Family of Origin (FOO) Support Thread Part 2

[Scent of Cedar *]

I do not think so, Cedar. I think I am still in the urn with my Mother, trying to put her back together so that she can come back and be mean to me.

Then will I rise from your damned ashes
phoenix strong
and whole.

I will try to find the entire poem for you, Copa.

I understand your mother's ashes are sacred, are blessed things.

I apologize with all my heart Copa, that I have offended.

It needed to be said.

I said it.

For you; for your sake.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Well, this puts another slant on it. If I were to tell M anything...I would begin to feel abused by him. He is very straightforward and direct. Often I cannot bear the strength in his voice. I feel as if he is accusing or blaming or mad at me, when he is not. I could not tolerate a conversation with M about these themes or events we discuss. I am not even sure I could tolerate a real time conversation with you folk, Cedar and SWOT, and all.

Like pouring filth over him and onto me, and I don't want him to know that happened to me. Truly, I wish he had never come to know any of this, about me. It is a sadness, a dirty thing.

To wish this was so, Cedar, is to deny D H the treasure of knowing all of you.

How is it different than what happened with the nice young woman at Sears? Except in degrees. I shared with her the truth of who I am. It opened a door to her heart, to her pain. Any shame I feel, that is revealed to me...I have the opportunity to own and to put where it belongs. My choice.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I think he would say: Get out of bed. It will help your neck. That's all.

That is what D H says, Copa.

"She needs to get out of that bed."

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Copa, that little girl that you were, whispering to you? "Please come back for me."

she smelled different than them and kept erupting smoke and etc.

And she took flight, Copa.

Soaring.

Roaring.

Dragon.

I am confused here. Who were her people? Were they dragons or mortal men? Who did she turn out to be, a dragon or eagle. Dragons do not soar or fly.

And the smoke that came out of her??? What was she? Who was she, really?

I love her. She will be too, my own little flower.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Well, this puts another slant on it. If I were to tell M anything...I would begin to feel abused by him. He is very straightforward and direct. Often I cannot bear the strength in his voice. I feel as if he is accusing or blaming or mad at me, when he is not. I could not tolerate a conversation with M about these themes or events we discuss. I am not even sure I could tolerate a real time conversation with you folk, Cedar and SWOT, and all.

I feel this same way, Copa. Even about you and Serenity, in person.

We are in the midst of a miracle, here.

Fiery, and perfect.

We may never meet in reality, in the real world of our lives.

But I will never forget you.

It isn't even about us, Copa and Serenity, IC and nerfherder and pasa and those following our healing and taking strength and courage from us for your own.

We are meant to be stronger. We are meant to be healed for whatever it is that comes next for us, in our real lives. For what we will do, for how we will be able to respond, once we are whole.

For our children, and for those others whose lives will touch ours.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

I am again lost, here. What in the world should I be offended by? Nothing at all. I am searching my mind about my responses, that indicated I was in any way hurt.

Any hurt, is buried inside me in this ridiculous conversation I am having with my dead mother.

I understand your mother's ashes are sacred, are blessed things.

I apologize with all my heart Copa, that I have offended.

Cedar, my mother, had I followed her orders, wanted her ashes to be put in the garbage. D H and M are right. Those ashes need to be on their way.

Because as long as I do not put her to rest, I am in the garbage. As if I am acting out, to appease my mother's memory, what would have been her punishment to me.

Let's call them as I see them. I was a beautiful and brilliant, talented and sensitive child. My mother, for whatever reason, did her best to use me and destroy anything in me that could have permitted me to soar.

Looking back at her life, she knew it.

I would tell D H the truth about your life, Cedar.

You believe still, that the beauty and wonder in you is what is clean and perfectly formed. That which is artfully and purposefully crafted and arranged. This is not true. That is a mere reflection.

You can only be seen, Cedar, truthfully and fully, as you have risen in strength from defeat and degradation. That is the true you, Cedar. Think about my words.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

How is it different than what happened with the nice young woman at Sears? Except in degrees. I shared with her the truth of who I am. It opened a door to her heart, to her pain. Any shame I feel, that is revealed to me...I have the opportunity to own and to put where it belongs. My choice.

There is a helpless rage that erupts in D H over these things. An outrage, a feeling of filth and wrongness that he ever welcomed my mother for my sake.

It has to do with protecting me.

And it is too late for D H to protect me. Remember the story about
D H throwing our dinner over the railing. That is helpless rage. That is a man primed to destroy something that is already passed and so, cannot be destroyed or changed or undone.

These stories are our own, Copa.

We lived them. We will heal them now by our ~ well, we will try to heal them, now.

In time, these hurtful things will be cleared. I do not want my D H touched by the filth of it. His hurt now, in this time when only I can undo what was left of it, cannot help me. He is here. As with M, D H has not left me, yet.

That, I need.

He does not have to know these terrible things. He does not have to feel what I felt. He has no frame of reference. He is clean in a way I am not. I can know clean, from him.

I can know how it would be, to think correctly about these things.

Elie Wiesel was correct: "...to speak of it in words profanes its sacred horror."

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I am again lost, here. What in the world should I be offended by? Nothing at all. I am searching my mind about my responses, that indicated I was in any way hurt.

Because the poetry calls the ashes "damned".

So, you were not offended?

:O)

Yay!

 

[Copabanana]

We may never meet in reality, in the real world of our lives.

But I will never forget you.

WHAAAAT? I feel abandoned here. Where are you going Cedar? (Picture me here, holding onto your skirt.)

I for one feel we will meet some day. I want to know you Cedar and thank you. We will meet, Someday. I will hold onto that hope.

But first I have to get out of bed. And decide to live.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I am confused here. Who were her people? Were they dragons or mortal men? Who did she turn out to be, a dragon or eagle. Dragons do not soar or fly.

And the smoke that came out of her??? What was she? Who was she, really?

I don't remember, Copa. Chickens, maybe. Creatures who could mistake the egg of the dragon for one of their own. Or maybe, the newly hatched dragon spotted a chicken and imprinted on it, in the way that newly hatched creatures do.

She was always a dragon, Copa. Savage and beautiful and strong. She just thought she was a ~ I don't know. Like, a defective chicken. Little puffs of smoke coming out every time she tried to cluck like the chicken she believed was her mother, and whom she was forever disappointing, especially when the puffing smoke was accompanied by a little blast of fire, however tiny, and however quickly the baby dragon tried to extinguish it.

Dragons do indeed, soar and fly. That is what they do. Soar and fly and roar smoke and fire, accidentally extinguishing all kinds of evil things.

Oops.

:O)

I will find that scroll for you now.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Cedar, my mother, had I followed her orders, wanted her ashes to be put in the garbage.

Had she not known how you loved her, Copa...she would never have spoken those words. This is as terrible a thing as what Serenity's mom did in condemning Serenity in her Will.

This is a torture device, Copa. Your mom had to know how this would hurt you, how it would make it impossible for you to dispose of her ashes. Honor her and yourself, Copa. No garbage heap for your mom.

D H sister wants her ashes to be released on the wind that comes up before a thunder storm.

That is beautiful imagery.

Your mom chose these words, chose this terrible imagery, to elicit pity, Copa. Not compassion. Not honor for your blood and your genetic line and your life.

I would not be able to move before those words either, Copa.

They would freeze me in place, forever a imprisoned ~ some crucial part of the spirit in me forever, for always, for eternity itself ~ imprisoned in pity.

Pity is a useless thing, Copa.

That is what your mom did to you. Just as Serenity's mom found the weapon to pummel Serenity into the shape she demanded Serenity accept as her own, both as a Child and after the Witch Mother's death.

Just as my mother will do everything in her power to do to me.

My mother, my sister.

Our patterns, the patterns in the lives of the three of us, are too similar for me to doubt that my mother is planning her revenge even now. I do not know what the thing will be.

I know I will be entrapped by it as surely as you have, and as Serenity too, has been.

And I will not be able to change it or heal it or move from beneath it, either.

But oh, boy, I can see the trap your mom, and Serenity's mom too, laid for each of you.

Then will I rise from your damned ashes
phoenix strong
and whole

Whatever poem those lines go with? That poetry was written years ago, and it was written for me, so that I can survive whatever it is going to be. And the only weapon I have is faith. I am meant to be whole.

My mother will do everything in her power to prevent that, to hurt me from the grave, as yours has and as Serenity's has, too.

I am glad I have come to know this.

It will strengthen me, when my time comes. And when it does? Hatred will not help me, then. Like always, the power to defeat it will be love. Of trusting that kind of love Maya Angelou describes so beautifully. It will be a question of knowing that, and of believing in it with our whole hearts.

Cedar

What in the world was the matter with our mothers, that they do these things, that they willfully commit these kinds of betrayals, against the lives of their own daughters?

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

You believe still, that the beauty and wonder in you is what is clean and perfectly formed. That which is artfully and purposefully crafted and arranged. This is not true. That is a mere reflection.

You can only be seen, Cedar, truthfully and fully, as you have risen in strength from defeat and degradation. That is the true you, Cedar. Think about my words.

Oh, thank you, Copa.

I never once thought about it in this way.

I never did; never, ever, would have dared.

This means I have been very strong, Copa.

Courageous, in the small and large ways of true courage, of courage alone in the night.

This is actually true, Copa. I feel the Witch Mother within.

I tell her this is an assessment, is a way I am seen.

It is a counterweight.

***

"I see you." the Witch Mother chortles and hisses and moans, tearing something live apart, her hands bloodied.

"I see you back."

"I see you back. And...I am less afraid. And I am here. And here, I remain. Steady. Strong. Strong enough."

Time for Joe Friday.

Even Maya cannot face this down. But she knows that I can.

We just don't know how I'm going to do this.

Scary stuff, then.

Like in the movie Armeggedon. When the pretty blond actor is trying to figure out just how scary drilling through to the asteroid's center will be. "Okay." he concludes. "Scariest environment ever. That's all I needed to know."

Okay. So I couldn't find that one. But I did find this.

Maya.

For us.

(It didn't come through. I will do it after the cookies.)

Cedar

I have to go bake cookies now. I told D H I would. Now he is like, "Where are my cookies?"

Back in a few minutes.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

WHAAAAT? I feel abandoned here. Where are you going Cedar? (Picture me here, holding onto your skirt.)

It's a pirate skirt, Copa. You are wearing one, too.

:O)

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

The words in my mothers last directive were meant to hurt. I know that.

They were her last vengeful act against her daughters who she believed had failed her. To care for her as she had deserved. To take away and soothe her own hurts.

That her daughters for eternity would suffer for their failure, is what my mother sought.

On some level, I must feel that my only deserved destiny, is to fulfill this last wish. To use my own will and spirit and force, to punish myself in my mother's stead, that I did not take away and soothe her hurts.

And to think about this, this way, is to recognize that it is her own mother that she accuses indirectly. And so it goes through the generations. I do not have a daughter to scapegoat or not for my unmet needs, my lingering pain.

I have only myself. I am my own little flower, after all. And I am attacking myself, as my mother's designated agent. As if it was spelled out in her will, and I entrusted with this obligation, I am following through. Responsibly and dutifully destroying myself. By my own mother's advanced directive.

Tomorrow, I think, M will finish that tile floor. We will sit down and make plans together. Now, it is more complicated, because we have the remodeling of the rental to consider.

I do not think I can get up by myself. I spin my wheels here in the house and feel I have nowhere outside where I really want to go.

There needs to be, what did they call it in Soviet Russia, with Stalin? A concerted, deliberate agenda...where millions of peasants were killed...I hope not. With a goal. To make a new and different kind of life. It feels like it will be hard. I do not want it to be.

Maybe it will be like you say. One day I. will. decide. to. wake. up. And I will be the me I was meant to be. Why do I doubt this? (My neck hurts, that's why.)

He will want me to give up Romy. I do not want to. But enough of negatives. We will see about tomorrow.

Five year plans, that is what they were called, the means by which their traditional peasant economy was transformed. Millions died. They had their counterpart in China. Millions and millions died there.

I found these virtual flash cards online:

First Five-Year Plan
this Five-Year plan focused on developing Russia's industries such as coal, iron, power plans and transportation



Second Five Year-Plan
this Five-Year plan focused on water, the road system, and the railroad transportation system



Third Five-Year plan
this Five-Year plan began the production of some consumer goods but was interrupted by the war

Actually, this is the way I lived my life. I treated myself as if I was the raw material, whether labor or natural resources to be exploited to meet goals. I did not care how this transformation affected me. Only the goal mattered. Even if I was among the dead, mattered not at all.

I am remembering, now, my vow to care for myself, to have the care of my self be my principal commitment. Therefore, I cannot kill off millions anymore for a five year plan. Whew. That is reassuring.

This is something for which there is no translation. I do not have the words to tell M that I cannot be killed off to reach a goal anymore. I think he knows, it. Now.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Any conversation we ever entered into with members of our families, were fantasies. Because in their heads we were never even present. They had never given us legitmacy at all in terms of personhood. We entered the conversations having already granted impossible concessions (personhood, and voice, to begin with), already having disarmed, (scrubbing clean any awareness of our toxic hatred that we harbored towards FOO-types.)

I just got this.

You are correct.

In our heads, we did this; we saw ourselves as they taught us to see.

This was great imagery, Copa.

This accounts for the sense of secrecy and fraud and guilt. Not that they may learn what we are thinking but that Witch Mother within will learn we are thinking, at all.

Yes. That is the feeling of my mother, alright.

The drawled, contemptuous, hate filled "Just don't think, Cedar."

The challenging "Don't you dare."

Like a criminal politician, like a drug lord, very powerful in his time; all powerful, which our mothers were.

And look, just look, what they chose to do with that. Create sycophants out of their children, because no adult in the real world would give them the time of day unless they covered who they were, what they wanted; unless they covered and prettied that grandiose imagery of self that was their only reality.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

You see, I often begin to convince my abuser. That. I . deserve. to . be treated. better. Attempting to convince her/him of my humanity. After all I am a sweet and harmless person. I am transparent. After, all I am a person, too.

I am a sweet and harmless person.

I am transparent.

After, all. I have disarmed. Any trace of murderous rage has been scoured away. Out damned spot.

As I have killed off, trussed, and served on the platter myself to my self. I should know.

How to get off the platter? When I have served myself up.

 

[BusynMember]

I was reading with extreme interest, my dear friends Copa and Cedar and I hope you don't mind if I give you my own insight to me. (Yeah, it may be boring...just pretend you read it and I'll feel good...lol).

Now we are all different, all three of us.

We have a commonality: We desperately wanted our mothers to love us.
It stops there, at least for me.
As much as I wanted her to love me and to be a good girl, my temperment didn't allow me to be the compliant good girl that would have soothed her very fragile ego and I did fight back. I had every right to fight back too....I'm talking about when I was just alitltle kid. I was obviously neurologically and psychologically different and overly sensitive (I will have to who an article on Highly Sensitive People) and if somebody looked at me the wrong way or called me a name that bad mothers often call their kids, it could make me lose control and have a tantrum. Never once was I taught to try to control myself...no effort was made. I was just baaaaaaaaaaaaad. We're talking two years old up until the teen years and in early adulthood when I was still very different, although my attitude toward my mother had changed. I did not see her as this perfect person. I saw the flaws by then. I still wanted her to love me, but I wanted her to help me as I was so disturbed, but she didn't want that role and never had (even when I was six) and we did fight. Not with our hands, but my mother had a wicked mouth and knew just what to say to make me feel an inch tall, which she accomplished early on.

I learned how to hurt her back from the best...herself. My sister has learned her meanness and button pushing from the best as well. That's why she calls me borderline (if she stil does). It is something that will push the buttons of most people, especially when it's not true.

Throughout my life I grew more and more disengaged from my mother. My first husband wasn't perfect, but h e coudln't stand her nor could his mother, who liked everyone. Oh, she never said "I can't stand her." She was too good in her heart to speak that way. She would just say, "I don't understand why your mother woudln't babysit for Bart when you were so sick..." and use other fretful examples. I know she felt bad for me and tried to be good to me because she knew I didn't have a mother.

In my 30's I learned about codependency and realized that if you looked up the word, myk picture would be there. I wanted to save everyone...I wanted to adopt every child who had nobody (I am sure this is due to feeling so unloved in my FOO), I wanted desperately to help my sister (I tried the best I knew how, having been taught no skills), I wanted to save strangers who would talk to me. And yet I couldn't even save me. But I had the heart and desire to learn how to help people and have been doing it all my life. The only person I refused to be good to was myself. Everyone else got second and third chances. I gave myself not even one chance I digress...

Then the $5000 inheritance to go ONLY to Bart, not Goneboy and Princess, happened after my grandmother who loved and who usually protected me passed on. Yet my grandma was the one who caused this mess after I warned her before she died, when she was still alive and active, that I would never do it...what had been done to me. The favoritism. I wouldn't. She knew. My uncle was Grandma's first choice to be the executor of this money, but he, being his (cough, cough) kindhearted self, said NO. I actually admire him for that. It may be the only time he ever did anything I heard about that I admired.

That left the dirty deed to my mother. She always fought with her mother about how she was treated as less wonderfully as a child because Grandma favored Uncle Narcissistic. And it was true. And it was an ongoing fight between the two of them. The fact is, I talked to my grandmother every day and knew w hen they fought. My grandma told me everything. She believed "There are no secrets in a family."

So they did not have a great relationship, but my mother, being both a bully and a wuss to her mother, took on the duty. She did not have my son's SSN and I refused to give it to her for th e purpose of giving him money and not the other two kids so she tried sneaky methods to get it...calling him up then calling him names when he said he didn't know it (he didn't).

NOBDOY CALLS MY KIDS NAMES, ESPECIALLY LIAR. Or if she said "your're lying" that is still calling him a liar.

I was so upset I asked my husband to tell her not to call us and especially to leave Bart alone. I did not want to hear her voice. He did. He did not cuss at her, but he was firm. She then whined to the moon and back how horrible my husband is and that he had no right to call her. Maybe he was my fiance at the time. Either way, he had no right. How dare he! Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

Well, he did have that right, if she had the right to try to trick my son. And to call him a liar. And to this day I'm grateful he did. That was his first experience with what he now refers to as "Your crazy family." He had a normal loving mother and father and his grandparents would never have done what mine did. Although she loved me, she made it harder in the end for me.

After he called and my mother gave in and mailed me the check, which I did not just give to only Bart, she went silenlt on me. I decided to try to be n ice and keep in touch, but it was a waste of my time. Still, I feel I tried my best.

Maybe because of this, plus m own stubborn personality and all the years of therapy and maybe having a bit more self-esteem????...I do not mourn my mother. I do not wish she were still here. For what? For more abuse? Games? Name calling? Favoritism?

Copa, I feel bad that you mourn the mother whom was never there for you until the end, when she really had no choice. I feel the pain of your loss...because you so badly wanted things to be better and blame yourself for disconnecting from her for so long.

Copa, what could you have done?

Put up with it just because she wanted you to? Did you really have a choice here?

Did anyone have a choice?

In my optinion, hon, you had no choice and did the right thing and, at the end, as badly as your mother treated you, you gave her a few years you can't take back, when she was frail and maybe not all there.

Hey, I didn't visit my mom when she had brain cancer, but I did call her. It was interesting. Since she was not in her right mind, she was nice to me, if she even knew who I was. She even cried once and said, "I can't read. I look at books but can't read the words."

I said, "Well, you had surgery. It will get better."

She sniffed. "That's true."

Oh, if she only knew, in her RIGHT mind, that I was consoling her. Because in her right mind, I was a selfish brat and everything I did, even adopting my children, was for my own pesonal and financial gain. She never knew me at all. She had no idea what was in my mind or in my heart. NOBODY IN MY FAMILY DID.

And Copa your mother didn't k now you either. And your sister doesn't know you. Cedar, I suspect it is the same for you.

They had three girls (all three mothers) and didn't know us. It's so ironic. Our own family attributed absurd and negative meanings to all we did and they never knew us. None of them.

And we are the nicest of our family. I know I have the best heart of any of them.

I know I have the best life of any of them. I have love.

Copa, all these years later you mourn a mother who was NOT a mother to you. And you were a soldier at the end for her, although she didn't deserve it. You have nothing to cry about. Nothing to be hurt or sad about. If she were still here and in her right mind, she would still be mean to you.

You marched on like a trooper and made her last years good in spite of how many years she made yours unhappy.

You are a hero, Copa.

You deserve a medal of honor and you never have to cry because you went overboard to give her a heart she didn't really deserve.

Celebrate YOUR life now, Copa. You are still here with LM and have so many exciting things that could happen if only you let them. Go the the BIG CITY. Thrive! Have a ball!

You did your duty, Copa, and in my own spiritual beliefs you will not die...we don't die. You will go to the next wolrd with so many lessons to teach younger souls, like me, and you will be reunited with your mother and you will both understand why you had to deal with your time on earth in this way.

Soar like an eagle!!! You are a hero!!!

And here I am not missing my mother at all. The thought of her still being alive actually scares me.

I guess you are a better person than I am. You are a rock star. You have more heart than most of the world.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I think all of this is pure theater (and I myself am in the front row):

I think that too, when I uncover true things. I have posted as much, here. I wondered, for the longest time, where the darkness and savagery of the poetry came from.

Because it was true, Copa. It can be theater if you like, Copa. We are exploring all that we wonder about, here in this secret place where everyone can see but no one can know, not really.

Again: What I see in each word you write is integrity. Brutal self honesty. Self accusation in which I see your mother so clearly I wonder whether she is not my own.

Mostly, I see the strength in you, Copa.

You are like me.

Like me, and like Serenity.

For us to possess our weakened places, we need to break open the door and have the Child's pain with our adult hearts and compassion and love; love in Maya's sense of love as a courageous and honest thing, a real Presence. For me, the feelings I live again feel real in the present. They are so disturbing. I feel so dirtied, so worthless.

I cannot imagine the courage of the little girl that I was to have survived it.

Just a baby. Just a little girl or a young woman or a new mother, herself.

There is compassion. Not pity, Copa. Compassion. You will have, as was I, been taught to abhor pity. That word, pity, brings my mother's contemptuous face front and center, even today.

Compassion, Copa.

A true thing. A real, gut level understanding of what happened to the sweet little girls that we were. I posted a picture of my granddaughters. The one I have on my fridge. That is what all little girls look like, Copa and Serenity. You did. Me, too. Serenity, too.

That is what we looked like, before they hurt us.

Those little girls were their victims.

Isn't that something.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

How to get off the platter? When I have served myself up.

We will help you, Serenity and I.

Unless you should choose to blast the dinner guests with dragon's Fire and soar, free.

I had best post that scroll.

The cookies were peanut butter. Here is a thing that I know: In any baked thing that contains baking soda, a tablespoon of vinegar will create a chemical reaction that will make your finished product almost weightless. Just like when we have excess stomach acid and take baking soda, which makes us burp? Same reaction. Baking soda plus vinegar equals bubbles of ~ I forgot what it makes. But the bubbles are baked into the product.

Add the vinegar to the wet ingredients. It will begin to react with the baking soda instantaneously, so you need to bake whatever it is right away.

This works in pancake batter.

I put vinegar in my pastry, too.

I don't know what it works, there.

Okay.

Dragon scroll for Copa.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Add the vinegar to the wet ingredients.

Cedar, is there a proportion? That is to say, 1 T of vinegar would go to how much baking soda? Or put the other way, how much vinegar to how much baking soda?Thank you for the tip.