other person did that was so patently, inexcusably wrong.

And I still think about it sometimes, and about what I could have said. "What do you mean." That's what I should have said.

Instead, I didn't say anything at all.

He went back to his picnic table, where he was sitting with his friends.

I made sure nothing inappropriate was sticking out. We stayed for a little while longer. When I got home, we called the police. They knew who he was.

Not the first time for him, then.

But I still feel sick, when I think about it.

So, I am wondering about those kinds of things, this morning.

The hurt in all of it is only possible because the mother wound, the shame of it, already exists. Whatever they say, we hear mom, and accept that they've found us out. That they are correct.

It is the same dynamic at work with the therapists, Copa.

I swear, even though intellectually I knew a therapist accusing a patient, not of manipulative behaviors, but of being a manipulator was sort of ridiculous on the face of it. (If we were not already acknowledging that something was the matter and we needed help with it, why would we be putting ourselves into therapy?)

Hello.

If being manipulative was what happened to my kids, I wanted to know so I took it in as the condemnation it was meant to be. But...it had nothing to do with my kids. It had something to do with my presence. With my ability, intentional or not, to "make" him think of me in inappropriate ways.

But I was so ashamed of that happening.

Too.

I was so ashamed of that happening, too.

So...shame.

Hello, mom.

Hello, walking with the Lord sister.

Hello, betraying little worm of a brother.

So when you look back Serenity, and remember those painful episodes could it be that, like me, you were not so much seen as different, whatever your differences were, as that you remember the shame of it because you had already been so thoroughly shamed by your mother, and by the way she had set up your family of origin to function?

Maybe it doesn't matter now. It matters very much to me, to go back to the times I was so ashamed. To realize that when I feel shame, it is an atomic bomb explosion compared to the embarrassment another person feels and labels shame and feels belongs to them.

D H is very different than me, regarding shame.

Here is a story about Baklava grand. She was in first grade. One of the other kids called her a bad word having to do with her race. And she go so mad! And she was telling us about it and she said: "And I told him I was not such and so. I am a one half of a Native American Indian, and you can shut up!"

So, that is the difference.

I remember, to this day, a boy putting strips of red construction paper on his head and pretending to be me. And I felt so ashamed of my hair being messy.

Naturally curly hair. Red. Remember?

And I still remember it to this day. For heaven's sake, he was probably trying to flirt with me.

So, there is a difference, too.

Cedar

Another time? When I was in first grade? The little boy behind me whispered he wanted to run away with me to Timbuckto.

And I felt so ashamed about that, too.

I still remember wondering what he meant.

And I am freaking sixty three years old.

What a cute little thing I must have been.

Now that I think of it, I mean.

Ahem.

 

[Copabanana]

Allowing ourselves to let healthy people love us and loving healthy people back is so different from loving people who think badly of us. Some abused people get frightened to love an emotionslly available partner.

This was me.

husband met me and made me feel worthwhile and helped me correctly see my foo

M encourages me to love my mother and sister and to feel loved by them in the way they could. And then to let it go.

He does not understand revisiting the past.

remember the shame of it because you had already been so thoroughly shamed by your mother, and by the way she had set up your family of origin to function?

I think this is what operates in me.

he little boy behind me whispered he wanted to run away with me to Timbuckto.

How sweet. You're dating yourself, Cedar. Remember nobody even remembers who Grace Kelly was.

I remember, to this day, a boy putting strips of red construction paper on his head and pretending to be me. And I felt so ashamed of my hair being messy.

He was flirting. In primary school they do not know how to flirt in any other way.

It happened to me too, and I reacted as did you. Shame. Still, too ashamed to write it.

What a cute little thing I must have been.

Yes. How sad to see everything through a lens of shame and responsibility.

"And I told him I was not such and so. I am a one half of a Native American Indian, and you can shut up!"

How absolutely correct.

 

[BusynMember]

I dont know how to quote with my tablet so I hope you two understand the parts of your posts I am referring to.

I felt fear more and embarassment when I was at school. Those are the two feelings that. I remember. It wasnt one kid only and just sometimes. It was most of the class, lead by some bully, and it seemed like they wanted to torment me all the time. The teachers did not address it. My mother stormed to school when brother got picked on but I cant remember her going for me.

To this day if I see one kid being say beaten up by two I pull over and stop it. I remember driving one little boy home after I chased away the thug kids. He wascrying so hard he could barely breathe. I also never really trusted school workers or teachers. I fought hard for my kids with an advocate and got what they needed to succeed. No school administrator intimidated me as an adult. When jumper and sonic needed an iep, which they dont like to do because it is more work for them (a teacher friend at jumpers school explained this to me off the recird) both of my kids did get the maximum help they needed.

Im glad I was angry enough and non trusting enough to fight their weak solutions. Jumper is in her second year of criminal law. She did not learn to read until third grade. She had a reading disorder. Sonic is living a normal life today and is hardly the vegetable some psychologist said he would be. Many parents give up trying to get schools to help their kids, but that was not going to happen with my kids. And it didny. And both were treated well by their peers. Jumper was very popular, partly because she is both atletic and kind to all. The kids voted her homecoming queen.

I bdo not feel however (back to me) that the peer teasing still affyects me. I actuallyfound closure with that.

When I went to high school, it was not just kids from our little town nor were mist JEwish. I found that the kids from the other towns didnt like the stuck up kids from my town anymore than I did. So I had friends and allies.

I also went from being homely and awkward to pretty. I had been so skinny as a child that igot teased for it. Now I was a very nice 96 pounds, perfect for being so tiny. Boys liked me which was not true of most of the now mostly plump girls from my elementary and junior high days. Thetr boyfriends were the same boring ones (my opinion) of kindergarten and up. Nobody dared tease me I had a new friend who taught how to verbally shame them in front of their friends and of course I already knew from my mother!

The point of bullying is to embarass the other person, not yourself. After I talked back, shicking them, and pointing out their own phyical issues, causing their friends to giggle, they left me alone. I felt validated that id gotten them to go silent after all those years of bullying. So I feel I had closure there. But I never forgot how the teachers allowed it and I never did respect teachers, although I know that today they could not ignore bullying nor pull kids in front of class to say "this is an idiot!"

Yes, I had a mentally ill fifth grade teacher who did things like that to me and a few selgect others.

I did not look different then and nobody was identified then as being special needs in any way you were just lazy and stupid if you struggled in school. I heard both words from teachers. My mom, DIctator of the house, gave up on me and did not think I was too bright.

That is where lingering school abuse took me. I stopped caring about the kids because in my mind id silenced them regarding mysekf.

It was the teachers who were allowed to be mean to kids whom I remember. They were the adults who should have stepped in and should have had the brains and empathy not to dekiberately belittle young dtudents in front of her leering peers.

College doesnt make one smart or nice.

Im glad teachers cant do this today or im sure some still would.

by the way, although there is much talk against bullying .these days it still continues. I really dont know how we as people can stop it from happening.

Even police involvement at times has not stopped it.

Im grateful none of my kids were bullied in school. It makes it hard to focus on learning.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Those kids sound miserable. Good for you that you learned to fight back! I love it that you fought for your kids Serenity, and that they're doing so well.

The point of bullying is to embarass the other person, not yourself. After I talked back, shicking them, and pointing out their own phyical issues, causing their friends to giggle, they left me alone. I felt validated that id gotten them to go silent after all those years of bullying. So I feel I had closure there. But I never forgot how the teachers allowed it and I never did resoect teachers, although I know that today they could not ignore bullying nor pull kids in front of class to say "this is an idiot!"

Yes, I had a mentally ill fifth grade teacher who did things like that to me and a few selgect others.

That woman would be fired, today.

Fifth grade is such a tender age. What a terrible woman she must have been.

How awful for you, Serenity.

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

Thanks, Cedar, She had just lost her husband to cancer and came into class crying a lot, which scared all of us, She liked to target ME in particular, and alo called me up to show everyone how badly I bit my nails and to mock them and once she threw my desk over to the side because it was messy and again taunted me and made me stay in for recess, Funnily enough, I did have a few friends that year so it was a horrible, nightmarish year, I did have some friends, although not a lot of them and they would throw me under the bus in order to not be teased themselves,

But I got teased no matter who the teacher was, My fourth grade teacher loved math and I was horrible at math and she also made an example out of me calling me that "S" word and that year I had NO friends with the entire class calling me stupid, A few teachers didn't contribute, other than allow the bullying to take place right under their noses,

In eighth grade I suffered my very first clinical and deep depression and I had no fight in me at all, Until that year, I'd get feisty once in a while, but that year I was a mess, I daydreamed on purppose, which is something I looked up and it is called maladaptive daydreaming, I was terrified of my classmates, That may have been my worst year, Boys were starting to like girls and it was a roar and a half to say I was somebody's girlfriend,

One of the biggest bullies in my grade was a very overweight kid who somehow managed to be popular, His name was Jason, I loved it when the horror movies came out using th e name Jason, One day he and his cronies came up to me and surrounded my desk, I don't know why, but I do remember the teacher was not there yet or had gone out for something, He wouldn't have stopped it anyway, But this fat boy, who looked soft as dough kept making kissing sounds and asked me to be his girlfriend while the kids behind him laughed and laughed, And he kept at it, not getting tired of the game and giving up, I dropped my head, but inside my mind I was thinking, "I should say 'Sorry, Jason, but you're too FAT, That would stop him,'" And it would have given me new respect from his "friends" many who were as scared of him as me and just went along with him so that they would not be his target I thought it and thought it, but I never said it,

I never got a chance to say it because in high school he left me alone, but I was ready if he ever came near me and dared to say it again, By then I had my snarky friend and had learned that the best way to deal with bullies is not to walk away from them where you can't (like in a school where both of you attend), but to shame them back so that they never go near you again, I was pretty by then, He was still fat, I never had to bother with him again, but in a way I wish I had said it that one time in eighth grade, It is one of the few memories I have in school that are explicit,

Really, I was so done with being called names by my family and peers, I was ready to give it back to my peers, but thankfully I never had to and did not seek it out,

I learned that words hurt like the stab of a knife, If only I had applied this to FOO when I'd learned to never befriend a bully,,,I would have been freed as a teenager and my life would have been way different, Instead I kept playing and kept getting bullied and kept feeling hurt and angry and kept being defeated, A fool's game,

I lost but I won,

I still know that, at least until last year, which was th e last time I knew what either of them were doing, I had the most love of anybody in the family who is still alive, And I don't call them names and they don't call me names,

How odd that at first I thought it was unusual that there was no namecalling with second husband,

He doesn't make me feel so badly that I cry,

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

One day he and his cronies came up to me and surrounded my desk, I don't know why, but I do remember the teacher was not there yet or had gone out for something, He wouldn't have stopped it anyway, But this fat boy, who looked soft as dough kept making kissing sounds and asked me to be his girlfriend while the kids behind him laughed and laughed, And he kept at it, not getting tired of the game and giving up, I dropped my head, but inside my mind I was thinking, "I should say'Sorry, Jason, but you're too FAT,

Jason was disgusting.

How scary to be circled like that.

Those are the kinds of men who grow up to do really bad things to women. Like that nasty fat young man at the beach. I was a grandmother when that happened and I still remember that others may have heard him and just didn't want to get involved. I wish I'd shouted that very thing. But, like you did too Serenity (although at least you were just a little girl) I internalized the shame of it.

There too, I was sure I must have done something, or looked a certain way, or behaved a certain way, for him to have done that.

Again, it's that responsibility for the badness that happens. Whatever it is, we think we are responsible somehow because that is what our families of origin taught us.

It keeps circling back to that for me, this morning.

The role shame has played in my life in ways I had not recognized before this morning. I kept seeing it as attached to specific incidents, but it looks to me now like that core of shame is what everything filters through.

It's like the story I told about the Mongolian peasant.

Only, our Mongolian peasant is ~ well, remember those old Japanese movies about prehistoric monsters? Like that. Or those horror movies about bugs. Overrun by something impossible to control; by something we (in the movies, the human race but for us, we, personally) are responsible for.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

A blogsite based on John Bradshaw's Healing the Shame That Binds You.

http://www.strugglinghero.com/healing-toxic-shame-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-part-two/

One of the six exercises described has to do with rewriting the episodes of toxic shaming that haunt us. On the theory that we retruamatize each time we relive it because the brain does not know it is not happening in the present, so we can rewrite it, replacing the shaming even with a new and healthier perspective.

So, I will post some sites like that for us today.

***

Okay. So, back to self-betrayal.

That's why it happens. That's how it can feel right to us to betray ourselves. That core of responsibility and the shame response that is the only way we know how to address anything that happens to us. That is why we are afraid to relax around our FOO.

Because at some level we knew, all along.

Our mothers, the adults in our lives, should have been teaching us that good and bad things happen to everyone. That our job is to do better the next time; to learn from whatever it was this time and let go of it.

They should have been helping us with those things, helping us to understand that sometimes, people do really rotten things, but that what they do has nothing to do with who we are, or with what we wore that day, or with what we did or did not say. But they didn't.

Why not, I wonder?

Are they universally bad people, or did they just not know. Did we not go to them with these shaming things that happened to us?

I don't know. But as regards the way I have been thinking about FOO since we were all talking about Christmas memories...I am truly, really not responsible for what is happening in FOO now.

They really are fully capable adults, making choices they are aware of.

It isn't that they don't know. It isn't that they can't see the awfulness of condemning your own sister because you "walk with the Lord".

I am coming around to your point of view on this one too, Serenity. They do know. They are choosing. Every choice has to do with targeting me. I can stop asking why, because I am not the one who creates these FOO messes.

Why doesn't matter. I am never going to fix it.

Just like D H says: "I was here. I saw. I know what you were thinking going in, and I saw what transpired. And it was crazy stuff. I don't know why they do what they do. I don't care. I am glad they are not here, doing it now."

And finally: "Cedar. Your mother hung up on you. You did not hang up on her."

In essence: You not only did not cause what is now, but you do not have the power to change it.

He was right, all along.

Huh.

It's that core shame/responsibility thing. That is why I feel badly. That is why I think I should fight for something that was so outrageously wrong, right from the beginning.

I keep thinking I "should" be able to do something about it.

About everything in my whole life, all of my life.

Well, who knew.

Huh.

 

[Copabanana]

Again, it's that responsibility for the badness that happens. Whatever it is, we think we are responsible somehow because that is what our families of origin taught us.

This is what did me in with my Mom's dying. Imagine feeling I was responsible for every bit of anger and suffering she felt, every decision, right or wrong....the conduct of every other person along the way....including the behavior of my mother. Which was not universally positive. But always defiant and brave.

 

[Copabanana]

so we can rewrite it, replacing the shaming even with a new and healthier perspective.

Cedar, maybe we can incorporate this practice into some of our posts, highlighting the newer, powerful stance in italics. Like when we identify an event that shames us, shamed us, actually create and compose a new powerful resolution. If I may ask, could you help us by modeling one, possibly on the FOO thread?

Cedar, thank you for the resources.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Cedar, maybe we can incorporate this practice into some of posts, highlighting the newer, powerful stance in italics.

Yes.

I love it that we can do this here. We can each add the good things we have forgotten to address for ourselves to the posts of the others.

Let us each do that, and post what we have when we have it.

What an excellent way to begin for us, Copa!

I will go find something...I will begin with the trauma of my brother. When he was little and I felt responsible for the pain in his eyes. I will address the breakage there after reviewing that last post on Healing from Toxic Shame. The one that discusses what it is the child comes to see as herself (or himself) through his or her abuser's eyes.

I will start there.

Cedar

Thank you, Copa.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

M encourages me to love my mother and sister and to feel loved by them in the way they could. And then to let it go.

He does not understand revisiting the past.

That is what D H used to tell me, back when we were newly married and then, when we had our first baby and I didn't want to see them. He could not see, anymore than I could, what it did to me, to that young, brand new mother I was, to welcome my mother into our lives when I needed a mother. I am only safe from her when I need nothing from her.

And even hearing about some of the things that she does, back when she was telling me about the lady friend who drives, or the man who wanted to marry her, or the tire rimming machine and my brother ~ those things were like, traumatic by proxy.

It would have been better for all of us for me not to have been vulnerable in those ways.

And you know what? Even when I was about as grown up as I was ever going to get...which would be right up to this minute, as we all are still changing ~ this time, thank Heaven, for the better ~ I still was never sure if somehow, my mom was correct in these behaviors. Like, I must be missing something. That is why the eye-rolling incident that both mom and sister described, of the whole family there, all of them rolling their eyes at the woman's predicament in being tired from the drive and having nowhere to go because although she had been invited to spend the night at my sister's before, there was no room there for her now...that must be why that one sticks with me.

Eye rolling is a wrong thing, whatever the situation.

It fixes nothing. It's intent is to ridicule. How hurtful.

And that's what they did.

So, that was wrong. For sure, that was a thing that was a wrong thing they did.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Our mothers, the adults in our lives, should have been teaching us that good and bad things happen to everyone. That our job is to do better the next time; to learn from whatever it was this time and let go of it.

My Mother in her old age, could have said this, about a situation in which she did not participate.

In her youth, I think she was so completely underwater, that all she could do was emote. She resented all of the work. She resented a womanizing husband. I think she hated her life. She just reacted.

When she was an actor in the scenario, she lacked any perspective. She always chose for herself. Punishing. Blaming. No sense whatsoever of her responsibility to be educating, as a moral force, to guide.

They should have been helping us with those things, helping us to understand that sometimes, people do really rotten things, but that what they do has nothing to do with who we are, or with what we wore that day, or with what we did or did not say. But they didn't.

Why not, I wonder?

I believe there was no empathy for us. All of their emotional energy was devoted to themselves. In some ways, I believe they felt us to be enemies.

Are they universally bad people, or did they just not know. Did we not go to them with these shaming things that happened to us?

No. I do not believe they are universally bad people. In the case of my own mother, I do think she knew, but could not or chose not to act from it.

I believe my mother was a lot like me in the sense that when I would go to her...with pain or shame...she felt responsible...guilty...blamed. And reacted with shaming, blaming.

Like the hot potato. Wanting to do anything to get it out of her own hands.

They do know. They are choosing. Every choice has to do with targeting me. I can stop asking why, because I am not the one who creates these FOO messes.

I believe that if you read Family Systems Theory you might find a perspective through which to understand. I do not thing it is "you" Cedar. I think it is the position you have occupied in the family, and the rules by which the family operates...based upon your mother's conduct. And, historically, your father's.

In essence: You not only did not cause what is now, but you do not have the power to change it.

Yes. Your sense of responsibility and sense of obligation to fix things stems from the perverted perspective of the child who is responsible for everything. EVERYTHING. Every pain, whim, reaction, stress of the mother. You feel you caused. And that is what you are working to change.

It's that core shame/responsibility thing. That is why I feel badly. That is why I think I should fight for something that was so outrageously wrong, right from the beginning.

Yes.

But the thing to fight for is your self. As long as you fight on the terrain of the family, you are not on solid ground. You cannot fight in relation to them, because any gain would be illusory. That is what D H has been trying to tell you.

As long as anything is in relation to them....it is ephemeral....not a gain at all. You give them power.

I keep thinking I "should" be able to do something about it.

About everything in my whole life, all of my life.

That is the stance took on as a child. That is what you are working to change.

I want to start trying to find practices within the posts that address these very issues.

How could you address this distortion in your thinking, Cedar? How can you now look at your life, yourself, and talk back to that sense you are universally responsible? And to be blamed?

 

[Copabanana]

My insert quote machine is not working. (Now it is.)

Eye rolling is a wrong thing, whatever the situation.

It fixes nothing. It's intent is to ridicule. How hurtful.

First, eye rolling. The time my sister recently married brought her 3rd husband to San Francisco to see me.

I realized it as if she was bringing him to see a bear in the zoo. It was not to meet me. It was to observe me. And to understand how difficult it was to have such an unruly species such as I am in her family.

So, I had invited them, and her girls to our lovely apartment and made a lovely, lovely lunch. Soup to nuts.

And my control freak sister had arranged for a sight seeing event...6 months in advance (that in itself makes me scream in agony...like butterflies in a display). I mean, after all, this is the City of my birth....and I am in my fifties at this point. I mean, do I really want to go sight seeing?

So, I said, I did not want to go, but we can arrange to meet for dinner, if they might like to do so...

And my sister pointedly looked at her new husband...and rolled her eyes. Right in front of me. To as if say....I know who you are and what you are.

And to him. I told you she is nothing but a bear. See???

And in that she conforms exactly to the behavior she exhibited towards M. Deliberately communicating contempt. Her ability to define people, by decree. To their face.

So now the quote machine decided to work.

We can each add the good things we have forgotten to address for ourselves to the posts of the others.

Yes.

I will go find something...I will begin with the trauma of my brother. When he was little and I felt responsible for the pain in his eyes. I will address the breakage there after reviewing that last post on Healing from Toxic Shame. The one that discusses what it is the child comes to see as herself (or himself) through his or her abuser's eyes.

Where is that post, Cedar?

I still was never sure if somehow, my mom was correct in these behaviors.

This is the fog, Cedar, I think. I mean, all of the things my sister would do. I could not believe that she would do. I mean, I really could not believe she would deliberately ask a 2 year old for his car seat, when his mother ME was sitting there. Or really, look at M up and down with derision to devalue him and me.

What kind of person does these things???? There is disbelief, still. Trying to undue our perceptions.

Because the emotions that these kinds of actions bring up are so toxic.

Rage. Disbelief. Invalidation. Powerlessness.

How could our sister/mother treat us as if we are so worthless? So little entitled to humanity.

My mother used to say about my sister....she cried over her dog dying....(the inference...we are less than animals to them.)

And the thing is there will always be a hook as long as we believe we deserve it.

As long as I stay STUNNED by my sister's bad behavior, I will remain captive to it. And I will remain in that state of personhood, that feels I deserve it.

Instead I have the opportunity to denounce the behavior and her. As we have learned to do with our children.

I will not tolerate this disrespect. You will not roll your eyes about me in my space. You can choose to leave my apartment now if you want to continue with that eye rolling behavior. What you say or do with your husband in your space is your business. What you do in my space, is mine.

And in the hospital, when she looked M up and down, I did not see it. He told me.

But if I had I would have said: You show him respect in front of me. To look at a man's body up and down like you did, reflects very poorly on you. What kind of woman would do such a thing? Are you trying to demonstrate your power or your desire, L? Why would you want to emulate the most obnoxious of behaviors of abusive men? Whatever your intent, do not do it with me or mine.

And with the doctor in the hospital when she left the room to follow the doctor outside the room so she could demonstrate her utmost authority.

L, Mama can speak for herself, but I want to speak for me. Decisions about Mama are hers to make. Unless she authorizes you or I to speak privately with her physician, we cross a boundary, if we choose to do so without her authorization.

In any event, what you did just now, is a transgression to me that I will not tolerate. You chose to communicate privately to Mama's doctor, according to an agenda that is yours alone.

First, you had no legal or moral right to do so. Second, you acted against me. Because even if Mama was not capable of acting in her own interests, which she is capable of doing....I am equally empowered legally to decide with you. Please keep this in mind, in the future.

So, now I am seeing why she treats me as she does. I never in my life stood up to her like this.

This is not to say that I allowed myself to be her door mat .... but any standing up I did out of sight. How different might have been if I had spoken up with them.

If I had allowed myself a voice, I could have had relationships with both of them, probably. How sad.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

How could you address this distortion in your thinking, Cedar? How can you now look at your life, yourself, and talk back to that sense you are universally responsible? And to be blamed?

Joel Osteen has given me a way to see differently, Copa. I am not so traditionally religious, but I watch him every Sunday. Today, the issue was self condemnation. He called it "living guilty and condemned".

Isn't it amazing that should have been this week's topic.

He said: "Change occurs glory to glory." That some of us are programmed to believe guilty and self condemnation are what is real about us. We believe we will be better once we are changed. Joel Osteen said "It is good to acknowledge our shortcomings, but we need to remember everyone has shortcomings. We need to concentrate, not on living guilty and condemned until we are better, but on how we have learned from whatever it was, and know now how to handle it better. That we are fine, as we are. That we are perfect, are here on purpose. That we are "fearfully and wonderfully made". That we are prized possessions, and that we deserve every good thing and more, forever. That we need to fight guilt, shame, self accusation. He gave an example of his son, at four, rewashing the car the father had just waxed, ruining the finish. The little boy was so proud to show his father that he washed the car for him. So, the father had a look with the boy, thanked him and told him how special a thing that was for his son to do for him.

Then, when the boy was napping, the father rewashed and rewaxed the car. He made certain to put his buckets and so on away so the little boy would never find them and rewash the car. And would never feel shame when he did something out of a pure heart.

So, I thought about that, alot.

He told another story.

Two fathers go to a football game. One father's son catches the ball. The crowd roars. The son darts to the left. Darts to the right.

And gets smashed by all the other players.

He never moved the ball an inch.

One father says to the other: "Did you see those two good moves my son made? Wow, what a kid!"

He didn't even concentrate on the bad thing: that the son never moved the ball.

He was proud of the two good moves his son made.

So, I thought about that this morning, too.

Joel Osteen went on to say that if we have been taught not to believe in ourselves, not to like ourselves, we project those emotions onto others and validate what was a wrong belief in the first place.

He said, understand that you do that and stop that.

You are prized; you are here on purpose ~ we all are fearfully and wonderfully made.

I like Joel Osteen very much.

Almost always, there is something beautifully right for me. I can see how things work, and why they don't have to work that way, at all.

I mean, think about it. There we were, all of us wondering how to speak the right words to our sons...and two stories about that very thing.

About how to see.

Let's see...he said: "It's not your performance; it's your heart that matters."

Cedar