Family of Origin (FOO) Support Thread Part 2

[Scent of Cedar *]

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.

Resentment. Does this have to do with grandiosity. Of course it does. With that whole circle of grandiosity we pierced at the beginning of our time of clearing and healing. Grandiosity is the ultimate acknowledgment of powerlessness. Grandiosity is a last, sad refuge.

Shame is not real, then.

Shame has to do with grandiosity; with having been blasted from that perch, from that high, protected place we should never have been forced to imagine and flee to.

They found us, even there. That is shame.

A matter of fluidity and flexibility, just as that article Serenity posted for us theorized.

We harden into resentment; we thaw into fluidity, into warmth and running water.

And running noses.

Humility.

Human, after all.

And so grateful to be alive in the day we are in.

***

Why are we always and forever defining things, assigning responsibility to ourselves (control ~ the illusion of control). Because we have been knocked off that imaginary place of far seeing safety immeasurable times.

It was all we knew to do, when we were the Magical Child.

That is the source of the shame. The resentment could be come of repeated confrontation with mortality and the shame of powerlessness.

Rage, then.

Is it rage we are trying to hide from? Is that what we imagined, in our Magical Child reality and are afraid to acknowledge? Is that what is at the core of betrayal of self? If we could allow it now, if we were strong enough at last to be safe harbor for even this, for our frozen Magical Child selves...would we view ourselves with compassion, then? Could we forgive ourselves, then?

"An outdated rage means to be tired all the time, to have a thick layer of cynicism, to dash the hopeful, the tender, the promising. It means to be afraid you will lose before you open your mouth. It means to reach flashpoint inside whether you show it on the outside or not. It means bilious, entrenched silences. It means feeling helpless. but there is a way out, and it is through forgiveness."

Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Women Who Run With the Wolves

And of course the person we need to forgive is ourselves.

You asked, Cedar, that I expand on how I made my mother suffer.

She wanted to stay here in my house...I guess she accepted she would die...although she did not speak of it. Eventually I said no. We visited several places where s he could live. She picked one. Really, indifferently. She was just walking the plank. That was the feel of it. Something that I had caused.
Not too long after she moved into the Board and Care is when the screaming began, and her rejection and anger towards me. She blamed me. No matter what I did she would not stop. Until she was out of there. By that time she was really dying, although it took 4 months.

"I guess she accepted she would die...."

D H and I were talking about my mother, and about death last night.

Essentially, D H unraveled the underpinnings of what is a habitual way of thinking about and of responding to something like blackmail. If we can only meet the mother's needs, if we can only be abjectly nothing but what she needs, we will have fulfilled our purpose.

That is the essential imbalance our mothers created, the essential brokenness. What we were taught to believe is our purpose, our first and most essential obligation.

In this case, the issue, the inescapable horrible thing, has to do with the mother, and with the mother's death. It's serious. It's really scary and serious this time, and riveting. It's real and it's happening and I cannot look away.

But for me and for you Copa, there has always been an "issue". There has always been some thing that superceeds integrity of self, that requires self betrayal. The mother has always required that whatever her current "issue" ~ whether it be unresolved rage or grandiosity or hatred or now, the time of her dying ~ take precedence, fill my world to the exclusion of me in my world.

This is what D H told me: He will die, Copa. I will die. You will die. We are not responsible that our mothers will die, too.
The difference between myself and D H ~ and maybe, between M and yourself too, is that D H knows that. What I seem to "know" is that some horribly unfair thing is happening to my mother and I need to be whatever she needs, whatever it costs, I don't matter. Only she matters.

Just like always.

A calling; the feeling is that strong. A...purpose.

In light of ferreting out the betrayal to ourselves: D H mom was furious that her children were not willing to take her into their homes. They owed this to her. When she was here with us last summer (though her visit was to be for up to a month, we are only talking two or three nights because D H refused to have it), D H mom was never happy for one minute of her time here. She moaned and cried and refused to do anything for herself. She would forget her misery if I was sitting right beside her on the sofa playing cards. The rest of the time, all the time, every minute, revolved around her bowels or her pain. She swore she needed to go to the Emergency Room. When D H came home? She smiled, and told him she had had a good day. No, no need for the Emergency Room, now. (D H had told her he would bring her home after the Emergency Room.)

This same behavior occurred at the home of D H brother.

Another brother took a year long leave of absence. Came to live with and take care of the mother. She hated him, fought with him, berated him. And he left after one year and she cried like a baby about how she missed him and about how no one took care of her like he did and about how rotten the daughter who took over was to her. This daughter became the reviled one, the accused one, the villain.

The other daughter is much like D H. She was having none of it. Like D H this daughter can do no wrong.

D H mom had been a very good mother. Though her children feel badly, they feel badly for her and not about themselves.

That is the difference. That is where we are betraying ourselves. When we are involved in situations like those with our elderly mothers or our addicted or troubled kids we feel badly about ourselves.

The quote you most responded to in the material on betrayal is telling us the same thing. Can we be accused of betrayal, can we live through having been betrayed, without betraying ourselves.

D H mom was ordered into a nursing home by her physician.

Though we had been researching facilities and had visited a few (and interestingly enough, D H mom showed the same lack of interest as your mother, the same "You take responsibility. You are the one who is going to pay for it because of what you did to me instead of what I wanted, which was to be in your home and make it impossible for you to live with or without me, so send me wherever you want.")

And everyone knew that wherever she went, there was going to be trouble.

And there has been.

D H tells his mother the truth. "You are never going home. We are selling the house. You are fortunate to be here. They take excellent care of you."

D H knows his mom will tell stories, will manipulate and triangulate. He doesn't mind. He doesn't resent her. He is often frustrated with her, but he doesn't resent her.

He tells her what it true about her situation and what he is going to do. He loves her. She can do what she wants and it doesn't cause him to doubt himself.

It is an amazing thing to see.

Have you discussed these issues, in this way, with M? His mother visited recently, I think you told us. What does their relationship look like compared to your relationship to your mother?

I have learned so much about my mother / myself through D H relationship to his mom. In the past, I have been shamed by that. This is changing, through the work we do, here.

So, here is the question:

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.”

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

This will be how we are, who we are, when we are healed.

We are moving quickly, now.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Because this is what he needed and wanted. I betrayed myself. I knew it at the time. I felt there was no other option for me.

Copa, if you are willing, what did the betrayal of self consist of?

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

And of course the person we need to forgive is ourselves.

For having failed to protect ourselves. For having been hurt as we were, and for having seen our Magical Child protections broken and cast aside. And for having no other protection, no other hope but that, but to make that bigger....

Desperate times.

Those were dark, desperate times.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

If we can only meet the mother's needs, if we can only be abjectly nothing but what she needs, we will have fulfilled our purpose.

That is the essential imbalance our mothers created, the essential brokenness. What we were taught to believe is our purpose, our first and most essential obligation.

This is true.

This is what D H told me: He will die, Copa. I will die. You will die. We are not responsible that our mothers will die, too.

Of course, this is clear. Then, WTF, is our problem. I by mistake typed WTF, is our broken. Of course, this is it.

But the thing is my brokenness is such that at my deepest core, I felt responsible for my mother's pain, that it was my role to stop it, and my glory to do so. I could not until I sacrificed myself completely and hundred percent. Looking back, that I withheld one percent of myself from destruction is my crime.

What I seem to "know" is that some horribly unfair thing is happening to my mother and I need to be whatever she needs, whatever it costs, I don't matter. Only she matters.

Just like always.

Yes, this is it.

D H mom was never happy for one minute of her time here. She moaned and cried and refused to do anything for herself. She would forget her misery if I was sitting right beside her on the sofa playing cards

This is exactly how my Mother was. I endured it for almost 5 months, until she went to the Board and Care. And then at the end she was back with us off and on for 4 months, when she was too ill to control anything. That was another kind of devastation.

When D H came home? She smiled, and told him she had had a good day.

Oh, Lord.

Though her children feel badly, they feel badly for her and not about themselves.

How curious.

That is where we are betraying ourselves. When we are involved in situations like those with our elderly mothers or our addicted or troubled kids we feel badly about ourselves.

Yes.

Have you discussed these issues, in this way, with M? His mother visited recently, I think you told us. What does their relationship look like compared to your relationship to your mother?

They dote on each other. She tells him how to be a good person. He is very solicitous and protects her. He respects her 100 per cent.

When it is time for her to go, he feels sad. He wishes he could do more.

In the past he agonized because he could not go to her and help her. I think she must have talked to him about this. And I think she must have told him his primary responsibility is to me.

While he feels responsibility for her...and to help her...he does not feel any fault. Either.

Copa, if you are willing, what did the betrayal of self consist of?

It is so many years back. And still so difficult to think about.

It was not sexual. I would have never, ever done that.

I think he offered. I think he became aroused.

It was still not about that, as much as something more subtle.

I saw a pattern of him choosing for himself. Over me. I saw that to feel powerful, to feel intact, to feel together, he would essentially abandon me, as he needed. Choosing, instead, that I be the weaker one, the broken one, etc. Doing his best to put his pathology into me.

It was horrible beyond words to see this happening. Traumatic. This guy was the most esteemed, the highest authority. He was a fraud and imposter. And I was perhaps the only one who knew. And yet, I kept going.

The same as with my family. I saw it. I knew it. I distorted and discredited my own perceptions, my own truth, to somehow preserve the fantasy of relationship. I somehow felt he needed me. Which I turned into that I needed him, and was afraid to leave. Could not leave.

This was a repetition for me. The very thing I needed to overcome. This was a horror for me. I had put everything on the line for this opportunity to heal. Instead, it may have been the worst trauma of all.

The self betrayal was that I could have left. I could have said: You are not the correct therapist for me. Instead, I consciously and deliberately said to my self: evidently this is who and I and what I deserve. If this is happening to me again, this must be who I am.

If he needs to use me to maintain him self, and sacrifice me, I will allow it. I must not deserve more from myself, or else this would not be happening.
___
Sometimes I think of something you wrote. A single line. You said when husband is not here, I will miss him.

When I think of M leaving or dying or even leaving him, I do not think this: I will miss him. I think: I will die. Or, I will break. Or, I cannot stand to even think about it.

Sometimes I think about very elderly couples, of women especially. Who know their mates or they will die. I mean, soon. Some of these relationships are like yours, nearly life long unions.

Are they afraid every day? Do they say goodbye when they can? Does the stronger mate prepare things so that weaker or more dependent one, is left surrounded by the safety net and protective mechanisms, enacted by the stronger mate? Is it wrong to speak of a stronger one in a relationship, and to assume it is me? Is this one more vestige of my brokenness as a child?

Is my sense of my great need, and vulnerability, a lie to myself?
__
I went to physical therapy this morning. As I was waiting, with my head down on the table, I thought of your mother in law. The story about her insisting to go to the treatment center to speak up for her granddaughter. I began to cry. It was so beautiful a thing to do. Such devotion. That nobody in my life until M would ever do such a thing for me. I am crying again.

It is a very hard story, that of D H's mother. Because of course we can see she did not deserve to suffer.

The thing is this: the source of the suffering. We suffer in life. Life is suffering. What D H is clear about is that he did not cause it. He does not want it. He takes responsibility for his mother without taking responsibility for her suffering, for causing it or for curing it.

He must see his mother's suffering as between her and G-d. And looked at that way, it would be wrong to take it on.

With all this talk of mine about care of the self, I feel like a poseur and a phony. I know no more about it, than I do about bee-keeping or cattle branding. Which is zero.

I feel like a cardboard figure of myself, today. I do not know where to begin. When I got back from the physical therapy I got back into my nightgown. Not a good sign.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

"Perhaps the phoenix cries, as it burns."

Charles Williams
Descent Into Hell


It will be alright, Copa. This is part of the healing. I feel like that for a time too, after I have taken a stand about anything. We have broken through a taboo in standing up for ourselves. Where we usually have all those voices in our heads assuring us we have done the right thing when we've sold ourselves out again, there is shocked silence. This silence we will step into, wide open and free.

This is where the self will be, this emptiness.

I know this because it happened to me. Now, if I could only know how to get out of these italics.

The self betrayal was that I could have left. I could have said: You are not the correct therapist for me. Instead, I consciously and deliberately said to my self: evidently this is who and I and what I deserve. If this is happening to me again, this must be who I am.

If he needs to use me to maintain him self, and sacrifice me, I will allow it. I must not deserve more from myself, or else this would not be happening.

1) You could not have left. It is a question of integrity. One cannot go running from therapist to therapist because she does not want to hear what they have to say.

2) Like me Copa, though the therapist was not a very talented or moral person as evidenced by his behavior in taking money for a service he knows full well he is incapable of rendering...the betrayal here was from you to yourself.

Once we can see this Copa and SWOT, once we see the workings of it...things begin to fall into place in the most amazing way.

***

I think you could not have left. I did not leave that first therapist. That would have been a foolish thing to do. A person does not enter therapy intending to fire the therapist and hire someone else if she doesn't like what the therapist says. That is where the issue of therapeutic trust comes in. The patient trusts the therapist, believes in him or her, or therapy cannot work.

So, you were not wrong to trust the therapist.

You were very correct to stay with the therapist with whom you began therapy.

He was very incorrect in having claimed that he could help you when he could not.

You and I should both be getting our money back as a matter of principle.

roar

Anyway. I did not leave my therapist Copa, and neither did you. Good for us. That is therapeutic integrity. The money we gave those men was supposed to guarantee, not only that they would not hurt us but that they could, and would be pleased to, help us come through something very dark and scary and that was the deal and r.o.a.r.

And our childhoods were dark and terribly scary, Copa. And those therapists were frauds. And they took our money and worse than that, they wasted our time. Our precious, precious time, when we needed to heal and were doing our part and more toward that objective.

See how I have changed in how I see that first therapist, now?

I am quite put out with his incompetent self. Either he could do as he promised (or else why charge me money to do it) or he was a fraud. Like Bernie Madoff. Trading money for ersatz trust. ***On rereading after posting I read: ersatz lust. Oh, that bad therapist.***

I am getting better around the issues left by that therapist. You will, too. I am almost on an equal par with him, now. Before, for all these years, I was so far beneath him, Copa.

Where was I going with this. I was going to say something helpful I swear but then? I got distracted.

Ahem.

I trusted him. It was his job to tell me true things that would help me to heal. So of course I could not leave him. I would probably still be seeing that little weasel to this day. He left me, Copa. Left the city, the state, and the mainland itself.

An ocean away.

Pretty suddenly, too.

So. Had you said "You are not (after all this time) the correct therapist for me.", that would have been a betrayal of self, Copa.

You did not do that.

Which turns out to have been unfortunate for you either way. If you left, you had not therapeutic integrity. If you stayed, you were betting on his.

But he was a predator. He had no integrity.

And that is an awful, hurtful thing.

Ouch, Copa. Like, a sacred ouch resonating through Time.

As that first therapist betrayed me (and I still can't figure out what he meant, or why it would be inappropriate or unexpected that a patient would be manipulating the therapist to beat the band ~ anything, to not have to face whatever it is we have spent our lives avoiding. For heaven's sake. If I ever do go into therapy again, I m going to tell that therapist right off the bat that I intend to manipulate him or her.

Good for me.

I'm glad I did that.

Therapists are supposed to be able to bring, and bring us back safely from, wherever we need to go to complete our healing.

So, I accept the manipulator term.

I don't know what he meant, but the way I see it, he must have known what he was doing, so we will leave it at that.

But Copa, this is what I did to myself over what I thought I heard and though I accuse the therapist now of betraying me...that is not what he did. I did that, Copa.

I did not demand clarification.

I did not demand to know what therapeutic objective we were working for here, on my dime, that he should be affixing labels that, while I might not be able to know exactly how to apply them, seemed to imply that one was not as savory or well mannered as one might hope . I simply accepted what I felt: rejection from someone I needed to know had my back. You are more honest than me. First, he said: "My daughter sometimes engages in seductive activities. This is not her fault. I would never...."

And then, quick as that: "You are a manipulator. I would never trust the compliments of someone like that."

So it is true that whatever he was doing, he did it on purpose, and he did it to hurt me, and he took me into a child state of mind before he did it and that was on purpose. It is true that whatever "manipulator" meant, I took it to mean something sexual, something I was doing to him against his will. He was the freaking therapist. That is why he got money and I had to pay money. And I always knew that? But I was just so ashamed that he called me a manipulator.

Which is definitely not a nice term to be labeled by your own therapist, who is supposed to be trustworthy or why would you see him.

Around and around.

Now listen what I did to myself with whatever it was this therapist, who was not a therapist at all but a holistic physician, a person who should have been specializing in things like gluten intolerance and biofeedback, meant when he said I was a manipulator and he would never trust the compliments of someone like that.

And before I go any further? This was a short, pudgy little person I would not have remembered at all, had he not become almost godlike to me through the course of my therapy. he had to be godlike to be bigger than my mother. Your therapist had to be godlike to you Copa, to be bigger than your abuser, to protect you and put the fear of God into your abuser.

The point being that as far as I can remember, I did not compliment him.

It could have been the poetry.

I suppose that is what it was.

Sometimes I have to laugh at my confusion regarding these issues.

Thank you for reading, Copa and Serenity. I feel like a dufus.

On we go, then.

Shunned
as it was written
When that which was to be was yet
concealed
but for the rhyme

Okay. But I had not been shunned. I had been insulted. There is a difference. Not only did I not step up for myself, not only did I not assume there was a therapeutic purpose here, but I took it from "You are a blah blah blah to "shunned".

Betrayal of self #1

Labeled...false; and labeled
Liar

That part is true. A manipulator would be a liar. But here again: Why did I accept the label, the judgment: Liar from someone I was freaking paying to help me? Liar is not a helpful term if you don't know what you are lying about. Or, that you are lying. Do you see me doing it again? He did not call me a liar. I called me a liar.

Whatever. I am quite certain this is somehow the therapist's fault.

On we go.

So. Betrayal of self #2


The criminal
newly wakened
Wonder
at its crime

Threatened
should she rise, or fall
Condemned
that she should move, at all

Accused and
ostracized and
...small
A blind and savaged Child recall
its first and bloodied tears

Metallic
copper colored fears....

Recall shattered reflections ~
insane turnings and twistings

The rest of this is pretty obvious stuff re: self betrayal over something that probably was not meant to have the effect that, in his clumsiness or counter transference or whatever it was, this therapist said.

I did that to me. Everything else, I did to me and it says so, right there in the poetry.

Back to you, Copa.

The self betrayal as I see it: was in believing that if you stood up to the therapist he would tell you true things that he knew. Things your mother knew, or your abuser knew, and you knew but could not bear to know; things he knew, for you. That is what you needed from your therapist, Copa. That he could know the things you know and help you know you knew them in a way that would not destroy you.

And you have been brave and strong and unflinching as steel since that stupid therapist messed everything up for all those long, long months and years.

He should have told you, Copa.

Should have referred you to someone who could do what needed to be done.

I swear, if I did not know better? I would say that stupid first therapist was afraid of me.

That must be a "transference". Or a reflection. A measure of my own fear, really.

That stupid therapist.

Now, why could he not have made that clear to you, that this would be how you would feel, and give you the tools to counter the feelings, the betrayal of self.

Because he was a really bad therapist, that's why, Copa.

You can be free Copa, free as a bird; a phoenix or a beautiful, powerful, predatory bird with ribboned jesses and bells on her ankles.

The therapist was wrong, Copa. He was an incompetent boob in every way that mattered or you would be better. Look how far we all have come in this short time.

He was incompetent Copa, and he hurt you. But like my therapist too, he could only hurt you through rude boorishness.

The rest?

We did to ourselves, Copa.

So...we can undo it any time.

And we will.

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

I have learned so much about my mother / myself through D H relationship to his mom. In the past, I have been shamed by that. This is changing, through the work we do, here.

I learned a lot seeing my ex-mother-in-law lovingly interact with everyone she came into contact with. But I didn't feel guilty. I felt surprised. Wow! This mother loves her family...REALLY does. She never calls them names.She doesn't shame them! She doesn't play one against the other, although ex's brother did MUCH better in life than ex. But she did not say so. Ever. And to this day, they have nothing in common, but the brothers still get along and see one another at holidays since ex is pretty much alone.

It was so eye opening to see other families where mothers didn't shame or scold or mock. I think the mocking bothered me more than the shame...of course, mocking IS shaming. But it's also a bit of humiliation too.

Cooking instructions: Shame plus humiliation equals mocking??? Maybe. Add a lot of salt for the wounds?

I love that we are forcing ourselves to write these things out in black and white. Before, in my head, I could lose thoughts. But when they are right in front of me I can glance over them and be reminded.

Things are so much better here regarding family of origin and how I feel about them. With Cedar's new insight, I don't even blame them anymore. I take the responsibility,, at least after I moved out at age 20, for myself. I ALLOWED myself to be abused. That was MY choice. I only have one person to forgive...myself.It doesn't matter how my mother was, my sister was/is, my brother was/is, my Uncle Vain was/is...after age 20 any contact I allowed them to have with me, any walks into my world, any time I tried to help them and ended up doing something wrong and being called baaaaaaaaaaaad, any morsel of them that intruded into my life was all on ME. I did not have to allow them in. I was clearly aware of being the family scapegoat. Other people have said "Cya" after being treated like dirt their entire childhood, but I did not take that path. So it is my fault that what began as a child continued into my adulthood.

And that makes all of them recede into the background as I take on the responsibility for listening to what they had to say; for allowing them to do what they did; for interacting with them at all. I didn't need to do so. It was my fault and I had to learn to think about myself first.

We all need to remember that our FOOs were not nice to us. That we chose to engage them anyway...that is on us. We loved them perhaps because we were too needy or maybe we thought we were the bad guys and they were nice and deserved to slam phones in our ears, call the cops, disappear for long periods of time, etc. That doesn't take the responsibility away from us.We let t hem in and got hurt over and over again, and it was all because we didn't do what was in our best interests.

I am feel both very stupid (my mother's word for me) and very empowered tonight...hehe (my word for myself).

And as my words fill up my page, I can let go more and more and fly like a kite in the breeze.

I am free.

Cedar, you are free.

Copa, you will soon be free. You are getting there. You started later than we did.

Everyone else, you can be free. It's your choice.

I used to feel guilty all the time too. You know what? That nasty ole guilty hasn't been a visitor lately.

2015 is Independence Year. Remember that.

Hugs to all.

 

[Copabanana]

You could not have left. It is a question of integrity.

Thank you.

I simply accepted what I felt: rejection from someone I needed to know had my back.

Why did I accept the label, the judgment: Liar from someone I was freaking paying to help me?

Do you see me doing it again? He did not call me a liar. I called me a liar.

the betrayal here was from you to yourself.

OK. At first I did not understand. Now, I do.

If I had been strong enough and true to myself, I would have maintained my calm and turned it back on him.

Explain to me....
What is your thinking about...
What are your intentions about...

Well, to my credit I did. Where I fell apart was how I felt. I betrayed myself by the emotion.

Like I always do.
I know what is going on.
I know it is the other person.

I cannot hang on to this truth.
I choose to protect the other person by dissolving in emotion. And I elevate and protect the other person.

I turn their failure against myself. I have long known this. I have not been able to stop it.

I did the same thing with the neighbor, who based upon my son's gossip, happened to mention that I could have been a better mother.

I knew what she was doing.
I knew she was wrong.
But inside I accused myself.
I knew I was guilty of something. After all, that is my makeup.

By not letting go of the emotion, the outrage;
even though I never really spoke with the woman again, I kept repeating the attack. Empowering the attack. Still. Six years later.

That is the betrayal of self.

To empower and to recreate in myself the failures of others, and use them to attack myself.

She was just a fool. I was the betrayer.

believing that if you stood up to the therapist he would tell you true things that he knew. Things your mother knew, or your abuser knew, and you knew but could not bear to know; things he knew, for you.

This part I do not understand. I can see it from two perspectives.

That I feared that he could tell me what I feared to know in the sense of my badness. That I was irretrievably broken. And that I deserved all of the bad and hard things that happened to me.

Like what happened to you about manipulator.

My therapist had accused me, too. What stung the most was defending himself, when I stood up for myself, by: "You've got serious problems."

I mean, I did not have a chance. If by keeping faith with my self, I would be attacked by him, as severely disordered...who could bear it?

But the other way to see it is this: The patient trusts that the therapist holds knowledge about him, responsibly. A truth. That the patient needs to know, wants to know, to be whole...to live with purpose and contentedly. But fears knowing.

They trust the therapist to find the balance between truth and damaging them. The patient risks being damaged by the therapist telling too much, or telling wrong things, or bad timing, or worst case, by telling false truths, in order to serve themselves.

So, now I am understanding. It is both things. The fear of standing up to the therapist is that they will retaliate in both kinds of ways: For meanness, or vengeance, or weakness: tell you the horrible things you fear are true about yourself.

And also the latter, misuse the power they hold, the trust you have given them, in order to heal...in a way that will hurt you.

And both things happened to us, Cedar.

But had we been who we are now, or are becoming...we could have tolerated both things.

As I tried to do, we could tell them what we saw, and put the responsibility on them to deal with it.

And we could hold strong. As long as we needed to. To see that it was not us. It was them. And we could have tolerated that. And been okay. And we would have been OK. And healed.

And I think of D H and his beloved Mother. He stands firm with her distress. Even with her accusation. Because he knows who he is. And he knows who is Mother is. And no matter how painful. He is okay. He is not mad. He is not reactive. He does not dissolve with the pain and unfairness of it. He can hold all of it simultaneously without buckling. And that is what I am unable to do still.

Tell D H that he is our healthy example. He will like that.

 

[BusynMember]

First I read about your therapists and I believe you both, but I am so puzzled. I never had a therapist act like that to me.

Of course I chose females mostly and did not believe Freud's theories so I drifted toward cognitive behavioral theray and now I like dialectal behavioral therapy as it is all about mindfulness. I didn't really do the stuff where I was supposed to do a transference. I just never believed that was valid. I'm glad. Your experiences were abusive and hideous.

I would have walked out the door, but I, who started therapy at 23, was more schooled in what to expect from therapy so I could decide who was and who was not competent to help me.

You both should have reported them. Ugh.

I feel bad that you're abusive experiences scared you from therapists, but I can hardly blame you. I am sorry you had to deal with therapists like that who have no business being in the field. What losers!

I had a current issue come up that bothers me.

I called my father, who I had not talked with for a few days. He was in a bad mood then finally blurted, "Your brother is coming tomorrow."
I just paused a second before I said, "Ok. I just won't call then. How long is he staying?" I was upbeat when I asked.
That started him off on a stream of abuse, in which he kept coughing, which alarmed me.
And I decided at once to put up with the abuse and try to calm him down because he is 91 and I love him and his words were not hurting me. They were more about how we all think he was abusive and conceited...wonder who told him that. I thought my mother was abusive to me and him. But I let him talk. Plus he can't hear well. He thought I said I was hanging up on him.

"If you hang up on me I am going straight to the bank." The disowning card won't work with me. I already went through it. I survived. Nobody will manipulate me due to money.

"Well, I didn't say I was hanging up on you, but you are free to go to the bank."

That sent him into another frenzy in which he said "My entire family is ^%*%." And by that, I know it hurts his heart that his kids don't speak.
I said, "Yes, I know. I agree."
That surprised him and he paused before he went on more of a rant.
Finally he started to calm down. I am very sad that the relationship between we three kids is so bad that we can't even fake getting along for his sake. He should not have to leave this world without one of his greatest wishes...that we all are at least speaking to one another. I would fake toleration of them for a half hour. For his sake.
I would do it for him, but only in front of him. With D H by my side.
But I know they won't. Or wouldn't.
And I'm certainly not going to contact them to ask them to maybe get together once for a half hour in front of Dad just to make him happy and believe that we are all friends.
He said, "Brother would talk to you!"
I said, "Just tell him to call me." He won't.
He seems to think, like my mother did, that brother is the nicest of the litter.
When he calmed down it was an unspoken understanding that I will call him after Brother is gone. Brother stays in his apartment with him so I'm not going to talk to my dad while he is there.
Anyhow, either Hubby and I are going to Chicago in two weeks, after bro is gone, or Jumper, her boyfriend and me are going to Chicago in two weeks after bro is gone. Who comes with me is dependent upon whether or not Jumper can get the weekend off from the nursing home.
I will probably see him then.
We are going to see...BUDDHA BABY!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!! And Princess, of course.
And my dad has seen me the last few times we came up.
A part of me feels a little guilty (just when I say Guilty hasn't visisted me lately...) because I don't get along with my siblings and can't give my father what he wants as I have no control over them.
But I can't.
He will get over it.
Certainly my dad must know this is not sibling normality. He and his siblings fought sometimes, but they didn't do the crazy things that happened between his kids.
Oh, well. There is nothing I can do. I do love my dad.
It bothers him when I say my family is Hub and my kids and him. I can't say that anymore. I mean, I could, but not after he blew up today and that was part of it. God knows why he thinks it's bad that my family is my family, b ut...yeah. Nobody in my family of origin, even him, are free of dysfunction. I love him because he loves me as much as the other two. A bad reason? Maybe, but it was always there. I always loved him because he was a good or bad to me as he was to the others and did not act like I was a scapegoat. Sometimes he talked like we all were, but he did not treat me as worse.
That means a lot to me.

But here's a secret. Even though I won't say it again to him, my family is Hub, my kids, and my grands and my father and nobody else.

So THERE!

Should I roar??

 

[BusynMember]

I did the same thing with the neighbor, who based upon my son's gossip, happened to mention that I could have been a better mother.

Your son was misguided and disrespectful to tell his garbage to your neighbor. This blows my mind. As bad as things were between my mother and me I didn't tell neighbors...I told therapists. That is WRONG,, WRONG, WRONG.

As for the neighbor, may I give her a cyber-slap? She didn't even know what was going on.

 

[BusynMember]

And before I go any further? This was a short, pudgy little person I would not have remembered at all, had he not become almost godlike to me through the course of my therapy. he had to be godlike to be bigger than my mother. Your therapist had to be godlike to you Copa, to be bigger than your abuser, to protect you and put the fear of God into your abuser.

A therapist should not seem Godlike.
Sounds like just very arrogant men with degrees who had no idea how to heal people.
My first psychiatrist (with the MD) when I was 23 and in the hospital was from the University of Chicago Hospital and a big shot. I certainly found him intimidating. He was tall and confident and well-dressed.
But when I got to know him, he was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest man on earth. He told me I would do well. He did not abuse me. And he could have. I was so young and so ready and eager to be abused.
Cedar and Copa, you just, by bad luck, had horrible men who you picked to help you and, having no other experience with therapists, you didn't know that this wasn't normal. I find it very sad and it angers me too.

 

[runawaybunny]

Nerf, I think that is a great idea. It IS relevant to our adult children...our early lives and how we are so sensitive if our adult children act in certain ways toward us. Perhaps it could help us learn to both detach (if abuse is an issue and substance abuse) and learn to not take everything our grown kids say innocently with such seriousness.

Cheryl, what do you think as t he Queen of our wonderful forum?

Nerf, you are one smart lady.

@recoveringenabler pointed this post out to me, I had missed it. Not sure if you guys have notice the tagging feature but if you want someone to see your post add their username to your post with an @ right in front of their name and that post will show up in their alerts unless they have disabled alerts. That's a good way to bring their attention to something.

I haven't read through the rest of this thread but if you guys are still interested in a family of origin forum I'd be happy to set one up for you. No problem.

 

[BusynMember]

I vote yes because so many of our current problems are related to the past. But it's up to the gang

 

[InsaneCdn]

May not impact most of us, but it would keep the line of thought collected in one space and easier to follow. Might allow for shorter threads, too, because they would be easier to find. Just my opinion as usual.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I really like that idea so much, Cheryl.

Thank you.

Even when outright abuse is not the issue, dysfunctions are magnified a thousand times as families learn to cope with the issues our troubled kids bring to the table. A safe place to explore how families function would be a wonderful tool for all us. Young parents might find it helpful, too.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

***On rereading after posting I read: ersatz lust. Oh, that bad therapist.***

Do you hear the Child?

Truly, we are not supposed to be expected to heal if we are not safe from the issues and pressures involved in man/woman relationships.

Sexual anything should not be happening to the therapist. We are not only freed from responsibility for these kinds of happenings in our therapies, but we are responsible to listen to whatever feelings arise as the heart and core of our therapies.

I cannot believe how differently I feel about this therapist.

Copa, I wish the same for you. It feels like a ship, something massive and unwieldy and beautiful that has somehow come to rest backward at its moorings has now headed again for port, and is easing correctly into place.

Have you heard the sound a ship makes as it comes into port, Copa and Serenity?

It's a beautiful sound.

But the thing is my brokenness is such that at my deepest core, I felt responsible for my mother's pain, that it was my role to stop it, and my glory to do so. I could not until I sacrificed myself completely and hundred percent. Looking back, that I withheld one percent of myself from destruction is my crime.

How could it be Copa, that we choose the same word ~ responsibility ~ to describe things having to do with our mothers? This is a filter
D H seems not to have.

Why do we have that filter, Copa?

Serenity, if you are willing? As you chose to continue to establish relationship with your mother before her passing...was a sense of responsibility to the mother's emotional state a factor, maybe even the driving force, in your having committed to being certain she knew you loved her, whatever her feelings and no matter the number of rejections?

Were the feelings of purpose and focus similar to what Copa and I were describing for our mothers?

I don't mean to be insensitive, Serenity. Please forgive me if I am pushing too far.

I do think we have something important here with that sense of responsibility. Where did it come from? Why is it so strong and how is it that it is so different a thing than the way people who were not abused by their mothers feel about their moms?

Could it be the difference between the way a man sees his mother and the way woman sees her mother...or is this an artifact of abuse?

Copa, your description of feeling "automaton" is the way I felt when my mother would stay with us during the Winter. I think I may have felt guilty for that feeling because of course, I am supposed (responsibility, again?) to love my mother and experience joy. And I do, a little bit...but mostly, I am very guarded around my mom.

Like, Copa...an automaton.

Is that how we lived as children? Was that our emotional reality? Is that the taste of how we were raised?!? That automaton feeling?

Oh, when I think of the loss, there!

What age did that begin.

In a way we are fortunate to know this. I just keep stumbling into the most unbelievable understandings. What in the world was the matter with these women who raised us. Oh! When I think what it cost us to live in that automaton state; to have grown up without access to our emotions and of course that is exactly what we had to do.

***

You know, I was thinking about my mom's Winter visits. I am forever blaming D H for being rude to my mother. I posted about that once, and that I made D H leave once, after my mother left and I could finally tear into him about the way he had behaved during my mother's visit. But I never once thought to say a peep, let alone confront, my mother with her behaviors during her visit.

I was so angry with D H because it was my...responsibility, to see that my mother had a wonderful time so she would know she was cherished.

But I felt like an automaton. I brought my mother everywhere I went and I stayed silent and I smiled and my mother was the one who mattered. And I felt that this was appropriate, that this was find, that my mother was happy, and that she felt pretty and attractive.

I did not feel so attractive at all, now that I think about it.

I think I felt like, swollen. Stretched grin; fixed smile. Time passing, and silence, at the core of me.

Just as an aside? The Tai Chi instructor read my irises? And could name that I'd been abused as a child.

Interestingly enough, his behavior toward me changed drastically after that reading.

So it must not show.

The brokenness, I mean.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I learned a lot seeing my ex-mother-in-law lovingly interact with everyone she came into contact with. But I didn't feel guilty. I felt surprised. Wow! This mother loves her family

Do you know, I always thought D H family was not interesting. They never talk about the things my family does and when they do, they are exchanging positions, not exploring the ways someone else sees things and how and why that might be. They were always thinking about dinner, in the sense of eating good food, while I was always thinking about dinner in terms of ~ well, you all know how I think about that family dinner I am always posting about.

There is never any actual food on the table.

Ew.

Lord knows what that means about me.

On we go.

This is exactly how my Mother was. I endured it for almost 5 months, until she went to the Board and Care. And then at the end she was back with us off and on for 4 months, when she was too ill to control anything. That was another kind of devastation.

Yes. Another kind of devastation altogether especially as we see this through the filter of responsibility and what the Child in you felt as you went through the final months.

Five months, Copa. Were you in automaton?

The final months...oh, Copa.

It was so eye opening to see other families where mothers didn't shame or scold or mock. I think the mocking bothered me more than the shame...of course, mocking IS shaming. But it's also a bit of humiliation too.

Cooking instructions: Shame plus humiliation equals mocking??? Maybe. Add a lot of salt for the wounds?

And frost it, covering everything with humor. Snide, biting, cynical, shaming, shameful, shame-filled, laughter.

There is nothing wrong, here.

I love that we are forcing ourselves to write these things out in black and white. Before, in my head, I could lose thoughts. But when they are right in front of me I can glance over them and be reminded.

Yes. I always did journal my way into core issues and then, bring what I could not resolve myself to the therapist. And, not to keep harping about that first therapist here, except that I must still be putting him away, but he could not even do that right, Cedar hisses.

Like a snake.

A diamond-back rattler.

Whoa. Just when you think you're a nice guy: Diamond-back Rattler Cedar.

Eyes?

Sapphire blue, Copa. That's me, alright.

Much of me still in the desert, then.

I ALLOWED myself to be abused. That was MY choice.

Actually...you should have been loved and cherished, Serenity. We all should have known those feelings, should have felt that way about ourselves. We didn't know. We knew mom mattered. That's what we knew.

We knew automaton.

I just can't believe we survived it, that we came through it at all.

Copa, you are going to have to change the sheets and make room for Serenity and I in your bed. M can stay too, if he will tell us stories about his mother. Unfortunately, Copa, I am Diamond-back Rattler Cedar today and may be for some time.

We will make the bed as big as we need to then, and part of it will be desert, so I am comfortable in my Diamond Back form.

Forked tongue.

Sapphire eyes.

Yep.

That's me, alright.

Wait til M finds out he is having guests.






:O)

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

We loved them perhaps because we were too needy or maybe we thought we were the bad guys and they were nice and deserved to slam phones in our ears, call the cops, disappear for long periods of time, etc. That doesn't take the responsibility away from us.We let t hem in and got hurt over and over again, and it was all because we didn't do what was in our best interests.

I am feel both very stupid (my mother's word for me) and very empowered tonight...hehe (my word for myself).

Or did we love them because that is the way people are meant to be?

Loving.

Kindhearted.

Ethical.

Generous. Trusting.

Happy in the day they are in; happy in themselves, then. Shining with it.

I hear what you are saying about responsibility to ourselves, Serenity.

I am still in that place though where I am still having trouble believing what must have been the emotional tone of our childhoods.

I feel so badly for us!

And as my words fill up my page, I can let go more and more and fly like a kite in the breeze.

I absolutely love this imagery. I can see the kite against the sun and see the brilliantly colored scarves tied along its tail and hear it, snapping in the wind!

You are looking very beautiful today, Serenity.

:O)

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I choose to protect the other person by dissolving in emotion. And I elevate and protect the other person

Copa, it may be different for you. It probably is. What is it we are protecting them from and why are we elevating, people who have betrayed us?

Persons who have betrayed our purpose and in the cases of our therapists? Have taken our money while they did it.

?!?

We elevate them Copa, to keep them protected from us in the only way we know. That is how overwhelming the feelings are.

The lust of vengeance, all consuming
pressed of the lust of life from whence it sprang
full bodied and full blown

Curdling the love within it
ere the weakened Child be grown

A vintage rare and bitter
acid etched and acid borne
Tasting of gelded rage and rusted glitter
of candles, etched in ambergris
and of white linen, soiled and torn

Tasting then of sage
blessed on a cold and darkling plain
And of the holy, star struck depths of Winter ~
tasting of grief and hope and unrelenting pain

Tasting of the Mercy....

***

"The quality of Mercy is not strain'd
it falleth as the gentle rain from Heav'n
upon the place beneath
It is twice blest;
it blesseth him that gives and him
that takes.

'Tis mightiest in the Mighty."

Those last verses are Shakespeare, of course, from The Merchant of Venice.

I am leery about what I do about hatred and the lust of vengeance ~ about how I think about it, I mean. For me, Copa, not necessarily for you or for Serenity...that is why I do it. I protect them from me. I protect me from hurting them the way I was hurt and in so doing, protect myself from becoming my mother.

It is a question of good and evil.

The shame in it, if there is shame in it, is that I needed to create and believe in that capacity in myself to survive what was happening to me when I was a little girl, just a little girl.

That place is where I create from; that place within is who I am.

But normal people do not have that place, Copa and Serenity.

So that is a little shaming, then. To not be normal like everyone.

"Darn it." the now totally diamond Diamond-back Rattler Cedar with the sapphire eyes hisses, forked tongue flickering as she scents the air.

See what I mean?

Whatever you guys. This site is anonymous.

Copa?

Serenity is hogging the bed.

I mean, I know I am supposed to stay in the desert and etc. I could not hear the story M whispered about his mother.

Serenity?

Copa says you have to share.

I will coil at the foot of the bed, then.

Near enough to hear the stories M whispers about his mother.

Oh, look! M's mother is here with us, too.

She doesn't mind that I am Snake Cedar at all.

I do, a little. I would like to be normal, like everyone.

But look at it this way. If I were? We never would have met M's mom.

:O)

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I knew she was wrong.
But inside I accused myself.
I knew I was guilty of something.

Lust of vengeance? That would be it for me.

By not letting go of the emotion, the outrage;
even though I never really spoke with the woman again, I kept repeating the attack. Empowering the attack. Still. Six years later.

That is the betrayal of self.

To empower and to recreate in myself the failures of others, and use them to attack myself.

Glass eyed ~ that which...lies, in the desert
awaken
Ancient keeper of that acid-etched cauldron
where shine hope of forgiveness or, demon spawned
is a darker seed sown

Name
the Fire in which she was taken

Call...
the Time

Call the taste of a dark Wind, named
vengeance

Recall
crimson...flowers

Recall ancient whisp'rings and dark, eerie laughter ~
virulent, acid etched truths
Nostalgic...vignettes ~
echoing, mirrored reflections

Hellish thunder, resounding
in a theater of stone

Call the taste of a dark Wind....

And in that dark and that thundered awakening
where the black and the white ricochet
Where innocence died when a mirror was broken
and a cripple accept a diseuse's bouquet

Magician's raise fearsome swords....

Magicians raise fearsome swords
transforming themselves into...prey

See how it works, Copa?

Protecting, in the realm of the Magical Child, from turning someone into prey because in reality, I know ~ I know, having been hurt again and again as a child, however much I believed in my capacity to take vengeance, however much I needed to believe it to survive the beatings and the threatenings and the terror...at the same time, Copa and Serenity...I know it isn't true.

And so do you.

And that final knowledge is what we are protecting ourselves from at any cost.

Because we know, somewhere inside, somewhere in the world of the Magical Child...we know, in the final moments before she comes at us again, that we are defenseless.

And that is way scarier than being, you know.

Abnormal.

The sapphire eyes fill with diamond tears.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

I haven't gotten to the posts yet but before I do I want to mention this:

It is about betrayal by others/betrayal of self.

Had I stayed constant with myself. In my case that would have meant this.

I knew that he had erred with me in multiple ways.

I spoke to him of most of them, but not all (not the sexual ones.)

This is where I went wrong:

Feelings. I got mad. I gave him the upper hand. I empowered him.

Most of all I did that sleight of hand that we have discussed where I know but abandon myself. When I accept that our destiny was to be betrayed.

So this is the issue that I want to clarify: In my case my therapist was very esteemed and very powerful in his school of thought/professional.

I did consult two other therapists to try to understand what was happening. I went multiple times to them.

I am not saying they failed me.
___

This is where I need help.

My therapist ended up self-destructing. He lost his medical license. He lost his esteem and power (which was considerable.) Because he actually had been caught having an affair with a patient, while he charged her money. For years.

So had I held faith with the therapy. And brought up my truths, and held strong with them, and not reacted emotionally and believed in myself as entitled to professionalism and integrity.

If there is actual betrayal, what would have changed?

I guess the only image that comes up is like a tire of a car stuck in a mud puddle, unable to get traction.
Because I would have tried and tried to reach that place of integrity in him, and failed.

Because he was a deceiver and an imposter. To everybody else. And I had found him out. What would I have done?

If I imagine somebody strong like your D H. He would have never put himself in that place to begin with.

This man had trainees, because he was involved as a kind of educator type person. Kind of like apprentices who were already licensed physicians or psychologists. When he was unmasked to be what he was, some abandoned their status, which was a considerable honor and a road to considerable reward and privilege.

They turned away from who they were, to stay with him, to be with him, to protect him. They did not stay with themselves.

What could I have done, 15 years before when all of this was unknown, except by a handful of women, perhaps, or perhaps then I was the only one?

I do not know. But the reality was I knew that I was impaired. I knew that I could not faith with my self. I knew that. That he was horribly flawed only made it so that I could not heal myself.

Because he was more concerned in protecting his own secrets, keeping covered his own taint.

What I am grappling with here, is that even with strong people, without this bent towards self-betrayal, or looked at kindly, who have trouble maintaining steadfast with themselves...even with them entering intimate and trusting relationships is a minefield.

And now I think of D H's mother. Might this be what is going on with her sense of betrayal and sadness? She who was a healthy and complete woman, cannot abandon herself.

At the time and place she was raised it was expected that her children care for her when she could no longer do so. She will not abandon herself. The sense that she was entitled and was betrayed by her children.

To her, the solidity, the certainty on which her whole life was based, is at stake. And she will not let her rage about this, go.

I do not know how I will ever understand completely. Because all roads lead back to the horribleness of feeling that one's life is being held as if nothing by another.

And at least, at the end with my mother, she was spared that.

But me, and with my loved ones, or this therapist, I do not know. I hope to think M would not betray me. I do not know, really.