Hey, Cedar, or anyone interested in FOO (Family of Origin) issues. Cedar, WHY NOW???

[InsaneCdn]

YOu also said you felt nothing for me when I was born. Can an infant tell there is no love?

Yes. There have been fascinating cases documented. Including one where the infant would not nurse, no matter what the mom did including help from an excellent coach. Then a particular doctor was called, and he set things up so the infant could be nursed by an experienced mother who was also on the ward - and the infant latched instantly and well, and nursed well. After a few well-worded questions? the Mom ever wanted to have a child or be a Mom. The conclusion was that the infant already knew there was no love there.

 

[Confused]

Wow, I have not been keeping up on my reading!!! Im still trying to get through all the responses so I can respond But wow, so many interesting things I have learned so far.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

And that's cheating on their part.

This is a great way to assess behavior. There is ethical interaction, which can at least result in mutual respect and then, trust ~ if not love ~ and there is cheating.

Cedar, do you ever think there will be a time when you can detach from your mother and sister? I truly don't believe the hurt goes away unless you do.

Essentially, I am detached from them, now. As is the case with your sister SWOT, there is a kind of stalking going on. There is a refusal to respect my choice in these matters. Had I been continuing to try to keep contact (and here again, that would mean accepting that though they do not pick up for me, I do take their calls. Regarding my own ethical behavior in these matters, my mother hung up on me the last time I spoke to her. My sister did what she did to my daughter. Even after that, I continued taking her calls after my daughter encouraged that effort to keep family communications at least moving. I did tell my sister I would not accept the roles created for D H and I to maintain relationship. Her attitude was to listen patiently, pause for a moment, and return to the subject at hand: that "we" had been duped by my mother regarding her ongoing relationship, behind my sister's back, with the man who had wanted to marry my mother. I have posted that my sister continued to call sporadically. She will call crying, and want to discuss her husband in the sense of defining a situation in her terms. She likes to name him psychiatric diagnoses. She contacted the woman who wrote The Verbally Abusive Relationship, received response, and did not pursue therapy with her. It was interesting to me to realize that my relationship to my sister is similar to the relationship you described with yours SWOT. And I believe Copa had posted something similar regarding her own sister. Armed with that knowledge, I was able to let go of that sense of shame at the one-sided nature of my sister's relationship to me. I am not her mother, but I am all messed up around issues of responsibility and protectiveness and jealousy and frustration and anger and hurt where my sister is concerned.

I intend to stop worrying or planning or dreading confrontation. I intend to start telling the truth and believing, as we do with our kids, that she can freaking handle it. And so can my mother.

So, as she threatened or promised, depending on your perspective, my sister did call once we were here. One of the reasons for that was to determine whether or not I was here. I had been working with you both on family of origin issues and told my sister the things I have described in other posts, along with her reactions ~ which were manipulative in the extreme, and which left me questioning myself even after all the work we've done here, even after what you both have shared of the natures of your relationships to your own sisters.

I like the simplicity of the concept, "We don't get to cheat."

As I expose more and more of the toxicity at the root of so much (maybe of everything?) that constitutes relationship in my family of origin, I am not falling into FOG (guilt/shame/imminent loss of what I do have) as deeply, or for as long a time.

I too am healthier whenever my FOO is not in my life. I too find myself thinking of them less and less, and with less and less intensity of focus as time passes. Like your sister does too, or did, my sister is determined to break through whatever boundary I set up around her. Simply by ignoring it. I think she actually finds meaning in the role of family peacemaker between myself and my parents. But the role is just that. A role whose ultimate purpose is to...to be me, I guess. In the sense of assuming whatever legitimacy there is in being the guy who always says we can do this. Until, twice now, I am the guy who can do whatever she wants to because no one else is talking to me.

But I am not FOG bound around that, this time.

This time when, once again no one is talking to me but my sister. Who was, as I posted recently, actually staying with my parents the last time this happened. That was a total surprise, and was very shaming to me in front of D H. At least this time, I am holding good and steady. If there is no contact, I will be fine. If there is and this is a piece of why I have worked so hard here, then I realize now that I will handle it well. Or, I will handle it badly. There may be confrontation. People may yell and be angry and feel hurt.

But that will not be my fault. I have reviewed some shaming things, here on the site. I have retraumatized myself, to do it. I like the more centered way it feels to be me, now. I have posted before about feeling legitimately present in a way that is new to me. Locus of control is changing. I am my own in a way I have not been; I merit respect. I merit genuine interaction not staged to achieve a predetermined end.

I merit a sister who does not rifle my luggage or write in my journal to let me know she searched for and found and read it. And here again, that was not a very bad thing, except it was.

All those things I excused, before. Right to the bottom of my heart, I excused those things ~ and worse things, from my own mother. I think I believed integrity would come with time, with trust perhaps ~ with loving them and myself and all of us through the things we learned growing up.

The imagery for this time has to do with that dinner table I am always posting about, too. I don't have it clearly yet. That is part of the reason I still post and post as I do. When the imagery comes clear, feels right, then I will know I am done. I do see that I am moving through it. I am not posting about the same issue again and again ~ in a way I am, because it all ties together, but I believe I am moving, making progress toward my stated goal. I don't want to hate them or love them or feel any preconceived thing for them. I am aiming for present, for being fully present in the moment I am in. I will say that Lil and Jabber's Monty Python and kilt man posts are helping me know how to do that until I am fully able to just remain present. Without change that I don't have to envision to know what it is, I do not want these people and their insistent, eternal, underhanded toxicities in my life.

Oh boy you two. Another so long and detailed post. I am holding faith with myself that although I don't know the outcome and I don't feel protected or cherished ~ that I feel deeply wrong in turning away as I am choosing to do ~ that this is a choice I have a right and an obligation to make. Once we see the toxicity and the patterns that never change, the only way we can unsee them is to believe we were wrong in believing the other players were the bad guys we have come to believe them to be. So, that would involve begging forgiveness and rejoining the game by their clearly stated rules.

So, that would involve begging.

I am not a beggar.

Yay me.

Thanks, you two.

Cedar

Here is the thing. I feel foolish to be fixated on these issues that should have been resolved years ago. In a way, I do. But I behaved as I did because I honestly believed that was the ethical choice. The only way I can believe that to turn away is the correct thing is to sift through it with the intention of seeing through a different set of perceptors.

Which is a shaming way to think about your own sister. But now that I am not doing compassion or holding that value of family as a primary value, that is what I am going to keep thinking. Whatever my sister does has a payoff for her. There is nothing genuine between us except that I am the one who serves the same purpose both you and Copa seem to have served for your younger sisters.

I am sorry these things happened to either of you, but it has taken the shame of it away for me to know that this seems to be a pattern in the relationships other people, people I believe to be intelligent and kind, have with their own sisters, too.

No shame, no guilt, no worry over how to respond if they call, when they call, if they show up at the door.

You would not believe how I worried about that. About what to say, about how to see myself, odd man out again and refusing my sister's efforts to welcome me back to the family fold as long as I pretend what they do is okay. Responsibility for my mother, the time that is passing and the knowledge that soon it will be too late to change what I am doing...that's a hard place to be. Until I reworked so much of what was fueling the guilt or shame ~ or compassion, because that is so fully a part of the way I feel, too ~ I was defenseless before my own deeply cherished wish for family. But dysfunctional families hone in on that and create of it a vulnerability to be exploited. I don't know the nature of relationship between my mother and my sister and my brother or his grands now. My sister denied all of it, screaming and crying about how sick I was to say such things when I brought up exclusion, and the pact not to exclude, in our last conversation. Then she went right on. She denied knowledge of any pact, or of any exclusion. She says they are so "busy" there. I said no one is too busy for six years.

Well, whatever. I do not want to see from her perspective. I intend to see from my own.

And I do not get to cheat.

Gratitude is not working in this situation. I do not want to be weakened. I do not want to find balance within what is. What is, in my family of origin, is a harmful thing.

Since my father's death, my sister has come to control, first the frequency and then, the nature of the other sibs' already dysfunctional relationship to the mother. I have been thinking about this pattern, and it was always there ~ the arrogant insistence on attention, the ridicule covering contempt and disguised as humor. I had posted before about my sister disrupting whatever family gatherings there were by having her little girls march through waving American flags and performing patriotic songs to the point that whatever there was to be said about how cute the girls were or how well they sang had already been said. And then, they would be encouraged to do another. And then, when it was finally over, everyone was expected to praise them, and to hear how my sister had taught them, and why, and where they had performed and how much fun everyone always had watching the girls perform.

And pretty soon, it was long past time to go home.

It was uncomfortable. It disrupted the flow of interaction, and left the other children present seemingly less than.

It wasn't a really wrong thing, except that it was. That is the feel of my family. Not really a wrong thing, except that it is. Not really a wrong thing that my brother and his wife should eat at a table away from the rest, except that is how it always is. Not a wrong thing that my sister taught her three year old grandchild to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with her hand over her heart on command, except it was, because after the Pledge came recitation of the names of the American presidents. This also prompted and celebrated by my sister while general conversation was put on hold and eventually, given up altogether.

Then, with everyone's attention, my sister would continue being the proudest grandma to the exclusion of whatever interaction there might have been as family. And then, and this is so nasty a way for me to think, she would toss the grand onto the husband's lap for much tickling and laughing loudly, lest he be distracted from the performance by actually trying to converse with other family members.

And not just once, but every time.

Not really wrong? Except it was.

Not really wrong that the only pictures of grands my mother displayed were of my sister's grand (or of mine when they were little) but not my brother's grands, who were the same age as my sister's grand.

Not really wrong that my mother refused to display pictures of my brother's grands? Except that it was. Not really wrong that, even to my brother, my mother praised my sister's grand but lost interest when he would discuss something one of his grands had done, except that it was. Wrong enough that the mothers of my brother's grands, who had married in to the family, became upset. And that is why my brother was able to confront my mother about it.

And the tire rimming machine was given away on condition that it be removed the same day. And my brother was sent to the garage for some other purpose so my mother would be certain my brother understood it had been disappeared as a result of his rebellion in stating his case regarding treatment of his grandchildren. And the gist of what he said was, "So and so is a cute little girl, but so are my grands."

And that is a stupid feeling, to figure out how to describe being treated as second best.

I think what I am doing through this process is reinterpreting the burden of shame or guilt. If there was something wrong, I felt responsible. If someone felt badly, I felt responsible. When the dynamic changed again with my father's death, I became aware of the changing family dynamic as something that was really happening, that was happening over time, and that was weird. I felt shamed. I did not know how to address either the situation or my feelings about it, so I continued doing what I always do, which was believe we would get through it, that it was an adjustment phase. As I have healed here, as I have been able to trace the patterns and come to a set of conclusions about what seems to be happening and why, I have been able to shift responsibility from myself for what is happening. I am not the one excluding. I could see that the exclusion, that the arrogant, demanding attitude my sister took on or the creation of the golden child and the demand that the partiality shown her become an accepted rule was very wrong.

I have to keep validating that, have to keep sifting through the why of it, because it feels wrong to give up.

But I am getting there.

So, thank you for reading along, and for cheering me on, and for giving me the information I need to make a ~ well, to pronounce my own name.

That's what it feels like. Less a thing to do with them than new growth, than new interpretation of self, for me.

In so many ways.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

That scared me about her the most. She mocked me. Is that enough to be abused?

Yes.

That is the core of abuse. Whatever the details of the thing that was done, whether between mother and child, or siblings, or in male / female relationships, the core of the abuse is invalidating the victim's concept of self.

Have you read "The Verbally Abusive Relationship", SWOT. Patricia Evans. I think you would be surprised at how closely all patterns of abuse begin and proceed. She provides a mental map of the abuser's mindset, too.

That book was instrumental in helping me see the patterns in my relationships, before I found this site.

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

Hi, Cedar again. Home from work, which I truly enjoy, a nd always good to read your posts and jump back into our therapy.

I validate you, Cedar. I believe everything you write.

The one I don't always validate is me, but I have seen too much not to believe YOU.

We are always the hardest on ourselves. I mean, is mocking me in a demeaning eay really that bad? Some kids were sexually abused. This taunts me, even with therapists validating me and certainly THEY know more about these things than my FOO, any of them.

Cedar, I'm not going to write too much about Thing 2 as I believe she will read this forever and probably was reading it long ago. It is part of her sickness. I have sickness too, but not that kind. I had no idea she was that interested in my personal thoughts as she never allowed me to speak them to her without getting angry. To be fair, I didn't really want to hear her thoughts either. They would paint E. as a nice person and I believe (validate) that she was probably a nice person to her and her children (at least the girls). But I insist on the same validation, that she was cruel to me and most definitely NOT nice to MY kids and, sorry, her not even speaking or sending birthday cards to my kids, who had nothing to do with her issues with me, was mean. There was no reason to take it out on them. I'm glad she did. But it was still a mean thing to do. So as long as 1 and 2 can't face that E. had a pretty evil side (don't like that word, but can't think of one that exactly describes it), then we are strangers and I have nothing to say to them. We are no longer in any way related to one another. And this has set me free, sort of. I actually would have taken 2's feelings into considering if I had found out she'd snooped on my blog and it had made her uncomrotable, hurt her, etc. if she were being kind to me.

Even if I realized her paranoia that I am discussing this anon. person was over-the-top paranoid.

When we were on good terms, I unfriended the frineds who had accepted my Facebook friendship outreach...lol (I know, I know. It's not funny and childish, but I still think it's funny that she cared so much). My feeling is that if you are on the social media, you put yourself out there. I did not talk trash to her "friends" about her. I didn't talk to them at all. But it drove her wiggy, I guess, that they were on my FB. I had no idea how wiggy until she called me and told me, in the sweet way she CAN use, that she'd prefer I defriend them. So I did. She got her way.

Those days are over. She has no control over me anymore nor do I want to k now HER thoughts or feelings.But this is repetitious.

On her post, she mentioned that my posts were repetitious. They probably are. That's what it was like to hear, every day, after her abusive boyfriend.Same thing, day after day after day after day with no change. Not from him. Not from her. So I put my foot down on hearing about it and she went no contact. That is the real reason she did it. This time. I can't remember all the other reasons she had the other times.

It doesn't matter. It was the last time.

Cedar, are you FOO folks not triggers to your sadness? I could not deal with mine and still be happy. I need them 100% gone. It was their idea? Fine. It was a good idea for me. I need it to stand. I feel so detached from them. I never want to know what they say or do again, and I don't see any reason why I will. As long as I keep not cheating. That means:

No going to her forum, where, by the way, she thinks she boyfriend is also borderline. She named a few of her friends borlerline too. She is an expert on borderline. Anyhow, I am not going to that forum ever again for any reason. I don't need to read what she says, whether it's true or false. I don't need to get her opinion of my abuse.

"What you think of me is none of my business."

I also have to never check FB. My brothers's is wide open. He lets even non-friends read his posts. Not sure why. But he does. Once I think he wrote something that was aimed at me, but I'm not sure and it didn't really upset, but the sight of him on FB is a trigger a nd then I have to see Thing 2 as well because she has become his best body. Long gone are the not-so-distant days w hen she was sure he was gay and joked about his ugliness. She is very needy a nd nobody in our FOO is left and under 90 except him and me and without me she has to kiss up to him.

And, of course, there is the pesky matter of my over 90 father refusing to drink her Kool-Aid. I LOVE IT!!!! Hahaha.

Anyway, Cedar, do you not feel triggered around your FOO? Those triggers are why I will not even say "with time...maybe they will get it..." Even if they got it, they could not join my life. They are triggers. I like the word "trigger." It reminds me of bullets.

My FOO tried to kill my soul. They could not.

I actually shared some of this with Bart. Bart said, "Do what you tell me to do when I worry about ex. Radio silence."

I told him she may try to contaact him some day.

He laughed. "I won't be talking to her."

My k ids know. They all know.

She used to call my husband and try to get him involved. All it did was make him think she was/is nuts.

I have to drive Jumper to a friends. Lucky girl is going camping with some friends.

Will check back later.

Think about if FOO triggers you and causes setbacks when you see them. I'm curious. I could not live a happy life with my FOO in it. Any of them.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I mean, is mocking me in a demeaning eay really that bad?

Yes.

There is a thing I am sure you are aware of called "minimization". That is when terribly hurtful things have happened, terribly shaming things. As the victim reports her experiences, she steps aside. She feels she should have been able to take it with a grain of salt. SWOT, I was that way too when I was first in therapy and describing being strangled by my mother. I had frozen the terror attending the incident. I was pretty sure that was what I remembered happening, but I felt like a liar mentioning it, like it was really no big deal. Me and Frankenstein, barreling through learning how to do this thing and knowing only to freeze the feelings. It isn't the severity of the incident compared to anyone else's story. It is about uncovering the damage that happened, to you. Uncovering the way it really felt, instead of only being able to feel what we told ourselves to put the living pain of it out of mind so we could function. There is real pain connected with those incidents SWOT, or you would not recall those exact incidents, today.

The real hurt is frozen. We cannot access it easily; we feel like we're lying, or like we are making a big deal about nothing, when we talk about what happened to us with our flabbergasted therapists.

Having the feelings is disturbing for me even now. I do not have the feelings surrounding the strangulation, nor do I want them. They are not connected to my goal in undertaking strengthening myself as regards my children and my FOO.

I would not try for those feelings without a trusted therapist.

So, I am at a disadvantage on that one.

That you are questioning the frozen parts are the first indications that you have decided to thaw and heal them, SWOT. That is how it works for me. All the disparate pieces of things that don't even seem associated come together to heal a trauma area. Over the next days, hundreds more of little pieces fill in the blanks and much healing occurs.

And the energy, the incredible amount of thought I did not have available for other things, the incredible amount of energy and brain power I was gobbling up every moment of my life just to function normally ~ that gets to be mine, again. They say we only use a certain percentage of our brain power. So much of the brain power of a traumatized child is devoted to keeping everything tamped down, into minimizing the horror of what happened, that I am amazed we can even walk down the street without tripping over our own feet. We are distracted in ways our peers are not. We are focused so closely on surviving, on staying away from the hurt places, on pretending we weren't hurt when we so clearly were.

Now we have decided enough is enough.

Good for us.

That takes more courage than anyone can ever know. It is way scary in here, sometimes. But we make dinner and love our babies and hold our adopted babies until they relax into the security of who we have created of ourselves in spite of how we were mothered ~ I loved that story so much.

I am embarrassed at myself sometimes, at having to do this, at devoting time and headspace to it as intensely as I do. But most of the time, more of the time, I am amazed and so proud of all of us.

So that's the answer.

Yes. It isn't the little words or the little look, compared to someone else's strangulation or whatever. It is that you were wounded, and it's like you are bleeding internally and pretending that since you haven't lost a limb, it doesn't matter that you are bleeding.

A lot.

But it preys on us, SWOT. And I am done with protecting them from what I will think of them as I allow myself to admit who they are, who they must have been, to do the terrible things they did to a little girl, to a young woman, to a new mom. That is the nature of the battle for us. It has nothing to do with them. It has to do with naming who they are and with refusing to carry the shame of who they are for them, any more.

I am so sorry this happened to us. To you and to me and to Copa. But I am beginning to channel that disgust right back to where it belongs, instead of at myself. It's all in my own head, anyway.

And I want my headspace back.

:O)

Cedar

And I feel mean and angry and defiant when I post like that because I am stronger, now.

I can feel it, SWOT.

Keep working.

We are doing so well.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

But this is a major wall between us that could never be breached and is one reason I am glad to let him go with my love and blessings he live a good life.

I like this, SWOT.

This is what I will aim for as I let go, or turn away from, my family of origin.

Walls between us; let them go with my love and blessings for all the good things in life.

Yep.

I like that very much.

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

describing being strangled by my mother. I had frozen the terror attending the incident.

See, I don't recall E. ever putting her hands on me, which makes me think YOUR abuse was worse than MINE or maybe it wasn't abuse AT ALL.

That you are questioning the frozen parts are the first indications that you have decided to thaw and heal them, SWOT. That is how it works for me. All the disparate pieces of things that don't even seem associated come together to heal a trauma area. Over the next days, hundreds more of little pieces fill in the blanks and much healing occurs.

Oh, yes. First you have to not cheat and admit that, as much as you hate it, you were mistreated. If I don't call it actually abuse because of the doubts I have about it needing to be physical, then I still know she mistreated me. I mistreated her too. As an infant I wouldn't cuddle into her cold arms. Pretty darn smart of an infant to be so manipulative

And I feel mean and angry and defiant when I post like that because I am stronger, now.

You should. It never should have happened to any of us. Copa, if you're still there, I mean you too. Or anyone here who was not treated in a valued way by a parent when they were very young...and it kept going on as time did. That causes trauma, which we all have traits of.

Others in my FOO show traits of being unable to be good to themselves as well, but they refuse to admit it was due to a traumatic childhood.

There is no other explanation though.

If I were the only one with problems, I'd wonder.

I'm not. E. had tons of problems from her family before ours and she carried on the tradition to the rest of us.

Now I get it. Now I am feeling like the good person that argues with the voice who is in her tone saying, "You're no good. You're selfish. You never think of anyone but yourself. You're lazy." Etc., etc., etc.

But my own voice is winning. Has been winning. Except w hen I engage in any way with FOO, including reading letters, e-mails, even hearing Dad talking about them so that is why he doesn't any more. I don't need to see them to get triggered. Therefore, I have no idea how you can actually engage with your triggers and abusers. I can't and I know this.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I had no idea she was that interested in my personal thoughts as she never allowed me to speak them

That is what it feels like to conversate with my FOO. Except for my brother. Like there is an agenda, a predetermined outcome. Independence of thought (any deviation from the abuser's authority/superiority) not welcomed or listened to.

But I insist on the same validation, that she was cruel to me and most definitely NOT nice to MY kids and, sorry, her not even speaking or sending birthday cards to my kids, who had nothing to do with her issues with me, was mean. There was no reason to take it out on them. I'm glad she did. But it was still a mean thing to do.

SWOT, how could these same patterns exist in both our so dissimilar families?

The underlying pathology was the same.

Those days are over. She has no control over me anymore nor do I want to k now HER thoughts or feelings.But this is repetitious.

It isn't, SWOT. What you are doing, making circles over the same events again and again to find the sense in them, is what I do.

There is no sense, SWOT.

They lie.

Happy Hour here. Talk to everyone tomorrow. Copa, hope you are feeling better.

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

SWOT, how could these same patterns exist in both our so dissimilar families?

The underlying pathology was the same.

From my extensive research (and I really have done some), all dysfunctional families are pretty much the same. One can be from a wealthy family with a famous father who everyone looks up to, not knowing he is a jerk, and another could be an unemployed alcoholic's child who nobody likes or looks up to. The inner dynamics of the families are the same.

The Golden Child
The Scapegoat
If more children, possibly more GC or SGs and many "lost children."
Emotional abuse that is actually a lack of sulpport to a minor child. EVERY minor child needs loving, accepting parents. In every dysfunctional family one or both parents do not love unconditionally. At least not to all the children. Certain conditions must be met and the scapegoat is either the one who speaks out loud about the dysfunction or the one who is vulnerable in other ways or the child is both one who speaks out and is also vulnerable. And the child can be picked on and is picked on. Often one parent heaps the abuse while the other ignores it. My father did not see it until I pointed out to him that not only was I the Scapegoat, but that he was too and gave many examples. I think he got it. He was very quiet, but I know he was listening. He was blamed for everything E. complained about, yet the way I saw it, she was extremely mean to him, called him names, mocked him too, did to him what she did to me. And, yes, he fought back, more than I did, and didn't always say nice things. But he loved her. She did not love him.

I often thought she only loved GC. And I'm not sure why he was her choice, except that in her own family of origin, the boy was the favored child and seen as more worthwhile. He was certainly smart and she valued that, and he was sick so dependent on her moreso than anyone else and she liked to be needed, even in an unhealthy way. And I really think both my grandmother a nd E. clung to their sons in VERY unhealthy ways. They both grew up to be emotionally limited as far as how much they could give of themselves. Maybe no other woman could be better than Mother (both mothers). I have no idea. I don't care, but am free associating...lol. And it's my journey and if I want to free-associate and suppose about this or that.....I will. So there! At any rate, Uncle did not marry after the first woman told his mother that he could do his own laundry when she found his mother doing it for Uncle. That was considered "being mean to grandma" and a divorce soon followed. He married again after she passed away...and it was somebody he had met in his 20's. He could have married her then, but he didn't marry her until he didn't have his mother anymore. He was a big baby and could not be alone...so he used yet another woman. Yes, she loved him and he was good to her, but he sure let her love him for decadese before he tired t he knot, when it was in his best interests. Thing 1 never dated anyone who lived with him.

You just know E. was furious that her mother validated me and tried to help me. HER MOTHER. HOW DARE SHE.

Once she died, that's when E. ramped up the hate.

This is all very typical. It's horrifying to the child and often continues to traumatize the adult, but is par for the course.

From what I gather from all my reading, a family that is not dysfunctional is accepting. Caring. There for the hard times.

"You're getting a divorce? Don't count on ME!" (From both my parents and I hadn't even asked them for anything. I knew better).

In functional families even adult children and their parents and grandparents tend to be there for one another, even if they fight and make up sometimes. And feelings are not invalidated.

We are cliches. We really are. But that doesn't minimize our trauma or pain we had and still have to fight. And it is a lifelong battle. I read it does not ever totally go away. It can certainly improve though.

 

[BusynMember]

Yes. There have been fascinating cases documented. Including one where the infant would not nurse, no matter what the mom did including help from an excellent coach. Then a particular doctor was called, and he set things up so the infant could be nursed by an experienced mother who was also on the ward - and the infant latched instantly and well, and nursed well. After a few well-worded questions? the Mom ever wanted to have a child or be a Mom. The conclusion was that the infant already knew there was no love there.

Thanks, IC. Well, from what E. told me, she didn't feel happy anticipation at having a child nor any love when she held me so maybe I did know. She had no intention on breastfeeding me. I don't think most ladies in her circle did that back then. It was bottle feeding. And I am guessing I didn't like plain milk. I think she made her own formula. I am not sure.At any rate, that's where the chocolate came in. Just what a hyperactive, hypersensitive baby needs. Tons of sugar.

I threw out my childhood picture book, but I have my baby book. Don't ask me why I kept that. I did not thrive on that chocolate milk and weighed only 19 lbs. at one year old, according to the baby book. That could be partly hereditary. We are naturally thin. But 19 lbs? My one year old granddaughter is WAY more than that and Princess only feeds her healthy foods...she has been eating vegetables (organic) and fruits and lean protein all of her eating career and she is tall and strong. Of course, Princess and her SO loved her up and Princess is a stay-at-home mom.

Well, so was E., but I don't think she spent most of her time playing with me or engaging me or cuddling with me, like Princess does with Buddha Baby.

All of what we are learning, Cedar, Copa and Insane, ties into attachment. A lack of attachment to the primary caregiver causes all sorts of behavior disorders and acting out and it makes it hard for a person to attach to others even as an adult.

If we do not feel a part of our primary caregiver or feel loved or valued or validated, we are in trouble. This deficit can actually affect the brain (see article I posted earlier).

In my FOO I see attachment and intimacy issues with all of E's spawn. I may have overcome it the most, mostly by therapy and hard work and not until nearly forty. I have to say, since I know little about Thing 1, I can't say for sure that he can't attach. I just find it odd that he has never had a live-in relationship. I may be jumping to conclusions, but I think that indicates a problem with intimacy. That's with him being the GC (stands for Golden Child, which is too long to type every time...lol).

 

[BusynMember]

I love this! I'm going to leave it before I go to work.
To paraphrase something I read recently "you cannot change someone who's vested interest is in maintaining a distorted view of you" and THAT folks, is reality to the max.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

"What you think of me is none of my business."

I like this.

but the sight of him on FB is a trigger a nd then I have to see Thing 2 as well because she has become his best body.

The sisters do seem to draw the remaining brother onto a "side". She is still trying to use you and to hurt you, SWOT. We both have been through weird, hurtful interactions with our families. It is hard to turn away from old patterns of enabling ~ but that is what we do, when we let them near us when we know they do not love us. I am sorry, SWOT. I feel badly about it too in so many ways. But if you were to talk to your sister today, I think you would wonder too, like I do, what changed. Once we are not enmeshed with them (once we are not in love with them, the way we are supposed to be with family) once we are not in love with them, they sound different; their words call no emotion, and we begin to question why they are calling. At first, we won't let ourselves see the ugly, manipulative reason for their calls.

And then, we do.

It isn't that we don't want our families in our lives. It is that they only want to be in our lives to hurt us. We are vulnerable to them because we love them, so we cannot see them. They love to trick us, love to make us seem inept. They seem to have a fascination with us, and they are very clever. I haven't figured that part out yet. I may not need to. I am progressing pretty well. For instance, I am not suffering as I write this, as I think about my sister or my mother, now.

Anyway, Cedar, do you not feel triggered around your FOO? Those triggers are why I will not even say "with time...maybe they will get it..." Even if they got it, they could not join my life. They are triggers. I like the word "trigger." It reminds me of bullets.

My FOO tried to kill my soul. They could not.

I actually shared some of this with Bart. Bart said, "Do what you tell me to do when I worry about ex. Radio silence."

In a way I do, SWOT. I would say not triggered, but targeted. I feel stupidly taken unawares. I just kept believing in them. I still would believe in them, figure they could do family however they like, sort of walk whatever walk there was to walk. But my family is so freaking toxic, SWOT. They are actively toxic people. They actually lie. No, I mean they actually do lie.

I am still surprised when I think about what I have learned, here. I am still a little sad about it. I am not afraid anymore of what I will say or do whenever they next make contact. I will be fine, life will be a better, saner, sweeter altogether experience without the way they torture and ridicule and tear down.

And then, there is that my sister hurt my child.

I am trying to let go of that.

It is an emotionless place for me, like a dead zone.

"Do what you tell me to do when I worry about ex. Radio silence."

Great concept.

Radio silence.

Good one, SWOT.

Therefore, I have no idea how you can actually engage with your triggers and abusers. I can't and I know this.

It would be easier for me if I did not. For the longest time, I did not pick up the phone when they called. My sister left the ragged breath message that it was "something about mom". I returned that call, and so my sister knew I was listening to her messages. She began talking on her messages, getting so strangely ~ it was like watching the policeman's face change in the Arnold Schwartzenegger movie "Terminator". Like that. A whirl of identities to choose from and the one that says "Family matters. Mom is dying. Come to the beach just us girls. (No brother, no brother's family, probably not my daughter and certainly not my son.) I will come to your house this summer." That series of messages seems to have coalesced into the attitude my sister holds toward me today because that is the one that works, that leaves her feeling strong and whole and self-sacrificing. But it scared me. I did not know whether I would be able to hold strong in the face of it or whether I would be tricked into the role from before. I went from defiantly not responding to their calls to being afraid to pick up my own freaking phone.

So, I picked up.

I did fine.

I have Lil and Jabber's Monty Python "We already got one." "Oh yes, it's very nice."

And the kilt man.

It was five years, the last time this happened. I ran into my mother somewhere unexpectedly. She said, "I am your mother. You need me."

I was 48.

And it started all over again.

What I needed then and what I need now is for them to leave me altogether alone. They are actively harmful to me. When I am not on my game, when I am laid low by my children, they attack me. In the interim, in the places between times when they cannot attack, they despise me.

I am still so surprised.

I still have such a hard time with that.

I may be getting to the place where I have triggers instead of where I feel like a target, SWOT.

I am conscious of anger now, rather than sorrow or hope.

Anger is a present moment thing, bright and unstable and certain.

I have never wanted anything to do with them, if I were to tell the truth. I wanted that family dinner I keep posting about. That is not who they are. Or maybe that is not who I am. Maybe there would be a way someone else could accomplish this thing I am trying to do with them. We make family dinner all the time, down South.

You don't need family, to have family.

Cedar

 

[InsaneCdn]

I wanted that family dinner

For some of us... both sides want that "family dinner". It's just that they want the image, and I want the reality, and the two don't mix very well.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

My father did not see it until I pointed out to him that not only was I the Scapegoat, but that he was too and gave many examples. I think he got it. He was very quiet, but I know he was listening

I haven't thought about this aspect of things too much. I did realize, through these past weeks of such intensive work here, that my father too was abused by my mother. My own hero figure, my own safe harbor person, was hurt by her too. (Remember my posting about the business and the affair and the public humiliation of my father.)

And there were other things, too.

I was so surprised about that one, too.

I often thought she only loved GC. And I'm not sure why he was her choice, except that in her own family of origin, the boy was the favored child and seen as more worthwhile.

Maybe it had to do with hating herself through hating her female children. He wasn't female. So it wasn't that she loved him exactly. She just didn't hate him.

My mother may have actively hated her sons.

I think that is true.

It feels nasty to say so.

She probably loved them, too. My mother could be...you know what? No, she couldn't be. Okay. I am in a circle place, here.

It is a hard thing, to know how to see all this.

From what I have witnessed with my own, present-day eyes, my mother feels contempt for most of the people in her life. She is devious toward my sister but my sister is like her. She is deadly to my brother and his family, and often openly hateful about them.

That feels more true.

And I really think both my grandmother a nd E. clung to their sons in VERY unhealthy ways.

There was so much openly acceptable mysogyny, in those times. There is much hatred of women in our time, but it is not so acceptable as to be invisible, anymore.

That could play into the natures of the mothers' relationships to their sons. Especially in families of Jewish origin, I would think.

Very much so.

They both grew up to be emotionally limited as far as how much they could give of themselves. Maybe no other woman could be better than Mother (both mothers). I have no idea. I don't care, but am free associating...lol. And it's my journey and if I want to free-associate and suppose about this or that.....I will. So there!

That is where the healing is, I think, SWOT. Free association is when our brains give us everything we need to make room for the pieces to fall into place. BOOM. We uncover the traumatic place and heal it.

It's actually a lovely feeling.

Once she died, that's when E. ramped up the hate.

That must be what is happening in my family of origin now. My father has been dead almost seven years.

We are cliches. We really are. But that doesn't minimize our trauma or pain we had and still have to fight. And it is a lifelong battle. I read it does not ever totally go away. It can certainly improve though.

I think you are still minimizing the pain of it, SWOT? We are not cliches. We are the living, breathing proof that the human spirit triumphs.

We are living, breathing proof of courage and determination and strength. None of this is easy. We chose it, anyway. Simply because we want to be stronger and we know we can and we choose it, we are doing it.

We are rare, SWOT, and very, very special people.

We lived this, SWOT. It wasn't like we could take a break from hatred for a minute or a couple of weeks. It wasn't like we had anywhere to go, ever. We were vulnerable because we are human and we were hurt because we were vulnerable and they are still hurting us today.

We are simply reinterpreting the rules we made regarding our interactions with them. They don't get to be anyone but who they are.

And that is not a very attractive thing, SWOT.

All of what we are learning, Cedar, Copa and Insane, ties into attachment. A lack of attachment to the primary caregiver causes all sorts of behavior disorders and acting out and it makes it hard for a person to attach to others even as an adult.

I would say this is true. I was not present enough to myself to know myself except through the reflections of others until I fell in love with my children. Even now, as I battle through the layers of what we are doing here, I seem to be coming away less influenced by other people's emotional states. I am aware of them, but I am not in that state with them so much, anymore.

And I am not always trying to fix everything. I can participate, now.

Not fix; participate.

I did not thrive on that chocolate milk and weighed only 19 lbs. at one year old, according to the baby book.

Me, too.

Not the chocolate milk part.

There are no baby books in my family.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

For some of us... both sides want that "family dinner". It's just that they want the image, and I want the reality, and the two don't mix very well.

This is really perceptive, IC. This is exactly true on every level.

Well spoken.

IC? Good morning!



Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Steeped in poison and betrayal themselves, they have been trained, like you have and like I have too, to hate themselves and their siblings. In the abuser's lair, all things serve the abuser. Not a one of you came out of it healthy and trusting and whole because your abuser (and mine, too) saw to it that did not happen. Betrayal is the order of the day because that is how the abuser keeps control.

Divide and conquer. If that division can be an internal division, if it can be a desertion of self or can grow into hatred for the self? Even better. If we can be broken, we can be ridden, can be enslaved to the abuser's dysfunction.

This is what I see in my FOO, today. In my past, I was so certain standing up and holding strong and behaving as if it were already true, as if we were already healed, was the ethical thing. That "What is the ethical thing." question is where I fight them, now. I don't want to present myself as someone who did not hate, was not jealous, would not have liked them all to be hurt and then, to go away forever. I had to choose. I chose ethical as a way to know how to make it through the minefield. "Is that an ethical thing or is that rationalized jealousy or hatred or revenge."

That was always my question.

I could go back right now I think, and turn cold toward them. I don't want to do that to me.

I like being thawed, love being vulnerable, enjoy being so present to the moment. I would rather feel bamboozled and foolish and shamed than nothing.

That is why it bothers me, the way I feel about my sister around the issue of what she did to my daughter.

I think I feel hatred for my own sister around that issue.

It's like a rotted feeling in the heart of me.

Like a mouthful of cavities.

Or shattered bones; bones too fragile to support the beauty of the dance.

Something weakening to me, then.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

So, you can go back, and you can see, and you can witness for yourself. It isn't going to change that these things happened. But what going back and witnessing for that mistreated little girl will do is allow you to love her, to hold her and mother her and teach her compassion and cherishing for herself. That is how we do this: cherish ourselves through the poison. Expect the bad feelings. Be very gentle with yourself; bring yourself positive things like beautiful music. You are hard at work doing an impossible thing and you are doing it.

So you see how I should be envisioning my sister. Witnessing for that mistreated little girl that she was. Loving her, mothering her, holding her with compassion; cherishing her until she can cherish herself.

How would I see this FB incident regarding my child if it were one of my children attacking the other in this way. That never happened. Throughout everything my family, the family D H and I have created, throughout all we have been through, the kids love and hate and roar off and come back but they don't betray; they don't poison. They do not do active harm.

I don't know what to do with the feelings for my sister.

What is ethical response. It is important to know that, and to know I am on a right path. Hatred is never a right path.

I don't know what to do with what I feel for my sister.

The only thing I do know is that hatred is not a right path. Flexibility; I remember reading SWOT's posting about the difference between healthy and dysfunctional families had to do with role flexibility versus role rigidity.

So maybe that is my answer.

Choose fluid; stay flexible and aware and allow time and space and possibility.
Maybe that is the thing I was circling: rigidity and the strength and glorious affirmation of all the wrong things that is hatred.

Close call.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

They abuse us, they target and hurt and destroy us if they can and then, they seal what they have created ~ a broken doll of a child ~ in contempt, so we can never access it, can never be whole and healthy and strong enough to defy them or anyone else, ever again.

So...why would my sister hurt my child.

What is the dynamic there. How to protect my children from her, from my own belief that she doesn't mean it when she absolutely does intend to abuse and to hold my children in contempt and my grands, and to hurt them in these ways.

This is true.

I see this, now that I am working through that stopped place that was hatred.

That is the conflict. I feel like destroying her in my heart and my memory because there is so much proof that she is dangerous to me and to my kids and grands. There is vulnerability to her, and there is confusion regarding what the role of an aunt is, and what the role of an aunt is when it is hatred that drives her every interaction.

That is the conflict.

I want to hate her. I want to turn away from her and I want to protect my family from her. I feel that her every interaction with my family is and has always, begun with poison in her heart ~ with a wish to consume and eradicate and destroy. And to celebrate that. Remember my posting about she and her uber-religious cohorts having prayed a "ring of thorns" around myself and my children to "bring us to the Lord".

At the time, I just made space for that. What do you do with that, or with people who do that and tell you they've done it. Or with people who rifle your luggage and journals and heart.

But I think I am just going to make space for that now, too.

She is her own. She will believe whatever she needs to. I will not believe in her. I do not believe in her, now. Not the way I always have, sort of holding that space open for her, believing she would fall into love as I have and as I do, pretty much all the time, every day, with everything.

So I will trust that there is nothing I need to do. I do not want to hate, don't want to have that badness in me. So I won't like to choose that rottenness, that weakened way of being.

Close call, though.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

The one I don't always validate is me, but I have seen too much not to believe YOU.

That's how this is for us, right SWOT and Copa? We witness for one another, and we see how each of the others is understanding how to claim the right to face and confront and reject those old badnesses our abusers left us with where good, strong, brightness should be.

Then, we claim the right to legitimacy of vision; we sift through what we were told was true for what actually is true. We vacuum up the flotsam that is all their so stupidly, pointlessly hurtful belief systems ever were.

They will be recycled. We will have the energy in them, the energy it took to repress the really awful things they taught us about ourselves. We will have access, finally, to all we have been, all along.

I mean, what kind of person could believe "That'll do, pig." was funny.

How hurt must I be, how damaged regarding issues of appearance or presence or anything at all, if that sums it up for me.

I feel so badly for myself, about that.

Compassion, finally, for me. Admiration, finally, for me, for choosing the best I knew, in the best way I knew, even though I was blind. I could never believe the tenacious, determined vitality of it, could never believe the living hatred that fuels everything having anything to do with my FOO.

Cedar