Being who we are, even if FOO is different and doesn't like it

[Copabanana]

I am rechristening my sister Atilla, too.

Is she Atilla too, or Atilla 2 *so we don't mistake one for the other.

I am on to zip lining.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

Ziplining is a thrilling outdoor activity during which a rider wears a harness that is securely connected, via carabiner and pulley system, to a cable suspended high above the ground. The rider then glides along the cable for a uniquely exhilarating experience.

OMG, I committed before I realized it is done high up. I am afraid of elevators. And sometimes even stairs. I mean, most of the time, stairs.

Cedar, you really want to do this?

And there are places right near me where they do it. Like within a half an hour. Oh Dear. It is like parachuting.

COPA

 

[InsaneCdn]

In my life I have not heard of this, but I will look it up. I think I want to do it too.

Ziplining is... horizontal bungee jumping. It's a major "thing" in certain parts, and definitely a fairly safe thrill, depending on how far down the ground is (some zip lines go across deep gorges and such; others are through the tree-tops, or even just across a stretch of ordinary land). Kids do it on school field trips, so the basic concept can't be THAT risky. Biggest thing is to get a reputable operator - as usual.
Have fun...

 

[Copabanana]

I feel so mean, like a tough street lady, all attitude and with really long fingernails and outrageous cleavage exposed for all the world to see and I don't even care.

And with my pants too tight.

I saw you guys (you and D H) when me and M went on the Angel's ride *in my dreams, but I did not recognize you, Cedar.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Oh Dear. It is like parachuting.

No, it is NOT like parachuting. You are ALWAYS attached, firmly, to the "line". It's like... well, it's like nothing else, really. A pretty safe sort of thrill.

 

[Copabanana]

You are ALWAYS attached, firmly, to the "line".

Insane, have you done it?

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

Oh my goodness guys, there is so much here. I will hurry to answer as I must get out in my yard...but thank you so very much, for your kind intriguing input and your conversation.

When I began on this forum just 6 months ago, I longed for my sister. I started a thread about it and that was when I got to know Cedar and Serenity.

And I also felt very, very hurt, humiliated and ever dirtied by the ways she had treated M and I. I gave her a lot of power over me and I did not know why.

I am so sorry for this hurt Copa. But am glad we have such wise sisters here, to help us through it.

I came to see myself as the powerful one. She receded in power and importance in my inner life, as she had in my actual one.

Your relationship with your sister seems more well-rounded, like there is real pleasure and love between you as well as the negative stuff. It also seems like you have the support of your other siblings who see her as you do. That is important to not be alone with this.

This is true. It is funny, my sister used to rally up my brother against me. Now I see her upset that we all are talking. It is a sort of game, this. Much like abusers isolate their victims. I do no think it is even an intentional, plotting thing.
How odd is that?
Have we been gaslighted all of these years? (As I am now learning about this thing, this gaslighting.) There is something very tricky about the pleasure of Attillas company..... and the danger of it.
It would be much simpler if she was more outrageous and easily disliked.
But, then again, tallying up her actions, she is outrageous.
She is just spurts of outrageous, inter twined with an amazing strength and sense of self.
Okay an over sense of self.
And it is amazing that she has been protected.
Mom sighs and says, "She has always been this way, you are all different, and that is the beauty of life."
I have protected her, defended her.
When Mom discovered her beautiful gold bracelet, a marriage gift from my Dad, missing, I was visiting.

I knew immediately it was Attilla. I texted her, not accusingly, a query, 'Mom is looking for her bracelet"
a pause, then an answer "I have it", then a story, "I was going to get it cleaned to surprise her." Then a confession, "I took it. I was afraid when I moved I would never see Mom, so I took it."
So we went with the cleaning story, to protect her, to protect Mom, from the horror of her mistake.

We all knew, including Mom, what had really happened, but did not broach that, to keep the peace.

Looking at it now, this is an example of what has happened with Attilla, over and over again. The family history and dynamics of it. Huh.

Transgress, forgive.

New Leaf, the thing to think about is that it does not really have to be devastating.

You are coming to understand that her power is not as great as you think and she may think. She can be curbed. She has been already in the control she may have with your Mother.

You are right Copa, it does not have to be devastating, there is power in the knowing of what is. I think this is why she does not want me speaking with my siblings. Through our individual experience with her, we know too much.

You are understanding, too, much of what she did to you as a child. That is taking back your power from her.

I do not think she can hurt you much if you understand what and who she is and has been and stand up to her, which you have.

If you face the truth now, how devastating can what she does really be? The hard, hard thing you have already faced, by your trip. And you continue to face it, with grace and strength.

Thank you Copa, not so much grace, this unladylike gesture pointed towards the phone when I see it is her calling. But strength, yes. I have come to see all along it was my strength that she has feared the most.

The remarkable thing about the sisters is how little if any shame they do feel.

They are truly emperors with no clothes.

You know the funny thing about me, is that I still persist in seeing my sister as kindly. (There can be a sweetness about her.)

The emperor with no clothes, that is the perfect example. The false bravado, and pretense, the hidden agendas, the puffing. All fluff and nakedness, underneath a very strange, self oriented, shrinking person. The wizard of Oz with the curtain pulled. He had good, kindly intentions, but he was a trickster, just the same.

(She won an award for compassion and kindness from her big city. I about threw up.)

You are too funny, Copa I laughed a hearty laugh at this. How delightful you are sister.

I still have a great deal of pain about this, about all of the years I separated myself from my mother. How I wish there had been another way.

But, Copa, it was your survival, you detached. Physically and mentally. You had to sink or swim, you swam, then you came back at just the right time.

Leafy, perhaps your Mom is wise. She may be trying to protect some of the assets so your sister doesn't get the lion's share. If there are little things that you would really like to have, maybe speak up and see if Mom would start sharing some of her "things" before she is gone - when SHE has full control over who gets them.

Thank you Insane, May I call you Sane?
I cannot think of you as Insane, you have such good thoughts and energy.
I think Mom was trying to give us something while she is still here. That, in of itself, saddened me deeply, because it was a tangible reminder of her soon departing. I would rather have Mom, than things, but that is not possible. It is true that objects hold a part of a person, a memory of a beloved one.

What comes to mind in the forefront "Thou shall not covet."
I cannot bring myself to ask. It is hers to give.
Attilla, is already planning and speaks outrightly of it, what is hers.
She had already acquired things, then brought them back to Mom when she moved here. (very, very briefly)
Mom and Dads things, that held a meaning for her.
Looking at them on my recent visit, she quipped, that was mine, that is mine.
Like the seagulls on "Finding Nemo"
Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.
I cannot, will not join in on this.
It is ugly to me.

I know that Mom would not think of it as so, but I do.
I shall keep my integrity with this.
But thank you Sane, for your suggestion.
My Mom would not mind.
But it feels as if a feeding frenzy, when all I want for my dear Mom is to have some peace in her last days.

So my concentration will be on what my Mom has already given to us. Her love.

How strange it seems to know it now, but my sister seems to have had some fantasy life going on in all those months. She had come to believe, without doubt, that I believed as she did, a belief system made up of whole cloth, that the man who wanted to marry my mother was dangerous, manipulative, abusive. I have posted before about my sister's having told my mother that she needed a mother, and that this was my mother's time to provide that for her.

Huh, how similar this is to what we have experienced, different yet similar in characteristics.

I wish with all my heart my mother had married the Greek Orthodox priest, and that he had taken her away.

Sister won, on that one...or, did all of us lose.

Or, were all of us saved.

That is the unanswered question with my fathers hospitalization. Was he truly saved from the country bumpkin facility, by moving to the far away inner city one? No one knows, but sister is sure she was the champion, the savior in this instance. Strange, in my fathers ravaged mind, the words he said as they closed the transport ambulance door "I go to meet my maker."
He had suffered a stroke, on top of everything else.
My sister again said, "You must come"
In between the days of making plans to again go home, my father slipped in and out of himself. A stroke had taken his mind to places that we will never know. He wafted in and out of reality. He became combative and had to be restrained. He railed on and on about Attilla.
My sister was very hurt and hurled back to her teen aged years, a memory of when the defiance of her caused my stoic Dad to flip her off.

It wasn't until a few days later we found out he was raging over a nurse with the same name.
One who was stern with him and tied him to his bed as he was ripping out his lines.

Or was he railing against the nurse? In his mind, in and out of the veil of life, death and reality, was he railing against the nurse, or did the reality of the power my sister had, her dominating, come to light?

We will never know. We dubbed my father "Captain Ahab" in this mysterious angered phase, for he would sit with furrowed brow, looking like that crazed seaman.
He was searching for his senses, his memory, but that is another story.

I thought my sister was funny and likable, too.

D H says that is not so, and that it was never so.

My hubs does not like Attilla, well he does, but remember, he exterminated her move here, by inviting Volcanoe, Tornado and the grands over for the weekend,(he has never done that),
when my children and I traveled for a paddling event.
It was as if saying, "This is what you are in for, you better run, now."
He protected me, by forcing her to open her eyes
and realize it was all a lovely, impossible dream,
us living together.
The hubs is quiet, but very, very wise.

So, that is an interesting piece about this material having to do with my family of origin.

That the ice is yellow.

This connects, too. I have a lady friend who raises pedigreed Icelandic sheep. To protect them, she saves her urine and marks her territory around where the sheep are penned.

The urine of the alpha female.

Yes, my sister has "urinated" on many of my parents possessions. She is incensed when Mom has given things to brother and little sis. Huh.

I wonder Copa, whether it is less that the sister cannot forgive than it is that your courage and assertion and presence shamed the sister into a chance of awakening to who she is and she has refused it. There is such vehemence, such insistence to hurt in the things you have posted about your sister's actions, and about the way she seems to require witnesses she has already poisoned against you to agree with her.

Cedar, as the song says in "I Wont Give Up" how old is your soul? You must know that I am astounded by your perspective.
Yes, the courage and assertion Copa, revealed the truth of your sisters actions. You were the child yelling, "The King is......naked"
Just as when I, filled up with hurt at what had happened to me under the rough, prickly wing of my sister, let loose and exclaimed this.
She is enraged. She cannot think of it.
So now, when pushed to the brink by her meanness and insensitivity,
I cry, she is repulsed by my tears.
My tears wash away the facade she has created for herself, and me, that she has always been a good sister.

It feels so bad to know our people do not love us. It feels like we are not lovable; that we are defective, and not damaged, at all. But just the opposite is true: We are damaged, not defective. We were perfect, in the beginning. We will come through this whole and healthy again because that is the way things are meant to be. Remember the layers I was posting about somewhere recently? The scab at the top of the thing: Self contempt. The infection, the name of the infected thing that created the need of the scab lest it spread, system wide: Shame

And the wound: Abandonment

My sister abandoned me in the worst way, building me up with a dream of friendship, companionship, till death do we part.
She moved everything over here, everything, and then took a vacation.
She was then, after the reality check by the hubs, angry at me for "duping" her to come here.
When all along she was duping herself.
She knew my circumstances with my d cs, she was my "go to" for many tear filled phone calls.
"Why didn't you tell me?" She sputtered.
"I did tell you, over and over again, come for a visit, to see if this is what you truly want."
Instead she insisted this was her destiny, that we would be by one another's side, that I was too long alone here, separated by distance from family.
"We will be family together, sisters and friends."
Oh how excited and happy I was. To be her friend was what I had yearned for when I was younger, even as she admonished me not to even greet her in school, or speak with her friends.
I just wanted to be her friend.
She moved over slowly in boxes mailed.
She arrived on my birthday. Then left a little over a month later.

I felt abandoned, I did Cedar.
I could not even look at her, speak to her. It was a week before she was to leave, "Can't we just spend the last week doing fun things together?"
After a lifetime of swallowing my feelings, I could not do it this time. I would not.
I was civil.
But I would not put on the happy face in the misery of it.

She had done it again, left me to go make a life with her friend.
Abandonment.

In the end of it, it was a good thing. We would have killed one another, I fear.
For I was not the person she had made me out to be.
I was already growing stronger. Strong enough to show my feelings.
Strong enough to stand up to her.

But we have Eckhart, now: Nothing can stand before the fact of your Presence.

This presence you speak of this Eckhart, I must read.
It is all important, isn't it?
To be fully present in all things?

Thank you, so much my sisters, my friends, for sharing your knowledge and experience, it is most helpful.

And now the yard is calling......

Good Sunday to you all

leafy

 

[InsaneCdn]

Insane, have you done it?

No. But both my kids have

 

[New Leaf]

I'm new to FOO. Coming over from Substance Abuse..But FOO is why I roll the way I do in all matters affecting my life. I still deal with mom..My values have kept me involved..She is 89..I have gone to her empty well most of my life with expectations that she would accept me, hear me...love me..She told me recently that when we were infants and toddlers that parents didn't think we had feelings or ideas until we could walk and talk. She took good care of our physical needs but that's as far as it went. She has lost the power to devastate me..but I can get riled at times. I have to minimize contact . Being with her feels like work..I am nothing like my FOO, who is left anyway. Dad and brother are deceased...I look foward to being part of these discussions..Carolita

Lovely Carolita, how wonderful to see you here.

I must go now, but wanted to check in with you and say I am very pleased you have come over to be with us in FOO.
I am sorry for your memories and history that brought you here, but honestly, it is quite reviving to write of it and share, just as much as our P.E. threads.
We are on a journey of self discovery.

Hopefully, that knowledge will help us to be ever more resilient in our present and future lives.
Cedar writes of Presence. We shall be more present.

I will comment later, when the sun is down.

Good day to you sister
leafy

 

[New Leaf]

Is she Atilla too, or Atilla 2 *so we don't mistake one for the other.

I am on to zip lining.

COPA

Mine is Attilla with two t's, Atilla was a man, so two t's for "Ta-ta's"

Yes Cedar, you have an Atilla, too. How bizarre is that?

Perhaps they have eventually made us our strongest selves?

Zip lining-hmmmmmm, but I did override my fear of heights once, with an incredibly long climb up a stairway to a huge waterpark death defying slide, then screamed at the top of my lungs all the way down with my stomach stuck up at the top of it, lump in my throat, over in a few seconds, plunge.

Whoosh

zip lining- we have some here too

hmmmmmm

 

[InsaneCdn]

Zip lining-hmmmmmm, but I did override my fear of heights once, with an incredibly long climb up a stairway to a huge waterpark death defying slide, then screamed at the top of my lungs all the way down with my stomach stuck up at the top of it, lump in my throat, over in a few seconds, plunge.

That actually describes zip-lining fairly well!

 

[Copabanana]

That actually describes zip-lining fairly well!

I would be most afraid of the stair-part. By the time I was ready to zip, I would have already made a huge scene, screaming and crying and sitting on my bottom waving my arms (kind of like the throwing a fit smiley....)My loved ones would be hiding somewhere.

Sometimes being afraid of stairs and bridges is a good thing. Stairs remind one to never again contemplate zip lining. Or committing to do things one has never ever heard of just because Cedar wants to do it.

The fire department would have to come and get me off. It would not be pretty. It is not the image I am trying to cultivate.

Then they might have to call my sister, as remotely next of kin, if indeed I did expire, which I believe I might.

No. It is not the image I have in mind to cultivate. *Please refer back to the picture of Cedar with her D H. That is closer to what I have in mind for myself.

No. No Zip lining. Not at all.

COPA (Back in bed, at the mere thought.)

 

[BusynMember]

My mother hated and disowned me in her will. That hurt but not because if the money...there wasn't much. My brother was her worshipped child. My sister did what she needed to do to have a relationship with her. I saw she was sick and did not do her bidding.
She did all she could to hurt me. She never even bothered to get to know my wonderful children.
Caused sibling wars.
Happy with just my chosen family.Dont consider them more than DNA accidents *foo*

 

[New Leaf]

I'm new to FOO. Coming over from Substance Abuse..But FOO is why I roll the way I do in all matters affecting my life.

Hi lovely Carolita, that name roles off of my tongue like a song.
I think FOO affects everyone, whether good or bad. We take a lot from our childhood experiences through our lives.

I still deal with mom..My values have kept me involved..She is 89..I have gone to her empty well most of my life with expectations that she would accept me, hear me...love me..

I am sorry for this Carolita, that is sad. You have integrity in helping her. 89 is a long life. I find my Mom at 82 is different. She is ill, and not feeling herself. On a recent visit, I tried to hug her long, it was too much for her, she pushed me away. My Mom has a hard time with physical contact. I don't know why. But, it did hurt me as a child.

She told me recently that when we were infants and toddlers that parents didn't think we had feelings or ideas until we could walk and talk. She took good care of our physical needs but that's as far as it went.

Interesting. Did you know that until the 1980's surgeons would operate on babies without pain management? It is true. I think folks during our Moms times had a very different outlook towards infants. It is amazing we all survived. Remember the old saying "Better seen than heard" ? I think that how we were raised had a lot to do with that notion.
Now, it has completely swung the other way. Children are coddled and spoiled, there is no balance to this.

She has lost the power to devastate me..but I can get riled at times. I have to minimize contact .

I am glad this is so, Carolita, you not being devastated. That is a hard place to be. I understand minimizing contact for your sanity.

Being with her feels like work..I am nothing like my FOO, who is left anyway. Dad and brother are deceased...I look forward to being part of these discussions..Carolita

I look forward to you joining in Carolita, welcome!


leafy

 

[New Leaf]

Copa how is your kitty, Stella, or is it Goldie now?

 

[New Leaf]

oops

 

[New Leaf]

I would be most afraid of the stair-part. By the time I was ready to zip, I would have already made a huge scene, screaming and crying and sitting on my bottom waving my arms (kind of like the throwing a fit smiley....)My loved ones would be hiding somewhere........

Copa you are hilarious


Get out of bed dear, we will not make you zipline
leafy

ps The pictures are just as I had imagined you, with better legs.

 

[Carolita2]

Hi lovely Carolita, that name roles off of my tongue like a song.
I think FOO affects everyone, whether good or bad. We take a lot from our childhood experiences through our lives.

I am sorry for this Carolita, that is sad. You have integrity in helping her. 89 is a long life. I find my Mom at 82 is different. She is ill, and not feeling herself. On a recent visit, I tried to hug her long, it was too much for her, she pushed me away. My Mom has a hard time with physical contact. I don't know why. But, it did hurt me as a child.

Interesting. Did you know that until the 1980's surgeons would operate on babies without pain management? It is true. I think folks during our Moms times had a very different outlook towards infants. It is amazing we all survived. Remember the old saying "Better seen than heard" ? I think that how we were raised had a lot to do with that notion.
Now, it has completely swung the other way. Children are coddled and spoiled, there is no balance to this.

I am glad this is so, Carolita, you not being devastated. That is a hard place to be. I understand minimizing contact for your sanity.


I look forward to you joining in Carolita, welcome!


leafy

Thank Leafy. Oh yes seen and not heard..My mom had trouble with affection as well..I guess we are around the same age..How was your dad? My dad was a man who really didn't like kids!!! I was very independent as a child..I think that was another generatonal thing. I walked a mile to school, to my dentist appointments and played outside everyday until dark..No one ever came looking for me..Seems like neglect but maybe I was better off out there..
It was just like I felt very disconnected from my parents, like they just preferred it that way...and it was just the way it was. As you say polar opposite from today..

 

[Carolita2]

My mother hated and disowned me in her will. That hurt but not because if the money...there wasn't much. My brother was her worshipped child. My sister did what she needed to do to have a relationship with her. I saw she was sick and did not do her bidding.
She did all she could to hurt me. She never even bothered to get to know my wonderful children.
Caused sibling wars.
Happy with just my chosen family.Dont consider them more than DNA accidents *foo*

Oh yes the sibling wars..Is that a way of being in control..I think my mom is very clever or maybe devious is a better word..
What is difficult is how beautiful everyone thinks she is...This is somewhat gagging..She is the most beautiful woman in her assisted living facility and the podiatrist says her feet are stunning, blah blah blah...So then she wears the peep toe shoes and sandals in winter so we can all see them...the feet..is this petty. Just irks me...

 

[New Leaf]

Thanks Leafy. Oh yes seen and not heard..My mom had trouble with affection as well..I guess we are around the same age..How was your dad? My dad was a man who really didn't like kids!!! I was very independent as a child..I think that was another generatonal thing. I walked a mile to school, to my dentist appointments and played outside everyday until dark..No one ever came looking for me..Seems like neglect but maybe I was better off out there..
It was just like I felt very disconnected from my parents, like they just preferred it that way...and it was just the way it was. As you say polar opposite from today..

We were left to our own also. I think that was the way of it, no organized sports or worries of strangers. We were pretty free back then. That left my sis and bro in charge, there within lies the problem. We walked to school as well. I remember one spring, we went to school dressed lightly, and walked home in a snow squall. We were raised to be tough.
Yes, the disconnect. Dad liked kids but was at work a lot. He was here and there. We loved him just the same and were very respectful and afeared of him. I do not remember being spanked, ever. The thought of him being upset with us was enough to keep us in check.

I remember their bridge parties. Mom would put the tv upstairs and buy us tv dinners (huh, what a treat) and tell us to stay upstairs, it was an adult party.

Different times back then. The hubs watches Madmen a show set in the 60's. It brings a lot of old memories back.

I think it was a very different time of raising children. We were left to our own exploring, which proved disastrous for my sibs and I as teenagers in the 70's, if you know what I mean.

leafy