That we only got the memo until many years we spent suffering, is a sadness. But now we know.
:O)
Copa, you are so funny.
Yes, now we know.
For a while my Mother had her trust set up like this, that the grandchildren inherit and not her daughters. I remember my sister was all bothered about it, and I, thought about it not at all.
Your mother may have been heavily influenced by the sister, whose probable intent (if she is like my sister) was to work her nefarious magic behind the scenes and exclude you and yours altogether. Given that you needed nothing from the mother anyway, that Sister was excluded was a genius move on the part of the Mother.
You had told us once Copa, that your mother understood who your sister really was.
How clever of her to have solved the problem of the sister's influence in that way! My sister is and has always been, about the inheritance, about the Will, about the money and the stuff. Nosey about it, and about everyone's finances, almost to the point almost of embarrassment.
Another one of those things that we chalk up to "That is just how Attila is."
Attila with two "T"s, for the tetons, as Leafy suggested.
:O)
The drugs (meth is the worst) change the physiology of the brain and that is what makes it so hard to stop. Not just the cravings but a kind of psychosis which remains for a long time. And there are psychiatric diagnoses which are notable for an absence of empathy...bipolar is one.
Reading this puts me in that battered Rocky Balboa before he began training place, Copa.
I am still pretty firmly in denial on so much of this.
Really. To the point that it makes my head spin.
Sometimes, I just cannot believe this is what's happened to all of us. But I do think I am coming to a place where it is only what happened, and not a killing field.
Sometimes, I believe that with a defiance so clear and perfect it burns.
I think we have to take seriously their words, not that our hearts break from it, but so that they learn that words count. That words hurt and they will be taken seriously. That everything they say or do to us will be taken seriously and responded too, seriously. (I am listening to myself here, too.)
Yes.
I am thinking about this. I am wondering anymore if I agree. Of course, they are our children and will always be. But if a relationship is destroyed, can we honestly act as if it is not? Does maintaining a parental stance make sense within a relationship of contempt?
I see D H and Mama, Copa. I know what she means to him, and what she has meant to him in his life, and how it frustrates him when she is weak and whining, and how it strengthens him when she is herself, again. And he tells her, to this day, when she is in her right mind, that the weather was too hot for him today, or the traffic was rotten.
And she wants to know.
And that is what a mother does that no one else in all the world does: She wants to know.
So, the answer where my son is concerned would be
to see through my own eyes, and never through those of the abuser, again.
That is my son. (Or, my daughter.) I am his mother. (Or, her mother.) However he justifies it, and whatever satisfaction he takes from it, my son is being honest.
I need to commit to the same.
Then, we will see.
Everywhere I look, I am being encouraged and supported to stand up.
In my real life, too.
And it ties into the work question, and to the integrity question, in the most extraordinary ways.
So, here is another observation I will make, which I might be all wet on but maybe not: On purpose; if this is so, then it would be best for us to do our part in these new directions.
Or is it just that I see it that way, do you think? A matter of where we put our attention becoming what we see.
Then it is one adult to another. I think to continue to parent an adult child leads to contempt. Perhaps it might be founded upon contempt.
I am thinking of my mother, here. Wondering where I am following her nasty lead. Founded upon contempt. Same energies, funneled differently.
I will think about this, Copa.
I agree that it is a contemptuous thing, not to have held my son responsible for the words, and the concepts behind them, that he spoke.
My reward would have been martyr role; his would have been destroying son.
A circle, a perfect circle, zipping along on its own energy.
True, then.
Ouch.
Thank you, Copa.
I needed to have stopped this in the beginning. In that way, we too are responsible for the qualities of our relationships.
It's a balancing act.
I agree a lot with D H--who I think said, give them what they want so that they leave us and our space alone. I think he is saying here, we are no longer responsible, nor are we obligated to sacrifice one iota that they learn.
And not only that, but to claim the right to joy in our lives fits in here. D H loves our children but he is not fixated on them the way I am. He wants to hear from them but his eyes glaze over and he hands me the phone when they begin talking about things that, literally I swear this is true, bore D H.
They are adults, he says.
I don't want to hear about their problems.
And remember, when D H talks to his own mom, he does not want to listen when she is not herself. He does not encourage self pity, even for his mother. D H encourages
and receives from his mother clear eyed response whenever she is capable of that. There are games and layers of games going on with the other sibs and grave concerns about stomach acid and just how much jello the mother did or did not consume.
This does not happen between D H and his mother. D H sibs often unite against his position but he doesn't care about that, either. He does the right thing for his mother. He insists on full disclosure
to him and allows whatever confidential understandings are happening between the other sibs below the surface to continue unremarked.
That is what honest looks like.
That is what respect looks like.
Nothing flowery in sight.
Micheal Corleone: "My circle is small. Loyalty matters. Don't f*** me over."
I told M's sister how I felt about my son coming home. She was appalled. Not in a blaming way, but it was not within her to understand a mother who felt as I did. Who did not want to have her child at home or even to go and see him.
She has not been where you have been, Copa. She has no way to comprehend the complexities. Be happy for her that she does not understand.
We are here for support for you in these matters, Copa.
That is why this site exists. There is no possible way for those who have not lived this to comprehend it, or to feel the desperate, keening pain in it.
That's okay, Copa.
Here we all are, and here is the site and whatever comes next, we will learn from it what we can.
The best thing would be for the son to question you regarding your changed feelings and for you (or for me, with my own son) to respond honestly.
The problem isn't a lack of honesty, it is that we cannot see because we cannot force ourselves to look. Like me, not believing because to believe my son meant what he said. (Which he did. He has told me this more than once and that feeling of "pounce" is in it, thick in his voice.)
Yay me that I can see it, now.
We never were cowards, Copa.
We were blind by choice. Until we were healed enough to address it correctly, we chose not to address it.
That was wise of us.
We must be very wise then.
:O)
So, we can trust ourselves about these matters, too.
I told her: I understand the limit is in me. That I get sick at even the idea of my son here with me. And she agreed. Yes, it is something in you.
Maybe Copa, for you and for me too, the something is knowing the right thing but not knowing, yet, how to act appropriately given our situations.
Time will tell.
M's sister will understand, or she will not.
You are correct in your gut feelings Copa, and that is all that I know.
We don't have to know everything maybe, Copa. We are not prescient. We are learning presence. So, we have to listen and respond to whatever it is in the best ways we know and sometimes, that is going to be wrong. When we do make wrong choices, the person who needs forgiveness, and the person who needs to forgive, is us. We don't have to be perfect, Copa. Only as sincere as we know, and to try to keep open, so we can see.
I do not know what it is in me. A Mexican mother, and Italian mother, a Jewish mother (which I am) is not supposed to feel this way. But I do. I am depleted.
Their children would never dare do what ours have done, Copa. In Jewish families, there is shiva for the outcast. In Italian families, there is scorn
from the mother and I have seen D H mother do it a million times. Scorn for all of her children when she felt they were not making her the center of their lives as she aged, as was done, in Italy. Mexican mothers I don't know. But Spanish people are not known for their kindness, but for their integrity and pride.
But I don't know about Mexican mothers.
Greek mothers are very much demanding and scornful.
That scorn which the child has felt whenever he or she behaved poorly from the time he or she was little is what gave the the strength to choose correctly as adolescents. For each of us, issues come of abusive childhood's where we were made to serve an abusive parent's dysfunction, colored our intentions toward our own children. They would never feel scorn. They would never question our love or acceptance.
In that way, we were remiss.
It was a rock and a hard place, for us, always.
We did not do what was done to us, but were afraid we must have, somehow. So, we took on the guilt of our children's inappropriate behaviors. When that happens in a family, where then is the strong center.
It is not too late for us, or for our children. Scorn is an appropriate response to scornful behaviors on the parts of our children.
We need (I need) to stand up.
D H mom would never have allowed these behaviors from any of her children. The difference is that she would never have allowed them from the time the children were little. We did. (I did.) I managed and cleaned up and set straight and smoothed over in the interests of that stupid family dinner.
Roar.
Cedar spits in the dust between her bare feet.
Gunfight at the Okay Corral. I will save my son, yet.
I have made a beginning already. I did it on faith, and now, I see the rest of the story. Well, whatever you guys. I am in the Corral.
Who would ever have believed the weapon was scorn. Just as it is with real guns, it depends on why you employ it.
They say you should never draw unless you intend to kill, lest your own weapon be used against you.
Boy, I sound like a bigshot this morning.
Bright, and brittle, with anger.
Occupational Therapist (Occupational Therapist (OT)) know how this conversation would happen and be successful. There have been so many times when I have had rules. For a long time, he mocked them. Then came the time he would agree, but his understanding was completely different than my own. His perception is that "trying" is enough. What is trying?
Yes.
This is true of my son, too.
Because I was waffling. Because I refused to believe.
***
Tell him in advance, Copa, and tell him why.
If there is going to be a blowup, let it be now.
Or he may respond well to this new strength in you.
But he will test it.
Cedar
