Family of Origin (FOO) Support Thread Part 2

[Scent of Cedar *]

"Faith is not, contrary to the usual ideas, something that turns out right or wrong, like a gambler's bet. It is an act, an intention, a project; something that makes you, in leaping into the future, go so far, far ahead that you shoot clean out of Time and right into Eternity, which is not the end of Time or unending time, but timelessness, that old, Eternal Now."

Russ

***

"Make me sweet again
fragrant and
fresh and wild,
and thankful
for any small gesture."

Rumi

***

"The pain body may seem to you like a dangerous monster that you cannot bear to look at, but I assure you that it is an insubstantial phantom that cannot prevail against the power of your presence."

Eckhart Tolle
The Power of Now

***

"I know it's his journey not mine, and he knows I love him."

pasajess
Conduct Disorders

***

"Lest I grow cold about him or let his ugly behaviors devour me. Sometimes it's the only gratitude I have for him. So.......I'll take it."

Headlights Mom
Conduct Disorders

***

"...one of his violin strings broke. the audience grew silent but the violinist did not leave the stage. He signaled the maestro and the orchestra began its part.

The violinist played with power and intensity on only three strings.

Asked later how he had accomplished this feat, the violinist answered, "It is my task to make music with what remains."

Cedar

 

[nerfherder]

What is "kreplach", nerfie?

I have wheat allergies, too. No beer, for me.

Cedar

Ravioli, with chopped meat flavored with garlic and onion, folded like big fat tortellini, eaten in chicken soup (but you can fry up the leftovers like pierogi.) I wasn't excited by them as a kid, but I think I'd like to eat them now. Unfortunately, even the "gluten free" flours don't work right for that.

Good beer is only made with barley, hops and yeast, so if your allergy is solely wheat (and not a reaction to gluten) then beer (and scotch) shouldn't be a major issue. Also He-Brew makes an apple cider-type ale, kosher for Passover so no wheat there either.

Note: Tito's vodka is corn only, and Monopolowa vodka is strictly potato-based. So those should be safe. Er, for whatever in vodka passes for "safe."

 

[nerfherder]

This recipe is adapted from the Jewish Settlement Cookbook of about 110 years ago. My Mother had a copy but I do not know where it went. Maybe I will get another one.

I love ancient cookbooks (another thing gutenberg.org is great for!) and will have to look that one up. Thanks!

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

http://www.luke173ministries.org/466782

This link discusses family jealousy. Especially toward the end of the piece, there is a heavily biblical emphasis. Though I did not read too deeply there, that information too was interesting. Most of us have heard these stories, but have not connected the lessons in them to what may be happening in our own lives.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Nerf, I found this history of The Settlement Cookbook interesting.

In 1901, Milwaukee homemaker Lizzie Black Kander taught cooking classes to immigrant women at The Settlement, a social service agency for the urban poor. When The Settlement itself needed help, Kander had a fundraising idea that would prove to have a lasting impact on American Jewish cooking: She compiled a book made up of her recipes and household tips and published it asThe Settlement Cook Book.

The cookbook offered more than just recipes. For recent Jewish arrivals from Eastern Europe, The Settlement Cook Book was an instruction manual for the American kitchen and an introduction to American life. These immigrants looked, dressed, worshipped and even ate differently than did the established — and often prosperous — German-American Jews of Milwaukee, who feared that the new arrivals would pull them down and even inspire a new wave of anti-Semitism.

"Certainly there was true philanthropic goodness," says Nora Rubel, who teaches the history of religion at the University of Rochester in New York. "But I think there was also an underlying concern that if they didn't Americanize they would reflect badly on the Jews that were already there — partly because they were so visible."

In 1901, the first edition of The Settlement Cook Book — 1,000 copies — quickly sold out. Then a remarkable thing happened: During the next several decades, the book went on to sell more than 1.5 million copies worldwide, remaining a best-selling cookbook well into the 1970s.

Even today, The Settlement Cook Book inspires great devotion. Joan Nathan, author of Jewish Cooking in America, owns 18 different editions of the book. Her 95-year-old mother was given a copy in 1937 as a wedding gift, and it remains in her kitchen today.

"She always looks at it for recipes, even though I've written nine cookbooks," Nathan says. "She considers it her Bible."

The book's early editions actually contained few Jewish recipes — the immigrants already knew how to make gefilte fish. But over the next 40 years, Kander revised the book to include foods from many nations, as well as recipes for the Jewish holidays. A Nathan family favorite is kremslach.

"It's like a fritter, with matzo that's been soaked in water and dried, and matzo meal and nuts and raisins," explains Nathan. "You fry it. And then you serve it either with a wine sauce or you serve it with prunes. My mother — the way that she makes matzo balls is in there. Everything she wants to do that's Jewish is straight from The Settlement Cook Book."

According to Rubel, Jews see it as a Jewish cookbook: "It really is the first cookbook to see Jews as part of the fabric of America," she says. "And I think there's something very compelling about that. This is our tradition and it's part of this grand tapestry of American culinary ideas."

For the modern reader, Kander's book is a window into another era. She spoke about The Settlement Cook Book in a 1933 interview with WHAS Radio, Louisville, Ky., saying:

"I surely like the man of the house to be interested in cooking, but only to give a helping hand in case of necessity. I really don't think it is a man's business to putter around in the kitchen. I want him to be surprised and pleased when he gets to the table. That is where he should forget all of his worldly cares."

Antiquated gender roles aside, there are other ways the book is dated. It's not about local food or slow food, and the recipes are certainly not heart healthy. Though it's still published today in facsimile editions, The Settlement Cook Book is best known by older generations.

Kander, who died in 1940 at age 82, was committed to preserving the book's legacy. She personally revised 23 editions during the second half of her life.

"This woman was totally devoted to this cookbook," says Nathan. "And it became fun for her. It was a driving force. She traveled the country. She constantly had new ideas. And she did something wonderful for the Settlement House in Milwaukee."

Decades after the initial publication of The Settlement Cook Book, father of modern American cooking James Beard was asked for the name of his favorite cookbook.

"If I consult a cookbook at all, it is likely to be by one of these sensible, flat-heeled authors like the famous Mrs. Kander," he replied.



The Settlement Cook Book
The Way to a Man's Heart, 1903

by Simon Kander and Henry Schoenfeld

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...xic-patterns-in-mother-daughter-relationships

I have been reviewing where we have been in our healing recently. We have come to see through our own eyes, not those of our abusers. For me now, the feeling of betrayal and the theme of betrayal and healing from betrayal and learning about betrayal is tolling like a bell. According to my reading, betrayal seems to be comprised of four emotions: resentment, anger, fear, and helplessness.

The link above describes a variety of toxic mother/daughter relationships. The writer states that it is not mothers who are hard wired to love their daughters, but daughters who are hard wired to love their mothers. I found that to be an interesting concept.

***

Copa and nerfie, old cookbooks fascinate me. I love getting a feel for the woman in her home ~ for how she saw herself, for how she appreciated her role and took it to heart.

I have not seen this cookbook. Copa, I love the excerpts you chose to illustrate it. I am so curious about it, now.

:O)

Cedar

So, a kremslach is like a fritter.

***

I read D H the part about the man not messing around in the kitchen and being surprised at his dinner. That darn D H said he is always surprised at dinner. Then he started laughing and went outside.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

http://marciasirotamd.com/trauma-re...bling-relationships-in-dysfunctional-families

Here is another link having to do with the inevitability of betrayal in dysfunctional families.

 

[nerfherder]

Here, a link to it and other PDF files.

http://community.kingarthurflour.co...0s-early-1900s-links-free-e-copies-pdf-copies

Nerf, I found this history of The Settlement Cookbook interesting.

In 1901, Milwaukee homemaker Lizzie Black Kander taught cooking classes to immigrant women at The Settlement, a social service agency for the urban poor. When The Settlement itself needed help, Kander had a fundraising idea that would prove to have a lasting impact on American Jewish cooking: She compiled a book made up of her recipes and household tips and published it asThe Settlement Cook Book.

The cookbook offered more than just recipes. For recent Jewish arrivals from Eastern Europe, The Settlement Cook Book was an instruction manual for the American kitchen and an introduction to American life. These immigrants looked, dressed, worshipped and even ate differently than did the established — and often prosperous — German-American Jews of Milwaukee, who feared that the new arrivals would pull them down and even inspire a new wave of anti-Semitism.

"Certainly there was true philanthropic goodness," says Nora Rubel, who teaches the history of religion at the University of Rochester in New York. "But I think there was also an underlying concern that if they didn't Americanize they would reflect badly on the Jews that were already there — partly because they were so visible."

In 1901, the first edition of The Settlement Cook Book — 1,000 copies — quickly sold out. Then a remarkable thing happened: During the next several decades, the book went on to sell more than 1.5 million copies worldwide, remaining a best-selling cookbook well into the 1970s.

Even today, The Settlement Cook Book inspires great devotion. Joan Nathan, author of Jewish Cooking in America, owns 18 different editions of the book. Her 95-year-old mother was given a copy in 1937 as a wedding gift, and it remains in her kitchen today.

"She always looks at it for recipes, even though I've written nine cookbooks," Nathan says. "She considers it her Bible."

The book's early editions actually contained few Jewish recipes — the immigrants already knew how to make gefilte fish. But over the next 40 years, Kander revised the book to include foods from many nations, as well as recipes for the Jewish holidays. A Nathan family favorite is kremslach.

"It's like a fritter, with matzo that's been soaked in water and dried, and matzo meal and nuts and raisins," explains Nathan. "You fry it. And then you serve it either with a wine sauce or you serve it with prunes. My mother — the way that she makes matzo balls is in there. Everything she wants to do that's Jewish is straight from The Settlement Cook Book."

According to Rubel, Jews see it as a Jewish cookbook: "It really is the first cookbook to see Jews as part of the fabric of America," she says. "And I think there's something very compelling about that. This is our tradition and it's part of this grand tapestry of American culinary ideas."

For the modern reader, Kander's book is a window into another era. She spoke about The Settlement Cook Book in a 1933 interview with WHAS Radio, Louisville, Ky., saying:

"I surely like the man of the house to be interested in cooking, but only to give a helping hand in case of necessity. I really don't think it is a man's business to putter around in the kitchen. I want him to be surprised and pleased when he gets to the table. That is where he should forget all of his worldly cares."

Antiquated gender roles aside, there are other ways the book is dated. It's not about local food or slow food, and the recipes are certainly not heart healthy. Though it's still published today in facsimile editions, The Settlement Cook Book is best known by older generations.

Kander, who died in 1940 at age 82, was committed to preserving the book's legacy. She personally revised 23 editions during the second half of her life.

"This woman was totally devoted to this cookbook," says Nathan. "And it became fun for her. It was a driving force. She traveled the country. She constantly had new ideas. And she did something wonderful for the Settlement House in Milwaukee."

Decades after the initial publication of The Settlement Cook Book, father of modern American cooking James Beard was asked for the name of his favorite cookbook.

"If I consult a cookbook at all, it is likely to be by one of these sensible, flat-heeled authors like the famous Mrs. Kander," he replied.



The Settlement Cook Book
The Way to a Man's Heart, 1903

by Simon Kander and Henry Schoenfeld

 

[Copabanana]

I read the link. This quote particularly affected me. "Unlike the daughter of an attuned mother who grows in reflected light, the unloved daughter is diminished by the connection." It is very sad. This must be why I needed to so early in life separate from my mother. Imagine how much of myself I needed to freeze to do it. Because I had loved her so.

We have come to see through our own eyes, not those of our abusers.

Me, too? (asked in a whiny voice.)

Cedar, do you think I am seeing through my own eyes, too? (I have remembered my dignity and power, thus am asking in my grown-up voice.) I do not yet see it.

Although I am aware that pain I feel around my mother's death is not as sharp and does not involve self-hatred or the sense that I have lost my own life. I no longer feel the need to reject my whole life as having lived badly or poorly because I could not allow myself to be close to her.

Instead I feel deep sadness for both of us that it could not have been different.

it is not mothers who are hard wired to love their daughters, but daughters who are hard wired to love their mothers.

Very, very sad.

Copa, I love the excerpts you chose to illustrate it. I am so curious about it, now.

Cedar, I love cookbooks. I have somewhat of a collection. I must have 20 on bread alone. *That would be a good title for a book.

You do know that all of the men in my family, generations back, through my generation were bakers. I seem to have inherited the gene.

It interests me that this cookbook had the goal to encourage assimilation. From the time I was a baby I knew that German Jews looked down at the Ashkenazi, of which I am one. In my City, German Jews settled in the mid-1800's. They were extremely rich and influential. All of the important parks and civic entities, museums, swimming pools, etc. were named after these people. They were generous with their gifts.

The German Jews came from families in Germany already very prosperous and important. The newly arriving Jews, largely from the Pale, the western part of Russia and its' satellite countries, part of Imperial Russia, were poor and humble.

The elegant and entitled German Jews could not distance themselves from us, enough. It is absolutely a true thing that they feared the arrival of so many of us, however we were, would bring forth a new wave of antisemitism and they would be tarred with the same brush, so to speak. How very sad.

I am fascinated that this cookbook itself was part of this intra-tribal conversation.

 

[Copabanana]

Here, a link to it and other PDF files.

Wow Nerf. I am blown away. Thank you very much.

 

[BusynMember]

Although I am aware that pain I feel around my mother's death is not as sharp and does not involve self-hatred or the sense that I have lost my own life. I no longer feel the need to reject my whole life as having lived badly or poorly because I could not allow myself to be close to her.

Copa, to be close to somebody abusive is to lose yourself. It is the way of life that children go off on their own. We are supposed to give them roots to grow and wings to fly, not a rope to bind them to us. Some people are hard or impossible to get close to and it is not our faults. This was not your fault.

 

[BusynMember]

According to my reading, betrayal seems to be comprised of four emotions: resentment, anger, fear, and helplessness.

This is awesome and spot on. Does it resonate with you guys too? I definitely felt resentment and anger around both mother and sister. At any time, I knew either could get POd and say good-bye. I had resentment too and when my sister would go so far as to call the cops to silence me, I did feel helpless. As a child my mother made me feel very helpless.

I don't feel helpless anymore. I feel more...empowered. Hope all of you do too.

 

[BusynMember]

The link above describes a variety of toxic mother/daughter relationships. The writer states that it is not mothers who are hard wired to love their daughters, but daughters who are hard wired to love their mothers. I found that to be an interesting concept.

I'm not sure I believe this as just between motehrs and daughters, Cedar. All babies are going to love their mothers unless they are treated horribly and even abused kids often scream and cry when help comes to remove them from their mothers. I think the hardwiring to love Mother is true, but I think it is in boys as well as girls.

I also wonder about mothers not been hard wired to love their kids. It seems unnatural. But, as seen in this discussion, I guess it's true. Not all mothers love their kids. Sad.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Me, too? (asked in a whiny voice.)

Cedar, do you think I am seeing through my own eyes, too? (I have remembered my dignity and power, thus am asking in my grown-up voice.) I do not yet see it.

You are, Copa. Everything is changing. You are seeing from a different perspective. Burdened now with the horror of what is happening between yourself and your son, you are less keenly attuned to the pain attending thoughts of your mother or sister or of your changing perspective regarding either one of them. I see your changing perspective most clearly in three things, Copa:

1) The nature of your posts to the others of us is changing. The strength in you sings through them, now.

2) The place you see yourself from when you post about your mom's time of screaming. You see now that it could easily be true that you chose, with strength and compassion, to listen for her sake. Always before, you believed you had somehow let her down and that she was angry because it was you, and not someone else, who was saving her. To hear her in her wordless rage took real courage, Copa, and to be present to it for her sake was so free and generous a gift. But you never saw it that way, Copa. And now, you are beginning to consider that this could be true, this way that we see what you did. That is huge, Copa. Each time I began to allow my perspective on some abusive experience to change, it took time and time and time. Each revisiting, I would be a little healthier, a little more open to seeing what really happened, a little more first willing and then, able, to pull from those incidents a different truth about myself.

The truth I know is this, Copa: Whether I am loved back does not matter. What matters is that I love. Whether I was cheated or betrayed, whether I am seen as cheapened or broken or shamed over where my kids have been in their lives (and oh, where they are not) none of that matters. It is what it is. Like me, my children are human beings and, like me, they deserve better than they have received from my FOO and maybe, even from me.

I am changing that.

Sympathy and empathy and pleas they have had. Now, I will be stronger. We will see what comes next.

***

I always do say this, Copa: Our recovering ourselves is not about bitterly condemning our abusers. It is not about the lust of vengeance ~ though for a time, I believed it was. Believing that, I chose to leave everything I knew about my upbringing, or about any betrayal in my life, unchanged.

But it has nothing to do with vengeance, Copa.

We are meant to be whole; meant to be strong and certain and free of this. Every betrayal, each lust of vengeance, holds a lesson for us.

Our job is to see the truth in what happened to each of us. Not the truth we were taught about ourselves, but the truth in what happened there so we can go from here whole and strong enough to meet whatever is coming next for our kids. It isn't that our families of origin aren't important. It's that what we feel for or about them pales in the face of what we feel, and of what we will teach by our examples, to our kids.

I want to be strong and whole and this time, it has nothing to do with my mother. I no longer see my sister as child in the shadows needing protection. I don't see my mom as a victim overwhelmed by her emotions anymore, either.

I see me, now. All those things that happened were done by the choice of my mother or by the choice of my sister to see and to respond based on something each had to know was a wrongness.

I am not so sure about my sister, here. It could be that she does not know. That is what D H says. That most likely, she does not even know that she hates and needs to see me usurped from a position I no longer hold in her life, if I ever did. (Pseudo mom.)

That is where SWOT is already in so many good, clean ways, and that is where you and I are both going, Copa.

Good.

Clean.

Steady.

Strong.

Your son needs you to be all of those things, Copa. My kids need that from me or these terrible things would not be happening to all of us.

Somehow, each has been given the other to sustain her as she goes through it.

Imagine that, Copa.

Having grown up as each of us has, each then went on, not only to create rich, full lives, but to choose to cherish and protect our freaking abusers. That is how we lived our lives, each to the degree she was able, interacting with her mother and her sibs as best she knew and believing the best she knew was a true and possible thing.

It wasn't a pose, Copa.

We believe it because we know loving could be just as valid a reality for our FOO as the one they chose. It can be just as valid a reality for our sons. If anything happens to D H, I will need to stand right up.

If anything happens to M, so will you.

***

Each of us was thrown back, went crashing back through all the layers of her healing into the hellish remembrances of her abuse, of hatred, of ostracization and being picked on (see the child come through for me, too? :O) at the core of her, over the time of her child's (or in my case, her children's) repeated descents.

And then, we decided to heal. Getting through this is going to take some kind of inner quality we don't have yet and cannot name.

But we will need it and so, we are doing what we can.

Copa? I forgot the third thing.

:O)

Cedar

Duh. The third thing. Your changing perspective regarding your relationship to M.

Two sides of the same coin, Copa.

And you are the coin.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

SWOT, I have been thinking about how my sister would have learned to see me. I have been thinking about your sister, too. I know, because my sister and I have discussed various incidents of abuse, that my sister's relationship to our mom is fraught with all kinds of uneasiness. I know that my sister believes she is "loving mom out of it" and that this was my role and that those were my words, represented by that dinner I am always posting about.

I know there is a religious component to my sister's behavior. That is where she enacts sanctioned vengeance. This would account for the "ring of fire to bring me to the Lord". It would account for her latest "I walk with the Lord. He may choose to heal our relationship" or however that went. Though she is no longer attending church.

This is the essential power imbalance, I think: My father is gone. My sister displayed passionate hatred toward the man who would marry my mother accusing him, to my mother, in the exact ways she accuses D H to my mother.

Could it be that, with my father's death, my sister has taken the "husband" position where my mom is concerned? And therefore, sees me as one kind of rival (whatever the roles between myself and my father), and any male who will not come to relationship with the mother through her (through my sister ~ this would explain what I have seen relative to my brother and his grands and relative to my own son) as another kind of rival for the wife/mother's affections?

My sister has not had a son. I read yesterday this can be cause for intense jealousy and an almost pathologic hatred of both the sister and the son.

Add to all those jealousies and envies planted between sibs in dysfunctional families that my sister is not only duplicating the role my father played in FOO, but is determined to destroy the other sibs to have his assessments of us for herself.

Goofy as that sounds, could it be then, that your sister has taken the "wife" position where your father is concerned? That she is duplicating the role your mother played in FOO? And that she is intent, even now, on discrediting and displacing you and is not even aware of it herself?

That is the thing that has most bothered each of us. That our sisters could hate us. We've been dancing all over about whether this hatred we finally are acknowledging exists could be an unavoidable artifact of FOO dysfunction. We wonder whether we hate them too and don't know it. We're just all over the place with how we could be so hated when we seem like pretty nice guys to ourselves.

If we can see how these things go together, then we free ourselves from defensiveness.

Then, we heal.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

"Unlike the daughter of an attuned mother who grows in reflected light, the unloved daughter is diminished by the connection."

Yes. I heard it described this way: Instead of the positive grandiosity reflected into her infant's eyes my her smile, through her voice and touch and scent, the abusive mother reflects back to her infant a kind of twisted, dark and "negative grandiosity".

In other words, hatred.

The hatred our mothers may always have carried, reflected at last, onto her own innocent and defenseless female child.

Her first child.

How would there have been separation between herself, her defenseless female infant, and her own pathology, for our mothers?

There is something here.

I feel it.

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

The truth I know is this, Copa: Whether I am loved back does not matter. What matters is that I love. Whether I was cheated or betrayed, whether I am seen as cheapened or broken or shamed over where my kids have been in their lives (and oh, where they are not) none of that matters. It is what it is. Like me, my children are human beings and, like me, they deserve better than they have received from my FOO and maybe, even from me.

Thank you for this, Cedar. This makes me realize that trying to make peace with my mother was not a waste of my time. I did what I felt was right, and that's all that matters. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

[BusynMember]

Goofy as that sounds, could it be then, that your sister has taken the "wife" position where your father is concerned? That she is duplicating the role your mother played in FOO? And that she is intent, even now, on discrediting and displacing you and is not even aware of it herself?

Not in my sister's case...lol. I think my brother kind of took on the father/husband role with my mother. It kind of makes me feel creepy, like I felt w hen he used to talk about his client that was a sixteen year old boy. I got a bad vibe from it, as did my sister and even, she told me, my mother. Reading his FB before I stopped snooping, as they are now doing to me (shrug), I saw his posts to my deceased mother, ten years now, and they sound more like love letters than letters to a son who loved his mother. Again, they give me the creeps. He loved her too much. Is that possible? He never lived with a SO.

I kind of cut back talking to bro when we had one long conversation and all he talked about was the client child. I just got a really creepy feeling from his obsession with this kid. It was a LONG conversation and it just hit me wrong. Who takes a picture with a client who is underage and sends it to other family members? If I was his mother I'd be really angry, but he works in an area where most of the kids are not given that much attention.

Convenient.

Do I think he is really a predator in that he acts out on it. Unequivocally NO! Am I accusing him of wrongdoing?NO!!!!!

I don't think he'd act on it at all and would never ever ever ever ever insinuate that he did.

But just the feeling I got about him and this teenager gave me the creeps. And so do the letters he posts to our mother on FB. Something about them is over-the-top. I am sure nothing wrong happened there either. But the feelings just seem too...intense.

This is something I never faced before this thread. I never wanted to think about the people who shared my DNA. I never brought these issues up. They were taboo, even in my mind. I am not going to bring this up much because I feel uncomfortable discussing it. But something is wrong there. And I wasn't t he only one who saw it about the kid. My sister did too. My sister told me this issue with the teen could make my mother cry. This was her golden child. She didn't want him to get into trouble and even she must have seen that this was dangerous waters and not right. Even her.Even her GC.

 

[Copabanana]

Thank you for your reply, Cedar. Let me review. I agree my voice is stronger as evidenced in my posts.

As for my Mother's screaming, As I was able to see it from your eyes it became more bearable. But I do not think I have forgiven myself. I still feel a great deal of guilt for asking her if her life was more important than mine and wanting her to leave my house for that two month period.

She had come to dominate me night and day. There was no likelihood that she would ever let up. She was living off of my fumes of self-destruction. There was no dignity there for either of us. I literally was allowing her to feed off my dead carcass. I was the living dead. She did not see it or care.

So looked at that way, I had to speak up. I told her the truth. It was the truth that my dying so that she could live was not a suitable arrangement.

This dovetails with my despair about my son. While I know he is behaving intolerably to us, I seem unable to grasp for more than a moment or an hour, that I am worth sticking up for.

There seems to not be one bone in my body. That dough boy character comes to mind that is like a walking around blob. Unfortunately he is fat. Is it Pillsbury or Crisco?

your mom's time of screaming. You see now that it could easily be true that you chose, with strength and compassion, to listen for her sake.

Looked at this way, I see it. I could easily have abandoned her. She was so rejecting and mean and miserable. I forced myself to go, although full disclosure mandates I did stay away for a week or so a couple of times.

But I would not abandon her. I did everything I could. Even while it all collapsed around me, as if I felt even my life was extinguished, I kept going. Because I loved her. And that is the same way I am now with my son. The grief, each morning, is unbearable.

So, yes, Cedar. I am able to see myself through your eyes and even my own now are witnessing my extraordinary commitment and love in caring for my mother. I may have failed some but I soared as well. Because what I did had no basis in past experience. I created it. With M. I am able to see myself now.

whether I am seen as cheapened or broken or shamed over where my kids have been in their lives (and oh, where they are not) none of that matters

This is true, Cedar.

Good.

Clean.

Steady.

Strong.

Your son needs you to be all of those things, Copa. My kids need that from me or these terrible things would not be happening to all of us.

Looked at this way, Cedar, it becomes more bearable. Because I lie when I say that I do not anymore care if my son suffers. I wrote that last night somewhere. In the post where I said I was proud of myself for turning away from him. Of no longer caring if he suffers. I wrote that somewhere, too.

The agony is so great for me that I think my consciousness lands and latches onto a deviant molecule in my cerebral cortex and I follow its internal logic in the hope of finding relief. For a few minutes I do. I will look for those renegade posts and try to excise them.

I keep thinking the same thing is FS. What if my son cannot do any better than he is? What if there is a puacity of capacity there? That he cannot mature. And cannot see himself. And cannot find it in himself to care about or consider others. What if this is intrinsic and for the rest of my life I will have to live with him wandering from floor to floor, couch to couch....What if that will be MY life from here on out?

And then I go back to your words: Good, clean, steady and strong.

I will have dignity. To allow my son to cheapen me, to shame or break me, is to legitimize his doing so, to me and to himself. To remain strong and clean and stable is to stand apart from his degradation, to not engage and fuel it. There is a dignity there. It must be so.

I think of Willie Loman here. "Attention must be paid." Horribleness in life happens. Dignity through it matters. Sometimes that is all there is to choose.

Somehow, each has been given the other to sustain her as she goes through it.

Yes. Thank you for this. I am grateful.

When my mother was in the hospital one of the last times, she told me, "I am grateful."

I wish she had said, "Thank you." That would have felt like she had given me something, shared something, come down a notch to meet me half way. Instead I am grateful described a state within herself.

I wanted to say something, even then. To ask her Mama, could you tell me, "thank you?" I did not. I do not know way it bothers me so much. Still.

Duh. The third thing. Your changing perspective regarding your relationship to M.

Two sides of the same coin, Copa.

And you are the coin.

Yes. I cannot put it into words, but I see that this is so. He is changing, too. I think he is gaining strength, and claiming more space in our relationship. And this strengthens rather than diminishes me.

Thank you very much.

COPA

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Unfortunately he is fat. Is it Pillsbury or Crisco?

Pillsbury.

:O)

(Copa, I just get such a kick out of the way you phrase things. "Unfortunately he is fat.")

The agony is so great for me that I think my consciousness lands and latches onto a deviant molecule in my cerebral cortex and I follow its internal logic in the hope of finding relief. For a few minutes I do. I will look for those renegade posts and try to excise them.

Well, or honor them and yourself and hold Copa with compassion for the pain and the strength in her.

Grit.

Didn't we just do something on this thread about the meaning of grit?

I will have dignity. To allow my son to cheapen me, to shame or break me, is to legitimize his doing so, to me and to himself. To remain strong and clean and stable is to stand apart from his degradation, to not engage and fuel it. There is a dignity there. It must be so.

I think of Willie Loman here. "Attention must be paid." Horribleness in life happens. Dignity through it matters. Sometimes that is all there is to choose.

I don't think we get to choose it. People who say so have never been where we are. I think we can choose it as a position to grow into.

This is how it seems to me: Degradation is a good term. Heartbreakingly accurate too, given what we know of our sons and our daughters and ourselves.

Degradation.

Meeting our new lives.

There is no dignity there.

But there can be compassion.

That is how it seems, to me.

There can be dignity in compassion. But true compassion only happens when illusion is eradicated; that is the tough part.

We seem always to be running around protecting everyone in our thoughts. I don't know the answer there, except that I know it has something to do with expecting our sons (or daughters) to be strong. Strong enough to beat whatever it is. Part of that is giving them back the ~ I don't know. Trusting them to be able to handle the thing that beat us. Trusting in them to do that. I don't know how to do it either, Copa. I know that daughter has come back, to the degree she has come back, through her own strength. Through the love she feels for her children. Because she knows we believe in her.

All those things.

I wish you did not have to know these things, Copa. You know SWOT has a child who has beat the odds and come back. You know my son beats and falls back, beats and falls back.

You know how daughter struggles, and the weight of what she carries.

Your son can do it, too.

You will come through it, too.

That isn't so much to know, Copa, but it is true stuff.

So, that's better than nothing, then.

Well, and that we are here to listen, and to be heard too, as we all come through it.

That's a really good thing.

:O)

Cedar