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

[Copabanana]

Like your mom too SWOT, mine would pull me out of bed, yelling and screaming in the middle of the night. Or, she would attack my brother and I would just go and stand there watching, and she would stop.

This is a form of torture. In my mind's eye I see this happening in the Dirty War in Argentina or Uruguay, not with little kids in their home tucked in at night.

We should have a war crimes tribunal, like the Judgment at Nuremberg or for Milosevic and the Serbs.

I am thinking that for your sister, interacting with her actual mother was shocking. She seems to have convinced herself your mother was already powerless and foolish and helpless because that is what she wished were true.

I think this is exactly so, Cedar. She left that hospital in defeat, really, now that I think of it. Even though she defined it as something else, she retreated.

I think, when you wonder about the house on Zillow. You are thinking there is sense to be made of our situations.

I think you are right Cedar, but there is something more, that is very hard for me to grasp.

I think the best point in my sister's life with respect to me was in my late teen years. I had been completely beaten down in my family, and she had thrived. I had not yet developed an identity outside of the family, to counteract my defeat within it. As I look back that was the time my relationship with my sister was the best. Because she was ascendant and I was defeated. She had me where she wanted me.

When life outside the family began to treat her badly, is when it seems that her sadism towards me became more manifest.

Copa, even I can see, just from the way you've described your sister, that she was not capable of doing anything but serving herself and using all of you to do it.

Remember, Cedar and SWOT, my sister defines herself as a very important person. A VIP. Important and esteemed in her work. (NOT) High status in the community, as defined by her profession and her home (NOT).

The reality is something different. In her last job they came to despise her I think because she was abusive to any body she could abuse. Towards the end she said they told her she was an embarrassment. She felt no exposure or shame to tell me this. She was so defended from seeing, understanding or feeling responsibility for her acts that she gave not one iota of importance to what they thought about her.

At the time I was stunned by this, how she could tell me what to me would bring forth the greatest shame and humiliation. I left it there because I could not make any sense of the strangeness of this comment and her affect surrounding it.

Now I see that with this she was telling me exactly who she is. And here was illuminated all of the times she had hurt me and others without one bit of remorse or second thought.

She is completely convinced in her rightness and in her blamelessness. She is untouchable. Teflon. She feels completely entitled and righteous in whatever she does. And she rejects any criticism of her abuse. Because she immediately deflects any criticism back to the accuser, and in her mind any responsibility for wrongs is theirs. Just like Rachel Dolezal.

But my sister found another job and in this one there is security. And there are titles and power. She can hire and fire. She is free to do what she will to others. And I am certain she will abuse. And I think that is part of the reason that I cannot yet turn away from this train wreck. She keeps coming out not only unscathed but rewarded. Just like Rachel Dolezal who it seems will now get her own reality show, where her fraudulent self can pass judgment on others. Regardless of what is true or right. And it does not make sense.

So I think I keep looking at Zillow and Neighborhoodscout.com (my favorite, because it zooms in and tells the truth about a place) not just because I am hypnotized by the danger and the fire *my mother was a fire engine chaser, but because I do not understand why she continues to prevail. Because even though I am stunned by her triumph, I know it is a charade. And I watch and watch, I think, waiting for the truth of the image to reveal itself.

And I understand that it will never change in those pictures. That it must change in me. It will come from a decision to accept the truth.

I forced myself to go to the Physical Therapist today, even though I woke up so defeated and hurt and alone.

When I left I went to Barnes and Noble thinking I might find there my son.

And went to buy some potted herbs and when I left the parking lot, there was a program on public radio about suicide. About taking seriously that possibility, for others.

And I began to cry because I recognized there was something in me that identified with killing myself. Not to die.

But I knew I could not because the paperwork for the trust to protect my son still I have not signed. And part of me knew that by posting as I have been doing, about my sister, must merit a kind of death penalty. And is it not so perfectly fitting that it would come at my own hand?

I am picking fights with M. The same old stuff. And I cannot find my son and there is nothing to say when I do.

And I felt like my whole life has been exposed to be a fraud and fake, and more to the point I am the fraud and and the fake, and I may be left standing but what do I have? I guess a lot. When I think about it.

And not to put pressure on you guys, I do not mean to do that.

I came home and I found your responses. And I read I was a hero in my life. And had stainless steel implements. And I am strong, as well as weak. And that I came through for my Mother.

So, I called M and with that, changed things a little bit. And he will go to his sister's and try to call my son from that number, to see if that same recording comes on.

What I am trying to tell you both is: thank you, and that I am grateful beyond measure.

So, just a couple of hours later, having read through your posts, I feel a little stronger. At least not hating myself so much.

And in my bed is okay, for today.

I will try to be gentle with myself, while I think about SWOT and Cedar, their strength, loyalty and love, resilience, humor, hope, faithful commitment, and friendship. Thank you.

PS M called my son's number and got a recording.

Well, what did it say, I asked in Spanish.

I dunno, he replied. Well how do we know if it is the same message?

My brother is here (who speaks English.) I'll ask him to call. OK.

So, it looks like any number is getting the same message. Not just me. Which is a relief. A bit of a relief. And M's sister saw him today walking down Main st.

If I try real hard I can think there will another chance. A future. If I try hard.

 

[Copabanana]

I remember a television show when I was still pretty little about a mom who hit with wire hangers.

My Mom did that Cedar. I did not know it was wrong.

turning an electric burner on high and threatening to burn quickly as opposed to the other kinds of burnings that were threatened when we were physically too small to have stopped her lifting us bodily.

Again, War Crimes Tribunal. Cedar, are you getting how sick this is? And sadistic. You were tiny babies. You would be removed from the home immediately and your mother, charged with felony child abuse. Or terrorist threats.

stop parading around about it

So shaming. What is her background, Cedar, that she would be so cruel?

I don't condemn her for it. Of course she would want to separate from me and all I represent. Of course she would create family if she can, separating herself and her mom from the others.

Why is that, Cedar, that there is no condemnation? That you accept that she is who she is by what happened to her, I understand. But do you not believe in good and evil, and that people are responsible for their choices? I do.

I never, ever forgive my mother what she chose. My sister, is such an outlier, such an alien, I do not know how I feel about her. And I do not know why I still spare her.

I will try to help that be the reality for my family.

As soon as everyone stops being addicted or slipping off the deep end, I mean.

That was a sort of a joke.

Not funny, Cedar. Your children are living real life. It is all so complicated. There is such cruelty in our situations. You survived by fashioning an identity based upon those perfect Mom's in your neighborhood, making quick breads for your Dad.

the role of pseudo-mom was taken by me. That is how I dealt with the ugliness. I patterned after those pretty moms my little girl friends had.

You had the courage and intelligence to take control and to make yourself into something good. In your case, domesticity and a loving picture of a family, a loving family.

And the fate in store for you, was that what you built, the lovely life, got ripped open and it's heart seized. The very thing that was your ticket out of the abuse and the cruelty, was itself sliced open and riven. (And as I read this I realize this is what happened to me. When things went really bad for my son and I.) For your mother to ridicule you more and again. And she did this because at best she is very broken...and jealous...and at worst...very cruel, sadistically cruel.

And still you yearn to be that little mother who made it all better. For yourself and for your brother and sister and for, just everybody. Just like you do here, jumping from thread to thread mothering us all. And we thrive.

So, it is not a joke, that your impulse is to heal and to nurture and to love. It is not funny, one bit. Who knows what real life is, Cedar. You, SWOT, me, Recovering, COM, Lil, Pasajes, Nomad, Echo, and the hundreds of others whose names I do not know or remember and would fill the page. Our situations are not funny--that we try to hold together in love, our lives that are crumbling apart. And still we try, as do you.

OK. You are funny, like HA, HA, but not funny, that I will laugh with you at you.

Embracing and creating and weaving together a vision and reality of family, as if in defiance of what has come before, our fear, our shame. It is heroic. And while it matters very much that our people become whole and healed, that they may not yet be does not reflect upon who you are or your endeavor. Or make it less heroic. Because doing what you do, loving, and bringing together and soothing the hurt, while the outcome is uncertain, is the most important and courageous thing of all. To me, you are both heroes, SWOT and you. So, I will not laugh. Except, it was a little bit funny. But not really.

 

[BusynMember]

This is from Out of the Fog and part of an article on invalidation. What do do if you are being invalidated. I assume this is if you have the unfortunate experience are actually facing them while they tell you your reality isn't real. Would be a hard spot to be in and it is a very shaming form of emotional abuse (per the article). And it IS emotional abuse.

"You are not telling the truth because it's not what I remember. Therefore, you are lying."
"your feelings don't matter."
"You're crazy."

Here are a few ways to deal with it if the abuser has the gall to say it to your face. I don't believe mine would have been that bold, but some are.

• If you find yourself feeling shame over the statements another person is making about you then it is possible that the problem is them - not with you. Healthy people don’t go around shaming others.
• Confront invalidation once, calmly with truth and without emotion.
• End the conversation as soon as an invalidating statement is given.
• Allow the other person their feelings and thoughts - without taking responsibility for making them see the truth.
• Focus on seeing yourself in a validating way. Remind yourself of your qualities and strengths. Strive for excellence - not perfection.
• Surround yourself with healthy people who will tell you with kindness what they see of your strengths and weaknesses. Find a few supportive friends who will lift you up when you are down and of whom you can safely ask - “Am I really that bad?”
• Write down the qualities you like about yourself - remind yourself that you have gifts and talents - that you are unique in this world and there will never be another you.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Remember, Cedar and SWOT, my sister defines herself as a very important person. A VIP. Important and esteemed in her work. (NOT) High status in the community, as defined by her profession and her home (NOT).

My sister has always defined herself that way, too. Even when she had no job, even when she had no home. Even if all she had was that what she wanted was of more value than the things I wanted, and certainly, was of more value than the things that I had because I didn't even have a Rolex, and she didn't either, but at least she knew enough to want one.

There is a kind of status to be taken in that.

We could actually take a lesson there from our sisters.

I think we would not do that, though. I think we try very hard not to do that thing my sister and my mother do so easily. My sister arrives where she does because of the eye rolling, because of the sly attempts to divide and conquer and to hold in contempt and come out on top and climb from there. My sister knows how to make me feel badly for not buying her a $75 sweatshirt when she is here on vacation. It's a matter of making known that she wants it and cannot really afford it but that she certainly would be very happy indeed if I were to buy it for her. Unless I cannot really afford it, either ~ and who does that make me? Cheap or unloving or unkind, that's what. It's like, no matter how much time or money or effort or thought has been devoted, I wind up feeling cheap or that I've missed something that hurt her somehow. I pop myself into emotional flashback.

I try harder.

But that is a feeling of my sister that I had never pinned down before.

That is very exactly the feel of my sister and of my mom, too.

A person could never spend enough money on my sister. Nothing one does for my sister is unappreciated, it is just somehow never enough. It is just somehow a really sad little thing that my sister was not given what she desired and what would make her so happy because I was not wealthy enough or well connected enough or just plain not enough.

This is very true of my mother, as well.

Silence stretches out and out, becoming expectation. Certain people, especially men but I have seen both of them do it to women too, buy whatever it is or do whatever it is either of them wants done to assuage their guilt at not doing it. That is how both she and my mom do it.

They are very, very good salesmen.

They treat everyone as they treat the woman who drives my mother south. But the woman has continued to do it. Maybe because, like us, she is being tossed into emotional flashback and is trying to do finally bring everyone involved into happy.

Just like I keep trying to do with that imagery of family dinner.

***

Here is why what our sisters (and my mother) do is wrong.

We humans are so prone to joining in on ridicule and power over; it's almost irresistible to elevate ourselves by ridiculing someone else. That is why we gossip. And we know it is wrong and so, some of us stop and some of us add to it. This is where every "ism" begins. Racism, economic disparagement, religious fundamentalism, etc. It is not harmless to do that. It is a very harmful thing, to depersonalize another human being. That is why Maya Angelou writes about being wary of the words and attitudes we allow ourselves to entertain, most especially in private. Gossip and eye rolling and ridicule are a continuum of things that are very wrong things to do.

That is where we must catch ourselves and stop, lest we too dehumanize.

Our sisters and my mom function there best and very skillfully, employing humor to defuse the nastiness in what they do. That is why there is that sense of distaste in every interaction with them, but since everyone else is laughing too, then we must be having a good and appropriate time. We think it must be our thinking problem that is making us uncomfortable when in fact, interacting with our FOO breeches every ethical barrier we know and try to live by.

But to see other people the way our sisters or my mom do is one way to name ourselves better than. In a way, our sisters (or my mom) are not treating us differently than they treat anyone in their lives. We are expecting them to love us the way we love. It could be true that they are loving us the best they can.

That could be true.

If your go to emotional state is eye rolling and ridicule, if that is how you claim status in the world, then the truth here is that there is nothing personal in how our sisters (or my mother) behave.

We are beating ourselves into oblivion over something that will never change. The worse we feel, the more they can get from us until finally, one of us says some little thing like the truth (or leaps to the defense of her victimized mother as you did, Copa) and then the sister storms off.

So we beat ourselves up over how everything could have gone so wrong, again.

It isn't us. It's them. That is how they do it.

So that answer then is, again, to be healthy and whole and curious and enamored of our own lives, of every minute of our own time here. To be generous in our hearts, but to also be wise and to be wary.

And to be exquisitely conscious of when emotional flashback kicks in.

That is crucial for us, so we can stop beating ourselves up.

I am going to stop judging my mom or my sister. They are who they are. It is good to know the possibility of pathologic hatred could be true. It would explain alot ~ almost everything. It is good, so good, for me to know what was true about the broken places in my psyche and clear the shame of those times. But maybe, my sister doesn't hate or envy me in particular, at all.

But there must be something like that going on, or why would she stalk me instead of just calling me up, leaving a halfway decent message and asking me please to call back because she is not happy either with the way things are going?

It is priceless, to have the concept "emotional flashback".

This is where we destroy ourselves every time.

It is not our sisters or our mothers or anyone else who is destroying us with feelings of shame and guilt and hope that if we just keep trying, surely all will be well. We are doing it to ourselves.

Emotional flashback.

I love that concept.

***

It has been crucial to my sense of integrity through time to know and acknowledge the truth of my situation relative to abuse. I name it seeing the abuser abuse me, hurt me, through my own eyes (or through the eyes of an appropriate witness) rather than seeing myself as the legitimately hated and reviled object of abuse through the ugly, lying eyes of my abuser. That essential change in perspective has freed me in ways I did not know I was caught.

Terrible things happened to me, and to each of you, when we were little. Those things did not make me who I am. That understanding is crucial. I was always who I am; I was messed up as I went into the world to try my wings, but have learned to fly very well.

As have each of you.

It is when we interact at any depth with our FOO that we have problems defining ourselves and that is what toxicity is. That feeling of emotional flashback; that feeling that we are responsible because someone is angry or hurt or excluded.

How incredible a tool we have been given in that term emotional flashback.

It is FOG with a bullet.

That is where we are when terrible feelings of guilt and responsibility and shame overwhelm us. It will be a simple matter for us, now that we have that concept, now that we have or are beginning to, believe ourselves about our own pasts and process that ~ it will be a simple matter for us to identify "emotional flashback" and nurture or confront ourselves through it.

SWOT's concept: We don't get to cheat. A simple and so perfect reminder regarding emotional flashback and what it means to how we perceive our situations, especially in regard to our families of origin.

And to any predator in our lives.

We needed that concept of emotional flashback to make sense of our situations. Now, it will be our commitment to healthy thought patterns that will help us define our situations and make correct decisions regarding ourselves and our value, instead of taking our value from those terrible feelings of emotional flashback. We have been extrapolating our values from those feelings of helplessness because everyone else is not happy.

That feels like it could be true.

This is the healthiest way for me to see. So, that is where I will see from for my own sake, for the sake of my peace and my sanity and my heart. I don't want to be bitter. I don't want to feel denigrated or downright hated or foolish or like I cannot think well. I will no longer accept that for myself from anyone; I know now what I found so offensive in exclusion. If I do feel those feelings, I will recognize it as abuse and respond accordingly. I am who I am. Not everyone is going to like me or love me or even, want me around at all. That is okay. Sometimes, I don't like myself very much, either. But then, I fall back into delight with myself, whether I am ugly that day or not.

:O)

I do.

I have been learning to recognize when I am taking responsibility for the hurt or confusion of others. I am learning to explore sitting with my feelings and not saying a word about how we might solve the problem so everyone will feel happy again. I have other words to say: You can do this. You are bright and strong and you are just fine, just as you are right this minute.

I am learning to stay with my sense of discomfort and believe the other person (my kids or my grands) are more than capable of meeting and defining their own situations and of creating their own beautiful lives.

I need to put my family of origin in that space somehow, too. They are going to use me because that is what they do. They are going to eye roll and contempt and form alliances against me and against one another because that is also what they do. It is not a behavior peculiar to their interactions with me.

Nothing personal about it.

The beatings and tauntings and choices to be cruel ~ those things are just who they are whenever they can get away with it. My mother never let go of that. She changed her modus operandi as her children, as her very conveniently powerless victims of choice, got older ~ but she still abuses in every way possible every chance she gets. And she does this to everyone. There is no one she does not see through those eye rolling, contemptuous, let me justify exclusion so I can be better than you eyes.

Why doesn't apply, here.

She is who she is and so is my sister.

People rise to our expectations, as we have learned with our own troubled kids. We need to talk to ourselves that way, too. What we are doing at this phase I think, is setting a bar for our families of origin and for ourselves, too.

That is appropriate.

Good, good, good for us.

We are doing this thing very well. I am deeply proud of every one of us.

I think this is exactly so, Cedar. She left that hospital in defeat, really, now that I think of it. Even though she defined it as something else, she retreated.

That is the truth of the matter. Copa, could this also be true: In our mind's eyes, we feel guilt at the eruption of bad feelings, however the disturbing event happens. Emotional flashback, replete with guilt and shame and naming ourselves responsible and accusing ourselves that we should have been able to handle this better than we did because look what happened.

Everyone is upset, feelings are raw.

Emotional flashback.

Could that be true?

I think you are right Cedar, but there is something more, that is very hard for me to grasp.

I think the best point in my sister's life with respect to me was in my late teen years. I had been completely beaten down in my family, and she had thrived. I had not yet developed an identity outside of the family, to counteract my defeat within it. As I look back that was the time my relationship with my sister was the best. Because she was ascendant and I was defeated. She had me where she wanted me.

When life outside the family began to treat her badly, is when it seems that her sadism towards me became more manifest.

That makes sense to me Copa. That is what our sisters are about. Who is less than and can be safely disregarded versus who still needs to be taken down altogether or used to help our sisters (or my mom) achieve whatever it is their main objective is.

Copa, why do we let our sisters define our situations? What would happen if you just called your sister? Who cares what she does or says. Then, you would know you did it. In a way, it is like when I was afraid to answer my own phone, or afraid of how to respond if they showed up, uninvited, at my own house.

This is pissing me off a little now, that I let them do that to me. That was the threat in my sister's last phone message before we came north.

And I was like, a basket case about it because I didn't like what was happening and I didn't know how to say so without destroying what little family there was. From the work we did here, I answered the stupid phone when she did call. And all I had to say was the truth. And that was enough to destroy what was left. But there was nothing there that I wanted. Just like there is nothing there that you want Copa, in your relationship to your own sister. What we want is not what they want.

They will always accuse us of not wanting a Rolex, whether they have one or not and whether we want one or not.

Lose, lose for us. Win, win for them, because the objective is to name themselves better than.

Call her, Copa.

Let her do the talking, or let her not pick up, or let her do whatever she wants. What she wants is that same sickness our families or origin operated on back when we had no choice about it.

It has nothing to do with us if they choose not to see us as other than prey.

They can do what they want.

What we need to do for our own sakes is stop avoiding who they are, and stop believing they are someone better than they are because that is how they throw us into emotional flashback.

They seem not to have the capacity to think in another way, Copa. They are not the only ones who think like that or things like gossip and ridicule and eye rolling and racism would not exist.

That's how I see it, this morning.

Do you think this could be true?

Now I see that with this she was telling me exactly who she is. And here was illuminated all of the times she had hurt me and others without one bit of remorse or second thought.

Yes, these kinds of things happen to my sister all the time, too.

We need to recognize when our sisters (or my mom) get us to pop ourselves into emotional flashback.

Then we need to reparent ourselves, or even, just to take charge of ourselves. Our sisters do not get to define us. They do not get to cheapen or define our relationships to our own mothers. They are very bad at strengthening others and very good at strengthening themselves at the other person's ~ any other person's ~ expense. I am thinking here of our sisters' divorces. You have never seen so vindictive a person as my sister (or my mom).

Except for your sisters, SWOT and Copa.

My mother used to fantasize about nailing the knees of the business partner who pulled out of my father's business to the floor.

Now, that is vindictiveness.

But my sister found another job and in this one there is security. And there are titles and power. She can hire and fire. She is free to do what she will to others. And I am certain she will abuse. And I think that is part of the reason that I cannot yet turn away from this train wreck. She keeps coming out not only unscathed but rewarded. Just like Rachel Dolezal who it seems will now get her own reality show, where her fraudulent self can pass judgment on others. Regardless of what is true or right. And it does not make sense.

My mother found a position like that, too. She still talks about her importance, her job, her people at her job, how wonderful she was at her job, for hours. These are the kinds of things I would listen to on those phone conversations I made to her every night at 7:30. That is why D H would be so upset. He said my mother knew what she was doing and was taking time away from him and our marriage with malice and intent.

I thought that was very tacky of him.

Imagine my surprise, when I realilzed he was correct.

My mom would say things like: "Should I use him?" Regarding the man who wanted to marry her, I mean.

He was a generous and an ethical man.

And I understand that it will never change in those pictures. That it must change in me. It will come from a decision to accept the truth.

For me, Copa? It had to do with posting and reading here to the point that I felt better enough about myself to stop allowing myself to be afraid of the way my own mother and my own sister were excluding and ridiculing and holding me up for ridicule and etc.

I picked up the phone.

You should call your sister.

It isn't about her. It's about us. Finally, finally, we know what happened and how it all works well enough to welcome them, with our blessings, to F off.

I meant pass the salt.

:O)

But really, Copa and SWOT. These people are manipulating us through our empathic hearts and our emotional flashbacks and that is not fair.

I do not understand why she continues to prevail. Because even though I am stunned by her triumph, I know it is a charade. And I watch and watch, I think, waiting for the truth of the image to reveal itself.

But like me Copa, you already know the truth. We just refused to believe it. Whoever their sisters were? Our sisters would have done, would still be doing, the same things to them.

Every bully, in every situation, is like our sisters (or my mom).

It never had a thing in the world to do with us.

So we never have to be destroyed by anything they say or do or believe or convince others to believe, ever again.

Just like in the Wizard of Oz. We could always go home. We just had to decide we wanted it. Like Dorothy, we have been all over the place looking in all the wrong places because we believed we lacked courage or heart or intelligence. They were our companions, all along.

We are approaching the Wizard's castle at warp speed.

Soon, Toto will lift the curtain.

We will be disappointed.

And then, we will be free.

We will return to Kansas, claiming it and the love in it as our own for the first time.

I forced myself to go to the Physical Therapist today, even though I woke up so defeated and hurt and alone.

Oh, good for you, Copa. It must have been so hard to motivate for it, but you did it. Good Copa, because once you are through this part, you will want to be healthy and strong in your body, too.

When I left I went to Barnes and Noble thinking I might find there my son.

We have to. We are their mothers. Those are our children. D H and I looked and looked for our daughter when she was homeless. That so sucked.

You did it though, Copa.

You are his mother.

It is your right and obligation to both your son and yourself to do what you feel is the right thing. You can change your mind (or he can) at any time. That does not change that you love him.

I am glad you did that.

I am sorry for the despair in it, Copa; but you did the right thing.

Sometimes, we just want to know.

Honor that.

Not for his sake, but for yours.

And I began to cry because I recognized there was something in me that identified with killing myself. Not to die.

But I knew I could not because the paperwork for the trust to protect my son still I have not signed. And part of me knew that by posting as I have been doing, about my sister, must merit a kind of death penalty. And is it not so perfectly fitting that it would come at my own hand?

I am picking fights with M. The same old stuff. And I cannot find my son and there is nothing to say when I do.

That's okay, Copa. None of this is easy. There is no one who could understand what this means to you but you. The Japanese warriors chose to suicide publicly to erase shame. Sort of "Up with this I will not put." But you have time to see how all this evolves now, Copa. You are changing how you interpret meaning. This is a difficult and confusing time. But here you are, and that is a gift without price.

The gift of time.

What an extraordinary thing, Copa.

Don't leave us, yet.

Not just yet, okay?

You can always make that decision. You have all the time there is, all the time you need. Explore there, Copa.

Time.

Priceless, irrecoverable time.

And I felt like my whole life has been exposed to be a fraud and fake, and more to the point I am the fraud and and the fake, and I may be left standing but what do I have? I guess a lot. When I think about it.

Oh, yes, Copa.

Just to be here to think about it.

Who is it naming you fraud? My mom did that to me. But then? I realized she didn't do that. I did.

Who is it naming you fake? That first therapist did that to me. But then? I realized he didn't do that. I did.

Then? I realized I was still standing, too.

So, I took a little walk.

And looked behind me and saw my own footsteps and realized I was not where I had been. Which meant I was going somewhere, probably. So, I gave up figuring out where that was and just let go.

And then, I realized I am actually a little pissed off about the way everyone has been treating me, trying to threaten me with my own freaking phone or by implying they might come right in my own yard or to my own door to my own house.

The nerve of those guys!

:O)

I came home and I found your responses. And I read I was a hero in my life. And had stainless steel implements. And I am strong, as well as weak. And that I came through for my Mother.

Yay! Especially on the stainless steel implements part. You do have that stainless steel implements thing going on, Copa.

You are like Baklava grand in that way. She always did have that core of flexible steel in her, even when she was a toddler. That is why she is so courageous today.

She is amazing. She left us, this morning. I am sad, but excited to learn where she will take all of us, next.

We made her pumpkin pie last night because that is her favorite thing and she wanted that.

I am having a piece of it now.

So, I called M and with that, changed things a little bit. And he will go to his sister's and try to call my son from that number, to see if that same recording comes on.

Good thinking, Copa. I would have done that, too.

I will try to be gentle with myself, while I think about SWOT and Cedar, their strength, loyalty and love, resilience, humor, hope, faithful commitment, and friendship. Thank you.

And you too, Copa. We are able to do this because each of us is here. Each of us takes strength and changed perspective from sharing her story and from learning how similar are the stories of each of the others.

It never had a thing to do with us personally. Not with who we were or what we did or whether the whole thing blew up in our faces.

We are related to some really strange people.

We are learning the truth of that in sharing our stories. Next, we will choose what to do with these new understandings of our situations. We have been through the worst of it. Keep pushing, Copa and SWOT and I will too.

It's long past time that we clarified these issues that we have been trying to figure out, and that we have been taking the blame for and beating ourselves up over all of our lives.

Sweet. It is going to be so sweet, once we are our own for the first time, ever. Look how great those little places we have claimed already feel.

Why is that, Cedar, that there is no condemnation? That you accept that she is who she is by what happened to her, I understand. But do you not believe in good and evil, and that people are responsible for their choices? I do.

I never, ever forgive my mother what she chose. My sister, is such an outlier, such an alien, I do not know how I feel about her. And I do not know why I still spare her.

I don't want to carry around a load of bitterness or hatred, Copa. It makes sense that my sister would hate with pathologic intensity. Given what I now think I understand about how she thinks ~ about how putting someone beneath her is the objective in her every interaction, or about how to use others to reflect glory onto herself. I could be a non-entity, just someone she uses because I believe she loves me, until I was vulnerable. Then, both she and my mom unify against the weakened Cedar.

It doesn't sound very nice of me to say so, I get that.

But thinking like that results in every single strangeness falling seamlessly into place.

It fits too with my sister's shock and outrage at my saying true things during the long-threatened phone call.

I swear, she nearly had a stroke at the "exclusion" part.

This is from Out of the Fog and part of an article on invalidation. What do do if you are being invalidated. I assume this is if you have the unfortunate experience are actually facing them while they tell you your reality isn't real. Would be a hard spot to be in and it is a very shaming form of emotional abuse (per the article). And it IS emotional abuse.

This was the hurt in: "What would Cedar do." It was holding me up for ridicule because I wasn't You Know Who of course, but seemed to think I was, walking around trying to be a nice guy. And they unified behind that, my mom and my sister. My sister was the one who told me they said that. And she told me too that they laughed and laughed together about what they said, and about what they thought of me.

Ouch.

That still hurts. It makes me feel stupid and foolish and fraudulent.

F you, mom and sister.

Oh. I meant, "Pass the salt."

Strive for excellence - not perfection.

This is a really important point. It is in our own memories of our times of imperfection that they can do us in. But here is the thing I learned from your concept of emotional flashback, SWOT. We saw ourselves as imperfect because we could not fix the unfixable and popped ourselves back in time to some aspect of whatever the original trauma was in that instance.

Pass the salt, indeed.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

OK. I am getting it a little bit.

So here is how I understand it now: So I am just skipping through life, being who I am. And letting my sister be who she is, what I know her to be, but staying far, far away. Because I know who she is. But as long as we are far away, and she cannot hurt me, all is okay.

And then there is contact, usually when I cannot avoid it. And she does something. Something that hurts me or my son. I know she hurt me. I do not deny it. But like you, I am shocked. Just shocked.

And I do some very strange thing to deal with it. At the same I time, I both exaggerate the offense, what she did. Like I feel horror. And at the same time I minimize my sense or perception of it. Like this could not have happened could it? And yet I know it did.

Yes, this describes the way I feel perfectly.

Emotional flashback all around from the past, and in advance, for the future we know is surely coming.

It is like finding a spider in the bathtub. You know these things happen all the time, but it's such a nasty shock when there he is in your bathtub where you were going to soak in scented water and read something engrossing and relax away from every problem.

And there is that stupid black spider, instead.

So you wash him down the drain but you take a shower anyway because somehow, you just don't want to sit where he was.

And your afternoon is a little bit ruined because that bad thing happened. And you feel a little foolish because after all, these things do happen.

But you just can't shake the awful suddenness of the surprise of that big, black spider.

Emotional flashback; projection plays its part here, too. Only our projections regarding our moms or our sisters? Are invariably right on the money.

And we invariably pop ourselves into emotional flashback, Copa. That is the horror feeling you described. That is us, popping ourselves into emotional flashback and projection that is true because it really happens just that way every single time bar none.

We have such courage, even to deal with them at all. And I try so hard to be welcoming and I never believe it when somehow, something bad happened or the feeling was just so wrong.

Yeah. It has to be pathological hatred. Why else would they not just leave us alone, like we try to do to them.

Like when my sister asked us to come see her new house, and her husband had that cute little notebook of things he'd been thinking we might all like to do together and my sister said we wouldn't like that. (Do you see the Rolex thing going on, here? That somehow, we just wouldn't like to do anything that didn't involve mistreating animals or something else reprehensible types enjoy.)

But it does seem to me that standing up to them deflates them right back to ridicule instead of murderous intent. Imagine my sister playing all the games she played, leaving me messages and leaving the one where she implied my mom was gone or slipping. And I called back on that one. And it turned out that my mom was just fine but that my sister wanted me to come too when they took my mom to the beach that wasn't even a decent, spectacular Florida or Jamaican or some other beautiful beach. (Only they ~ not my kids, not my brother, only they and my mom and me and my sister's daughters and grand practicing exclusion together at the beach house my sister's friend had invited her to use for that very purpose.)

Ahem.

Where was I?

I think I was about to ask to have the salt passed.

:O)

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

What would happen if you just called your sister? Who cares what she does or says.

I love this idea. But what would be the reason? And where would we go friend here? I mean, where do I want to go with her? Is there any place to go with somebody like her?

Would I tell her that I am sorry for what she has suffered? No, because that would be an invitation to her to blame and hurt me.

Would I ask about my nieces, when secretly I do not care?

Would I share how we are, when I do not trust what she would do with it?

I could tell her that I found pictures and ask her if she wants copies? That is the only thing that would be neutral enough. Neither asking or wanting anything from her. And completely neutral, no blaming or inviting blame. This I could do.

She will not answer the phone. The area code would be a giveaway. I would have to leave a message. Do I tell her in the message that it is about pictures, or do I just leave my name and number?

because of the eye rolling

My sister did this with her husband...about me. I found it so rude that 9 years later I still ruminate about it, wishing I had stopped everything right there, and told her: I find that very rude what you are doing.

Unless I cannot really afford it, either ~ and who does that make me?

A week or so ago a friend of ours asked M if I would loan him a thousand dollars, to fix his brother's car, which he was driving.

I seem to have an asterisk next to my name as the one who has money, and M's family members, and now this friend, want me to be their bank.

M always wants to give everything to everybody.If he had money, there would soon be none. He is no help.

So, when the friend, a very nice and trustworthy young man, asked me, I said I wanted to talk it over with M and get back to him.

I told M, this. And it was hard. My responsibility is to you, to J (my son) and to your Mother. That is it. If I the cost of having friends is supporting them, I choose to not have them. Better alone. Nobody that I can remember has ever repaid a loan I have made them. But more than that, this young mas is responsible for his financial choices. Not me. What about all of the credit he has accumulated? And the new car note? I will not loan money to him or anybody.

And I sat with the feelings. What will he and M think of me? What does it feel like to be that person who said NO. And you know what, it felt good. Very good. Clean. Clarity. Better than before. I had defined myself.

With respect to your sister asking for things, I find this disgusting. Why in the world should you be responsible to buy her anything, that you do not initiate. The shame is hers, but like my sister, she sees it as yours to carry. How sick.

Nothing one does for my sister is unappreciated, it is just somehow never enough.

I would say no, just on principle. She sets it up so that you are forced to carry the negative: hoarding your money, selfish, poor, miserly. Pick your poison. And that is what she does.

Why not say, buy it yourself. Tell the truth. Volley it right back to her.

It could be true that they are loving us the best they can.

Yes, I believe this is so. But the elephant in the room, Cedar, is that their love comes with spikes embedded in it. Or trick doors. Or fart pillows. Or it explodes. Or implodes.

And we will always be injured, or covered in sh-t, or fall on our face. Because that is the plan. They will not do otherwise. They cannot. At least towards us.

So, the question is this. I can call my sister about the pictures I found which I know she would want. And just like the grieving family members in Charleston SC I can extend forgiveness, knowing she stole my pictures and my stuff to hurt me.

But beyond that where do I want to go with her? And that worthless husband of hers that makes be sick? That is the 60000 peso question? Or do I leave it open? And be open to possibility?

They treat everyone as they treat the woman who drives my mother south. But the woman has continued to do it. Maybe because, like us, she is being tossed into emotional flashback

But Cedar, might it be like the congregants who lost loved ones at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston? Could she know exactly what your mother is doing? But choose to help her because that is who she is. And because her boundaries are so good and firm that she does not take on the responsibility but most of all the shame for being abused by your mother, and ridiculed by her and your sister, because she is not damaged as are our.

What I am saying here is that we, each of us, has a specific key that fits into the specific lock that our sister's and mother's are. That it takes a specific key to open the lock. And the lady does not have it. She does not see or feel the abuse and therefore it does not touch her or have power over her.

Other people do not respond as do we. They are immune. They can either turn the cheek, or look past it, because they never own it. The responsibility and therefore the shame are not theirs to accept.

But there must be something like that going on, or why would she stalk me instead of just calling me up,

And in a way I am stalking my sister by looking at her house on an internet site. And I do so because I am afraid to contact her directly and so I act the coward. But I will change this.

It is not our sisters or our mothers or anyone else who is destroying us with feelings of shame and guilt and hope that if we just keep trying, surely all will be well. We are doing it to ourselves.

Exactly.

They are going to eye roll and contempt and form alliances against me and against one another because that is also what they do. It is not a behavior peculiar to their interactions with me. Nothing personal about it.

Yes. Except for at least two things. We have an exquisite sensitivity to their doing it, that others do not have. And two, why subject ourselves to it? For what? What do we have to gain, except for the moral high ground and to define ourselves as non-cowards? Both, important, yes. But there needs to be an exit strategy up front. Because, again, Cedar, is there anywhere to go with them, that is good?

Copa, could this also be true: In our mind's eyes, we feel guilt at the eruption of bad feelings, however the disturbing event happens.

Absolutely, I think this is true. Once the feelings come up we scout the environment to find our bad. The feeling needs to be explained, and we explain it, habitually, by searching for what we have done that is bad or wrong.

Then, what is the remedy? That is, where to we break the chain? With the feeling or with the cognitive frame that comes immediately after?

We should have been able to handle this better than we did because look what happened.

OK. I do not remember the context in which I lifted this quote, but it is a perfect example of the self-damning frame that we give to the erupton of bad feelings to which we frantically try to explain.

In the case of the loan (see above) at first I panicked. And thought about how the ways I would be perceived as bad if I did not go along with the program. I stopped. And I thought about how I could best protect myself.

Actually, I did so in dialog with M. He wanted to give the young man a chance, and framed it that we will need him to help us when we travel, with the house. And that he wants to give us something to mitigate the risk, a gold chain that is worth more than the loaned amount.

So I said to M, if you want to loan him the money, sell your car.

If it were me, I would want to not put myself in a position where I was assuming responsibility for something that was not my commitment or my obligation. I would want my life to not be encumbered by other people's business.

And then I realized, I am me. And this is my voice.

So the solution is to give ourselves the space to have a conversation with ourselves about the event. And to make space for those points of view to emerge. Even if it is awkward or inconvenient.

To say, I need to think about it and I will get back to you. Even if it is to ourselves. To make space between the demands of the feelings, and the decision about how we decide to explain them. To permit ourselves, to honor ourselves with the opportunity to think about, consider the judgments we make about ourselves.

Our sisters by their limitations never consider the judgments they make of us or anybody else, it seems. And we have the unfortunate habit of accepting those judgments, uncritically. We are triggered, experience toxic (what is the word SWOT taught us Emotional Flashback?) affect that fogs our thinking. The remedy is to build in space to think our way out of it.

Thank you, Cedar and SWOT

I am not going to read this over right now. So forgive me if there needed to be corrections.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

She will not answer the phone. The area code would be a giveaway. I would have to leave a message. Do I tell her in the message that it is about pictures, or do I just leave my name and number?

No! It was a bad idea when I said you should call her.

I was wishing there were some way for you to turn the tables on the way she has you believing she matters.

She cannot be a sister to you, Copa.

She doesn't have the capacity. Literally, she cannot relate to people from a sincere center because, like my sister too (and like my mom), she doesn't have one.

This is a sad thing for us to know. But it is better to know. Every interaction with them points to the truth that they are incapable of sincere interaction because they see us, and everyone, only through a filter of what we can do for them. And what they want us to do for them is be a defenseless focus for envy and the pathologic hatred come of it. And defenseless is key and they know just how to do that because they do it to everyone in their lives. They want to secretly look down on and hurt us. They are so mad when we don't get it that they finally have to do things like my sister did to my daughter. (Ha! But my daughter isn't like me in that way. She knows just who my sister is and she isn't one bit afraid of her, like I am in my secret heart. Or maybe it's like I used to be in my secret heart.) If we could see how they think about us, we would be so devastated ~ but at least we could fight back. But they are such dirty little lying fighters that they don't come right out and say any of the things that they think. They don't admit what they think except to themselves, when they justify lying about us and treating us badly and kidnapping us with our own hope of love and of loving like everyone else has in their relationships to their sisters.

That was a bad idea I had, Copa.

Please don't call her yet. When you are ready, you won't be thinking about how to be good or decent, or about how to welcome and forgive her and make family at last.

There is nothing to forgive, Copa. She is never going to change.

Nothing is ever going to be alright with this sister.

If you call her, it should be to say something like: I find your behavior at the end of my mother's life reprehensible. For all of your life, I loved you. I trusted you to be better than your behaviors. I believed in and sheltered and held strong for you and that is over. I want there to be no mistake about who is ending this relationship. I am ending this relationship. If I change my mind, I will contact you. Do not contact me.

It had nothing to do with her Copa, and everything to do with you tossing her memory right out of that space she holds in your heart altogether.

I had a bad idea. I was angry about my sister and my mom, and about your sister and the way she treats you now and about the way she treated you and your mom when your mom was sick. I hate it that she took the money and the jewelry like my sister will, too.

I don't want you to feel badly about the things she does or the way she sees you in her secret heart, ever. She sees everyone that way. We are vulnerable to them as long as we hope we can love them; as long as we let them use our wish that we could love them to trick us and hurt us and believe, in their secret toxic little hearts, that we are less than because that is all they know how to do to everyone in their lives.

Sisters aren't supposed to think that way about one another. Sisters are supposed to have one another's backs, and to be safe harbor and gentle laughter in a really cold world.

So I said you should call her and give her a piece of my mind, but that was a wrong thing to say.

I'm sorry, Copa. I really do get so angry about what these people have meant to us in our lives. They are so darn mean and they hurt us and hurt us and betray us over and over again and we are so clueless about how their minds work that we can't even think straight where they are concerned.

Let's not call her just yet.

Or maybe, never.

I am sorry, Copa. I should not have suggested that you call your sister.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I will not loan money to him or anybody.

And I sat with the feelings. What will he and M think of me? What does it feel like to be that person who said NO. And you know what, it felt good. Very good. Clean. Clarity. Better than before. I had defined myself.

That is how D H is, Copa. He is offended that people would ever see him as someone who would pay for them. Nor does he expect anyone to pay for him.

He does not feel one bit badly about this. Our children were so offended when I had been on the site long enough to finally say no money. But D H was very right in this. True friendship is based on respect.

It was wrong of the man to put M in that position.

It was wrong of M to have put you in that position but you handled it beautifully.

I am learning to say no, too.

I like the feeling of saying no very much. I am worth it Copa, and so are you.

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

It is when we interact at any depth with our FOO that we have problems defining ourselves and that is what toxicity is. That feeling of emotional flashback; that feeling that we are responsible because someone is angry or hurt or excluded.

*BINGO!!!*

Is anyone else completely different not around FOO becaause, while we are with them, whether we knew what they were then or not, we were LIVING in panic, which is known as an emotional flashback.

Do read Peter Walker's book, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is becoming well known and validated in the psychiatric community now.

 

[BusynMember]

Except for your sisters, SWOT and Copa.

My sister doesn't have the monetary resources to be as vindictive as she would have liked to have been. Calling t he cops, knowing I had young kids at home and that I was not a threat to her, was the best she could do. And, trust me, most of the time the cops treated it in a trite way.

Copa, I think it may be a safety issue not to ever talk to your sister again. She could harm you. You may want to stay off her radar.

 

[Copabanana]

They don't admit what they think except to themselves, when they justify lying about us and treating us badly and kidnapping us with our own hope of love

Yes. But they define their hateful feelings as justified, because they have already inverted responsibility for everything to us. So their hatred feels like righteous anger and their vengeance "just deserts." I do not ever think my sister owns her jealousy and envy and rage. She sees it always as a justifiable response to what others have done to injure her.

When my sister was married to an earlier husband his family used the expression "low rent" to describe anybody who they felt was beneath them or not up to their standards. I know this through my Mother.

My Mother embraced her "low rent" origins as a badge of honor, irrespective of how much she wanted to improve her circumstances. My mother was ashamed that my sister demeaned other people, seeking to elevate herself above them.

I am getting sick of living in her brain, even if only to understand myself. I hope this means it is almost enough of this.

If you call her, it should be to say something like: I find your behavior at the end of my mother's life reprehensible. For all of your life, I loved you. I trusted you to be better than your behaviors. I believed in and sheltered and held strong for you and that is over. I want there to be no mistake about who is ending this relationship. I am ending this relationship. If I change my mind, I will contact you. Do not contact me.

I love this. This is clean and clear and strong and true. Except I am not yet the person who would say this. And I wonder if it would not be more fitting just to stop looking at her house and neighborhood on Zillow and neighborhoodscout.

I mean, does she really deserve anything so elegant and important as this speech. Is it not stronger to ride out into the sunset and leave her and her plotting and her abusing, in her dirty, frontier town, with the fearful and cowed townspeople and the vicious and corrupt cattle baron?

Why empower her by such a speech? I erased the part where I asked, who is she to me? I have more in common emotionally with my cat, and I like her more.

But that would have been a lie. My sister means very much to me. My history, at least part of it. All that is left of my mother. And, I guess, still, I wonder if she is my responsibility. My Mother wanted me to see her as such. But that is a little weird, coming from my mother.

I don't want you to feel badly about the things she does or the way she sees you in her secret heart, ever.

I know. I think I would shrivel up if I knew. And feel such shame. But maybe, not for long. For years she called my mother, that crazy old lady, and I was so offended. But I would say nothing, to my shame. As she took everything she could from my mother, she felt free to express her contempt.

And my mother never, ever knew, until the end. I hate my sister for this. I do not believe she deserves to ever hear again my voice.

Cedar, I had to face that my father hated me at the end of his life, describing me in the most vile and sexually degrading terms. That my sister hates me equally is really nearly here nor there.

Except I cannot help but question myself, still. How is it that I came to be hated so much, by my own people? And now, my son, maybe even my son? Except that I doubt that this is so.

Again, look at the people in Charleston, SC. They do not allow themselves to be defined or defiled by their abusers, to the extent of forgiving them; believing that their faith in what is good is definition enough. And through that stance they feel their belief and their community are more powerful than the haters. And as I see them they are not victims, they are powerful and strong.

Thank you, Cedar and SWOT

Cedar and SWOT, we have to think about opening up our work to others' on other threads. Because I for one want to continue, and I do not want either one or both of you to feel responsible for sustaining this thread. As long as we continue here, others will feel hesitant to participate. And I am seeing that there have been a few other threads on which FOO work is being done. What do you think we should do?

 

[BusynMember]

I mean, does she really deserve anything so elegant and important as this speech

Yes, or she will keep calling you.

 

[BusynMember]

And as I see them they are not victims, they are powerful and strong.

You're going to laugh at this, and my sister would probably laugh at this or WILL laugh at this if she is still reading it, but I thought my sister, just like my mother, was so powerful that she crowded a room and I could barely fit into it. I felt HONORED when my sister was not angry at me and would talk to me. This is not the last two or three runs I've had with her, but before that, yes. I made her this important person who had so much emotional control over my heart that she could demolish me with another "Bye!" and a hang up.

Now that I look back, I realize that my very perception of her was an emotional flashback to my mother, whom I saw the same way...as something I had to have in order to be whole. I feel like an idiot wasting all these years giving so much credit to two such damaged people who really are not important at all and who are just human beings who happen to share my DNA. There's nothing like bad lluck...lol.

I was scared of my mother's anger. I was even more afraid of my sister's anger. I don't know why I was. I had to sit and analyze it to get over that fear and awe, so to speak.

I asked myself some questions, especially after the final time.

Do I respect her?
No.
Do I share her values"
Not in any way. I'd never date a married man or go out with an abusive man for five years, and grovel to him, nor would I have allowed my mother to talk badly about her without defending her. I would not drink as much as she does. I would not pick her friends, a few who still do the occasional line of cocaine.
Do we have anything in common?
Nothing. Nada. Not even apparently similar memories of Life with E.
Who do you like better as a person, SWOT, and be honest...no trash talking from the past. Who do you feel is a better person, yourself or her?

I chose me with no hesitation.

Humanization without dehumanizing, I call it. Reality filters. We see these abusers as bigger than life because they have shamed us and made us feel small and as tiny as a mouse when they are just people who we would NOT want to mimic and whom we do not even like.

Society brainwashes us. You must love your mother (in my case, I don't anymore). You must love your siblings. (I know I don't love T2 anymore and after T1 wrote me a letter all about how baaaaaaaaad I am (I am assuming as I never read it), I really had to think about what kind of man writes a letter like that and actually sends it. The point was not to talk about it or reconcile. The point was only to hurt me. So he's not high on my Love Parade either.

I've taken too much and know what real love really is now...I can't do it, can't do it, can't do it anymore. I gave it a good try. I did try.

I can't unsee what I know.

I can't cheat.

I love my two precious dogs more than all of them and I'm serious. I feel animals are as valuable as people, and I love my dogs with all my heart. I don't think of that as demeaning them, because of how much I value animals, but...many people would take it that way.

How can anyone love somebody who can't love them back? It makes no logical sense and can only lead to heartbreak, as it has for all of us. But we are learning.

Copa, your sister is flesh and blood, nothing more.

If you want to tell her how you feel, you have that right and a thunderbolt won't come crashing on your head. Of course, you don't have to do it, but your sister is no more powerful than you are. We are all valuable. We all matter. Somebody else only has as much power over you as you allow. I allowed FOO to have that power for too long.

I quit!!!!!!

 

[BusynMember]

I loved this and thought I'd share. Read about rejection.
I looked at it today because the negative voices were kicking in: "You're a loser. "You're borderline." (That's my new one from my sister...lol. Thanks, Sis. ) "You're not worthy of this family." etc. etc. etc.

There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.
―W. Clement Stone

Why do we think negatively when we know better?

Because thinking negatively, expecting “the worst,” seeing the downside of positive situations, and even downright expecting failure, all convey a kind of backwards-thinking, emotional insurance policy. It goes something like, “If I expect a tragedy, then I won’t be disappointed when it takes place.”

Our desire to want to be right is another common reason we subconsciously choose negative thinking. Sometimes, as foolish as it sounds, we would rather be right about our negative predictions than have a positive outcome prove us wrong. And since negative thinking leads to negative actions, or no action at all in many cases, by thinking negatively we create a self-fulfilling prediction for ourselves. In other words, we think negatively, predict a negative outcome, act negatively, and then receive a negative outcome that fulfills our prediction.

Of course, none of this is what we truly want or need in our lives. So how can we stop talking ourselves into these thinking traps? Let’s take a look at four powerful ways to quiet the negative, inner voice that leads us astray:

1. Start focusing on the grey area between the extremes.
Life simply isn’t black or white – 100% of this or 100% of that – all or nothing. Thinking in extremes like this is a fast way to misery, because negative thinking tends to view any situation that’s less than perfect as being extremely bad. For example:

• Rather than the rainstorm slowing down my commute home from work, instead “it wasted my whole evening and ruined my night!”
• Instead of my business venture taking a while to gain traction, “it’s never going to work, and it’s going to completely ruin my financial future.”
• Rather than just accepting the nervousness of meeting a new group of people, “I know these people are not going to like me.”

Since 99.9% of all situations in life are less than perfect, black and white thinking tends to make us focus on the negative – the drama, the failures, and the worst case scenarios. Sure catastrophes occur on occasion, but contrary to what you many see on the evening news, most of life occurs in a grey area between the extremes of bliss and devastation.

If you struggle with seeing the grey area of a situation, sit down with a pen and paper, write down the best-case outcome, the worst-case outcome, and at least one realistic outcome that falls between the two extremes. For example, say you’ve been worrying about a new intimate relationship, write down:

• Worst-case outcome (unlikely extreme): “The relationship is a total disaster that ends with two broken hearts.”
• Best-case outcome (unlikely extreme): “The relationship is total bliss with zero arguments until the end of time.”
• Realistic-case outcome (highly likely): “There will be great times, good times, and not so good times, but we will work together, respect each other, and give our relationship a fair chance before drawing any conclusions.”

Make the realistic-case outcome as detailed and long as you like, or list more than one realistic-case outcome. Giving your mind more options to consider will help reduce extreme emotions and allow you to think more clearly and realistically. (Read The Happiness Advantage

.)

2. Stop looking for negative signs from others.
Too often we jump to conclusions, only to cause ourselves and others unnecessary worry, hurt, and anger. If someone says one thing, don’t assume they mean something else. If they say nothing at all, don’t assume their silence has some hidden, negative connotation.

Thinking negatively will inevitably lead you to interpret everything another person does as being negative, especially when you are uncertain about what the other person is thinking. For instance, “He hasn’t called, so he must not want to talk to me,” or, “She only said that to be nice, but she doesn’t really mean it.”

Assigning meaning to a situation before you have the whole story makes you more likely to believe that the uncertainty you feel (based on lack of knowing) is a negative sign. On the flip-side, holding off on assigning meaning to an incomplete story is a primary key to overcoming negative thinking. When you think more positively, or simply more clearly about the facts, you’ll be able to evaluate all possible reasons you can think of, not just the negative ones. In other words, you’ll be doing more of: “I don’t know why he hasn’t called, but maybe…”

• “…he’s extremely busy at work.”
• “…his phone battery is dead.”
• “…he’s simply waiting for me to call him.”
• etc.

You get the get the idea. None of these circumstances are negative and all are as plausible as any other possible explanation.

Next time you feel uncertain and insecure, and you catch yourself stressing about a problem that doesn’t exist, stop yourself and take a deep breath. Then tell yourself, “This problem I’m concerned with only exists in my mind.” Being able to distinguish between what you imagine and what is actually happening in your life is an important step towards living a positive life.

3. Evaluate and eliminate unreasonable rules and expectations.
You must deal with the world the way it is, not the way you expect it to be. Life is under no obligation to give you exactly what you expect. In fact, whatever it is you’re seeking will rarely ever come in the form you’re expecting, but that doesn’t make it any less wonderful.

Stop forcing your own misconstrued expectations and rules on life…

• “He was late, so he must not care about me.” – Or perhaps he just got caught in traffic.
• “If I can’t do this correctly, then I must not be smart enough.” – Or perhaps you just need more practice.
• “I haven’t heard back from my doctor, so the test results must be bad.” – Or perhaps the lab is just really busy and your results aren’t available yet.
• etc.

Inventing rules like these about how life must be, based on your own stubborn expectations, is a great way to keep your mind stuck in the gutter. This isn’t to say that you should never expect anything at all from yourself and others (diligence, honesty, ambition, etc.), but rather that the rules that govern your expectations should not steer you toward unreasonably negative conclusions.

If you feel dissatisfied or let down by an outcome, then you must have been expecting something different. Rather than get upset, ask yourself, “Were my expectations too narrow?” and “What new truths have I learned?”

The bottom line is that you must see and accept things as they are instead of as you hoped, wished, or expected them to be. Just because it didn’t turn out like you had envisioned, doesn’t mean it isn’t exactly what you need to get to where you ultimately want to go. (Read The Road Less Traveled

.)

4. Embrace rejection and use it to find the right opportunities.
As soon as someone critiques and criticizes you, as soon as you are rejected, you might find yourself thinking, “Well, that proves once again that I am not worthy.” What you need to realize is, these other people are NOT worthy of YOU and your particular journey. Rejection is necessary medicine; it teaches you how to reject opportunities that aren’t going to work, so can quickly find new ones that will.

Rejection doesn’t mean you aren’t good enough; it means the other person failed to notice what you have to offer. It means you have more time to improve your thing – to build upon your ideas, to perfect your craft, and indulge deeper in to the work that moves you.

“Will you be bitter for a moment? Absolutely. Hurt? Of course, you’re human. There isn’t a soul on this planet that doesn’t feel a small fraction of their heart break at the realization of rejection. For a short time afterwards you ask yourself every question you can think of…

• “What did I do wrong?”
• “Why didn’t they like me?”
• “How come?”
• etc.

But then you have to let your emotions fuel you! This is the important part. Let your feelings of rejection drive you, feed you, and inspire one heck of a powerful opening to the next chapter of your journey.

As you look back on your life, you will often realize that many of the times you thought you were being rejected from something good, you were in fact being redirected to something better. You can’t control everything. Sometimes you just need to relax and have faith that things will work out. Let go a little and just let life happen the way it’s supposed to. Because sometimes the outcomes you can’t change, end up changing you and helping you grow far beyond your wildest dreams. (Angel and I discuss this in more detail in the “Adversity” and “Relationships” chapters of “1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.”)

Afterthoughts
Think positive. Life is good. Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting pure gold. Positive thinking isn’t about expecting the best to always happen, but accepting that whatever happens is the best for the moment. So keep smiling and keep staying true to your heart. Someday, the negative voice inside you will have nothing left to say.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

So, the question is this. I can call my sister about the pictures I found which I know she would want. And just like the grieving family members in Charleston SC I can extend forgiveness, knowing she stole my pictures and my stuff to hurt me.

But beyond that where do I want to go with her? And that worthless husband of hers that makes be sick? That is the 60000 peso question? Or do I leave it open? And be open to possibility?

No, I was wrong in suggesting this, Copa.

I wish the people in Charleston had been able to execute that man. For all of us. Right on the spot. And I wish he'd known that was what was going to happen to him. Who could ever say what a horrible difference those deaths will make to those families as time passes and those people who loved them are never there, again. Grandmas and grandpas and moms and dads taken out of their families just like that, forever.

I saw that young man on television, sitting there in safety and not giving a rip about the pain he'd inflicted. No remorse in his face or his posture.

***

I actually think it would be the right thing to do, to make copies of those pics for your sister. The actions we take do matter. What we do teaches us who we are. Perhaps you could enclose a note. One of the things I said to my sister on her phone call was that I loved her too much to love her this way. Maybe you could say something like that, because that is a true thing. Ask her to please send copies of the pics she has to you.

I hope she does that.

But our sisters do seem to try to hurt us, Copa. So be wise, and be wary, as SWOT suggests.

Because, again, Cedar, is there anywhere to go with them, that is good?

No. Even when I am posting all about how mad I am and etc...I still feel sad that she doesn't love me, after all.

It is a sad thing. I do feel sad about it. But if anything were ever going to change, it would be changed already. It's okay to grieve the loss of a thing, even if it was always nothing more than a beautiful dream. That was a good dream to have. So much better than the hard reality of my family of origin. It is a hard dream to let go.

Maybe we think if we punish ourselves enough it will finally happen.

I don't get to cheat about that.

Could she know exactly what your mother is doing? But choose to help her because that is who she is. And because her boundaries are so good and firm that she does not take on the responsibility but most of all the shame for being abused by your mother, and ridiculed by her and your sister, because she is not damaged as are our.

I don't think so, Copa. My mother is in a state about whether the lady will be late for a day or two before she ever arrives. She complains about needing to repack her truck, though my brother and I were usually there to do the lifting and repacking. My mom laughs about the lady behind her back to the other ladies they are all friends with, implying that she is stupid and foolish. When the lady arrives at my mom's house, she is so anxiety-ridden. Strong and not strong. I like your analogy of the key, Copa. I think predators sense the wound and force whatever key they usually use. I too think I am strong enough, think I can do my part whatever they do. But boy, when I write out what has happened here, I see that while I may be strong enough, I have fallen into a crazy pattern of being too polite to mention it when someone is destroying me to themselves and labeling me and looking down on me forever.

It's just the strangest thing.

Why do I have to be strong enough to stand up to their abuse when family is supposed to be about gaining strength to perform well in the world, and not about finding strength in the world to figure out how to survive having dinner with them? Why did I feel it was my responsibility to listen to my mother hour after hour, or to visit my sister because her own mother would not?

I will say that things have taken a decided turn for the worse since my father's death.

What I think of my behavior is that I am doing really well.

I don't feel so badly about any of it as I did when I went through it here initially.

You don't need your sister and you didn't need your mother in order to be somebody.

It is a hard thing though SWOT, to fit a family's hatred into that place other people have a family's love. It is hard to be that person who needs to do that. I think I would not have been able to face the feelings of worthlessness or wrongness or emotional flashback that I feel when I know they don't cherish me or my kids or grands without the support I receive here.

Thank you both, sincerely, for that.

It's an ugliness.

It's difficult to know how to see that, and how to see myself in it.

The best way I can describe what is happening to me from posting here as we have done is that I am seeing what they do as abusive. I didn't really label it before. And I am seeing the abuses through my own eyes instead of seeing me being abused, instead of somehow seeing myself as someone who can be treated so badly and who merits the kind of treatment they dish out because after all is said and done, that is what they did do.

It is a strange thing to know what to do with that, to think how to see that.

Very hurtful.

But do you not believe in good and evil, and that people are responsible for their choices?

There are times we cannot see what we choose. Unless my sister is fooling me about that too, she does not want to be this way and would choose something kinder if she could.

It was very hard for us, growing up.

We have mother hunger and decency hunger and all kinds of darkness within us. We declare our own names in how we love and care for our parents and our sibs and extended families and we cannot even do that. Again, I have seen families unite around accompanying the parent through fragility and loss of function and death.

So I know it is possible to do it that way.

It could be that my sister believes she is the one who knows how to heal the mother and create real relationship with her. That could be true. I don't understand the need to exclude, or the need to push even little grandchildren into that less than space if the objective is to create family.

And there is that tire rimming machine incident where my brother is concerned.

I just keep tripping over these things.

Humanization without dehumanizing, I call it. Reality filters. We see these abusers as bigger than life because they have shamed us and made us feel small and as tiny as a mouse when they are just people who we would NOT want to mimic and whom we do not even like.

Yeah.

Well except for the dinner part.

And the part where I think they are both pretty darn cute. But then there is that tire rimming machine my mother disappeared when my brother spoke up about his grands.

But not the meanness, and not the exclusion, and not the part about requiring my sister's grand to be elevated over my brother's. When I see these patterns, I just cannot believe it. I go into a little emotional flashback feeling, maybe. It could be that I am imagining the worst of this. But I just don't think so. Pasa said, on nlj's thread on Wills, something to the effect that if we did not expect our families to be wonderful, then we could accept all this with more grace. But I feel dirtied when I see what they do.

Pasa probably is right.

I just keep getting that black spider in the bathtub feeling when I think about my mom and my sister. And then, one minute later, I miss them and I wish I could see them, and I feel badly for myself regarding nieces and grands and etc.

And that stupid dinner I am always posting about. Really you two, I think we are already having that dinner. This is what it looks like.

And then, back to the spider in the tub feeling.

So, a slow moving kalidescope. But I am moving.

Very sad, to know it.

A dirtied feeling. A little like what Copa posted about being low rent.

Like that.

Again, look at the people in Charleston, SC. They do not allow themselves to be defined or defiled by their abusers, to the extent of forgiving them; believing that their faith in what is good is definition enough. And through that stance they feel their belief and their community are more powerful than the haters. And as I see them they are not victims, they are powerful and strong.

I agree with this Copa. But my sister made my already so vulnerable daughter cry at the pain of what was offered and jerked away. My own sister FB me to get all the juicy details (and I hate her for that) once she already knew them because my daughter was posting all of it. And then, my sister said: I already know.

And nothing else.

Like she was celebrating what happened to my child. And my mother was being very mean too, I am certain, but I never heard a thing from her about what was happening to my daughter.

I could just cry for the loneliness of that time, and for how scared I was. What would have happened to me then, without this site.

So I am spit done with forgiving and taking the high road where those two are concerned. Oh, brother. Here comes that stupid kalidescope feeling.

I want what I want.

I want it both ways, and I want what she did to my daughter never to have happened.

But it did.

But my sister even did that, to me and to my child, she did that. A version of what happened to all of us when our children fell and our family was falling apart, in the first place.

Vulnerability; it does not do to be vulnerable to my family of origin.

Sick, sick people. I know that from reading about the responses other families make, here on the site. They don't do what my family does.

SWOT is right.

I don't need a mother, and I don't need a sister. And since my brother isn't contacting me since all this happened, I guess I lose him by default.

I am feeling better about all of it, though.

Well, except that I'm not.

Cedar and SWOT, we have to think about opening up our work to others' on other threads. Because I for one want to continue, and I do not want either one or both of you to feel responsible for sustaining this thread. As long as we continue here, others will feel hesitant to participate. And I am seeing that there have been a few other threads on which FOO work is being done. What do you think we should do?

Would you like to start a thread with the title: An Invitation to Discuss Family of Origin Concerns or something similar? Many of us who have been wounded as we have are reluctant to post to the depth required to uncover and heal the woundedness in so open a forum.

But I am very open to beginning a new thread, Copa and SWOT.

We do have followers on this thread. Given the number of followers, I am almost certain they cannot all be my mother and my sister.

:O)

If you are following and would like to post in with an observation or with a question or an incident, please feel very welcome, everyone. The more open we can be about what is happening to us, the less guilt about it we carry. It is good and strengthening to choose the healing initiative for ourselves. Just to make that choice and go public about what has happened to us changes everything.

It is sad and scary sometimes too, but please feel most welcome to join us.

If those reading along but not posting are really my mother and my sister?

This is all SWOT and Copa's fault.

:O)

My sister means very much to me. My history, at least part of it. All that is left of my mother.

That's the thing. We are in abusive relationship with our families of origin. Think about the complexity of that. We are determined to recognize and heal the hurt of that and to go on from here free of guilt or shame.

To me, this involves seeing the ugly of the story through our own eyes, not theirs.

Maybe by the end of this process, I will be the abusive one.

"ROAR you guys better watch out!" Daffy Duck sputters. Meaning it with all her heart, she stomps off to put out the fire in her tail feathers because the part currently on fire is the priority item. The broken leg can be dealt with later.

***

I just don't know how to see myself, in this story of my own life.

Well, that is why I liked the link to Monty Python's Frenchman and the king.

That is where I am going to get to.

"We already got one. Oh yes, it's very nice."

Right there. Right in that place where I believe that with all my heart. No shadows.

Yes, or she will keep calling you.

When you are ready, then you will define the terms of the relationship, not her. Forgiving, especially to the point that we still believe in them, makes us vulnerable to them in a thousand unseen ways. Forgiving to the point we still believe in them right in the face of the things they say and do leaves us vulnerable to them, and that is dangerous to our concepts of self. We cannot continue to allow people to borrow from us, Copa and SWOT. In a way, that is what our families of origin do. They borrow forgiveness for current downright reprehensible meanness on the promise of repayment at some amorphous future date.

And we keep lending them credence and safe harbor and some weird combination of legitimacy and shame with a delighted smile in our hearts when we see them.

We need to stop smiling at them and the terrible things they do.

They mean it.

It is not an error or a clumsiness or a mistake, what they do.

So I had best stop seeing myself as Daffy Duck. I will be the rogue elephant in the room.

Trumpeting.

but I thought my sister, just like my mother, was so powerful that she crowded a room and I could barely fit into it.

I will have to see whether that is what I think. I think I feel like not a thing makes any sense at all where my family is concerned. I have the sense that they think "What would Cedar do." sums it up. To ridicule that way that I am.

That was really very hurtful.

Not that I am not mean or don't hate with fiery intensity. I do. But I don't act on that because I don't want to hurt anyone. And I just don't get the win in what they do.

D H does.

He says I will be vulnerable to them if and when he is no longer here.

I made her this important person who had so much emotional control over my heart that she could demolish me

I see this, SWOT. Our sisters and mothers are meant to hold heartspace. all the moms and sisters I know hold that special heartspace for one another and for all the grands. It is that our moms and sisters are snakes. Maybe they are snakes. And it is hard to put those two realities together and come out knowing who that makes us.

The rogue elephant; trumpeting at the stupidly hurtful injustice it.

I swear, I am so sick of these exclusionary policies.

Roar.

Now that I look back, I realize that my very perception of her was an emotional flashback to my mother, whom I saw the same way...as something I had to have in order to be whole. I feel like an idiot wasting all these years giving so much credit to two such damaged people who really are not important at all and who are just human beings who happen to share my DNA. There's nothing like bad lluck...lol.

Oh, SWOT. That's very good thinking. I especially like the part about two such damaged people. Little resistance there about them not being important.

I really like that global emotional flashback piece. I kept putting those feelings together with a particular incident. But it makes perfect sense that I would be coming from overwhelming emotional flashback through every interaction involving my mom and my sister.

I am afraid of my mom, too.

She is so freaking mean. Well, that makes sense, doesn't it. She picked mean every time when we were little. No one forced her to do those things, those terribly destructive things, to her own children.

My brother was very handsome; he has beautiful eyes too, like my father did.

That did not protect him, either.

It is hard to hold both pictures of my mother. What she did and does and what my responsibility toward her, and toward everyone in my family, seems to be. Those were never my responsibilities. Those feelings are where I parentified myself to make it better for all of us. And here is the terrible cost to me in all that: I believed that was a value as true as the value of an education or a belief in oneself or a right to pursue creating a life that had nothing to do with laundry or dinner or breakfast or sweet rolls.

So I will do those things now, then.

It surprises me to think like that, now. To know that inside myself I still believe it is more important to try to be together as family than to be myself, than to claim the right to fight to challenge and create my life in a way that does not reflect that family dinner I am always posting about. It's like I cannot move on until that can be who we all are.

I am seeing changes in my actions now. I host Book Club tomorrow. I am not even scouring or pulling weeds from the gardens or worrying about how to welcome everyone and be happy like I usually do. In fact, if I don't get busy here, the windows are not even going to be clean. This is very different for me. When Baklava grand was here, I did not worry so much about food or whether she was happy or even, whether I gave good advice.

I don't give advice, anymore.

We were just all here together. Her visit here was so nice, and we are not even worried about how she will do in her life. She is very strong and gentle and sweet and has many good, good friends.

That is different for me. I generally worry about clothes and diet and friends and life plans.

It has to do with trusting her to be just fine, I suppose.

("We already got one. Oh yes, it's very nice.")

So those are all good things. Now, we just need to finish up this opening our eyes about our families of origins part.

We are doing well.

I feel like an idiot wasting all these years giving so much credit to two such damaged people who really are not important at all and who are just human beings who happen to share my DNA. There's nothing like bad lluck...lol.

That's funny and very cool, SWOT.

Ha!

"There's nothing like bad luck...." re family of origin. That's a good way to look at it, SWOT.

:O)

Humanization without dehumanizing, I call it. Reality filters. We see these abusers as bigger than life because they have shamed us and made us feel small and as tiny as a mouse when they are just people who we would NOT want to mimic and whom we do not even like.

I liked this one so much I put it in here twice.

True.

But then I get that circle over the protectiveness thing I have going on.

But "What would Cedar do." is a pretty cheap shot.

Those dirty rats, to treat me like that. The clip from Dragnet goes here. Joe Friday, recounting all the things that make him legitimate, whatever the criminal says.

Yay. I am finally standing up for myself. Usually, in my secret heart? I feel ridiculed and foolish and so ashamed, when I know they did that behind my back while I was planning that dinner where everyone would swing on the rooftop restaurant while the sun went down.

I sound pretty sappy even to myself.

You both are right. I did what I did. Now, I will not do that anymore.

I chose me with no hesitation.

Well, okay. I choose me with a little confusion. It is true though that I would not do what they do because I don't get how the win it it could be a win.

Ever.

In fact, it's offensive.

Okay.

I choose me.

My way I think is just fine.

The point was not to talk about it or reconcile. The point was only to hurt me. So he's not high on my Love Parade either.

The point was only to hurt me. That is the win.

Or to hurt my brother.

Huh.

I've taken too much and know what real love really is now...I can't do it, can't do it, can't do it anymore. I gave it a good try. I did try.

I can't unsee what I know.

I can't cheat.

This is a good point too, SWOT.

I know what real love is now, too. That is what I meant when I said to my sister that I did love her, that I loved her too much to do it this way.

I like the part about never cheating.

And about knowing what we undeniably do know.

And changing the look of things from their perspective to mine.

They have no right of access to me.

I was thinking about that yesterday. I was sort of pretending to be a big shot re: my sister. And what I said, relative to what happened between she and my daughter was, "What this cost you was me."

So, there's that. I believe I hold a value there that I do not hold.

I feel animals are as valuable as people, and I love my dogs with all my heart.

Me, too. All animals. But spiders. And I really don't like woodticks.

How can anyone love somebody who can't love them back? It makes no logical sense and can only lead to heartbreak, as it has for all of us. But we are learning.

Copa, your sister is flesh and blood, nothing more.

And my mom, and my sister, too.

Here's the thing. In my mind's eye, I see my sister all forlorn and with tears in her eyes. But that was my mother's doing. I did not do that to her. What I did do was the best I could. And I was just a little kid, too.

That's where the feelings of fraudulence and failure come in, maybe.

Even with that first therapist. Whatever he meant when he said that, what I heard was that I hadn't been thinking right or behaving right and so, was judged and named and abandoned.

But that was therapy! I get to do whatever I want. Who cares if we look foolish to our therapists. But I also had that thing going on about what I may have done to my daughter to leave her no choice but to act out the family pain in that way.

Man, that was tough.

I haven't posted that he invited me to a gathering his friends were having, a goodbye party.

Of course I didn't go.

I am still so confused around everything to do with that.

I must be stepping into seeing from my own eyes as regards that first therapist. He certainly shows up here alot. Which makes sense. He could only hurt me through wounds that were already there. Retraumatized trauma. Emotional flashback.

Copa, your sister is flesh and blood, nothing more.

And so is that first therapist.

:O)

If you want to tell her how you feel, you have that right and a thunderbolt won't come crashing on your head. Of course, you don't have to do it, but your sister is no more powerful than you are. We are all valuable. We all matter. Somebody else only has as much power over you as you allow. I allowed FOO to have that power for too long.

Yeah! What SWOT said.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

You must deal with the world the way it is, not the way you expect it to be. Life is under no obligation to give you exactly what you expect. In fact, whatever it is you’re seeking will rarely ever come in the form you’re expecting, but that doesn’t make it any less wonderful.

True.

Think positive. Life is good. Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting pure gold. Positive thinking isn’t about expecting the best to always happen, but accepting that whatever happens is the best for the moment. So keep smiling and keep staying true to your heart. Someday, the negative voice inside you will have nothing left to say.

Yes. Brene Brown's concept of leaning in fits in well, here.

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk said, when asked about negative emotions, that our life journeys are a practice.

I liked that very much.

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

First, I think it is harder because your Mom is dead. And she was so cruel as to not permit you to love her as she died. Because I believe you would have. And had less pain, because of it.

I would have loved her all my life if she had let me. But it was not an option. What she did from the grave finished off any feeling I had left for her. I do have a point of no return. If she was going to disinherit me, she should have stopped cheating and told me flat out that she didn't want to talk to me anymore; that I am not her daughter. I would have been terribly hurt, but would have respected her more if s he'd done that instead of taking the coward's way out. But she was always a coward. Emotionally, that is. She didn't have to answer my lphone calls. She could have hung up.

That she gave me hope that she at least considered me a daughter...that is why I hate her and I vacillate between hate and apathy. Apathy is more like it after so long. I see this same deceit in my brother. Confront me, coward. Send a note about what bothers you about me? Cowardly. My sister I can credit with at least STARTLING conversations. She just would not finish them if she didn't like my answers. Then she'd disappear. I d id this too sometimes, but never in a million years would I talk to one of my children if I intended on considering that child not mine after my death. I could envision/feel how that would be to him/her. Of course, I don't disown. I've never disowned anybody first. I should have.

Maybe that makes ME a coward too. Family of cowards and clowns and fakes.

My therapist told me to write a letter to my mother too. I did. I threw it out. Never in a million years would I have mailed it.

Like I said before, if this journey showed me one shocking thing, it is that I am NOT the crazy one or the one with the most issues. I'm the one who can have close relationships and keep them for long periods of time/forever. I'm the one who learned not to pick narcissists to help me fulfill my dreams.I'm the one who sees the truth and is not in denial.

I am the one who got the most help and it shows. That doesn't mean I have no damage. It would have been impossible to live in my chaotic childhood home and not have had damage.

But at least one of them is far more damaged than I am and the other has never had an ongoing long term close relationship with anybody ever. My sister pretends and keeps her true feelings to herself and it comes out in those peeps she chooses to hang with. My brother...I can't know what his issues are. He is physically sick, but a lot of people are and they still have love and families. I guess being there for his students is a good thing, but you really don't have to get close to them in t hat special way you do with a partner so that may be one reason he uses them rather than a SO. I don't know. With our family history, I can only guess.

It must be lonely for them. They have not been particularly close through the years. All that's left is each other. At least my sister has kids though. How close she is to them, I have no idea.

 

[BusynMember]

But I just don't think so. Pasa said, on nlj's thread on Wills, something to the effect that if we did not expect our families to be wonderful, then we could accept all this with more grace. But I feel dirtied when I see what they do.

Well...I feel she is right...and wrong. If we are upset because of normal family differences that Beaver Cleaver's family didn't have, yes, the bar is set too high. After all, a family is made of humans and we are all flawed. But the stuff we went through, and that even remains now, is far beyond normal. It's more like The Adams family...haha. Wait! No! They loved each other! Frankenstein?

 

[BusynMember]

My own sister FB me to get all the juicy details (and I hate her for that) once she already knew them because my daughter was posting all of it. And then, my sister said: I already know.

How mean.

It's partly why I hate FB. Predators breed there. Yuk.

 

[BusynMember]

But I am very open to beginning a new thread, Copa and SWOT.

I really believe that many people here have alluded to having bad family problems but they just don't want to post them here, which is why they haven't. It is hard to open up. To some I'm sure it is even harder to do it on a forum. Some are not ready to share. Some will never share and that's their business even if they don't even share with a therapist or minister or good friend. That is their business. Some still feel afraid that it's wrong to say their family is made up of not-so-nice people.

"Doctor, my mother wasn't a bad mother. I was just a terrible kid."

Remember, that was what I told every psychiatrist and therapist when I first went for help. It took forever for me to admit that this was a ridiculous statement. I never could have shared then. I would have been appalled that anyone thought their own mother was POISON!

I feel people will post if they want to and if they aren't it's because for differing reasons, they just can't or don't want to.

I mean, I think everyone knows they are welcome to join in.