After Narcissistic Abuse Link

[Scent of Cedar *]

I could never get across what was happening to me. My folks just couldn't see it. My sibs were very good at putting up a united front. So, I would come in and go to my room and cry, I gave up telling, it didn't work. Dad, would talk with me about being stronger and I would swallow my tears, he would tease me into smiling. Then I would be sent outside again, to face my sibs. It was a vicious cycle.

"I could never get across what was happening to me."

"Dad would talk to me about being stronger and I would swallow my tears...."

"Then I would be sent outside again, to face my sibs. It was a vicious cycle."

***

I gave up telling, it didn't work.

What was happening, Leafy? Is it that your emotions were overwhelming and you needed your parents to help you learn to stay steady state in the face of them? Instead of encouraging you to "swallow" the overwhelming feelings. And to camoflage them beneath a smile.

I would not like that, either.

"Then I would be sent outside again, to face my sibs. It was a vicious cycle."

What would the sibs do, Leafy?

Would they hurt you, again?

Do you know why your parents allowed this?

That is it, I needed my Dad to protect me. Instead, I was cajoled into smiling, then sent out to the slaughter. How confusing.

Would it help you come to a place of mastery over the feelings if you were to create an artwork without words ~ with only color, Leafy? Something similar to Jackson Pollack's work ~ something that wordless and hurtful (or joyful).

Sometimes, there are no words.

Still, for us to feel a sense of mastery over our feelings, we need to become familiar with them, name and tame and come to appreciate them for the vehicle to our future selves they were and are. However messed up we feel about things today, it is those selfsame emotions and that selfsame self talk that brought us through it. Through whatever happened to us in our childhoods.

So there is nothing within us to be ashamed of or to feel badly about.

It was created ~ by us ~ to help us survive.

Now, we are coming in again to the places we cannot readily access to help ourselves reclaim those lonely parts of self.

Nothing to be afraid of, here.

Here, there is only us.

***

In another post Leafy, you wrote about a fearsome dog. About how, in reality, if one could learn how to see the dog with compassion, and were to come to know the dog, a union could be formed where only flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder could be heard, far off at first and then, close and savage.

Well, okay. So, you didn't say that. I did. But you did post about a dog.

And here again, Dolly teaches us.

So, in approaching a terrified dog in the middle of the worst thunderstorm ever. How would we go about it?

We could shoot the dog.

We could cover ourselves with something waterproof and wear waterproof shoes too, that would protect us from lightning, and we could bring food onto the covered porch for the dog. Then, we could stand at the screen door and sing for her.

Maybe, she would come for the good, nourishing food we provided for her.

And then we would not be as afraid of her. And she would not be as afraid of us; she would wonder whether, like Dolly, she may have found her forever home.

And we would know how frightened she had been, and how alone, all of her life.

So, we would set out more food, the next day. Better food, this time. specially prepared, because now we know our fierce dog is only us. And that the name of her fierceness is loneliness and terror...but here we were, all along.

One day, the blue dog that represents our overwhelming emotions comes onto the porch.

We continue to sing.

Soon, we sit on the porch with her.

And the terrible storm is outside.

And we are inside, together.

And you assure the blue dog that the rain will come and the storm will end and the stars will rise, again.

But she doesn't believe you.

So, you sing and sing to her Leafy, the Song of the Stars.

As long as this takes, you will teach the fierce, beautiful blue dog she is safe, now.

I did talk with Hubs, and explained to him that I do have my own opinion and that just because I voice it, does not mean I am opposing him.

What if there were no opposition. What if our words that we chose had to stand alone. Because Leafy, in the hearts of those we love, our words are seeded and grow wild.

I am overstepping a boundary, maybe. But it is less what you said than what he heard. Listen, Leafy. What did he hear.

Is what he heard ~ are those the words you want to reverberate through his heart? Were the words strengthening and kind?

He grew up with an extremely abusive father. It is stuffed down in there in a tangled mess.

I am so sorry this happened. Even with my own parents and sibs, I am coming to understand (as Serenity had told me I would) that they cannot see another way to get their needs met than to do what they are doing. Blaming them for that, condemning myself for what I needed to do to survive and to try to pull a sense of self esteem out of what was left ~ I learned to see my bravery, instead.

Because we have had to be very brave, to have come into our adulthoods so poorly prepared for the way things work, Leafy.

We are still brave.

Like it is for us too, once we determine to heal, to create something different of ourselves and our lives, the chimera falls apart.

And there is only us, left.

Sobbing, and I let myself cry it out. I think it was the imagery of the little girl and the red balloon......

What little girl with a red balloon?

So...free association: Red Slippers, with all that imagery entails.

Maybe, you are telling yourself you are homeward bound at last, Leafy.

Steady State. Breathe. Be.

No. Rage; have the emotions, welcome them as yourself. There is no part of yourself that is not sacred.

Save the Child.

Save the little girl, floating the red balloon.

Are there words on the balloon? What does it mean to the little girl. It can float. She can not.

that is why they were able to get away with the horrible things they did.

What did they do to that little girl ~ the one with the red balloon.

Instead, I was cajoled into smiling, then sent out to the slaughter. How confusing.

How horrifying.

What does that mean, Leafy. "Slaughter". What in the world did they do to you?

To the little girl with the red balloon.

"Nothing's going to change my world."

Are you hearing this in defiance Leafy, or is it a desperate plea ~ something hopeless from the little girl with the red balloon. She is in your imagination, Leafy. She can escape now the prison created, then.

She can follow the balloon up into the sky and away Leafy, anytime.

If you let her rise with the balloon and if she were to look down from her safe position, what would she see when she saw you, Leafy?

Remember compassion, in this envisionment. Compassion, for the little girl with the red balloon.

The Sun will be very strong, up there. I put sunglasses on for her, and a red coat. Chilly, and the Wind is rising.

She loves it up there.

She is safe.

Exhilarated.

I was little, nothing could change my world. I was stuck.

I know.

But pain is raw energy, Leafy.

Reclaim that little girl, now.

Let the pain go. Let the overwhelming energy of it fuels the Universe, becoming just the energy someone else may use to win their battle. It is an endless exchange of energy, Leafy. You know this. You are not the sole guardian of emotions so intense you must protect the Universe from them. This is the stuff of Creation. Let them go, Leafy.

Into the vacuum will rush everything and more, to overflowing.

You could always do this.

It's just that no one told you you could.

We are our own Creators in that sense, Leafy.

Let the pain go.

Let wordless become wordless prayer.

You are here for a purpose, Leafy.

This material needs to be cleared.

It is amazing I am even here.

Yes.

“Why do people say "grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.”
― Sheng Wang

Here is a private secret thing. I like them, very much.

The complexity in all of it, and how everything works, and the pleasure.

Kaleidoscope.

This makes sense, how it sticks......instead of forgiving the mistake, it is freaking analyzed a million times. Harsh.

This is the difference, it seems to me. These nuances of understanding are important for us to know, so that we can learn and put into practice in our own lives, healthier ways of thinking. For us, condemnation of self or other should be a key to take a minute and think. That is how we were taught to think about others, and about ourselves, in our grandiosity imbalanced families of origin.

Or whatever we have each been able to determine about the essential imbalance in his or her own FOO.

Mine seems to have to do with grandiosity. Each of yours may be something else. But I think that is what we are looking at, here. Some essential imbalance codified through rigidity in some misguided effort to protect the adult from ~ okay. So I lost that chain of thought. In any event, we can learn how to rethink our thoughts. We can learn how healthy people think about themselves, about their mistakes, about their successes, and become healthier in our own way we were taught to think.

Now, where was I going with this.

Okay. We internalize the feeling of mistake. Others, understanding their good intentions, analyze outcome. They are not afraid to try, again, and so they succeed.

That is the difference.

I like that conclusion. Good one, Cedar.

:O)

I think too, that even when they were not around, they were in my head.

Those voices are our negative tapes.

Insidious.

Preventing us from accessing ourselves.

Out they must go, Leafy.

Cedar

 

[New Leaf]

There is nothing to discard, Leafy. Nothing about who you are needs discarding or even, changing. It needs loving, and accepting and cherishing and time. All of it is you, unfolding in a warm and compassionate rain.

I was reflecting more along the lines of changing damaging habits, self sabotage, negative tapes, the thought connected to the voices all those years ago that I did not matter, that is what I want to discard. I was comparing that to things I was pulling out of my closet that I have no use for. Things I have held on to, but looking at them now, I can let go.
I have no use for those negative tapes and seeing myself through the eyes of my childhood abusers.

Thank you Cedar.

Or, envision Iz, impossibly huge in that blue water. There is nothing he needed to do about who he was, and that was the magic of him.

There is a tranquility about that image......But, you know Cedar, although there is such tranquility, Iz struggled with his weight. The health issues that came with it, eventually took his life, his sister, his brother, too. I think that is what we are looking into, what lies beneath the surface. We are fascinated by the voice, the message and image, but there was struggle beneath all of that. It is life, is it not? We struggle from birth. It is what becomes of the struggle that matters.

We don't need to have the answers, and we don't even need to say any words. When chopping onions, just chop onions. We drink our tea as though the fulcrum of the world spins on the attention we pay to savoring our tea and ourselves being alive where we are to drink it.

Relishing the simple, serene moments....yes, and they are there. There is beauty all around us, and I am grateful for the life I have.

They are trying to keep us safe by keeping us thinking in the old ways. By keeping us thinking in the ways that kept us safe in the unsafe environments of our family dynamic. When these things happen, we can assist ourselves best by taking a deep breath. By slowing time.

Did you know that taking a series of deep breaths lowers the number of brain waves firing per second?

I did not know about the affect on brain waves, but Dad taught me about breathing when we used to jog together. I know you are writing of deep breathing when still, but this works for me also when working my body.

You can do everything you envision, Leafy. You will never give yourself more than you can handle. It will feel like it. That part takes about three days to be through the worst of it. Then BOOM the world is a different thing than you knew it to be. This is about healing, and we are meant to heal, and to be whole. So, all we really need to do is get out of our own way. But it really is not so easy to do that. It is a practice, Leafy.

Healing. I am getting there. I guess when the kids went of the rails, it touched me at the core. Brought a lot of those old feelings right to the surface. Examining the past is not about blaming, it is about looking at it to understand why I go to places within my self that are not healthy. I was just a child, as were my sibs.
So, it is about change, after all, changing the old ways of thinking.

we should drink our tea as though the Earth's orbit depended on it said this about overwhelming emotion: Asked whether he ever felt anger or rage or roaring frustration, he said yes. The shocked interviewer asked what the Buddhist monk told himself about that. The answer was: This is my practice. I work at my practice. (No quotes because I don't remember the exact quote, but you get the idea.)

Thich Nhat Hahn.

That is the monk's name.

Like he does too, we are committing to our Practice. Nothing more than that.

Steady state.

Beginning with kinder.

Kinder is a good place to begin. The golden rule reversed. Treat yourself the way you would treat other people. Thank you Cedar.

(((HUGS)))
leafy

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

You know, all that keeps popping in my mind is I felt defiant, and strong.

Good. Access that strength, now. This is your response to overwhelming pain. To fight. Like the blue dog, Leafy.

Sing to her, okay?

She is beautiful. Only misunderstood. Like Copa's story of Dolly. With time, and with compassion, Dolly became who she was, all along.

At first I felt surprised at myself, like I had created this memory. It came to me so vividly......so clearly. Then I felt angry... fr!ck3r$ tried to kill me. Then I felt sad, a lot of other memories just came flooding in, stuff I had repressed. It was an ah hah moment. I do not feel angry at them, they were just kids.

Do you remember Leafy, that I needed to determine who the liar was. Each of us needed to validate ourselves as adults because as children, each had been taught her own reality was wrong.

How crazy is that?!?

True, that reality is as we perceive it to be.

That does not make it any less real to the one perceiving.

Your interpretation of events is true for you, Leafy. As mine was, for me. The problem for me was that before I could believe my abuser's interpretation of reality, I needed to believe her interpretation of me. I was little. I was in mortal danger.

I believed.

And I lived, but the cost was high.

My life is worth it to me, Leafy. I am so happy to be alive in my own life that I love. With the sunshine and the warm breezes and etc. I was very brave, and tried to be kind, and that is all I knew.

Now, I know better.

Now, I save the little girl with the red balloon. Every thing, every smallest thing about her Leafy, is sacred to me.

That is why I am not afraid.

A huge part of our healing is coming into that sacred space of: Nothing to protect.

Therefore, nothing to fear.

You are your emotions, Leafy. Energy, for you. Or, let them go, to be energy for someone else who needs your strength.

The Universe is generous, like that.

As you already know, but somehow, forgot.

I just wonder, how the heck did they get to be so mean?

It must have been so scary, Leafy. To know you could not trust them, but to have no one else.

Then we can say from the mountain tops, free at last, free at last thank God almighty we are free at last.

Once we get to the mountaintop, then we can see.

And everything looks very much different than we'd thought.

That is because we have never been anywhere before. We have been only what we were allowed to be. We saw only what we were allowed to see.

We are learning who the liar was. Not to accuse, but to free ourselves.

What happened to us was never okay. It will never be okay. But that is okay. We are strong enough.

Climbing the mountain, Leafy.

What do you see.

Is the little girl with the red balloon in the distance?

That is the direction she needs you to go.

Where is the blue dog?

Shivering.

She is still alone, Leafy.

But, and this is a big one, I have to figure out what I will do the next time we are face to face.

Love her for the human she is. She too has a path and a purpose.

It's a reflecting thing, Leafy.

What we send out, we get back.

You know this.

Cedar

 

[New Leaf]

What was happening, Leafy? Is it that your emotions were overwhelming and you needed your parents to help you learn to stay steady state in the face of them? Instead of encouraging you to "swallow" the overwhelming feelings. And to camoflage them beneath a smile.

It was partly that, Cedar but mostly that I was bullied constantly by my sibs. They hated that I was there with them and made me painfully aware of it, that is why I said I grew up as the third wheel. Sis would make up games and draw me in, I would let my guard down, play hesitatingly, then boom, it all turned on me. It wasn't hitting, it was all gaslighting. So goes the old saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." The words and actions did hurt.

Then I would be sent outside again, to face my sibs. It was a vicious cycle."

What would the sibs do, Leafy?

Would they hurt you, again?

Do you know why your parents allowed this?

Yes, they hurt me again. It would be worse if I went to tell. Teasing and bullying. Daring me to do dangerous stuff, then denying it. I don't think I had the words to describe to my parents at that young age, what was going on. I think they viewed it as normal sibling rivalry, and I was overreacting. They didn't see the bullying and my sibs denied it. I felt confused. It was like living with the mean girls in high school, except it was my sister and brother.
I just had this memory....... of being made to go back outside, sis and bro were someplace else. I was on the swing, trying to calm myself. Mom and Dad were inside the house. I was swinging and singing, starting to feel better. Rocks. Rocks started flying at me. I didn't notice at first, then I heard the giggling. Then the teasing.
There was no escape for me. Even trying to self soothe, I was barraged. This is just one moment of many.
Where was I supposed to turn? I knew, if I went to tell, I wouldn't be heard.
If I cried, I would be scolded.
I took to running off and crying in the woods, softly in my room, so no one would hear. This turned to drawing and writing.
Even my writing wasn't safe, sis took my diary and read it to the neighborhood kids.

Would it help you come to a place of mastery over the feelings if you were to create an artwork without words ~ with only color, Leafy? Something similar to Jackson Pollack's work ~ something that wordless and hurtful (or joyful).

Sometimes, there are no words.

I think I will try this. I used to have a repetitive nightmare of circles and circles and circles going round and round. I think I will paint that.

That if our words that we chose had to stand alone. Because Leafy, in the hearts of those we love, our words are seeded and grow wild.

I am overstepping a boundary, maybe. But it is less what you said than what he heard. Listen, Leafy. What did he hear.

No, Cedar, you are not overstepping. I appreciate your thoughts. It is true, he hears things I am not saying.

Is what he heard ~ are those the words you want to reverberate through his heart? Were the words strengthening and kind?

We talked a little about it. He said " I am not stupid. It was like you were calling me stupid." I wasn't, wasn't even talking in a condescending tone. He has a plan to burn wood and branches down by the stream. I gently voiced some concern.
He didn't like it.
Well, 1) It is illegal and 2) The neighbors will get smoked out and call police.

Because we have had to be very brave, to have come into our adulthoods so poorly prepared for the way things work, Leafy.

What little girl with a red balloon?

It was in the YouTube video I posted. I heard the song on the radio, a remake by Rufus Wainright of the Beatles song "Across the Universe" so I looked it up on Youtube. Did it not post on the thread? The song got to me, the slow guitar strumming and the soft quiet singing , the words.....when I saw the video it struck me, very surreal, the imagery of this little girl with her red balloon, seeking and bravely exploring.......I believe it was inspired by the film "The Red Balloon." Do you remember seeing that? I had to look it up, I remember bits of it......http://www.openculture.com/2012/06/...winning_childrens_film_ithe_red_ballooni.html

Maybe, you are telling yourself you are homeward bound at last, Leafy.

Save the Child.

Save the little girl, floating the red balloon.

Are there words on the balloon? What does it mean to the little girl. It can float.

How horrifying.

What does that mean, Leafy. "Slaughter". What in the world did they do to you?

To the little girl with the red balloon.

They hurt me, a lot. I felt that they hated me. They said and did hateful, hurtful things to me. One instance seems small, but it happened almost daily. I grew up feeling confused and mistreated, with no where to turn. But, Cedar, I was brave. I survived it and have done some good things with my life. I turned it around and worked to help others, children. It is time to turn it around again and look at it and understand that little girl. I can tell that little girl, yes what happened to you was wrong. Children and people make mistakes and can be mean and hateful. It is not you Leafy, it had nothing to do with you. It just is. Cry as much as you need to Leafy. Stay in your room and cry it out. Then, when you find your strength, go back out there and be you.

Are you hearing this in defiance Leafy, or is it a desperate plea ~ something hopeless from the little girl with the red balloon. She is in your imagination, Leafy. She can escape now the prison created, then.

Yes she can, and she will. I cannot change the past, but I can learn and grow from it. Keep the good qualities I learned, compassion, fellow feeling, empathy, and throw away the garbage, you are too fat, weird, ugly, sensitive, a loser.

The Sun will be very strong, up there. I put sunglasses on for her, and a red coat. Chilly, and the Wind is rising.

She loves it up there.

She is safe.

Exhilarated.

You know Cedar, I am afraid of heights...LOL. I understand though, what you are saying.

Let wordless become wordless prayer.

You are here for a purpose, Leafy.

This material needs to be cleared.

Thank you Cedar, I am redirecting the rivers to clear the stables.

Here is a private secret thing. I like them, very much.

The complexity in all of it, and how everything works, and the pleasure.

Kaleidoscope.

You are funny, Cedar, I like them too. Yes, I do.

Or whatever we have each been able to determine about the essential imbalance in his or her own FOO.

In any event, we can learn how to rethink our thoughts. We can learn how healthy people think about themselves, about their mistakes, about their successes, and become healthier in our own way we were taught to think.

We can do this, it is never too late.

Okay. We internalize the feeling of mistake. Others, understanding their good intentions, analyze outcome. They are not afraid to try, again, and so they succeed.

That is the difference.

I like that conclusion. Good one, Cedar.

Very good one Cedar.

Those voices are our negative tapes.

Insidious.

Preventing us from accessing ourselves.

Out they must go, Leafy.

Out they must and out they will. One day, one kinder step at a time.

Thank you Cedar.

I am reposting the video, I hope you are able to view it. I keep watching it.
It is very comforting.

Off to be ready for work.

Peace

leafy

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I no longer need her to admit to the things she did, that used to be important to me. Now, I see that would be impossible for her. Upside down. Too painful. It's okay, that's on her.

It would be better, for you Leafy, to let this accusatory way of interpreting go. Sister did not see what you saw. What matters now is whether she is and you are willing not to exclude. Whether you both are willing just to be humans, walking through the dark together, or whether one or the other of you will choose to walk alone.

That's pretty much all there is to it, I am beginning to see that.

If our sibs continue in abusive patterns now, when we know, and when they know, better, then we will need to choose whether we matter enough to ourselves to choose walking alone.

It's as Copa posts to us, Leafy. There is no villain, and we are only victims if we victimize ourselves. Once we no longer require that role of ourselves, the entire construct falls apart. There is no victim. By our refusal to victimize ourselves, there is no victim. Thus, no villain.

In our present day interactions, we say so. We say what we see as we see it. No one else has a say in what we see.

Either our FOO will consider us, or they will use those energies to create the alliance and the shun. They will see us as slaves, enslaved to whatever it is that fuels the dysfunctional family dynamic. So, when we recognize that, we can understand how it was that though Joseph was indeed sold smack dab into slavery by his own brothers and with his own father's collusion...Joseph was never enslaved to them or to that dynamic, in his own heart.

But I think that like us too, Jacob had to be able to see the futility of the win for any of his family ~ including himself, should he have decided to take vengeance. In the way Joseph saw, he freed them all.

But the brothers, and the father, still believed he was as they insisted he was. They did this Leafy, because of the power accruing to them in that belief system.

All Joseph did was to say: "That was never true. Not for me. Here is food." Note Joseph did not say that he loved them. But he did not say he hated them, either. Joseph stated his truth.

What they did with what Joseph knew was up to them.

And in what they did, Joseph learned who they were. But who they were no longer created the smallest echo, in his heart.

So...I think you were here with us when Copa brought us Joseph.

Those threads are somewhere here in FOO Leafy, if you were not here then.

When I am strong and stand my ground with my opinion, she gets pissed off.

Yes. You have no more right to insist your mutual reality is as you say it must be than she does, Leafy.

Here is a beautiful quote:

The Talmud states, "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."

Bridges McCall

Here again, Joseph teaches us: We are only enslaved to what someone else is very certain is reality if we chose that for ourselves. In any event, everything about all of that is written already in stone, Leafy. Nothing can be changed about what did or did not happen then.

How do you envision the reality you would create with this sister, Leafy.

We only have the present moment. There is nothing else. Know what it is you wish to buy with your time.

Then, buy it.

That's a crass explanation, but it is true, red in the face sputtering, high falootin "how dare you cross me" pissed off. So, that shows me, I am still not thought of as an equal. Too bad. I am an adult. I am entitled to my own opinion and perspective. She can have hers, that is her right. So the same for me.

What is the source of the anger here, Leafy.

What is it you are fighting for? It reads, and I could be interpreting this incorrectly, as though you are still only Leafy with their permission.

"...that is her right. So the same for me."

Two wrongs never yet made a right, Leafy.

What are your centered conclusions regarding this sister. Not her conclusions that you take your validity from. What do you feel, New Leaf.

This material is sacred.

Are you able to see yourself here anywhere, New Leaf. Step out of the circle.

And there you will be.

The door is closed because he wants to be left alone

If it were me, I think I would bring a snack or a cup of tea at a certain time each day, and smile at my husband, and leave the room. As he wishes. For this time, for whatever reason, this is what you husband needs. He is human, not perfect. We don't have to be perfect either. But we can choose to be kind. We can choose to respect a wish for privacy and in so doing create that same expectation for ourselves, in ourselves.

It has to begin somewhere.

Make a kind change. Keep it kind. Visit, and remember that to be human is a very hard thing sometimes, and go on to have your evening.

Paint, or write, or garden. You know these things already, Leafy. Make the better choice.

We are our own gifts, and we make of those gifts whatever we like.

Don't let the little girl with the red balloon float off, unattended and unremarked.

I think he is worried, and frankly so am I, that it could be beginning alzheimer's. I am slowly getting him to talk about it. It will take time. He flares up in spurts and rages. I don't know if it is blood sugar spikes.

No one can say what is Alzheimer's and what is not but a qualified diagnostician.

Unless things have changed, and it has been a number of years since I worked, the diagnosis can only be made with certainty postmortem.

the point i am making is this: as long as you or anybody look for a guilty party. real change will elude you. in childood what does the most damage is our internal responses, the secondary emotions that we adopt to conceal primary emotions.

Yes.

Oh, those ways we understand the why behind what our abusers have done are so far reaching, and so powerfully awful.

I feel bad for us. Maybe we would all have come through this better if we were not so bright as we are.

But that's okay. Now we are reclaiming those energies for ourselves.

***

This is true Copa but at the same time, we ~ like, I had to re-see myself during incidents of abuse because the eyes of the abuser name us the thing it is not only okay, but gloriously, finally, exhilaratingly right to hurt or to hit or to kick or to name a worthless thing. Remember when I could not undo it without accessing witnesses who were not me, but who represented the parts of me sealed away to survive the abuse in the first place.

It would not have been wise of us to excuse ourselves to our abusers, telling them to come back, later.

There was nothing civilized about what happened to us.

***

We took on the morally deficient (or he would have dealt with it himself, like we are) abuser's worst darknesses and believed them to be our own. That is where we were hurt. In what lived in those empty eyes. And it had nothing in the world to do with parenting. Not on any level. What was happening to us had nothing to do with us.

We were little girls. (Or, little boy children.)

Until we understand intellectually that there are human beings who are bad people (simpler than however else I might have described them ~ and the person who needs to know this is me, when I was little. So, "bad people" resonates for me in a way the intellectualized definitions of one illness or another do not. But it helped me to learn that there are such things as bad people in the world. It helped me to believe myself about what happened to me, and to stop believing that nasty, innocence-thieving abuser.)

What in the world were they thinking.

***

I am in a circle here because I told New Leaf no one could diagnose Alzheimer's but a certified diagnostician. But I bandy around terms like predator and malignant narcissist and etc.

Aha. And the answer is: This site is anonymous. No harm done and much healing.

That was a close one.

what needs te uncovered is the distortions we made that hurt us still. nobody but us is responsible now.except us.

Yes. And how good to know this is so.

"The distortions we made that hurt us still."

This is beautiful, Copa. It relieves the guilt of the process of laying bare what happened and how to think about it.

"The distortions we made that hurt us still."

I like this very much, Copa.

Thank you. These are good words.

CEDAR WHEN DOLLY IS SCANNING THE SKIES, OSHE 9 WATCHING FIR M NOT ME.

That could be. But it was so kind of her to sit with me.

I really think she did, Copa.

But her heart wasn't wholly in it. Paco liked Dolly being there very much. She seems so huge to him in silhouette against the stars. Sarah wishes you would bring the cat, so they could go together and do nefarious cat things, watching us, and watching for us, out of the corners of their beautiful green eyes.

Unless your feline eyes are blue.

it does not matter to be now who who was mean and who was the victim. all of us were. there is a great deal of suffering in life.. there is always a way to not contribute or to decide how to respond in the circumstances we are in. I do not write about thse people to make myself avictim or to elicit sympathy or to make anybody wrong. I write to say that at some point i found I could walk away.

So, here is my question: Was the mother also jealous of you? Could that have been where those vibes from the other child were coming from? Maybe the mother was tormenting the little girl with your perfection, Copa.

Her disparaging your studying is similar to my mother disparaging my writing, or my thinking. So, maybe it was done for the same reason, Copa. We were raised with such strangenesses in our lives that we would have been unable to recognize strangenesses in the homes of our friends. We can be pretty certain though, I suppose, that if we were comfortable there, in those homes, there were some pretty deep currents swirling around.

You were a beautiful child, so I have surmised, Copa.

Was the other little girl as beautiful and as intelligent?

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I have no use for those negative tapes and seeing myself through the eyes of my childhood abusers.

I am sorry, Leafy, but you do, if you want to heal them. We cannot heal if we refuse to see and hear and understand the nature of the harm done us. Speaking of my own experience, until I could find reliable witness, I was unable to clear the true damage of the abuses.

I needed to refute the truth learned in the abuser's eyes as she abused. I believed it was true. It happened to me. Creating a barrier required that I freeze that part of myself, but her echoes and cries for help...those things, I could never seal away.

We have to unravel and have the feelings, I think this is true, Leafy.

We need to listen, and we need to rescue the parts of ourselves sacrificed and sealed away.

I do.

How we heal will be different, for each of us.

It is what becomes of the struggle that matters.

I think this might be true.

Stay in your room and cry it out.

We were traveling one time, D H and I. And the waitress was crying. Tears were running down her face and she took our order and brought coffee and smiled and said: "Pay no attention to these tears. It is cancer. The medicine that is saving my life makes me cry."

Maybe, you could cry outside, in the sunshine, Leafy.

Not all stuffed into your room. Maybe that is part of the hurt of it. Being stuck in your room, crying.

I would not like that, either.

Keep the good qualities I learned, compassion, fellow feeling, empathy, and throw away the garbage, you are too fat, weird, ugly, sensitive, a loser.

They are all you, Leafy. These are the voices you incorporated to survive, to make sense out of why they were doing what they were doing to you. This is where Brene Brown's "Sit with the feelings" comes in, I think.

Nothing about you is garbage, New Leaf.

Whose voice is speaking those terrible words.

Here is what I know about fatness. In the course of evolution, some of us were built to survive famine. Now, in this time of great plenty, those so evolved will struggle with weight issues. Others of us were built to be agile and lithe and quick, and get away from the predator every time. Between the two types, the human race survived.

In the famine times?

Those built quick and agile and light on their feet?

Died.

So, now you know why you struggle; and you know too that your struggle has been beneficial in keeping the human race alive and evolving over time.

This is a true story, based on historical fact.

Weird is a judgment call. Ugly, Copa has taught us to own up to: "Unfortunately, I am ugly today." Sensitive we are deciding whether they were right or wrong in making you label yourself that way. And you know already that I think they were not helpful to you in that kind of labeling. For what anything I think about it is worth.

:O)

What is the last one: Loser. Here again, this is about how we see ourselves when we make a mistake. You are no loser. You may have lost. Every champion does.

You know Cedar, I am afraid of heights...LOL. I understand though, what you are saying

She is not afraid of herself like we are, Leafy.

They say a fear of heights has to do with the fear of our own limitless potential.

Or, with a sinus or inner ear problem.

I will let you guess Leafy, which explanation I believe.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

this woman and her 3 sisters were all molested by the dad. I was fondled by him too when I was a teen.

A morally deficient predator. How different is this compromise between the strength and protection and courage of a good man and the moral compromises made by other kinds of abusers, male or female?

He had no right to put his filthy old man hands on you, Copa.

I was fondled, too. By the grandfather of the kids I babysat. What a dirty bad man. (Cedar slips into twelve year old languaging.) I hated that dirty way he made me feel with his little pig eyes. Who knew that was what he was thinking.

That is why I don't trust anybody.

No nasty surprises.

He is dead now.

Good.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

i kept up my friendship with colleen until after i had adopted my son. i had to bring somethinng to her house, a 45 min drive over a long bridge two counties away. when we arrived she was prearing for a pool party. she was curt and imperious. a friend at that time for more than 30 years, she treated us like we should havee come to the servant entrance. she had devoted herself.to climbing social classes, as had my mother and sister. but still by any measure had i cared to do so, I could have bested her.

but I was still for many years to feel myself to be that child who was seeking haven. when colleen turned away from her pool party my 3 year old is when I said no more the first time.

we either run frim ourselves as we have been as children by acting out all manner of cimpensations or we embrace that child and wrap ourselves around her. All colleen ever wanted to see of me was the lonely child I had been. It was to be many more years until I saw that neither the lonely child -or imperious suburbanite with the pool who felt herself enhanced by rejecting were any longer constructs that I had to live with.

I had become something and someone who ould choose and I did.

 

[New Leaf]

Good. Access that strength, now. This is your response to overwhelming pain. To fight. Like the blue dog, Leafy.

Sing to her, okay?

She is beautiful. Only misunderstood. Like Copa's story of Dolly. With time, and with compassion, Dolly became who she was, all along.

Even though she grew up from a pup, being mistreated, Dolly is okay. She is strong and sure and confident.

Do you remember Leafy, that I needed to determine who the liar was. Each of us needed to validate ourselves as adults because as children, each had been taught her own reality was wrong.

How crazy is that?!?

It is crazy, but I understand the question now. I know it isn't me, I am not the liar. What I experienced is true. I am glad that I have the opportunity here to explore that, because it answers a lot of questions for me. I can move forward with a clearer mind and heart. It is a weight lifted.

Your interpretation of events is true for you, Leafy. As mine was, for me. The problem for me was that before I could believe my abuser's interpretation of reality, I needed to believe her interpretation of me. I was little. I was in mortal danger.
I believed.
And I lived, but the cost was high.

The cost was high, and set us up for a lifetime of self doubt. I have to say, in spite of it, I think we all did pretty good. There was always that undercurrent for me. To be able to look at it and understand more fully, is good, freeing.

My life is worth it to me, Leafy. I am so happy to be alive in my own life that I love. With the sunshine and the warm breezes and etc. I was very brave, and tried to be kind, and that is all I knew.

Brave and kind is a miracle. Instead of timid and mean spirited. We took the grains of sand and turned them into pearls. I am glad Cedar that you embrace life as you do. It is how it is meant to be lived. Happy to be alive in our own lives that we love. There is much to be joyful about.

Now, I save the little girl with the red balloon. Every thing, every smallest thing about her Leafy, is sacred to me.

She is sacred and precious. So wide eyed and full of hope.

A huge part of our healing is coming into that sacred space of: Nothing to protect.

Therefore, nothing to fear.

I understand. I am who I am.

You are your emotions, Leafy. Energy, for you. Or, let them go, to be energy for someone else who needs your strength.

The Universe is generous, like that.

Yes. My emotions are mine. Mine. And, they are okay, they always were.

It must have been so scary, Leafy. To know you could not trust them, but to have no one else.

It was scary and confusing. When I was sucked in to the game and let my guard go, trusted, only to be hurt again, I learned not to trust myself, too. I think that was the worst part about it. Losing that part of myself.

That is because we have never been anywhere before. We have been only what we were allowed to be. We saw only what we were allowed to see.

We are learning who the liar was. Not to accuse, but to free ourselves.

What happened to us was never okay. It will never be okay. But that is okay. We are strong enough.

Yes, strong enough, it was never okay, but okay because there is no turning back in time and redoing. Only reflecting, remembering and cleansing. Out you go dung in the stables.

Climbing the mountain, Leafy.

What do you see.

Is the little girl with the red balloon in the distance?

That is the direction she needs you to go.

Climbing the mountain, one hand hold, foot hold at a time. She is not in the distance, she is near, encouraging me onward, upward.

Where is the blue dog?

Shivering.

She is still alone, Leafy.

It is okay, because the blue dog will be fed and loved and sung to.

Love her for the human she is. She too has a path and a purpose.

It's a reflecting thing, Leafy.

What we send out, we get back.

You know this.

Yes, I do know this Cedar, thank you for reminding me. What we invite in, is important , too.

Thank you Cedar

(((HUGS)))
leafy

 

[New Leaf]

A morally deficient predator. How different is this compromise between the strength and protection and courage of a good man and the moral compromises made by other kinds of abusers, male or female?

He had no right to put his filthy old man hands on you, Copa.

Repugnant. No right, filthy old man hands.

Happened to me when I was 10. Groped and kissed by an old fisherman. I was so afraid that it was my fault, I didn't even tell anyone. I ran to the beach cottage we were at and washed and washed my face.
Ugh.
Scruffy, whiskered face with bad breath.

Trust issues.
No wonder.

Did you guys tell anyone?

(shiver runs down the spine)

Gross.

leafy

 

[New Leaf]

They say a fear of heights has to do with the fear of our own limitless potential.

Or, with a sinus or inner ear problem.

I will let you guess Leafy, which explanation I believe.

I guess fear of limitless potential,
although I do have sinus and ear problems.
I am going hiking tomorrow, a mile up to a light house on a cliff, overlooking the deep blue Pacific.
It is appropriate, that is where my story took me five months ago when I landed here.

A lighthouse.

I shall look for the child with the red balloon......

leafy

 

[New Leaf]

a friend at that time for more than 30 years, she treated us like we should have come to the servant entrance. she had devoted herself to climbing social classes, as had my mother and sister. but still by any measure had i cared to do so, I could have bested her.

Copa, were there other incidences before this? How awful of her to treat you and your son this way.

but I was still for many years to feel myself to be that child who was seeking haven. when colleen turned away from her pool party my 3 year old is when I said no more the first time.

Did she still seek out a friendship after this Copa?

we either run from ourselves as we have been as children by acting out all manner of compensations or we embrace that child and wrap ourselves around her. All colleen ever wanted to see of me was the lonely child I had been.

Tis true, I think some people in our lives would have us limited within ourselves. Sis can be this way. I think it surprises her when I respond differently, not subservient....

It was to be many more years until I saw that neither the lonely child -or imperious suburbanite with the pool who felt herself enhanced by rejecting were any longer constructs that I had to live with.

I had become something and someone who would choose and I did.

This is where I hope I am heading.
Thank you for sharing this Copa.
It is a strong message.
It is our choice.

leafy

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I have to say, in spite of it, I think we all did pretty good.

You are healing, I think. I am so pleased for you, Leafy.

It has to do with how we see ourselves. Everything has to do with our own interpretations of ourselves. That is why we have to know first what they taught us was true, and whether that was true or whether our own people sold us out for some win we will never understand. But then, we learn we never did have to understand them. Understanding them is impossible, anyway.

We only need to see ourselves with compassion.

And become who we were all along.

Which is what they hurt us for.

Because we were who we are, all along.

Yes. My emotions are mine. Mine. And, they are okay, they always were.

Shiny.

Like miracles.

When I was sucked in to the game and let my guard go, trusted, only to be hurt again, I learned not to trust myself, too. I think that was the worst part about it. Losing that part of myself.

Sometimes, we can come to see ourselves so much as others see us that we come into a place of battle between encouraging ourselves to skate on thin ice and saving our own lives. Where we are going, here on FOO Chronicles, is to a place where we can see those battles happening and recognize whose soldiers are whose.

They are all ours.

That is when, like Dorothy or Dolly, we require compassionate witness.

Someone who knows what is true bout us, though we have forgotten.

We will know we are healed when there is laughter from the Observer at the foolishness of those interpretations we believed were us. When the truth is we are like, miracles walking around.

All of us. Every one and everything. Just imagine, from time immemorial, each creature at some point, gazing up at the stars. Navigating by the stars.

Listening for the music in the spaces between them.

Out you go dung in the stables.

Yes.

And into the field where the most amazing things grow. Strong and healthy and delicious food, for us.

Compost juiciness is called liquid gold, did you know?

And the compost itself provides the rich structure of good, deep soil, and aerates the Earth.

Here is a story I love.

So, the Mexican mystic whose name I cannot remember now is seeing a shaman as part of his training. And the shaman turns the mystic into an earthworm. After two nights and a day, the mystic return to human form and the shaman says: "What did you learn." (The shaman asked that question because it is the only question that matters.)

"I learned I was among the most powerful of the beings who live in the Earth." replied the mystic. "I moved through solid earth and heard the Earth tremble and came out into the Wind and learned the stars and went deep, to survive the Sun."

Or something to that effect.

The moral is, none of us knows anything. We are who we know ourselves to be.

So, that being the case, our abusers had absolutely no right to change who we were born knowing we were into reflectors of themselves.

We were born to be ourselves.

They tried to steal us from ourselves.

So, we know what that makes them.

I don't know how they live with themselves.

No wonder the game means so much to them. If we should ever understand who we are, we will never believe them about who they are, again.

And then where will they be.

Climbing the mountain, one hand hold, foot hold at a time. She is not in the distance, she is near, encouraging me onward, upward.

I see her in the far distance, moving where the sunlight is a living thing. She sees what you cannot see, yet. You are exactly as you were meant to be, Leafy. She trusts you to know that in just a little while longer. She is scoping out where you will go next, not where you are.

She knows you are perfectly able to climb the mountain, or to see whatever you like without climbing anything at all.

She is free of those old beliefs, Leafy.

They cannot harm her.

To me, she seems happy, and unconcerned, and filled with wonder.

It is okay, because the blue dog will be fed and loved and sung to.

There is something so beautiful about the human voice, and about our capacity to sing. I wonder whether any other creature sings. Or do they hear the music in everything.

Remember when we used to sing to our children?

:O)

Did you guys tell anyone?

I did not. What was there to say? It isn't as though a freshening, beautiful young girl (and we must understand how huge a part the corruption of our innocence played in the actions of these wicked men) knew what to do about any of that.

Ish, Leafy.

That person did not get his mouth anywhere near me. He did what he did and just kept watching my eyes with his sickness all visible around his mouth.

Yuck.

Like something rotten.

Fuel for the compost pile.

We use everything, here in the Universe.

I am sorry that happened to you, Leafy.

Ish.

A man put his tongue in my mouth once on New Year's Eve after I was all grown up and married and had children. Who knows how long he had been planning that maneuver. He did it quick as quick could be. It was a disgusting thing.

How fortunate for him that I did not bite it off.

I wonder whether that would be illegal.

I was much nicer, then. I still did not know who I was.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

cedar, the other girl was pretty, very intelligent with a great drive in her to be special and superior, but with no real understanding of or desire for achieving. just being thought of as better than. the mother in no way that I was ever aware of thought i was much at all except as a child laborer.

how i hate that i was for so long around this family. how degraded was i. i never saw my worth and struggle to do so now.

i was a very vulnerable, sweet and sensitive child that was overlooked by all except for teachers, occasionally. I think the mother was bitter and stuck. she was sarcastic and slovenly. my mother was elegant and hard-working and aspiring. In some ways i was a precious little flower with nobody. my lovely mother demanded all of the nutrients and light for herself.

i have stopped buying. i have realized pthat i bought not only to divert myself, to have bursts of pleasure but to compensate for and assauge a deep sense of valuelessness that had been revealed to me in the aftermath of my mother's dying.

I do not need to hear that I indeed do have value or that others see me as valuable. I know that. I write this looking for nothing. that starting from there, that place of empty truth I can begin again, to find treasure, to not buy it or seek it.

I called M this morning to confess this. I cannot write well on thi stupid tablet or otherwi
se I would have written it here.

He answered with a chuckle, well that's foolish to believe you can buy value. well, I am a fool. he chuckled again. fool has to be his favorite word. perhaps latins generally embrace the concept. I am thiking don quixote here and noting just how many words in spanish there are for this most human of concepts.

 

[Copabanana]

I will end here the above post. M said something the exact words elude me. it must have been a good and soothing couple of words because I felt better and still do. I think he said, go do something and think something to value yourself and we will find ways to do so together. it is not true you do not think or feel you have value. if you had not thought so you would not have bought stuff.

i had thought these last few days that i had bought to see how cheaply my mother held me that she could have valued stuff so much higher than me, or traded my welfare for such a thing as money and stuff. I worried, that maybe by buying I had to degrade my value, and to undermine my security to make her implicit assessment, which she had determined me to be, by her priorities and her acts. I feared that I had to take over myself, this same sense of undoing, unloading, depreciating, thoughtlessly and colpulsively.

I do not. while it is perplexing and painful to me how somebody intrinsically valuable could be overlooked and seemingly willfully diminished and degraded, I can choose to find value and build value. By choosing.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I felt better and still do. I think he said, go do something and think something to value yourself and we will find ways to do so together

M is a good witness for you, Copa. He validates what is happening but at the same time, keeps you moving forward.

it is not true you do not think or feel you have value. if you had not thought so you would not have bought stuff.

I agree with this. If you had bought stuff without ever changing the kinds of things you wanted to buy, that would be one thing. But you bought kayaks and snowshoes and beautiful things and things that were not so beautiful but that appealed to you. As you are coming through this part, you are not quite able to be in that same hurt mindset you were in when you bought. So you wonder why you bought this or that and why in such quantity and so on. But because what appealed to you changed over time, I believe your buying was healing. You were trying on and rejecting personas and lifestyles and values systems. I think what you've been through Copa hurt you more than you know.

So I agree very much with M.

It's as though there is a battle going on within you between what you know and what you know you are supposed to believe about the kind of response you will elicit.

When I remember the story about the sister and the luncheon and the sister's response ~ which was alot like repeatedly pulling the brass ring just out of your reach...that is the hurt in the way you were taught to see yourself. That you are someone who is to hope, but to always just miss catching the brass ring and forever to believe that if only you had tried harder, the ring would have been yours.

But for you, like it seems to be for me too, it was a set up from the start.

I am sorry that happened, Copa. I know you love her. I love my sister too...except that lately, I think it could be true that I never knew anything about that person who is my sister. I sort of created a sister and that person is who I loved, and thought so often about, and wanted to protect and to be happy in her life. But my real sister does not love me. She couldn't, possibly.

How sad, for us.

But to add up the things that have happened from this perspective results in everything that has happened making sense.

At last.

Happy Hour here.

Have a good night, everybody.

Cedar

 

[New Leaf]

I am sorry, Leafy, but you do, if you want to heal them. We cannot heal if we refuse to see and hear and understand the nature of the harm done us. Speaking of my own experience, until I could find reliable witness, I was unable to clear the true damage of the abuses.

I have been viewing and reviewing for most of my adult life, without witness. Now that I have gone deeper and written here, I am beginning to understand with your help that what happened did happen. It wasn't my imagination, it isn't comparable to anyone else's experience, because it is what I went through as a child, and it was wrong. It was wrong for me to grow up so confused and unsure of myself, at the hands of others. I cannot go back and change it, but it helps clear up a lot of unanswered questions. Thank you, thank you, for being my witnesses, following along, reading and asking questions, sharing experiences and thoughts.

We have to unravel and have the feelings, I think this is true, Leafy.

Yes, it is true, unravel it to have the feelings. At some point, I just went numb. I thought it was protection. But numbing wasn't protection, everything was still there, unresolved, festering. By 13, I hated myself. Gave up on school. At 14, I was drugged and raped by a 24 year old. I groggily woke up to the weight of him, finishing his filthy, perverse misdeed. I remember washing, scrubbing away that last bit of my childhood, crimson tinged water swirling into the shower drain.
I was empty.
I couldn't even cry.
I had lost so much by then, I didn't care.
I didn't tell a soul.
That is when I went off the rails, when I couldn't bear any of it, any longer.
I disappeared even further into role, burying myself.
Experimented with drugs.
My parents had no idea what I was going through.
No idea.

Years later, as the memory came back to haunt me, I felt ashamed and guilty, tarnished.
It wasn't my fault. I was lured, tricked. The perfect victim.
Again, for the uncountable nth time.
I felt worthless. At 14.
I fought my way back and quit all that stuff at 19.
I fought to gain a sense of self.

What is it you are fighting for? It reads, and I could be interpreting this incorrectly, as though you are still only Leafy with their permission.

"...that is her right. So the same for me."

Two wrongs never yet made a right, Leafy.

What are your centered conclusions regarding this sister. Not her conclusions that you take your validity from. What do you feel, New Leaf.

This material is sacred.

Are you able to see yourself here anywhere, New Leaf. Step out of the circle

Yes, certainly two wrongs don't make a right. I think I have not explained correctly.

I am fighting for the right to be me. It shouldn't even be a fight, I am me.

My sis is fine with me as long as I shape my opinions and perspective to hers.

What I tried to write is that I have differing perspective,and it is okay, just as it is okay for her to think and feel as she does. It is everyones right to their own opinion. She has hers, as I have mine.

But, there is such a thing as filtering thoughts and words that might hurt others.
Etiquette, appropriateness, respect.
That is what led to the fight we had last fall.
Disrespect.

The afternoon we argued on my fall trip, is because she did not want my Mom to have the bronchoscopy.
Mom was determined to do it.
I had come to the conclusion, that Mom had made up her mind and I would support her.
Sis was still trying to convince Mom not to go through with it.
She, made a comment to Mom, as we left that was cruel.
Mom said "When will I see you again" sis replied slowly "You mean IF I see you again" glaring at Mom.
Moms face dropped.
As we drove off, I commented to Sis, that it was not a nice thing to say, she blew up at me.
The old Leafy would not have said anything.
I do understand we were all tense, dealing with Moms illness.
I also know that my sister will play nice under her terms.
This is a remnant of our past. I must follow her rules. Be compliant, bend to her opinion, "side" with her.
I do not see myself as needing to be subservient to her. Tiptoeing around everything, acquiescing constantly, so as not to "rile" her.
I spoke up. I think she was shocked.......
I was myself, NOT the Leafy she had groomed to be her "pet" to say and do her bidding, or squelch my true voice.
I won't follow "her rules" of the game.
I was not mean, or loud, just voiced my opinion, and because it did not reflect the Leafy she would like me to be, she exploded on me.
It is not that I am only Leafy with sis' permission. I am supposed to be the role she has created for me. Not me.

But, I am me, and I will be me, not a shadow of myself to suit HER. Me being me is not a bad thing. I am still a nice person. I have my own thoughts.

We argued in the car. I asked her to stop yelling at me, she was enraged.
Of course, I cried, and yes, I did eventually yell back at her.

I called her a "dominatrix sister" okay, wrong word, but as I look back and think on it, she was, she mind f***ed me, my whole life.
Okay, that is wrong, not my whole life, my childhood and sporadically onward.....then....I did the rest.

The argument was all so asinine.
We did talk after, and I apologized.

Stepping out of the circle, what am I fighting for?

The right to be myself, to be real, when I am with my sis. But it isn't a fight, is it.....It is about being real and not role, and that is up to ME, not her.

I have drifted in and out of this role.

In spite of everything, I have carved out a pretty beautiful life.

It is when things get rough and raw, that the role reappears.

So, I need to embrace that child that was me, is me, and say,
"It is okay Leafy, you can do this, it was not you that was broken.
It was never you.
It just was."

When we arrived at my brothers house, you can guess what I did.......yup I walked into the woods and cried. She tried to talk with my kids, to explain herself, and put me in my place....... my kids were polite with her, but later told me what happened. My Blossom said, "Aunty is Aunty, you are you, we get it Mom. Don't let her walk all over you, but no sense arguing with her, you will never win." Hoku, the younger more vocal and protective, does not like my sister. I try to explain to her that there are different people everywhere, that my sister is not a bad person, just, well, herself.

Now, I am realizing that I do have to be careful when I am around her, that I do not slip back into role. That is where those memories just come flooding in and take over. This, I need to work on.
I do love her. What happened when we were children was horrific, for me. Maybe not for her. You are correct, Cedar, she sees it differently. It is okay. We were only children.

Maybe, you could cry outside, in the sunshine, Leafy.

Yes. I will make time to cry in the sunshine. Not locked up in my room, like crying is a bad thing that needs to be hidden......

Nothing about you is garbage, New Leaf.

Whose voice is speaking those terrible words.

Thank you Cedar. I will rephrase, not garbage, the DUNG. Wash out the dung. It does no good festering up inside of me, but cleaning it out, will open up new possibilities. Shiny, bright and clean in the stables, and new growth in the fields below.

Like the weeds I wrote of in the garden, those terribly fast growing choke- out -the good plants -weeds. If we pull them and throw them in a compost heap, they break down and become good, rich compost.

Thank you Cedar, Copa, Insane, as always, your posts are very thought provoking and healing. I am truly appreciative of the time you take to raise questions, share your perspective and walk through this with me.

I am feeling better every day.

leafy

On the story of Joseph........Jacob, his father, loved Joseph and favored him as the son of his beloved Rachael, also as the dreamer of dreams. God's blessing.

http://biblehub.com/library/marshall/the_wonder_book_of_bible_stories/the_story_of_joseph_and.htm

Jacob was tricked by his sons into thinking Joseph had been killed by a beast in the wilderness. He did not collude with the brothers........He mourned the loss of his son.

leafy


Up this morning we went, to the mountain top. A beautiful crisp day. The trail is paved and winds up 500 feet to a vantage point above the small lighthouse. At the cliffs edge are spine tingling, breath taking views of cobalt ocean bejeweled with sparkling sun rays and churning white water cresting atop gnarled black lava rocks.
Photos do not do justice to the magnificence.
It was a wonderful moment.

photos from the internet (I do not know how to upload my own!)

leafy

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Beautiful, Leafy.

Thank you!

I do love her. What happened when we were children was horrific, for me. Maybe not for her. You are correct, Cedar, she sees it differently. It is okay. We were only children.

It is not okay, Leafy.

And you are not children, now.

And something is still very wrong.

That these things happened to any of us is tragic. Because they did happen, we each have experienced an especially painful kind of loneliness and confusion ~ the kind only family can inflict. Believing we can trust them to have our best interests at heart, we give our people free access or even, special access to ourselves and our children. I don't know why they do the things they do. As we heal, what we come to know is that why they do it doesn't matter. We learn we are not responsible for what they do.

As we heal, we finally begin believing ourselves: If it looks like a fish and smells like a fish, it's probably a fish. We test our conclusion here on FOO Chronicles, still not quite believing they could be as bad as we are making them look. That is the who is the liar here place. And it's a tough place to be, but it is primary healing. It is the beginning of seeing through denial.

And our stories pour out, and they are ugly.

And our people begin to look ugly.

So, we go back into denial for a little bit, because we love them and ourselves and our ideas of family and loving and etc that much.

And because we refuse to believe the reasons they do what they do, we wonder what kind of people we must be, in our secret hearts, to be thinking like this.

And because the facts keep being the facts, we are coming very close to healing, when that happens.

But none of it is easy.

The next question we ask will be how it could be that we lived what we lived but denied what we knew about them, and about us, and about how messed up all of it is.

Why did we do that.

Because there is very little as painful as being shunned by your own people. That's why. Lots of denial begins right there. What we don't see we needn't address. And we can all still have coffee together.

Or that Family Dinner I was always posting about.

One of the roles in a dysfunctional family system is probably the guy who, blind as a bat, wishes for Family Dinner.

***

I felt so badly and at the same time, deeply frightened of them. I was so deeply ashamed that ~ without coming right out and saying so ~ my own people seemed not to want anything to do with me. And now I know that is why they do what they do. It is like my mother said the last time she led a shun: If Cedar doesn't want to be part of this family, then this family wants nothing to do with her.

But until we can see how the sickness swirls around everything, we never know how what happened did happen.

Anymore than any victimized group in the larger society knows how anti-Semitism came to be, or racism, or misogyny or homophobia.

Or finding value in training our dogs to fight and kill one another instead of loving the dog into the Dolly she was, all along.

There are so many ugly stories, in the world.

Back to us.

So, because we were raised to take responsibility for everything, we take responsibility for the shun, too.

Only, as time passes, and we are away from them...we begin to feel better. Our lives smooth out. Our curiosities return, and with them, our joy in our own being alive. But even with everything we know, about them and about ourselves, we still feel deeply sad about ourselves and our people and the things they do. And we are correct in acknowledging this sadness. Because it is what it is. Because we did and do deserve families and loving and someone who has our back like a mother or a sister or a brother has our back. Our worlds are lonely places where Family of Origin should be.

And that is very sad.

But soon enough, we think about them less. Without guilt to draw us and bleed us and make us feel responsible for what they do, we begin to let them go.

That is what is happening to me. My mother still sparkles and shines and I still get it that there are more bad things there or I would not have concealed her beneath that savage sparkling, but I no longer mind, about that. I don't want to hate her or my sister or anyone. I never did. Now that I have worked so hard to figure out what probably happened, my job is less about what they did or why than it is about what is the right thing to do going forward. We cannot change what happened to us ~ not any of it. Somehow we come to a place where we honor our own stories, the good and the bad of them. They are all us.

Leafy, the young girl watching her blood vanish down the drain. That is you. There is nothing wrong in what happened. You were taught to believe there was something wrong in what happened. Stop thinking like that. Maybe you wish you had been healthier and stronger then. Maybe you wish the man had been someone else. It is okay to regret how we have done something. It is not okay to hate or berate ourselves for how we have elected to live our own lives. That kind of self-condemnation is an artifact of abuse.

Recognize it as such and begin to work there, Leafy.

You were neither healthy nor strong. But you were beautiful, in the way every young girl is so beautifully alive. You made the story of your life. It is a beautiful story simply because it is a life. You are alive in your own beautiful life. Can you see that how you think of yourself in your life is an FOO artifact? No one has a perfect life. Illness will come to all of us, and it will come to all of our mates. Life does not have to be all lights and glitter for us to know we are happy.

The way we were taught to see ourselves infects everything we do.

That is another difference between ourselves and other people.

But once we see that so clearly, we can just let them go. We can love them and let go. We can let go and suddenly, come into a cherishing for our own being alive. We can respect ourselves and our own people.

We can stop judging ourselves and our lives through eyes that are not our own.

They took that from us, too.

Isn't that something.

Cedar

On the story of Joseph........Jacob, his father, loved Joseph and favored him as the son of his beloved Rachael, also as the dreamer of dreams. God's blessing.

Well, that explains why the brothers were jealous, then.

Who was the mother of the other sons?

Jacob was tricked by his sons into thinking Joseph had been killed by a beast in the wilderness. He did not collude with the brothers........He mourned the loss of his son.

That the father or mother could be tricked by the other children into believing the favored child was dead...how strange and familiar is this story, Leafy. I am glad the father did not participate in the selling of his son into slavery. Still, for us, the issue is less what any of Joseph's FOO did than how it was that Joseph could have been sold into slavery and lived his life as a slave and yet never have forgotten he was not a slave.

How did Joseph remember, throughout his slavery, that he was himself?

At the end of the story, the father expects Joseph to take vengeance on the sibs. Joseph does not require vengeance. He is his own.

We too have been sold.

Maybe we were the favored child, too. Maybe that is why the sibs (the sisters) hold such bitterness in their hearts for us. But how does that explain the willing collusion of the the parents unless the parents were not healthy to begin with.

For me, this is true.

Our business here on FOO Chronicles, as I see it anyway, has to do with learning how not to require vengeance. For Joseph, that had to do with his never having believed his enslavement to their reality to have been legitimate. Joseph took responsibility for who he believed himself to be.

But, raised as a slave and marked as a slave and sold into slavery...how could Joseph have been strong enough not to believe he was who they told him he was.

That is the question.

Though I still think the father colluded in Joseph's disappearance. But you are right, Leafy. The story says the father had no idea.

Work today.

Leafy, I am glad you are moving through so well.

Cedar

Copa, Good Morning!

:O)

 

[Copabanana]

i cannot get quote to work on this stupid tablet.

You question cedar, if there was indeed collusion by the father, to sell out Joseph. You ask the central question of how joseph could maintain true to himself and who he was despite everything in his circumstances, indeed, reality, insisting otherwise. you point to his negating a vengeful will to define as wrong and to punish those who betrayed him.

that he never did betray himself is the pivot point that maintained his strength and clarity.

he never did see himself as either a victim or seek power through victim status, defining enemies, or making anybody wrong. as long as he spoke his own truth and did not take on the prejudice and viewpoints of others, he had no reason to empower or disempower anybody.

joseph could have turned against his father, to have seen him as colluding. after all, any child would wish to see a parent as fighting to save him, believe in him, despite all appearance of defeat or death. there are parents who do this, of course.

i am thinking of kermit oliver the texan artist commissioned by hermes to be the only american designer ever of their iconic scarves. how i wanted one!! filled with cowboys and indians and turkeys and cacti. the most beautiful representations of the american spirit as i can remember having seen. oliver racially and ethnically that amalgam of races and cultures of what was a southwest slave state.

 

[Copabanana]

continued

my post posted itself!

his son was executed for murder. he and his wife never deserted him, paying millions to defend him until the end. it is said that the father's view of life and art itself was irrevocably changed by the experience of his son.

we would want a father such as this, fighting and committing until the end to the life of his child. that jacob did not, for Joseph, believe in him until death and afterwards, say something that reflects are on wish, if not reality? is this the criterion against which we hold our own parents? Is it just? More importantly do we sell ourselves short expecting something which joseph seemed to not need or require?

because after all, joseph, had himself. his standard, his referent point was always internal. it could be absolute, because the measure was always himself for himself.

I am thinking of columba bush. what a great model she is for me. i read that her idea of a great day is to be in her own home cooking, with maybe an hour to watch a telenovela. she wants her husband at home and she wants her children safe. how i wish that my life had offered me this! I think I would rather to have been columba than hillary. what is it that pushes me to declare this, which to some extent negates my own life, and how it was lived. (columba had an abusive father and has a daughter who was addicted to drugs and continues fragile. what courage she has had to love her family and husband, and to risk their exposure and her own, when nothing in her requires it. these subordinations of self-interest for love, and the decisions, the choices for the good, even in circumstances that call for blame and abandonment of self and others, from fear of taking responsibility...that we not believe in good and strength (our own.) again, joseph models this for us.

I think it is back to internal vs external locus of control. which joseph never lost. every day, every circumstance, he challenged himself to remember and to act from who he was and what he needed; what he required himself to be. I have been thinking a lot about that. because i have been thinking about practices of integrity and well-being, in a way that I have never before done. so, what comes up for me is this: if i had had an internal locus of control 45 years ago, what would I have done with my life?

because i only got to where i am now by negatively comparing myself to other people and circumstances, and by achieving things to compensate for ways i found myself to be lacking. so I am confused. because i wonder if i had remembered as did joseph, that i was powerful and not a slave, would i not have forfeited the very impetus i did have to become strong in the world?

you see, my whole adult life to have anything at all, I felt i had to deny and diminish myself, with the other hand. I have no experience of strength without self-denial. and it is in this, that joseph models another way.

he achieved based upon affirmations only. not self-deception, for him. reality based upon seeing himself and others as human. not more or less. deserving everything not because they were more than, but because they were true and real. so it is this practice that i want to emulate. but first i need to understand it. how to be in the world onto myself. wanting because i am enough and complete. not because i am less than and deficient. to not hear the sirens' song within myself, of negativity. that i am undeserving. because really it never ever had anything to do with anybody except for joseph. the perceived limitations, actions or attitudes of his siblings or his parent, only had power in him or over him if he bought in, within himself.