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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 660161" data-attributes="member: 17461">Was your entire family involved in discussing the cut off, in why there was a cut off, in what you had done to deserve the cut off, in how the "victimized" weak sister had to recoil in fear and protect herself from you?That happens in my family.Except no one is afraid.There would never be a person afraid of me.  I believed in all of us with my whole heart.That is why the focus was on D H, I suppose.They are quite focused on D H.All this is changing.  I am still going through it to some degree, but this is changing so rapidly I can barely believe it.I wonder what it would have been, to have had a real sister, a real mom or dad or family.  I do love my father; he hated me too on some level, or was affected by the unified toxicity of the family, maybe.But I do love him; I find him a decent, ethical man.  Very sad; he must have been clinically depressed.  Which makes sense.  He too lived in a cruelly abusive situation.  For all I know, he did hear the things my mother said about him when his back was turned or when, after he no longer heard well, she would say them right in front of him.I should have taken my father in.Had I known what I know now, I may have made that offer.  He would have refused it.  But at least he would have known that someone knew.Those old fairy tales have some truth to the core of them, sometimes.Cinderella.This is happening for me too, SWOT.I saw it, but I ~ I don't know.  I suppose we do what we do believing everyone is going to pick up; the habit of hatred is as complex and as easily grown and as hard to deconstruct as the habit of love.  I just need to stop feeling responsible for the choices of others.  As COM posts on P.E., we have enough to deal with just keeping track of our own stuff.SWOT, you are right.  I could not hear you, before.  I see what you mean now, about triggers and emotional flashback and useless pain.And about peace.:O)Me, too.  Everything else ~ all those other facets of self I created ~ happened after the kids were in trouble.I am still very happy with having been a mother; I wish these bad things had not happened to all of us.  But a diagnosis ~ that turns out to be a real thing and I have been reading about it now in a different way.  One of the things I read is that having a child with a diagnosis like that is among the top three most stressful things a family will ever go through.Huh.  We sure have been through it.  I was talking with daughter about that whole diagnosis thing on Sunday.  She asked how it could be that we left her alone when she was so vulnerable ~ how could it be that we turned away from her.  All I could tell her were the things I post here.  That if she is ever going to trust herself, she needs to do these things for herself.Pretty much, that is what I said.We talked about that diagnosis, and about what that means and about how I refused to believe it could be something happening that she couldn't help, especially when drugs and alcohol and bad people were concerned; always, those terrible things were part of what was happening.  You know what my daughter said?  She told me she did not want to believe the diagnosis, either.  She said that even when that medication that could throw people into manic states was prescribed, she knew she should not take it because she had received that exact diagnosis three times, from three different doctors.  But she did not tell this prescribing doctor about those diagnoses because she did not want to be labeled.My daughter said:  "I believe it now, mom.  It is what it is.  I try to be aware of it, but sometimes, I don't know it is happening until it is too late."I think where I am now with that is that I do believe it.  I understand it will always be with her; that it isn't something she can live right and think her way out of.Love is not going to fix this, whatever different perspective we try to come at it from.But at least we know, now.SWOT, your honesty regarding your situation has been so helpful to me, here.  You posted once something to the effect that your situation is what it is, and that you approach it from a position of awareness and acknowledgment and respect for your position, and for the ways it affects you.You take responsibility for yourself and your life.  It just is what it is.  Nothing to be afraid of, but something to be aware of.That helped me in my talk with my daughter Sunday night.  I was able to not be protective or to disbelieve the severity of the thing, nor did I require my daughter to protect me from it.Thank you, SWOT.I really do like this.That's why I put it in, twice.:O)You know what, SWOT?I did, too.Isn't that something.This is beautiful, SWOT.It was a beautiful post, SWOT, and so helpful to me.Cedar</blockquote>

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