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

[InsaneCdn]

Not every one of is as bold as I am... I've added a couple of comments along the line. I'm one who will not be posting to the extent of SWOT, Cedar and Copa. But it helps to read along with others' stories, and once in a while I might even have something to add.

I do find that when a thread gets beyond a certain size (for me, double-digit page numbers), it tends to be used mostly by the main posters on that thread and others back off. So, if you want others to feel more free to join in, it pays to start a new thread from time to time.

 

[BusynMember]

Well, IC has a point about long threads...if you post a new heading, I'll just follow there.

 

[Copabanana]

First, my thoughts about the thread. I have no problem continuing on this thread. Like SWOT, I will find you where you go, if needed. What are the dangers that others may be afraid of that keep from doing so? I would like to know.

QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 659615, member: 17461"]I just don't know how to see myself, in this story of my own life.[/QUOTE]This is simple. Just put yourself in the Center.

Start visually. There are so many fun things you can do. Google Life Maps or something like that.

I do not think I have trouble in how I see myself in my life. (Well of course I do. I lie here. What I mean to say here is that I see myself as the protagonist of my own life.)My trouble is that my sister holds pieces of my life (I had mis-typed lie, that too) that I still treasure. Mostly my mother. I own my history.

Well, clearly I am a bit confused about the above paragraph, typing first lie, and then life. And lying, too, about how I see myself in my lie, I mean life. Is this sense of being me, then, itself a lie? Returning to the narrative, of which I had thought I was the author:

Except that she (my sister) does not treasure them (those pieces). She never did. That is the difference between us and them.

And of course, all that does glitter is not gold. And being an educated woman, I know that treasure, too, can have it's underside. But that does not take away what I wrote to you:

From the time you were a tiny girl, you protected a piece of you. And you never stopped. And our sisters did not do this.

It is like how you talk about locus of control. No matter how powerless you were you kept a piece of yourself clean and safe, if only to WITNESS. And with that, it was everything.

While they acted in way that looked self-protecting, making this and that alliance, ratting out this or that sibling...they did so lacking this solid center. Whoever was the powerful figure had to be placated. So that their welfare was always contingent upon doing someone else's bidding, always with an external locus of control.

So their lives have seen a progressive weakening of self, a losing of vitality and strength and meaning. Not a consolidation.

But yours has not been this. For some reason, however, you persist, as if that solid center is not fully there. But it is.

Cedar, I cannot remember having met people with as solid sense of self as have you and SWOT.

"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 am Daffy. In fact, I may change my user name. Right now.

Cedar, I always made myself a little bit of a joke. A Ditz. A Chestnut-haired now dull grey Dumb Blonde. And other women really did not like this quality. And I would not give it up. Except now I cannot translate this quality into Spanish. I mean, a most cherished part, is lost in translation. My Mother could play this part privately, but in public she was elegant and warm and self-assured. But I played the role in public. Because I felt that I would not be as vulnerable if I damaged myself first, before others had the chance to do it.

But it worked out that they went after me more. After all, the blood was already in the water, why not pile on?

And, still, if I could translate Daffy into Spanish I would do so, in a heartbeat.

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

Me, too.

I was scared of my mother's anger.

Me, too. Deadly afraid.

I was even more afraid of my sister's anger.

Less, afraid but still substantially so. But I was afraid of her. And that is worse.

There is a quote somewhere of yours or SWOT's that I want to find and put here but cannot find. You can imagine it here:

I was the strongest in my adult life with my sister, when in middle age I made myself gloriously gorgeous and sexy. Stunning. *Like my Mother.

Cedar, get this: 4 inch Alligator stiletto heels. Italian. Willowy thin. Hair. Let's not even go there. Pencil thin wool skirts. Legs. Get Outta Here. Armani Jackets. Or Italian Leather. I made myself a VAMP. Nothing, nobody could touch me. I mean they flopped and flipped like with Plague Spray.

This was when I was flying back and forth from Rio and any place in the world I wanted....Like THAT.

OK I spent everything I had doing it. But do I second guess myself. NEVER.

SWOT, I not only dominated the room (OK, in my own mind. But isn't this all of it, really?) I held it in thrall.

So, I am trying to get back there. But I got old. And I gained 60 pounds. And everything about me got grey. And tired, And used up. And sad. And scared.(They do not list in Instyle Mag or Vogue, living as dead, as a beauty hint.)

I am trying to lose weight but so far it has only been 1 pound a month. And sustaining my hope is not easy.

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

This is all SWOT and Copa's fault.

Yeah. Come and get it. I'm ready for yuh.

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

This morning I put on my imaginary boxing gloves and I started to punch out M (stand-in for his sister, and mine and yours *X2. I gave him blow after blow to the gut.

It felt great and I wondered if in big cities there is boxing for the women over 60 set. You cannot imagine the satisfaction.

And I have always wanted to have a street fight. I mean grabbing hair and stomping. Yes. I never got to have one when I was in Junior High, but watched them in the sand lot. What a worthy goal.

M is going through something horrible and I with him. It wakes up all of the fear and fear of victimization while my Mom was vulnerable to my sister.

Except then, I could act to protect us. And now I cannot do one thing.

I wake up in pain.

A sister convinced his father to sign over the parents's house to her NOW. And she has taken power over the whole family, after robbing her parents. She kicked out of the house a sister, who had a little storefront in the living room window. This sister helped and watched and protected her mother who is STILL at 85 beaten by her jealous husband who will not let her leave the house because of lovers who only exist in his demented head.

Except he has always been this way.

And the scariest thing is the handicapped brother (I think he was a sniffer of paint) who will have nowhere to go and nobody to care for him--if this sister throws him to the dogs.

Except M will not allow this. Except what can he do? He cannot leave the country. And come back.

He feels defeated by evil. I know he does. And it is a horrible sight to see. And feel.

The sister with the stationary store in the window takes responsibility and is loving and honorable (but M says she is a little foolish, too) would have cared for her brother for his whole life (even though he carries around sh-it in his pockets because he is afraid of people.

I do not know why evil wins.

And I tooooold M that he needed to talk to his Dad and explain that the house needs to be left to the disabled son or stipulated that everybody has the right to stay there until their death, and who cares for the brother as well.

So I get frantic that nobody listens to me. And now I feel like I too am being tortured by that sister. Whose daughters are now threatening everybody that if they fool with their Mama and they, they will spill all of the family secrets and ruin everybody.

And they are threatening a street fight. Yes. This is why I had to put my boxing gloves on. They said they will get on a plane and go down there and fight everybody. These are Senoritas. NOT. And they will spill our secrets too, if we do not respect their mother's right to destroy the family. Because once as my Mother was dying, not knowing who this young woman really was, I told her a couple of secrets about us, and asked her not to tell.

And this is the story of what happens in families...where abuse is not confronted by naming it and rooting it out. Or leaving.

M tried to tell his sister...you are giving your daughters schooling that they will use to do the same thing to you. An escuelita in abuse are what your daughters are receiving.

After all, my sister learned at the knee of my mother. As did yours. EVERY LITTLE THING.

And she repeated it against her teacher.

So when the daughters of the sister, his nieces, came to cozy up to M. Hola Tio. Kiss Kiss Kiss. He said: "Just like Judas."

And he felt good, because his mother who sat beside him, said not one thing.

But sometimes, being on the side of right is not enough. I would do anything to crush this sister. Anything. So I will have to learn to box.

I will be the rogue elephant in the room.

Trumpeting.

While I still cling to Daffy. Excuse me. I must for a minute attend to my tail feathers.

"What this cost you was me."

Yes. And I believe this is just. But you are not withholding yourself as just deserts. You are doing so because you know now who she is and you know so irrefutably. Because I cannot imagine that you will ever, ever, be with her as you once were.

Cedar, it will never be different. Those parishioners in South Carolina have each other. They have a community of faith which they share. However much your husband understands he cannot defend you completely because he does not have imprinted in him the key code.

And the fundamental issue is this: do you really want to make and share that dinner that really is a street fight. And you are the only one who does not know it. Because it will always be that.

Except for me, if I lose 50 pounds.

 

[BusynMember]

There is a quote somewhere of yours or SWOT's that I want to find and put here but cannot find. You can imagine it here:

Probably Cedar's quote. I had some good family relief laughs with my sister, but not much else and it was always on again, off again. And I was never glamorous nor was my mother. Both of us were attractive through sheer luck, if that is something you value.

 

[BusynMember]

SWOT, I not only dominated the room (OK, in my own mind. But isn't this all of it, really?) I held it in thrall.

Wow That's impressive.

In crowds, I was known best for "I'm sure I drove her here. Where is she now?"

Glamorous people both intimidated and shamed me, probably because I was teased so badly by people who were allegedly glamorous, or thought they were. Plus, in between all of that, I had my own secret contempt for people who put values on those things.An uncomfortable oxymoron. They intimated me yet I loathed them, and not because of any jealousy. I can get jealous, but not because of what you own or how much money you have in the bank or if you are prettier than me.

I have always tried my very hardest to be glamorously down-to-earth I never wanted anyone to think I was stuck up in any way. Point of honor with me.

 

[BusynMember]

I cannot remember having met people with as solid sense of self as have you and SWOT.

I had no sense of self at all coming out of my parent's house. I became whoever I was with. That's why I went along with my sister calling my brother gross and ugly. If I had the gonads of an...ant?...I would have told her to stop it, I loved my brother. Back then, I loved him very much. But back then I cheated too. I cheated so much that I didn't even know who or what I was.

My sense of self came later when I was away from them and I worked on my codependency which made me simply somebody who tried to please whoever I was with (failing badly). This, by the way, did not include my mother. I resented her from early on and did not try to please her all the time. But, then, I did in some ways. Like sh e was a prude and having sex and doing drugs was the ultimate baaaaaaaaaaaad thing to do when I was a teen. To her. And, partly to be "good" (as I self-talked myself) I lost many boyfriends because I wouldn't let them touch me anywhere sexual, no matter how much they or I cared for them so not many lasted. But I was a virgin when I got married. I also did not do drugs although under tremendous peer pressure. I did not shop lift. I did not break the law at all.

Well, once I did. I bought my sister and her friends booze for some high school ballgame. I was about 23 so she was underage, but I did it. Why? It was pretty out of character for me and I can't remember why. I probably wanted too please her and make her think I was cool. My sister welded a tremendous amount of power over me, far more than my brother. I really wanted her to like me. I thought she had it all together and I admired her for that.

It was just an illusion I had.

When I was in a psychiatric hospital at age 23 for ten weeks for depression, I had to take many psychiatric tests, very detailed. One had questions and I only remember two of them.

1. More than anything I want to be _______.

2. Most people are ________.

I put "good" in both blanks. I never would do that today, but back then all I wanted to be was the good girl that my mother said I wasn't. I so badly wanted to be good. And I had no core.

I have a very strong core now, but I had to dump the idea that I had to always be "Good" first. And good to me meant pleasing. You should have seen how much crapola I took from my first husband because I thought I deserved it and wanted him to love me. We have since discussed our own issues in the marriage and become friends, but he had married an empty shell who felt she did not deserve to occupy the earth.

Sorry.

Carry on.

 

[Copabanana]

Both of us were attractive through sheer luck, if that is something you value.

SWOT,I was raised in a home where the most important thing, was my mother's looks.

I remember her coming home from work telling me (I was 8) that somebody told her she looked like Sophia Loren.

I remember that there was a discussion about whether I should go to foster care, if my father did not send that month's alimony and child support. That my mother worked and earned a good enough salary to support herself and her kids, did not matter, if she had not the will or responsibility to do so.

And I remember going to her closet and counting her coats: A camel hair, a cashmere and a gabardine. And we lived in a city with a mild climate, and she could have gotten by with no coats. And I remember thinking, if she can have 3 coats, and these beautiful dresses, am I not worth as much as a coat?

And I was not.

So my whole life, I shunned beautiful clothes. And I tried to cover up what about me was pretty. Because I needed to give all of that to my Mother. If she needed it so much, more than she needed her children, it was hers, to have.

And then one day I decided to claim my piece of it.

Because remember, SWOT, I had been raised in a home where this was the only important thing. And I had built myself into much, much more.

But I went back, and I got it. And I loved it. But it was never a value. Never my value.

But buried inside me I had learned to value it, to worship it, and to feel that without it, I was powerless, and worth nothing.

If I was not pretty, I was nothing on some level and not worth anything. That I did not want to live. I have told M that. If I cannot lose my weight, I want to die.

Because after my Mother died, I came to feel that nothing about me mattered except as seen through her eyes. And that is the truth.

So it is not my value. Except it is. I learned it at my mother's knee.

 

[BusynMember]

And I have always wanted to have a street fight. I mean grabbing hair and stomping. Yes. I never got to have one when I was in Junior High, but watched them in the sand lot. What a worthy goal.

LOLOLOL!!! How funny.

That's one goal I don't have. but how funny.

 

[BusynMember]

So it is not my value. Except it is. I learned this value at my mother's knees, about myself.

Oh, Copa, of course it's her value that you latched onto. I have done the same.

I still have long hair

And I did pick up her value of being non-materialistic, which I feel was one good thing I did pick up from her. It is so much easier to be content if you don't care if you have an old car or clothes from Walmart. I'm dead serious here. I picked that up from her and I value it.

And she also didn't really care about having a lot of money and picked that up too and I'm grateful. It is much easier to happy also if you don't care if you have extra money.

She taught me...it was her voice in my head...not to be "a loose girl." I have never been promiscuous and have a very strong value system, morals-wise. I probably would bore some people, make others puke. Like I've never been drunk in my life (truth) and find it revolting, like my mother did, at least when I knew her. I don't think she ever drank either.

Those are three parts of me that are ingrained into me by my mother and, except for becoming less rigid about drinking, I'm actually glad she taught me to do without happily.But to this day, I don't care if you drink, but if you start drinking around me and I know it's going to be enough to make you "tipsy" I'm going to find a reason to go home. Prudeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Her values did not bother me. Her words about how selfish I was, how lazy I was, how useless I was, how stupid I was...her mocking and taunting, her baiting a little kid and teen who had trouble controlling herself as it was...her not even trying to find out what was wrong, labeling under one name of "BAD" is why I hear negative voices about myself in my head. And her letting her stupid brother call me "the brat." That must be a really defining moment in my childhood for me to remember it...this was before we lived in a house so I was definitely under five. And my uncle wasn't a big deal in my life, but I remember that. Clear as day. And remember her chuckling, "Now, Uncle..." chuckling. She was in the other room. I was in a bedroom, not sure whose. Yes, I'm sure he didn't touch me or a nything, but the memory is very strong...

Who allows anyone to call their under five year old kid "The Brat" in front of them?

Today I know I am actually very generous and not a brat at all, but it took me until my 40's to even entertain the idea that I may have a solid core and some worthy traits. That I deserved to have peeps in my life who were actually good to me. That I didn't deserve to be punished.

 

[Copabanana]

My multi quote is not working. So I copied.

"I was teased so badly by people who were allegedly glamorous, or thought they were...They intimated me yet I loathed them." SWOT

SWOT, can you see that I loathed myself, and may still do so?

That I felt that I had less value to my mother than one of her coats? And that that scheme of value, existed pretty much for her whole life?

And that even though I lived my life opposing it, and doing everything I could to become a good and substantial person, that old standard became resurgent now that I am so depressed.

It is not my standard of value, but it is the standard against which I value myself. And I seem to loath myself, because I cannot measure up, now.

And it is pathetic that an old woman, feels trapped in a body that is old and hurting and fat...and feels she does not even deserve to live if she cannot pretend she has value.

And being stunning or thinking I could be something of value when with my sister, because look at the word I wrote: Stun. Like knock out. Or temporarily robbing somebody of their power.

Because if you look at what I wrote, I described somebody that felt temporarily untouchable because the ability of others to harm her, was momentarily neutralized.

I am describing a person who feels so vulnerable, so without defenses, that she cannot even be in relation to others...like her sister...without knocking them out. Like being "a knock out."

And isn't it just so sad, SWOT? That I feel so about myself.

I do not and never wanted to be better or have more than anyone at all. All I wanted to be is safe. Not thrown out of my family. Not killed off.

I never wanted to attract anybody or compete with anybody. I just wanted to be able to stay in my family. Without being destroyed.

 

[BusynMember]

And isn't it just so sad, SWOT? That I feel so about myself.

It's a very sad post. I am seriously tearing up. It's terrible.

 

[BusynMember]

I never wanted to attract anybody or compete with anybody. I just wanted to be able to stay in my family. Without being destroyed.

OMG.

Yes.

Me too.

Exactly.

Didn't work out to well for us, did it?

 

[Copabanana]

Sorry.

SWOT, Why are you saying you are sorry? Quit that.

If I had the gonads of an...ant?...I would have told her to stop it, I loved my brother. Back then, I loved him very much. But back then I cheated too. I cheated so much that I didn't even know who or what I was.

SWOT, how could you have? You had been stomped on and stomped on.

This makes me think of my sister. She did not stand up for me either. And I understand. She was a little girl.

But she could have changed, like you did. She could have decided who she wanted to be, like you did. And become somebody who knows and does the right thing. But she didn't. Instead, she doubled down.

Well, once I did. I bought my sister and her friends booze for some high school ballgame. I was about 23 so she was underage, but I did it.

I did this,too, SWOT. And I got arrested. And I went to jail. It was horrible. When I was 21.

but he had married an empty shell who felt she did not deserve to occupy the earth.

Yes, but not for long, SWOT. Everybody when you think about it, is an empty shell in their 20's. Filled only with the stuff of their parents and from school.

It takes work to become yourself, to really decide to be your own person, to choose what you value and live it. And this is what you did SWOT. And my sister did not.

I feel sad for her, too.

But I believe in free will. She had free will. But chose poorly.

Ours is a sad, sad story, SWOT.

 

[BusynMember]

Ours is a sad, sad story, SWOT.

It is. The worse part for me is that nobody else saw it or will admit it. I mean, everyone else can pick it up just by:

"When I held you I felt nothing, absolutely nothing" and

"Stan Mikita, I caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare! Bobby Hull, I caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare. But you don't give a *&%& about your family or anyone but yourself." The drama, the sarcasm.

Others are shocked the few times I confided in somebody who came from a normal loving home (and ours weren't). I tell them my father told me once that not one of us gave him any pleasure, not a moment, not one."

I told somebody who was becoming a close friend.The shock on her face said it all. To me, it was no big deal that he said that. Although I love him dearly maybe because he loves me or hates me as much as the others...lol...he used to say stuff like that a lot. Mother was more specific to me. "You're baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!" my own siblings did not see it or dismissed it. She abused my father too. Badly. He abused her as well, but not as much in my opinion. She liked to bait people whom she knew were sensitive and quick to feel bad about themselves therefore she could bait them into responding in anger. She did this with me. She did t his with my father. Then she would cry like an innocent victim, as if she hadn't known what she was doing. Not saying either me nor my father should have reacted, but I was just a kid when she started it and my dad was my dad. She knew how to play him. She did. In a very cruel way. I heard her mocking him late at night when nobody was paying attention to me. And I wanted to tell her to just leave him alone so there could be peace in the house. Yes, maybe unfair, but I blamed her as more guilty. He was impuslive. She was deliberately cold and cruel.

I was a child when she started to bait me.

Baiting is very abusive. My sister is great at it. I am too, but do not use those skills any longer, I hope.

"You're a crazy borderline." That's a bait.

I didn't take the bait the last time. I won't now.

But I will say yes I have always had problems, but, sweetie, yours were just as severe. You just had a better facade and nobody really knew you.

Copa, you are such a giving, caring person. I am so sorry you suffered so badly and I do feel it was worse than what happened to me. Cedar as well. But it's all bad. To be a "normal" adult, all a parent has to do is show adequate parenting skills. That is not what our parents did and neither we nor our siblings show normal abilities to have good relationships. Partly, I learned, but I had to get away first.

I would never ever ever bait my children, kids or adult. Ever. It's so mean. I would never slap any of them from the grave. I could not do it and feel ok with myself.

I am basically a logical thinker, though, a nd although we have had it rough, so many others do too. Most who do end up with intimacy issues, attachment disorders, fakeness, codependency, abandonment issues...the whole slew.

I find myself looking at parents in stores. My God, they look so YOUNG.And I see the ones who coo and smile at their children and those who are rough with them to see if I can guess how their life at home is. I was working once at Goodwill and some lady and her husband were deriding a little boy, calling him a girl, laughing at how he was acting like a girl because he wanted a doll and cried when he couldn't have it. They made "he's a girl" jokes all the way until they walked out of my hearing range while the poor little poor, maybe three, cried piteously. I wanted to confront them. It made me so angry inside. The harm they were doing. Making fun of their son, who was so small and innocent.

This verbal abuse continues today and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder will live on to see another day.

But we are healing from it by being real about it to one another and the hell if somebody else doesn't believe us. This is good for me. For once, I am doing what is good for me.

And my mother, sister and brother (and uncle, whatever part he has in this) did not make me hateful to my REAL peeps. They were unsuccessful at making me people I was so bad that I could not raise a loving family. And have a loving parnter. And be loved.

All of our FOOs failed to destroy us. I do not feel destroyed anymore. It's been inside of me, waiting to come out, but since getting married the second time, I have no complaints about my life at all except for my FOO whenever they surface for some drama. And they can't anymore.

I already quit the part of scapegoat.

And I won't cheat.

 

[Copabanana]

She liked to bait people whom she knew were sensitive and quick to feel bad about themselves therefore she could bait them into responding in anger. She did this with me. She did this with my father.

She wanted the immediate feedback. The blood. And she didn't want to wait.

I told M today that I saw his sister. I really saw her. With blood dripping out of her mouth, her eye teeth shining against the dripping blood.

This is good for me. For once, I am doing what is good for me.

What do you mean, for once? SWOT, for as long as you have had ability to do so, you have lived, doing good. For yourself and your family. What is more important than this?

I already quit the part of scapegoat.
And I won't cheat.

And when I figure out how to do it, I will follow you. But I keep taking a wrong turn, and ending up in some culdesac or dead end street in the same nasty neighborhood.

Let me tell you an anecdote. When I first went to live in Rio, (my 3rd visit) I went to a Kilograma to eat. Where they weigh the food you take, and charge you only for that. I loved this place.

And all of a sudden the patrons started running towards the back of the place to the large pizza oven, screaming. So I followed too, not understanding why; not knowing of what I was frightened, I hid there too, in the pizza oven.

And it turned out, a young man had attempted to rob the owner, with a gun to his back.

And I had seen everything, but not known what it was. I had not understood exactly why the robber was smiling and the owner looked so frightened. Or why the robber was walking so closely behind the owner, while he was smiling.

I had watched it all, but could not figure it out.

And still when the gunshots started I could not figure it out.

Until the screaming and the running started.

I understood fear.

And I was afraid.

And as I write this, it is this way in our families. We cannot figure it out: the smiling robber/guns to our backs/and fear. We cannot put it together.

Until it is revealed to be what it really is.

I had seen: A hostage. A robbery. Deception. Terror.

And I did not know.

I could not put it together into a sentence that made sense to me. Until it was spelled out to be what it was.

So I waited inside that pizza oven until the smiling young man robber was killed in the street by the police.

And I walked out into the sun. The beautiful sun.

And was I afraid, any longer? Or ever again in that beautiful City? Not one second. And never again. The truth had been revealed for what it was. And it was not me. Nor was it my fault.

 

[BusynMember]

Beautiful, Copa! Just beautiful!!!!!! Love it!

 

[BusynMember]

I did this,too, SWOT. And I got arrested. And I went to jail. It was horrible. When I was 21.

I didn't even think of going to jail or I never would have done it. As it was, I knew nobody was going to tell my mother because Sis would have gotten into trouble too.

But, man, what was I thinking? What a lame thing to do. It was so wrong on so many levels and went against my own values. I do not think drinking is good...why did I help her drink?

Because I wanted her to like me.

And that is no excuse at all. See what a mess I was? I think the 20s were my worst years, even worse than when I lived in that loonybin. At least I understood the craziness of my house rules as they pertained to me when I was there. Now the world was a whole different experience. I was not taught how to be an adult in t he real world and my childhood was a fantasy. And, unlike some people, I did not pick up social norms well. On top of everything else, and I'm hardly looking for pity, I am not quite neurotypical so I don't learn by copying what others do. Made it doubly hard for me. I think my 20s were more crazy and chaotic than most 20s because I was trying to survive in the wilderness, so to speak. The world was a wilderness and very alien to what I'd known...

Again, flogging myself for what I did just to try to make my sister like me. What a waste. What a bad thing for me to do. It's not like I WANTED her to drink. I never drank. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. This time at me.

 

[BusynMember]

And when I figure out how to do it, I will follow you. But I keep taking a wrong turn, and ending up in some culdesac or dead end street in the same nasty neighborhood.

Copa, we all have our own ways of doing it.
After my grandmother died, my mother grew more vile than ever toward me and I pulled away from her and half the time my sister didn't speak to me and I wasn't really in touch with my brother who lived on the East coast much either. So I was out of the family loop and it helped me. The more I pulled away, the more it helped me.

Even though I wanted to mend with my mom before she died, and called her, it was not a real connection. So it didn't affect me that much. I could go on to explore real loving relationships and I did.

For me the only path was detachment. I did better every single time my sister got mad and cut me off. And worse when she was around. So the limited contact was helpful too. She had almost the same power over me as my mother.

My solution is to go radio silent and not cheat by looking at their social media. Should have gone that far years ago, but I didn't. Still things got better. In the end of my years with sister, I actually did not feel like she was powerful anymore. Since her divorce, I was shocked to find her rather pathetic and weak and masochistic. So her influence over my emotions was much less. I saw myself as having a better life and having made better choices than her. So for quite a while I have not had consistent relationships with my FOO and for me that is how I got to where I am, in that happy place where peace rules and strife is very rare.

I can't help others decide what to do. But th is is what I had to do and did. I know I tried my hardest to make every relationship improve, even my mother by my phone calls, but I failed. I can't control them and I refuse to let them control me. At least, in my freedom from them, they can no longer tell me what to do. My sister can't tell me who I can be FB friends with or where to post or what I can post. She can not criticize me. She can not call me, yell at me, and hang up. I have blocked her so she can't text me or call me and, if she did get threw ( like maybe I did it wrong), I would not read her text or listen to her talking.

It is over. I feel I won, if it were some kind of race for having the best life.

Copa, you will find your way.

You sister is no asset to you.

You are 100% kinder than she is. Why let somebody like that upset you? She is not worth the time.

There is nothing wrong with saying, "I'm done." We can say it in subtle ways such as not answering the phone or responding to texts. We do not need to confront.

Most Adult Children do not like confrontation...thus you and I get passive aggressive snideness. I get a cowardly letter from brother. And a text from Sissy saying she is glad I'm doing better after surgery and lying by telling me my father told her. He didn't tell her. She was reading this.

She is probably still reading this so she knew. Frankly, I don't think she would have cared if I died (shrug). Her text was really "out there from nowhere." I just answered "thank you."

My dad was not happy that she lied about Dad telling me about the surgery. I had sworn him to secrecy and he had kept his promise. Thankfully that did lead to a really good conversation with my father in the end so all's well that end's well.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Hi, IC

:O)

Thanks for the comment. I like it very much that you are here with us.

So, I have been thinking about the differences in all of us in so short a time. It was SWOT's feelings of rejection and the intense negativity in those old tapes playing and playing away on KFCD that had me thinking about that, I think.

That happens to me too, periodically. Times when the negatives are so strong seem to happen with the healing. I see it as trapped energy, released into consciousness. If we can hold ourselves with compassion, if we can listen for the exact words beneath the feelings, or for the voice speaking the words, or for a visual imagery that attends the words or feelings, then we stop condemning and free that energy for ourselves. If we continue to berate ourselves with whatever negative energy it was, it will be resealed, I think, so as not to contaminate the rest of us, the parts that are healthy.

That is how I see it. A risk, a cost, a freeing, and an acceptance. I find myself freer, more open, more my own, each time this happens. The feelings of contempt or hatred or fear were almost overwhelming in the beginning of our process here. They were truly overwhelming when I began with that first therapist. Then, I wanted to know how what had happened to me affected my child. Now, I want myself for my own.

That is what I know about those feelings, SWOT.

I wish none of this had happened to any of us, but we are reclaiming ourselves so quickly now. I am proud of every one of us.

***

So, I was thinking about that, and wondering about my progress and I realized I am not so ashamed, anymore. In that low rent sense Copa was posting about, I mean. In that sense of being dirtied by them and by who we all were and by who that makes me.

Grateful, that's who that makes me. An amazing thing, to have come from where we've been, to have arrived here, where we are today, this moment.

And I don't feel that sick spinning feeling when I think about the ugliness of it anymore without being aware of it or what it is, or the powerless ugliness of all of it, of how hopeless all of it felt underneath.

I have not been saying, "That'll do, pig." I think about when I used to say that, and I feel compassion for myself and a true understanding of where I have been. "That'll do, pig." was so much better than the wordless contempt, overwhelming and impossible to ignore. It is a process and it is a practice, and we all are doing so well.

What an extraordinary thing to not live that life anymore.

We are all getting better.

Hang on.

I looked at it today because the negative voices were kicking in: "You're a loser. "You're borderline."

No you're not.

Remember when we were posting about envy and pathologic hatred? And when you posted for us the term emotional flashback? That's what this is. You knew when you decided to be done with them once and for all that is was not going to be pleasant or easy or maybe, even possible.

But we are doing it, SWOT.

Whose voice is it, SWOT? Your mom, your sister, or your own? When this happens to me, like it did with "That'll do, pig." I am able to feel compassion, real compassion, for the way I've been hurt. If it hurts this much now SWOT, when you are a grown up person with a life and an identity and people who love you so much, and who depend on you to be just as you are...imagine how hurt you must have been when they hurt that little girl that was you in the first place. You were just a little kid, just an adolescent, just a beautiful young girl ~ and they did this to you, weakened and wounded and hurt this into you! I am at a point in my healing that must have to do with reclaiming anger and pride and stability. Instead of holding you up and helping you know how to be strong and self-sufficient, they intentionally hurt you.

What kind of people are these?!?

As I have gone through this process, the thing I see in common with all abusers, not just those cowards on the cheap without the chutzpa to abuse another adult so they turned against their own little babies, their own little girls and boys, is that everything is targeted to break us into more and more easily accessible receptacles for their stupid abuse. If they can hurt us with a look or a sneer, they are so lazy they will choose that. If they come face to face with someone who sees who they are?

They grovel and fawn all over them.

Everything we think we know is wrong, SWOT. The more they hurt us, the more they wanted to hurt us, those stupid cowardly people.

Those negative voices are wrong, are evil remnants of something so awful it should never, never have happened in the first place. Hear the, have them, and put yourself back together in defiance of them.

Does it have something to do with Bart, do you think?

I fell altogether apart when I felt powerless about my daughter. I was such a mess, SWOT. I felt so inadequate to the situation because I was in emotional flashback. I wasn't reacting only to the situation, but to the helplessness and the wrongness in my upbringing. That was how I felt as a little kid. When we need to be strong and centered today, we have only those stupid abusers to help us know how to respond.

So we break.

And there they are, those negative tapes, roaring away in our memories, trying to destroy us, just as our abusers would try to destroy us today if we gave them access.

We have all been through terrible, terrible things.

A sister convinced his father to sign over the parents's house to her NOW.

Does M have a sister like ours, Copa?

I had no sense of self at all coming out of my parent's house. I became whoever I was with. That's why I went along with my sister calling my brother gross and ugly. If I had the gonads of an...ant?...I would have told her to stop it, I loved my brother. Back then, I loved him very much. But back then I cheated too. I cheated so much that I didn't even know who or what I was

You had been taught that you did not know how to think, SWOT. You had been taught terrible things about yourself that you did not know were lies.

I am very sorry this happened with your brother. It is so hurtful to know where we broke and depersonalized them. I love my brother too by my adult's intent...but I think that magical kind of hero worship love most women have for their brothers was broken for me when I was a little girl.

I can touch the moment it happened; there is so much sadness there.

You always post SWOT that you were not hurt as deeply as the others of us. But you were, SWOT. It isn't the nature of the wounds, but that they exist, that gives us the right and the obligation too, to heal them.

I must be grieving my own brothers, today. It is a strange mix of rage at the abuser, shocking sadness, and regret.

Perhaps we will all recover into truly loving our brothers again, the ways we did when we were little girls and before we saw them hurt.

1. More than anything I want to be _______.

2. Most people are ________.

I put "good" in both blanks. I never would do that today, but back then all I wanted to be was the good girl that my mother said I wasn't. I so badly wanted to be good. And I had no core.

I was just reading an article on pathologic hatred. I wish I'd linked it here for all of us. I went back to look for it but did not find that exact one again. So, I will paraphrase: When children are confronted with evil over and over again, they recognize it for what it is. They fight not be become evil, themselves. They identify, and they want to be good.

I did that too, SWOT. Remember my posting about having chosen the Benedictine college because if I were not smart in some way I could not see and that is why this was happening to my daughter, then I would know.

And if I were evil, and that is why this was happening to my daughter, they would know.

Same for you, and same for me. Copa, if you respond to this paragraph in our discussion, I believe you will have made a decision for the good, as well.

We each, every abused person, whatever kind of abuse it was, has confronted raw evil. We have made a choice for the good. This too is something most children are not required to know at the level we know it. Most children choose for the good because they were instructed in how to chose for the good. We chose it without instruction, having been confronted with the wordless horror, and the powerlessness, we were exposed to as children.

It wasn't only that you wanted to be a good girl, SWOT.

You made a choice against evil.

I so badly wanted to be good. And I had no core.

Me, too.

You should have seen how much crapola I took from my first husband because I thought I deserved it and wanted him to love me.

D H and I went through that, too. D H has taught me so many things; I have done the same for him. He teaches me to respect myself; he stood in the fray when I could not.

Because after my Mother died, I came to feel that nothing about me mattered except as seen through her eyes. And that is the truth.

Is the excess weight a rebellion, Copa?

A punishment?

What would you hear, if you could hear your internal discussion, your KFCD tapes, around weight and appearance? Who would be speaking? What would be the expression on his or her face?

Can you explore this material safely alone?

Always remember Copa and SWOT, our objective here is not to punish ourselves, but to heal. We must take the position of the adult in our healing, and in our assessing what we need to heal correctly.

The feelings we have chosen to explore and release and heal are intense.
We must be wise, and we must be strong and wary.

And we must ask for help, when we need it.

Copa, I think you need to paint your toenails.

I am serious.

That helps me, to look down and see those pretty little toes, all flashy and bright red.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I do not think I have trouble in how I see myself in my life. (Well of course I do. I lie here. What I mean to say here is that I see myself as the protagonist of my own life.)My trouble is that my sister holds pieces of my life (I had mis-typed lie, that too) that I still treasure. Mostly my mother. I own my history.

Well, clearly I am a bit confused about the above paragraph, typing first lie, and then life. And lying, too, about how I see myself in my lie, I mean life. Is this sense of being me, then, itself a lie? Returning to the narrative, of which I had thought I was the author:

I love this.

:O)

Choose love, Copa.

Every time. Refuse to accept anything less.

that old standard became resurgent now that I am so depressed.

It happens to me that old trauma and fresh trauma and formerly unrecognized trauma overwhelm my psyche when my child or my children are endangered. Where another mother has strength and stability regarding what to do when trouble comes, I have old trauma, new trauma, fresh trauma, formerly unrecognized trauma.

Could that be happening to you too, Copa? Old trauma is the most intense in my experience. So much happened before we had words, and was put away without them. The feelings as they rise are intense. We cannot name them except in symbols.

Even when we name them, they are still scary as hell. These were times we confronted pure evil. Times we confronted adults in the grip of some horrible something we could not understand.

We truly are warriors; at rest now, reviewing the troops now instead of in the thick of the battle, but warriors, bona fide heros, fresh from the heat of battle, nonetheless.

Because if you look at what I wrote, I described somebody that felt temporarily untouchable because the ability of others to harm her, was momentarily neutralized.

I am describing a person who feels so vulnerable, so without defenses, that she cannot even be in relation to others...like her sister...without knocking them out. Like being "a knock out."

You knew, even then, that you were in danger, Copa. Despite everything we each were taught about how sisters love one another, our sisters hate us. I do think this hatred is intense and all encompassing enough to be described as pathologic. It is not going to go away. It had its genesis in our woundings, in the roles we took to cope with our woundings, and in the woundings of our sisters.

The way I am seeing it this morning, our abusers ~ or the evil they could not hold ~ won this round. They have successfully separated us from our sibs. Separated each of us, all of us, sibs included, from the warmth and safety and identity to be found in togetherness, in family. We are isolated. They are, too. That is simply a fact we must acknowledge. I am finding that I always knew it too, Copa. I did not let what I knew deter me from choosing to make that family dinner, and to see my family as happily seated around me, the glow from the candles reflected in their faces and in the glasses of crystal, the linen so beautifully white.

We all were so hurt, Copa.

Forgive yourself.

That is our ultimate task here I think. To forgive and come to cherish, ourselves.

We cannot change what happened to our sisters. Neither can we allow them to continue hating and disparaging us or to hurt our children. Our children are in big trouble. We need to figure out how to help them be strong enough to come out on top of it and reclaim themselves. Our sisters have not confronted us, before. We are the oldest; we do protect and regret and hope and allow for their sakes. But it is time to name them, and to name ourselves.

Then we must go on, healed in those ways and not vulnerable there, anynore.

We need you up, Copa.

It matters.

You matter.

Your son matters.

M matters.

These woundings, these terrible things that happened to each of us, these are just things we need to face so we can be stronger than we have been.

We all are doing well.

***

I host my Book Club tonight and have baking and cleaning and preparing to do. Each lady is so special, and it is a real joy to anticipate the evening. One of us will be missing; she will be back, next month.

I will be back with you, tomorrow.

:O)

Cedar