Feeling Sad---Son is Homeless

[Feeling Sad]

Cedar, I truly understand how things...images, thoughts, feelings, foods, objects, songs etc. can trigger sad memories or make you feel uncomfortable or feel like you are being slighted.

I am sorry that our seemingly, funny discourse brought up bad memories for you, Cedar. You too have gone through a difficult childhood. You are right, healing is a very slow process. When I read someone else's post or thread, it jogs yet another memory that I had not, or chose not, to remember.

All of us hit upon tender memories while just joking. It is in the long run, healthy to get things out. Just writing about things is extremely cathartic. Also, other people can jog that sad internal record player in our mind with fresh perspectives and nurturing ideas. But, a very slow, and at times, a painful process.

Healing hurts, but at times, I am seeing a glimmer of hope for the future ....for all of our futures.

My middle son texted me today that he too feels that my ill son is probably doing better out there being more independent and not sheltered here by me in his room. He too thinks that his symptoms are probably lessened and he is maybe enjoying life more.

It made me feel better because I had harbored guilt, right or wrong, that I could have done something differently. It afforded me more peace of mind when he told me this.

I want to thank you all for helping me through these 3 1/2 months, and particularly this last week being alone.

I am not going anywhere, I just wanted to say thank you.

My son is off with friends, but knowing he is in town, I am not as jumpy. Pleasant dreams. Roar.......

 

[Copabanana]

You are welcome, Feeling.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

So we have the possibility only of developing consciousness. And we start with the culture and the famililial experience with which we were stuck. That is what constitutes us initially.

That is why it so important Feeling when you talk about the Cotillions and the Charm School. With your reality of a sister who tried to kill you and parents who willed you to be silent.]

Yes. This is a crucial piece, Copa.

Thank you.

It was not fraudulence, Cedar, it was defiance. It was somehow choosing to define yourself beautifully and deciding by fiat that you would have in your life what is true and real and fine.

Choosing to define ourselves beautifully...deciding by fiat that we will have in our lives what is true and real and fine.

Dissonance.

That concept of dissonance.

Could be described as choosing to do without defenses we have come to see as thoughtless, automatic things. The ability to do that does seem to happen in a spiral, Copa. Deeper, a little more all-encompassing, each time. As we become practiced at it, we stay warm and live instead of going Frankenstein; we allow the hurt of it or even, trace it down and and down. Because we can do that, we hurt more deeply, but we heal more deeply too, each time we follow the spiraling, essential dissonances.

Now I understand why you posted so often about dissonance, Feeling.

That is the place of healing and reclamation.

Dissonance.

You have posted to us about the concept of dissonance before, Copa.

Now I know the taste of it.

You rose above filth, Cedar, just as I did when I chose to walk those tiers among killers and rapists and ordinary thugs.

So, in my imagery now, I have that concept of multiple imprisoned selves. And of myself, performing as you did in real life, Copa.

Boy, there are alot of them. Throwing feces, doing whatever they can do to be seen and heard because they are meant to be free, and not imprisoned.

They all are me, of course.

Cedar, I loved the mental image you painted about Copa's referrence to a house of ill repute. I greatly enjoyed it. When I am scared, I find that I feel better by joking. I noticed, after I had sent my 2 last posts, that I talked about it using your name...not saying like Cedar's imagined bodello. I wanted to apolize, and I tried to put a funny twist on it. Again, jokes are better than screams...

There is no apology necessary, Feeling. You will not know, having been with us only a little time, that "whore" is a feeling I wallow around in alot, regarding my mother. And my sister too, it certainly does look like, this morning. Everything about our experience here was fine ~ seen in one way, was excellent. I think that as we heal, we see what we need to see to bring the thing being brought up for healing to fruition. It was nothing you did, Feeling. I did it, to and for myself. I could have let it go, but given that the feelings were there to be addressed, that would have been selling myself out.

I am grateful, Feeling. Copa, New Leaf. I trusted, you all witnessed and defined and stayed right with me through it, and I am better, today.

Thank you all so much.

Here is an interesting thing I learned about myself, about that younger self I was. In allowing the feelings to melt and run, I found the essential place where locus of control went external; I found the why (at least, for this facet of self) for external, rather than internal, locus of control.

The abandonment, the punishment in that concept "whore". A whore sells herself (or himself). But that selling can be, as Copa reminds us, a defiant thing. That was why the imagery of the actress loving every inch of her skin, and her expression as she bathed in the sun was so important to this episode of reclamation.

I saw her, saw the face and the body postures, so easy and private in public, and the eyes of the actress as she bathed, again and again, as I went through this.

Internal locus of control.

That is what that actress displayed, as she bathed naked in the sun.

That sign, flashing "Girls! Girls! Girls!".

The actress, bathing so beautifully, so surely herself, in the sun.

It was exactly right that these things happened for me as they did, and I am sincerely grateful to each of you.

And to me too, of course.

We all are doing well, are coming through well.

An amazing coincidence that we all are here together, or...?

:O)

Cedar

Oh. I was going to note some of what came up for me as I came through this part of reclaiming internal locus of control.

This is done not to accuse or elicit sympathy or justify or etc. This is shared so that the next one of us to go through it has a kind of map.

So, keeping very much in the front of our minds Copa's assertion:

So we have the possibility only of developing consciousness. And we start with the culture and the famililial experience with which we were stuck. That is what constitutes us initially.

These are the feelings we functioned through as young girls and as young women:

I could not settle, could not concentrate, seemed not able to follow a thought to its conclusion, through this reclamation. That imagery of my mother and sister intruded on all things, on everything, conscious or not. I kept hearing that stupid ring of crystal. My father was in there somewhere too, and an especially traumatic remembrance of my brother. Everyone was there, and it was dark.

The reason this is crucial: We lived that mindset from the time we were little. With all this going on, we could not devote ourselves purposefully to anything. Not school, not music, not friendship; not presence walking down the street. Locus of control was out there somewhere. Survival was the crucial issue, trust nonexistent; trust in ourselves...a defiant choice.

So, we chose.

Good for us.

That is how we are strong enough to free the prisoners, now. Remember the poetry about the prisoner? How strange Copa, that you lived it; that I wrote it, and that we are finding meaning in and employing that imagery, here.

That poetry is on the Family of Origins thread too, Feeling.

The other important thing I learned is that, for the actress to have portrayed the whore bathing so beautifully in the sun, she had to know: The way anyone would choose to see her had nothing to do with who she was.

That is an apt description of internal, versus external, locus of control.

That way that actress looked and felt, bathing naked in the sun.

The other thing I learned is that the energy of contempt, in an eye roll say, is stolen from us. It is our energy that delivers the punch. An eye roll matters because, raised into a kind of hypervigilence having to do with believing the abuser's mindset mattered more than our own interpretation of whatever was happening to us, we are forever looking for definition outside ourselves.

To be safe from the abuser's determined intent that we are her thing, her possession, and not our own.

A valuable experience for me. Thank you, each of you, so very much.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Sorry, everyone. I don't know how that post got so compressed.

Basically, it just says "Thank you."

:O)

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

"the actress to have portrayed the whore bathing so beautifully in the sun, she had to know: The way anyone would choose to see her had nothing to do with who she was." (Cedar)

You know the funny thing, Cedar, on those tiers and walking through those 6 or 7 prisons, I do not recall feeling shame. I felt whole and good. I began doing that work in earnest in my late 40's already the age of the mothers of many of those men. But a woman nonetheless in a place there are not so many.

Maybe that was the reason I was attracted to work there. Internal locus of control. I had to make the distinction from what was me and the choices and behaviors of others. Only a strong boundary will work. For one, their energies and wills are strong...and more important, I had a job to do. A profession.

I ended up as a woman with a great deal of confidence and a strong and generalized understanding of what was good for me. I wonder, now, if all of those walks made me so. Like the actress who I think is Susan Sarandon bathing herself in the courtyard.

"An eye roll matters because, raised into a kind of hypervigilence having to do with believing the abuser's mindset mattered more than our own interpretation of whatever was happening to us, we are forever looking for definition outside ourselves." (Cedar)

You know, when I first read this I thought of something diametrically opposite the real meaning: I thought of all of those comedians, especially the Jewish ones, Jack Benny was one, who eye roll. He was the master of the eye roll. And I thought: an eye roll can be one of the most affectionate and inclusive of gestures. To say as if, I embrace all of you, especially that outrageous part of you. It is as if I wink and an embrace all in one. Or it can be.

I realized that I eye roll all of the time. With either a deadpan look or a wide smile. The other day I was talking to the neighbor women of the other house (with the renters who have now left.) The daughter (about 60, I guess, and the Mother (82) and I. The Mom was talking about her card playing group and the daughter mentioned she had been in the group until she went back to work. And I said, with an eye roll and deadpan, "well you don't have your priorities straight do you?"

So she looked at me. She barely knows me. To gauge my intent. She must have seen my twinkling eyes and the quiver at the side of my deadpan mouth, just wanting to smile, but holding steady for the kill (see humor is sadistic. There is always the both sides present. That is what makes it funny.) And she got it.

She was deciding whether to be offended or not. After all, what I had said to her could have been a criticism, in fact, on the face of it, it was.

So she decided how to respond and said with dramatic swagger: "Well, I guess I don't." She gave it back. She had decided about me. And I decided about her.

So that was why she had to show me. It is the most important thing to establish visible criteria, and to make sure it is known.

The eye roll and the deadpan mouth had been an invitation for inclusion, into my secret club, a club I did not know existed until now. I love my own humor. I just love it. I invited that lady into my secret club, to know me.

My sister's eye roll excludes and does not invite. To demonstrate to me that I do not belong to her club, in fact I am specifically excluded. The smirk and eye roll for her is to show me that I do not belong, and why, and to show she feels belonging with, in that case her 3rd husband.

So, to draw this to a close, this lady has in internal locus of control. She waited for those few seconds while she decided my intent. She did not care if I was hurt. She would not collaborate with being put down or disrespected. She was going to call it right. She was not going to abandon herself. She let me wait, and would not appease, or people please. She made me wait for her smile.

So I will conclude with this: I get up later than does M. This morning I was woken by a phone call. He was already at work and the kitchen was already cleaned up from the mess I had made and left.

He was mad. I could see it in his face. I kept quiet.

He said, I do not like it when you leave a mess in the sink. You left the raw chicken (for the dogs) defrosting in the sink and on top of it was grease and dirty dishes. And Stella (the cat) climbed onto the table to eat the rest of the chicken on the plate.

So both of us *the cat and I, are in the corner for being bad, bad, bad.

I quake with fear when he scolds me. Which is often. He even tells me the truth about food. I asked him about lunch yesterday and he said he loved the flavor of the chicken and degree of doneness, but it was too salty. He tells me the truth he says because he sees it as a betrayal to lie about something that can be corrected or perfected. (I hear it as criticism, because I seek approval.)

So through this post I am understanding more the issue between M and myself. M speaks the truth of what is in his mind because he feels it is the right thing to do. His intent is clean. He does not mean to cause hurt. He is really indifferent as to whether my feelings are hurt. He believes my feelings are my own business. He assumes that I am equal to him and will take care of myself. He assumes I am whole and have an internal locus of control *or the potential for same.

He may after all of this time now know I do not, and that is why he reassures me in non-verbal ways...but he continues to presume that I can take what he dishes out. He assumes equality of voice and responsibility. I am in the ring with the big boys.

A few minutes ago I went to the living room and told him: Today I am going to ready stuff to return (boxes and stuff for walmart), I will go out, and I will clean a part of the house.

So he looks at me and says, "what do you want me to say?" Nada, I replied (nothing). But I said it a bit too fast and he heard it as shutting him up. But he smiled.

This stuff is nuanced and oh so hard, when one is not quite sure what are the rules and you care oh so much about doing things right (external locus of control.) But want to claim space as a person.

See, in the prison, everybody's role was defined. I had a place, a purpose, and a right...before I got there. It is oh so hard, when everything has to be created and re-created.

If all of this (or any of it) makes sense, you all deserve credit.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

"The other important thing I learned is that, for the actress to have portrayed the whore bathing so beautifully in the sun, she had to know: The way anyone would choose to see her had nothing to do with who she was." (Cedar)

Like M. And his mother.

His mother is very, very traditional. She is tiny and demure and seems passive, and in many things, is. Except she is not.

A devout catholic. She carries her bible and rosary with her, always. And reads only it and other devotional readings. You can find her in any profoundly traditional Catholic country. She is strong to the bone.

M says she is the strongest of the family. Who can and has endured everything. Victimized, she is no victim.

Once we went to the second hand store and bought her a cart full of clothing and shoes.

At that time we were buying all of our clothing in Segundas. M told his mother this.

Does, she? And his Mom looked at me.

Yes. M responded. Everything.

I braced myself a bit against the "ella" or she and told myself it was not translating well.

M's Mother does not hesitate to speak her mind or to clarify her thinking about things, happens what happens. She knows her intent. She knows what she means. She knows who she is. Even an abusive, philandering but jealous husband, does not affect her worth. She is with him because of her belief. He is her husband.

There is no sense of deserve or worth that is determined or reflected by how she is treated by others. She chooses. She has chosen.

The idea of internal locus of control, in circumstances that dispute one's worth, interests me. M's Mom is an example of a person in bad circumstances, who believes in herself, holds on to it, and teaches her children the same. Strong person, internal locus of control, bad circumstances. She maintains her vision of the world and herself no matter what happens. There is not self-pity or whining. She has chosen her circumstances and takes responsibility.

A person with strong self-worth and an internal locus of control...would feel that they deserved good circumstances, was worthy only of good, and of being treated well, and therefore would feel congruence in good circumstances, of only befitting them, nothing more. So there would be congruity there.

But what if the person without this internal sense of deserving and of self-worth, falls into a good circumstance, and by accident, is loved and valued. This good circumstance itself would be dissonant with what they have been taught is their due. They feel internally that they are not deserving, but their circumstance is a good and loving one....How does the person resolve this?

I remember movies where the heroine is such a person and she ends up leaving the good relationship. She cannot tolerate safety and respect and good treatment, so she leaves.

I would think if one stays, there would be continuing internal dissonance...that one would have to resolve it in one way or another.

One way could be a pound of flesh, like depression. To continually punish oneself, for the good fortune, one found oneself in, accidentally, that one does not feel is deserved.

A sense of oneself as undeserving of protection, safety, learned as a child as a way to make sense of chaos and abandonment. To understand it.

Internal vs external locus of control. Childhood and now. Dissonance. How it is resolved. Little by little regaining self. Fighting for it.

I am thinking that each of us is dealing with this in our own way in our current circumstances.

Than you.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

Cedar, I see you are here. I just edited the above post to make it better I think and clearer.

Hi.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I quake with fear when he scolds me. Which is often. He even tells me the truth about food. I asked him about lunch yesterday and he said he loved the flavor of the chicken and degree of doneness, but it was too salty. He tells me the truth he says because he sees it as a betrayal to lie about something that can be corrected or perfected. (I hear it as criticism, because I seek approval.)

D H is this way, Copa. I think we drew these men, chose these men, to strengthen us. Both are men of integrity. D H used to say all the time that I seem to have no problem standing up to him. But I did, initially.

That is why I love this:

So we have the possibility only of developing consciousness. And we start with the culture and the famililial experience with which we were stuck. That is what constitutes us initially.

Initially, there is a process of unlearning, in every way. I cannot imagine how D H even stayed with me, sometimes.

And you guys?

He actually likes me.

So both of us *the cat and I, are in the corner for being bad, bad, bad.

My cat and I have spent some time in that exact corner, Copa!

So through this post I am understanding more the issue between M and myself. M speaks the truth of what is in his mind because he feels it is the right thing to do. His intent is clean. He does not mean to cause hurt. He is really indifferent as to whether my feelings are hurt. He believes my feelings are my own business. He assumes that I am equal to him and will take care of myself. He assumes I am whole and have an internal locus of control *or the potential for same.

He believes my feelings are my own business.

Exactly the opposite of what we were brought up to believe. However it happened, we came to believe the abuser's feeling state mattered more than our own. Our abusers watched for the smallest signs of rebellion, punishing us into interpreting ourselves through their eyes and only through their eyes.

The depth and tenacity of that belief system can be seen in that I needed to access imaginary witnesses when, earlier in our process, I was reinterpreting how to see traumatic events through my own eyes instead of through those of the abuser.

And I am 63 years old.

And when I touched those trauma places? It was as though it happened yesterday.

Which is where Thom Hartman's book, Walking the Blues Away, is going to be very helpful. It is supposed to take maybe four twenty minute sessions to integrate a traumatic event ~ to release the emotion in it, wherever we are holding it in our bodies. The healing is described as: laughter, and a sense of disbelief that we hung onto it as long as we did.

We are no longer afraid of the powerlessness that is the core of the trauma.

We get it, that we lived. That it did happen, but that it was a long time ago and has nothing more to teach us, because the danger is past.

I don't remember what the process is called, but it is being used successfully to treat veterans suffering PTSD.

http://www.emdrnetwork.org/description.html

Walking, because it requires bilateral activity in the brain, accomplishes the same objective.

You know the funny thing, Cedar, on those tiers and walking through those 6 or 7 prisons, I do not recall feeling shame. I felt whole and good. I began doing that work in earnest in my late 40's already the age of the mothers of many of those men. But a woman nonetheless in a place there are not so many.

I think this is true, Copa: In those places in our lives in which we were able to create ourselves without accessing the mindsets of our abusers, we did blazingly well. Which makes sense. In our childhoods, we were confronting issues of abandonment and mortality. Awake and asleep and all the time. And we were just little kids. And somehow, we came through that functional.

Damaged, not defective, right?

Where our abusers (for me, my mother) had no input, we did well in our lives. That is why we created separation between ourselves and our families of origin, Copa. It could be that is the reason you chose to live in other countries, and felt fearless when you did. You loved them so much that you had to be very, very far away from them so you could not return easily. It was when you did come home, to protect your mother, that you subjected yourself again to the judgments and value systems of your family of origin.

And there was your sister, rolling her eyes like my sister does, too. And as does Serenity's. The difference between this kind of eye rolling our families of origin practice and the eye rolling of Jack Benny (or your own), is eye contact. Your sister (or mine, or Serenity's) unite to exclude through the ridicule of eye rolling. It could be seen as a way of shunning in place, this kind of eye rolling. Direct contact eye rolling is interaction between equals. And it is funny, and we each are seen, there.

Our families of origin engage in third party eye rolling.

So...why do our families of origin need to do that? Not only to us, but even to the lady driver I am always posting about. But why, especially, to us?

Can we possibly be that frightening to them, that they feel a need to unite for defense from us?

Good.

Ha!

Good.

:O)

I have never been scary, before.

***

As I have gone through this summer, I often wondered whether my attitude was the problem. I have posted before that I was never comfortable, especially around my mother. That thing that I felt ~ I name that dissonance, now. (Thank you, Copa.) Cognitive dissonance. How reconcile and hold what I knew (subconsciously) about the danger my mother represented to my adult self concept with my adult choice to forgive and forget and make what family there was to be made?

Yay, me.

I come out smelling like a rose on that one, too.

Every time we interacted with our families of origin, we did it knowing the cost to ourselves.

That is very brave of us, to have done it anyway.

Seriously.

He may after all of this time now know I do not, and that is why he reassures me in non-verbal ways...but he continues to presume that I can take what he dishes out. He assumes equality of voice and responsibility. I am in the ring with the big boys.

I think we are the only ones who know we feel as frightened and uncertain as we do.

This stuff is nuanced and oh so hard, when one is not quite sure what are the rules and you care oh so much about doing things right (external locus of control.) But want to claim space as a person.

It is, Copa. I think we have developed pretty stringent concepts of what is ethical behavior. I think we each have chosen "kind" if we can do it, to guide us. This is part of the reason having our children go roaring off into lives we would never have chosen for them has been so hard for us. There is not a one of us who says unkind words without immediately beating herself up for it.

Here again, the challenge is internal, versus external, locus of control.

We don't want to hurt our kids. Loving them as we do, we don't want them ever to feel as we did, growing up.

We are so unsure of what is real.

We don't want to hurt them, or anyone.

We invariably choose kind. Whether that is our kids or our mates or someone on the street we will never see again, we hold kindness as a way to know how to respond. I do that, for sure. The world seems so harsh. I don't want to add to that.

Of course I do unkind things. But I don't intend to.

But I do.

Okay. So, here is a circle. I am confused around this issue. That's okay. The point I was trying to make is that we can say our best words we know, and straighten things out later if we need to because we are essentially ethical beings, and not those rotten people our abusers insisted we were, after all.

But it takes time and practice, and feels very risky, to be real instead of leaping into a role where we already know the answers, and what to say, and how to behave.

Thank you each again for sticking with me through the Cedar in the bathtub posts. Feeling, especially, thank you. You don't even know me, but you were kind to me, anyway.

So, we are doing this, you guys.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Cedar, I have decided to be brave. I am walking through the house now with my nose in the air and my mouth pursed. I am trying to convey imperious, impervious and insolent. *To indicate that I reject the corner.

He thinks it's funny and is imitating me. The cat is out of the corner too. There is open rebellion in the asylum.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Victimized, she is no victim.

And now, think of Elie Wiesel, or Viktor Frankl, or any politician in an election cycle, or any people prejudiced against.

How do they do that, I wonder? Without disparaging the other person, to know one's own value.

That is the difference in third party eye rolling. There is an "other" targeted before there can be unity. And the unity is a version of power-over.

To not be a victim must have to do with being real, with coming real.

But I don't know, because I am not there, yet.

person with strong self-worth and an internal locus of control...would feel that they deserved good circumstances, was worthy only of good, and of being treated well, and therefore would feel congruence in good circumstances, of only befitting them, nothing more.

D H says good and bad don't matter. It is how you respond that matters. What are your priorities, which are the things you cherish. First, yourself. Expect that others will do the same.

That way, everyone is honest.

What if the person without this internal sense of deserving and of self-worth, falls into a good circumstance, and by accident, is loved and valued. This good circumstance itself would be dissonant with what they have been taught is their due. They feel internally that they are not deserving, but their circumstance is a good and loving one....How does the person resolve this?

Perhaps by living a role.

A perfect mother.

A Stepford wife.

Everything for the good of someone we love. Which turns, pretty quickly, into, "After all I've done for you...."

That was a constant refrain in much of my life.

Ew.

All those so stringent unspoken expectations. This does all get to be so freaking complex.

That's like, so unattractive.

roar

Ew.

I knew I should have gone shopping this afternoon.

:O)

Real is better than role, though. I am glad to know.

Not that I like it.

One way could be a pound of flesh, like depression. To continually punish oneself, for the good fortune, one found oneself in, accidentally, that one does not feel is deserved.

One of the things that happened for me as I came through this summer is that I felt these things that are mine are really mine. It was ridiculous, in a way, but very real, nonetheless. My house. My tree. My dog. My cat. My D H.

Maybe, I was living like a transient in my own life.

I was so afraid of my mother, remember that? And then, of my sister calling. And when she did, and I said true things and nothing bad or nasty, she started to scream and cry and then, went silent. Waiting, we now know, for her crying to change me back into myself.

That would be a description of recovery from living like a transient in our own life. And once I did it, I was able to let go of it. There was no sense of trauma to it.

Though I made my sister cry.

That was alot of growing to do in a very short time, too.

They say we are meant to heal; meant to be whole.

When it happens, it happens very quickly.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

And now, think of Elie Wiesel, or Viktor Frankl, or any politician in an election cycle, or any people prejudiced against.

Today Hillary Clinton is on the radio. She is sticking up for herself about Benghazi. She is mad. It is all very interesting to me. She and her husband both grew up in abusive households. Hillary Clinton's mother had been orphaned, I think. Her husband was cold and stern as I remember. Bill Clinton watched his mother be beaten.

Each of them fight back to the death. But the thing is, they seem to invite abuse too. Attract it. Neither seems to learn lessons. Their worldviews seem to be of people unfairly attacking them, and needing to fight back. Their senses of self, to protect at all costs. To dig in. To survive.

The problem is that by constantly living life as being justified in doing whatever is required to survive, to thrive by defying; to constantly defend against others who ones feels are destroying you...is to limit learning. And to risk abusing others, as entitled and justified, by virtue of the need to survive. In fact, this way of being resembles my sister.

Now there is Joe Biden, who keeps on keeping on. He takes his hits and does not volley back. He stays attuned to himself and his family and his faith. He keeps walking and does the best he can. He seems to decide everything based upon an internal calculus.

If he is hurt, he seems to nurse his wounds in his family, and his faith and himself, too. A completely different way to live.

I stopped reading the Viktor Frankl book. What would he say? I cannot say right now. I think the basis of his belief is to face what is real in oneself and outside. And go on. Maybe this is what you are describing in D H. Neither good or bad enters into it. Reality has to be dealt with. But I will have to go back to the book.

How do they do that, I wonder? Without disparaging the other person, to know one's own value.

I think the ones that do it with integrity like Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, and Ben Carson....have the sense of their intrinsic value by virtue of faith or family or belief in themselves.

If you watch closely, they do not react. They respond. They decide and they respond from integrity and thought, not on feelings.

D H says good and bad don't matter. It is how you respond that matters. What are your priorities, which are the things you cherish. First, yourself. Expect that others will do the same.

I do not understand this. I do not know him, but I believe D H squawks loudly and clearly when he is met with something that does not suit him. That is a vote about good or bad. I would think D H at his essence understands responsibility, obligation, commitment, respect and intrinsic value. He squawks when he does not encounter the same. Is that not a matter of good or bad?

Everything for the good of someone we love. Which turns, pretty quickly, into, "After all I've done for you...."

That was a constant refrain in much of my life.

For me, it was about love.

Internally, it was I have loved you so much....how could you do this to me? Treat me this way...there was some kind of calculus based upon getting love by giving it. Which should not be part of parenting. Or if it is, quickly hits the rocks.

All those so stringent unspoken expectations. This does all get to be so freaking complex.

Yes.

Or explicit ones, too. That do not jive with one's self-worth or self-image or that of others.

Maybe, I was living like a transient in my own life.

Well, Cedar, I was living as a transient in my own life. I guess that is why "irresponsible bum" hit a chord.

I could not deal with my own family and could not tolerate building another one until I adopted my son....and I am struggling now, because I seem to have acquired a family with M.

 

[Copabanana]

Can we possibly be that frightening to them, that they feel a need to unite for defense from us?

Good.

Ha!

Good.

:O)

I have never been scary, before.

Me either, Cedar. Me, either. For once in my life I was trying to do it today...he laughs.

Puffed up, posturing I may have looked foolish but I felt stronger.

They do not do it Cedar because we scare them. I am sorry to say.

I think they do it to tell us we are worth only what they say we are, and nothing more. They do it to define us and to place us where we belong. That is what I think.

That is not to say they are not essentially weak and frightened people.

OK. Maybe my sister felt that a loving and good sister would have passed her test, have gone sight seeing in a city where she has lived her whole life...and she was saying to her husband with the eye rolling: See, I told you how mean and bad and rejecting and selfish she is....she won't even go with us.

So in one eye rolling, she bonded with him (over my dead body) and excluded me.

But that is not fear. It is censure. It is rejecting. It is mean. It is punishing. It is excluding. It is shunning in place. It is not fear.

Her rage at me because I spoke with the social worker, or because I gently called her on her controlling and excluding behavior with the doctor, what was that?

Either she felt entitled to do unilaterally whatever she wanted, and I broke the rules. Or that how dare I intrude upon what was her domain her, power base. Which is essentially the same thing.

Still, no fear there.

I think your sister might be afraid because you removed yourself from the game. But not of you.

I think my sister does not even see me as a person. I am a role to her. Not a person.

COPA

 

[Feeling Sad]

Hi guys, or rather, fellow warriors.

I read and loved what you wrote. You have all made great strides in your healing. I am proud of you!

I am just very tired. I have a lot of work to complete at work. I have several new programs to get the students entered on with usernames and passwords, progress reports due, math level test to be given on one program, grade level meeting, school site council, 6 district assessments to be given by 2 weeks on another, and, lastly, conferences. Oh yeah, if there is ever a disaster, moi is in charge of making the freeze-dried meals for all of the students in the school..safety committee. We have to all sign up for 4 adjunct duties, a.k.a free labor.. Fun!

If that was not enough, I have been subpoenaed again for the retrial by the DA concerning my 3 month old car being totaled over a year ago, and the neighbor's truck down one, by the drunk 21 year old son across the street.

The last time in court his female attorney tore into me. It was like a horrible movie of the week, but I was in it. I had a jury and a Judge staring at me. Hearsay, overruled, sustained...The Judge even asked me questions a few times. I just kept thinking, "What was I thinking? They all saw me be sworn in wearing a bright yellow floral purse and blue striped slacks!!!"

He got off because he and his parents lied and said, that he did cause the accident, but drank AFTER. Total lies. 2 jurors not sure.

Now, a retrial, and the DA says that "we are going to nail him this time!".

The DA brought the charges. Last time the case was delayed for 5 months...week, by week. My principal is going to just 'love' this! During testing and conferences.

Anyway, I am just totally fried. My class is wonderful...some are challenging, but they are great. Makes it worthwhile. Today in class, I turned off the lights and read a kid's Halloween book and taught them a song that I had learned in first grade. They screamed with delight (unlike myself a few nights ago).

Also, I can earn money doing something rewarding, albeit...stressful.

It is just so beyond difficult to act 'normal' and intelligent when, if I had the time, I would fall apart. But, it is a good thing that I am keeping busy...less time to feel sad about my ill son.

My air works now...today one of the 3 students computers went down. Bad karma...ghosts...negative vibes?

No, just my life.

Take care ladies.

Roarrrrrrrrrrrr...........

 

[Copabanana]

Everything sounds good, Feeling.

 

[Feeling Sad]

Copa, I liked your story about joking with the neighbor.

That is your 'gift' or forte...bringing out the best in people. Great story.

All of my fellow brave warriors are so lucky to have a SO to keep the home hearths burning while you are bravely fighting battles...

Now, if I fancied Arnold, like fellow warrior, Cedar... but, alas and alack...no.

 

[Feeling Sad]

In addition, Cedar, I completely understand constantly looking outside of yourself for definition or validation or attention or understanding...or any tiny crumb someone....anyone is willing to throw your way.

Do I sound bitter? Nooooooooo.

 

[Feeling Sad]

I have a question. A month ago I paid my homeless schizophrenic son's car insurance, a small amount, because his car is old. I wanted him to have coverage. It is under his name. Same company and coverage as before. His mail still comes to my house. I want him to have his car to sleep in.

Two weeks ago a got a parking ticket for him parking during the day at a beach town. I was going to pay that. Mail and notices do not reach him.

Then, I received a notice for his registration renewal.

My question is do I pay the parking ticket? Do I pay the registration? He cannot receive the tags.

My thought is that if he is stopped for having no tags...The officer usually looks up your vehicle. He would be told that it is paid and he needs to get a replacement sticker. If he goes in on his own to renew the registration, he will be told that it is paid for.

Either way...he will know he has current car insurance.

But, is this enabling? He is not in touch with reality and I fear he might avoid the police or try to flee. I do not know how he feels about the police now that he has been removed from the house with a restraining order by 5 police officers.

On the flipside...would being stopped help him or me? Would the police tell him of the missing person's report and that he needs to call his brother?

When he was in Washington, 9 years ago, he was stopped for a lack of a current sticker and was told that he should call home. He replied, "I should, but I can't".

Would it send him into deeper hiding? Would he feel that we are 'after him'? Or the police are 'after him'? Or would he feel happy that he is loved and we are worried about him. Again, my youngest son is not on the restraining order.

I bought him a cell phone that my youngest son handed to him that last day. My youngest son texted him twice. No response and it died in 3 days. It has never been used or recharged since...

He has never called my youngest son on his cell and has only called me twice in 9 years. He is fearful of perceived spies.

What should I do? Please advise...

 

[Copabanana]

My question is do I pay the parking ticket? Do I pay the registration? He cannot receive the tags.

Only you can decide.

If they are paid, technically, he would not be in violation of the law, except for the sticker. But the police would still approach him because of the lack of sticker. But at least in my imagination, it need not be adversarial because he will not be found in violation. However, he will not know that.

Without current vehicle registration and an unpaid parking ticket, his problems would mount up, without a means for him to correct them. It is not likely he can rise above his fear to be able to go to DMV or the County Court where he received the ticket.

In the former scenario you would be doing what you can, to protect him. I do not see that is enabling but other people might. The way I see it, he does need assistance. You were willing and wanting to assist him...until it was unsafe for all of you that you continue doing so.

In the latter scenario, you would let things mount up, and in one way or another he will have to deal with a mess. Some people might argue that those consequences might bring intervention and needed help.

In the situation of most of the adult children on this thread, there is assumed to be capacity to handle personal business.

Your son is psychotic. His thinking about things is such that it is likely that he cannot work his way through a problem such as this to solve it. His psychosis gets in the way.

But the only one who can decide is you, perhaps with the help of your two younger sons. Both ways of thinking seem to have their merits.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

Feeling you are a most compassionate person. I am in awe at the depth of your love and kindness. For lack of anything else to add to the wisdom written, I agree with Copa. Please take care,
Leafy

 

[Feeling Sad]

Yes...I wanted to pay them.

I agree, it is not enabling. I feel sad that no one can let him know that it is all paid.

Also, I could sleep better...a big plus. Work is so difficult with little sleep. It is hard to concentrate because I am so depressed. It is hard to get up each morning, but I am glad that I have to. I feel better by helping my students. They make me laugh!

I wasn't able to help my son, but I can help others...

Copa, maybe baby steps? You could start at an hour a week doing volunteer work. Any volunteer work. Little stress, little or no requirements, you could help others, and they would be truly appreciative. Baby steps?

You have a true 'gift' for helping others. I feel better helping others, even though I would rather stay at home...or maybe shop...

It is very beneficial. To oneself AND others.

Just a thought.

Yes, my ill son is a different case scenario.

My 2 other sons want me to pay. I just needed input.

I will be less worried.

Thank you, Copa.

Our lives are just so difficult...

I remember, nine years ago when he was homeless, I wanted him to know that I loved him. I thought I would use code... $1 for 'a', $2 for 'b', $3 for 'c' in the bank, once per day in increments. Never did it. He is/was a genius and a math major. Would he figure it out?

He returned after exactly one year at the doorway 9 years ago. I almost went crazy that year. I flew up to Washington to find him twice. I have had a lot of intiition since I was in middle school. I kept driving one large city block around...and around him, each time.

When he came back, I made my pin his name...it has 4 letters. Now, each time that I use it, I want to cry.

I miss him so much.

Take care.

Too sad for...roar.