I'm going to listen to the tape as soon as I'm done with this post. But I wanted to clarify that I, at least, have stopped wanting THAT family to be my family. Heck, when I was a little girl I used to wish I was adopted because then I could find my real family and they'd love me. I remember laying in bed thinking about that while I bit my nails (I'm a nasty habit nail biter from my earliest memories. Bloody cuticles and all. Wonder why).
I already have a family now. I have my husband and my kids and my grandkids and THEY ARE ENOUGH. Nobody can take them from me and they love me and I love them.
You have peeps too. They are your family. Even if it is only one person or friends, if they love you and you love them THEY are your family.
Go back to your memories of your fake family sitting together pretending to like one another and to be nice. You were all playing in some sort of drama; a movie. None of it was real, if t here were strangers there that your FOO wanted to impress...maybe aunts or uncles who didn't know that their claws were currently in their paws. It was fake; a sham. We are lucky we got out. Lucky.
Although it is always cleansing for me to finally admit to at least somebody(s) that my entire FOO is full of it, not even knowing who they are some of them, let alone me, I feel so much better now that I have decided to never revisit them again. I'm glad I threw out those picture books. For me they were a trigger. I'm g lad I have not heard their triggering voices or gotten e-mails or letters or read their social media stuff...I am glad I decided to obliterate them from my life. I am so peaceful when they are not around, as I am right now. I can talk about what happened to me without feeling the horrible emotions I felt then. I think detaching, in our own ways, is mandatory for healing. And, Copa, YES YOU CAN HEAL!
In this book I'm just finishing by Peter Walker (I believe...book is on my Kindle Fire), he is talking about how he learned to gentle his memories of his abuse, which, of course, I feel was way worse than mine. Rather than hating his mother, he thinks of her as being unable to help herself from abusing him because she was mentally ill. He does not name her mental illness or call her a personality disorder. He just feels that forgiving and making it a different memory...changing his perspective...has helped him.
I have always wondered "why forgive?" I thought of it as a Christian concept. I don't understand forgiving without remorse on the other side. But after reading this, I decided to think the same way about my own mother. In reality, I'll bet she was feeling just like me as a child...a small little girl who was held up unfavorably to her obnoxious brother, who was the favorite without them even trying to hide it, just like my mother did. She did what she knew. She had no role model, no friends, nothing. She saw me and I looked just like her and she hated herself. If Ithink of it that way...her hating me because s he hated herself...I can feel a smidgen of compassion and a lot of apathy. I actually usually don't hate her most of the time. I just feel apathetic/negative about her but I feel she is learning lessons in her home, where she now resides. I can't quite do the concept of forgiveness without remorse on the other person's part, but I can gentle my memory so I can live a more gentle life. And I value my peace above of else.
I can think the same about the rest of my FOO. They are sick. Maybe they don't see it or even know it, but they are. Just like me...damaged goods...intimacy challenged...insecure. I dared to rock the illusion of their mother whom they chose to think was never abusive to any of us. That denial to me is a sickness. Since I have not seen/heard from or checked their social media they are not so real to me now and matter less and my feelings and emotions about them are less and are almost...gentling? Not because of who they are, but because I know I"ll never have to see t hem again. In this way, I can let them go and not care what they say or do or think. Yes, when my dad dies I will see them for the last time, but that doesn't mean I'm going to interact with them. My family, my REAL family, will be with me.
I am working on shame and self-talk these days. At work I broke a vase, which is not a big deal. I was working with glass and it happens and nobody gets mad. The tapes started rolling. "You stupid klutz..."
"NO!" I shut up my inner voice and said to me, "You will not talk to yourself t hat way. It was an accident and not important. You are a good person and you need to remember you are enough."
I got "you are enough" from either you Cedar or you Copa.
Thanks. I like it.
Ok, going to listen to the tape now and thanks for the share 
