I was so fragmented before that, as everyone with trauma issues is. It took so long for me to get to know me. Do you all feel the same way?
Yes. It has been an interesting life, now that I am looking back on it. It has been a life of service and warmth and arrogance and shame. And of triumph too, in creating and savoring the reality of the thing created.
Like you SWOT, loving your babies and loving the one baby, the one who could not relax into your arms, into loving himself.
That is triumph for you and for me and for Copa, too.
I wonder if that is why your mother tried so hard to destroy you there. When she said those things about money and children.
That could be, SWOT.
***
Lots of stars. Lots and lots of sun. My term for fragmented would be "external locus of control". I never felt I had ~ I don't know. I am taken by surprise alot. I love to make beautiful places, inside or outside, and I love to make that feeling of home. I love to read, and to see how others are thinking, about all kinds of things. Among the most fascinating things I have learned during this time are studies of math (even when I don't understand it in that intuitive way some people do ~ and I definitely do not) and of economics. There are so many theories out there about how to do this, about how to create enough for all of us. In math, it's the wonder of proving and predicting things that turn out to be real through mathematics. It is the relationship between mathematics and music and silence; the understanding, the glimpse of the connection in everything represented by those things.
I like it very much when things smell good.
Until I had babies, until I had someone to cherish and protect, I think I was not loyal. It was easy for me to leave, always. The harder thing, for me, was to stay; was to take responsibility, declare a value, and create a reality there.
Perhaps that is why I have trouble leaving, now.
I wish I had my years and days to live over. I wish I had known it was possible to learn and to disempower that mother within me so completely. I wish I had never seen her again, that she had been no part of my youth or my mothering.
I still love her.
I am thinking that when I am through the material on my sister, I will feel the same way about her. No trust without respect. No love without trust.
I will still love her.
That does not change who she is.
Currently, today, I am feeling responsible for holding a light, for standing on the porch waiting for my sister, to welcome her home. I think that is the imagery that must change before I can see my sister clearly.
I cannot imagine locking my door to her. (On the second reading: I refuse to. It would be more in the nature of a confrontation, now. No need to lock a freaking thing.)
That is the imagery that has to change.
I am not her mother. I am not responsible for welcoming her home. She did what she did to my daughter. That is who she really is. Whoever I think she is, whatever the imagery of homecoming and cheerful light and welcome ~ my sister is that woman who has all she needs, yet opted to hurt my child. Almost, to taunt my child with the love and acceptance and goodwill of family. It would be one thing to have turned away from her entirely ~ to have been so disgusted she set a boundary. But why pursue my child? Why take steps to be certain I would know that she knew what had happened to my child in this time when we were not hearing from anyone in my family, when they were not returning our calls or sending Christmas cards?
WTF?
It is as though she celebrated the pain and confusion and hurt and darkness of that time. Like she wanted to revel in it.
I don't get that.
She has hurt me in so many ways too, but I have not been angry with her so much as puzzled and hurt and self accusatory. When I read my old threads, that is what I see. Had I been showing off, had I been thoughtlessly stupid or cruel or had I offended in some way I could not see that would justify her actions.
All I really need to do regarding my sister is stop accusing myself.
Anyway. That is where I am this morning.
I am thinking about what Witzend posted on another thread. Witz' sister stalked her, too. It isn't enough for them somehow, that we are exiled, that we are excluded. Given my sister's response to my self-imposed exile, that we choose to turn away seems to anger the sisters. They seem to redouble their efforts to ~ I don't know what it is they want with us. Witz' sister actively sought to know where Witz and her family were. Though it was a further extreme of what each of our sisters are doing, the dynamic there is the same. If you think about it in this way, stories of this nature are contained in so much of our mythology. The reviled family member, the one who was cheated out of his birthright, the one who leaves or is sold into slavery or who is tossed into the desert, learns who he or she really is and goes on to do very well in the world. As seems to be the case for each of us, the self concept our families insist on is not reflected for us in the world outside of family. When we widen the scope, we see those same kinds of realities reflected in the lives of our sisters (or mothers) that they insist is true of and for us. We can only conclude...I don't know what to conclude.
The issues that weigh so heavily on our hearts are their issues, not ours. They see us as they see us, they will us to be as they see us. The issue for all of us, the way we are being hurt by our sisters, seems to be that we maintain a vulnerability to them, that we believe them to be other than they are, because we love them.
But could it be true that they are predators, and nothing more?
Just another stupid predator, unable to keep his or her hands off us.
***
Why do I feel that I am responsible for safe harbor? We already know my sisters rifles luggage and journals and mail. Whatever her words say, her actions indicate that she despises me. We have established that. Yet, she pursues me.
It is just a strangeness that each of our sisters seem to see us as they seem to see us.
Here is the difference: When I have someone in my life who betrays me, it takes what it takes to come back from it. After that, I am essentially immune to that person, to that kind of hurt in future, because it is easy to see. It is even easy to see it coming; it is easy to predict. But I don't actively seek them out. I don't stalk or not stalk. But our sisters seem to do that to us.
How strange.
You should have reported him.
I would never, even today. It is a personal matter. Whether he would be disciplined would make no difference to me. The hurt happened; the damage was done. Had I not loved and admired and respected him, had I not been so ridiculously grateful for the safety he represented from my mother/myself within, I would not have been vulnerable to him. I am the one who picked vulnerable. Much in the same way I pick vulnerable, here.
Heart in my throat, flying by the seat of my pants; crying.
I resent him for coming between the healing I needed to do and the safety of my children. Time was a factor. He had no right to do what he did. Had he been able to keep his mind on his job, had he behaved responsibly, the things we have done here would have been accomplished, then.
I was wrong. I should not have trusted him.
Even in the beginning of therapy, I remember being amazed that we could buy this kind of commitment to our healing from strangers. It seemed like a miracle to me that this could be so.
He was the thing that protected me from the murdering mother within.
The words he used made no sense then and make no sense, now. If I were manipulating him to beat the band...what is it I was winning, from someone who, in the therapeutic role, should have expected it, and who, to top it off, I was paying?
I don't know.
I was too ashamed to have been named in that way to have reported him when it happened.
It was awful.
I lived.
Snip.
When he turned on me, it collapsed the safety established against the murdering mother within. However badly it felt to have been betrayed in that way, I was still only dealing with my own traumas. It really had nothing to do with him, except that I was suddenly without allies in my own freaking psyche and the Red Queen was definitely in. I was alone there, echoes of his professional judgment that I was not worth protecting, that I had been judged and found wanting, added to those initial judgments made by the murdering mother.
Like all abuse, even between therapist and patient, there was nothing personal about it.
It was an enormous thing, to have been betrayed like that. It would be good to work through everything having to do with him, too. When I think of it now, I can think beyond the words: "You are a manipulator. I would never trust the compliments of someone like that." I can see now that whether he accepts my compliments is immaterial to my purpose in seeing him.
It was not supposed to be about him.
I was paying him to keep it about me.
That did not happen.
He was wrong.
But I lived.
I think that healing the initial wound, that healing those initial mother wounds, will heal his betrayal, too. He job was to save me through exploring and reseeing those wounds. He betrayed and hurt me through those same wounds, instead. Had the wounds not existed, had he not known that feeling of "fraud", that willingness to take blame, that certainty that my mother had decided my life was a mistaken thing, I would never have been vulnerable to him in the first place.
And that is where he hurt me.
Which is reprehensible.
But what is more reprehensible is that it is through those same wounds that every predator who has every tricked my into believing in them betrays me. It has always been that way. It is the wounding, the initial wounding, that matters, that must be healed.
Predators are opportunists. That is an apt descriptor for predator: opportunist.
I agree that people like him should not be doing therapy. I had painted all therapists, and certainly all male therapists, with that brush.
Perhaps that is not true.
Maybe characters with wounds similar to his are weeded out, when a person is educated to become a therapist. This person was a holistic physician.
Or perhaps, he was just a sphincter. A woman I knew during that time seemed surprised I was seeing him. She did not think it was a good idea. I had already bonded with him as therapist.
She was correct.
And worse still, that when I set a limit it is almost killing in its' power. And I do not want to hurt my son by making a limit. And I did. And it's too late to protect him.
Copa, if we do not set limits, there is no boundary for our sons to return to. That the boundary exists provides a center. Whether the boundary is observed or blown through, it is a reference point. Believe he is strong enough, Copa. That is what I think our sons (and our daughters too) need from us to believe in themselves. The only place they can learn that true thing in the way a mother can teach it is through the words and actions of the mother. It will not feel good for us because that is not the nature of the relationship we want with our sons. But as it turns out, that is the nature of the relationship they need, with us.
So we do that.
I am glad you set a limit, Copa. When our children are addicted or troubled in other ways, we are required to parent in ways we have never had to consider. Love him enough to do even that, Copa. If you sincerely believe it to have been wrong
for your son's sake, then move heaven and earth to find him, and to give him what he needs. There is no right way to do this. You are his mother. You are the only one who can know what is right because you are the only person, in all the world, who loves him from the depths of a mother's heart.
And this was the first time of devastation. But this time I only went to be for maybe 6 months and had to get up to go to work.
So, I think I fear that having set a limit with my son, means I may never speak with or see him again. And worse still, that when I set a limit it is almost killing in its' power. And I do not want to hurt my son by making a limit. And I did. And it's too late to protect him.
Your son is a man, Copa. He does not need your protection. He needs you to love and believe in and depend on the strength in him. That is what was meant when we were discussing pirate moms. Don't make the addiction or the illness the important thing. Believe in your son ~ believe in every good thing you know about him. That is who he is. Addiction is a monster determined to eat him alive. If you don't remember who he is, if you don't remember that he is better than to do what he is doing...who will?
You are his mother, Copa.
You know who he is in his heart.
This is all so hard, Copa. So scary.
So, afraid that I say I will give up. I will give up everything. Pay the ultimate and highest price if the hostage is freed.
Because I am believing as I type this that going to bed I am paying a ransom. It is the price to be paid at that moment that someone dear to me be saved.
I wonder if it is something about my father...some ugly secret of abuse. I wonder if I cannot permit myself to live...able and complete...when my sister is so damaged and flawed.
And I fear it is my son.
I think I am understanding the feelings beneath these statements, Copa. Because I carried memories of my mother's repeated judgments against me in ways having to do with life and death and abandonment, claiming the right to my life, to the time of the day, to the feel of the ground beneath my feet ~ all those things seemed to be things that were mine by mistake. Happiness was a stolen moment. The reality was the howling witch that was my mother.
It would turn out that she was never a powerful person. She held the power of life and death over me when I weighed between thirty and fifty pounds. That was the only power she had and she abused even that, Copa.
That is the abuse my mother committed.
That is what we are about recovering, here.
Reclamation of our own minds, of our own right to feel happiness or deep grief or simple surprise or welcome; deeply, flexibly, present.
Mother has to go, Copa.
You are not your mother. You did not do what she did; you will never do what she did. You will be safe from the toxicity she instilled when you see her through your own eyes; when you claim the inalienable right to name yourself, and to see and know and love yourself through your own eyes, and not hers.
I'm sorry, Copa. I could be wrong in a million ways. But I think that, like mine did too, your child needs you to stand up. He needs you strong and centered and whole, lest guilt hollow him out; lest he not be strong enough to overcome his addiction.
I don't know about how to look at a sister yet. I am still working through unprocessed material regarding my own sister. But I do think I know that our sisters will hurt us. It seems they willingly hurt our children when they can do it. I do know our sisters seem determined to see us as stupidly foolish, as people without grace or intelligence or legitimacy.
So, there is that. Why we don't put them in their places, why we allow them in again and again and again...I don't know why we do that. In my look at how to do what I am determined to do regarding family of origin issues, I am waiting to see, where my sister is concerned. I remember taking that attitude with my mother, too. I continued finding evidence that eventually tilted the scales against the good things I had chosen to believe regarding my mother. I remember posting here about the hurt and surprise and stupidity of it. I love my mother, and I miss the scent and sound of her very much. But I have the incredible weight of all the things I know about her now to balance that way I feel about her. Even if I see my mother again, I will be safe from her, now.
That is where you need to get to too, Copa.
It is unpleasant.
So were our mothers; and their reigns are over.
On white horses
with reigns of braided satin black as Hell
And with white satin, for a bit
Or however that poetry went.
I loathe FB
But this is hilarious.
I don't know what to think, SWOT. Is my sister making fun of me or of my daughter? Is she denigrating the seriousness, or the stupid ridiculousness, or the urge to self-destruction, that brought my daughter to where she was?
My sister is loved and cared for in her own home. My daughter was homeless in winter, drug addicted, hurt physically and emotionally betrayed.
I trip over this; whenever I think about my sister in relation to any part of this, I trip over it.
Cedar
