Identity after realizing you have no real FOO (Family of Origin). My thoughts.
- Thread starter BusynMember
- Start date
plymouthmom
New Member
Me too. Great comments. It feels good. Yes I am still in process but much of the FOO work has been done as well as letting go of things that dont serve me. I tried a buddist meditation class. It was interesting but I sit alot st work so would like to be active with a group. Will continue to explore.
BusynMember
Well-Known Member
Our identity is like a fingerprint. Nobody has the same fingerprints except identical twins??? Well, DNA doesn't give us our exact fingerprints. We are not the people who bred us and who were bred by the same people. WE are fresh and new and unique and nobody is like us.
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
I am stronger inside as I...as all these pieces of what my family of origin does do sort of fall together in my mind. Denial is very, very strong. In writing about this, that, or the next incident, I am seeing the picture come together in a way I seem not to have allowed in the past. Well, it isn't exactly as if I am allowing it now, either. It is just that all these words I am writing present a certain picture of reality that keeps being the very thing I spend so much time circling around.
And not believing myself about.
But I wish it could be different. I wish that with all my heart. Probably I should be grateful that I can see. There must have been a time when I could not, a time when I was just like them.
D H has always found my sister and my mom...rude would be the word.
Rude people, pushy people. He describes their worst sin as "fakey". That is what he says about them. He doesn't talk about them now unless I need to. He says he is glad they are out of our lives.
So, that is interesting, too.
He doesn't feel taken advantage of. He feels I have been taken advantage of, and continues to admonish me regarding their intentions toward me if he dies before I do, or if we divorce.
So...I probably am correct in my interpretations of their actions, then.
I keep stumbling over that.
Duh.
***
Unless I am wrong, my FOO is ~ I don't know. It's like its fuel of choice is toxicity, though cherishing and acceptance and determination to see it through, to heal it, would run the engine as well or better. I know this is so because of the Benedictines, because of their attitudes toward one another and to each of us.
I am flirting with the idea that I am foolish, again. That I am "the romantic one" as my mother has described me.
Or that I should just not think.
Which is code for the way I think and how unconnected to reality I am. She must be wrong about that, too. I have lived my life with that motto "I have been a fool for lesser things." Maybe, that was never necessary at all.
There is shame in what I am accessing and processing, today.
Good.
Cedar
So, that is what is happening to me today around the issue of who I am without my FOO.
I am okay.
Denial is such a strong force, though. Could I be interpreting this incorrectly?
No.
But I keep wanting to be interpreting this incorrectly.
Maybe time will heal this. It feels like I've lost the war, in a way. Remember that Laurel and Hardy movie where the skinny one has never left his post though the war is long over and everyone else has gone home?
That is what this part feels like.
I can't believe the war is over.
It doesn't even matter who's won.
So, this tells me how much of my energy went into deciphering the world through those filters. Imagine how much brain power I will have, once this part is finally over and behind me. I mean, think about how much energy it must take to keep denial roaring away in the face of the things that happen in my FOO.
It may turn out that I think just fine.
Well, I mean, think about it. It would make sense that I would think it through and that my mother would attack that. Given that her intentions were to keep the same weird energies roaring away.
So I suppose I must always have wondered whether I ~ well, that is probably why I was convinced I must be stupid, to have been unable to change anything for my kids.
Thanks, mom.
Here comes the sun, everyone.
And not believing myself about.
But I wish it could be different. I wish that with all my heart. Probably I should be grateful that I can see. There must have been a time when I could not, a time when I was just like them.
D H has always found my sister and my mom...rude would be the word.
Rude people, pushy people. He describes their worst sin as "fakey". That is what he says about them. He doesn't talk about them now unless I need to. He says he is glad they are out of our lives.
So, that is interesting, too.
He doesn't feel taken advantage of. He feels I have been taken advantage of, and continues to admonish me regarding their intentions toward me if he dies before I do, or if we divorce.
So...I probably am correct in my interpretations of their actions, then.
I keep stumbling over that.
Duh.
***
Unless I am wrong, my FOO is ~ I don't know. It's like its fuel of choice is toxicity, though cherishing and acceptance and determination to see it through, to heal it, would run the engine as well or better. I know this is so because of the Benedictines, because of their attitudes toward one another and to each of us.
I am flirting with the idea that I am foolish, again. That I am "the romantic one" as my mother has described me.
Or that I should just not think.
Which is code for the way I think and how unconnected to reality I am. She must be wrong about that, too. I have lived my life with that motto "I have been a fool for lesser things." Maybe, that was never necessary at all.
There is shame in what I am accessing and processing, today.
Good.
Cedar
So, that is what is happening to me today around the issue of who I am without my FOO.
I am okay.
Denial is such a strong force, though. Could I be interpreting this incorrectly?
No.
But I keep wanting to be interpreting this incorrectly.
Maybe time will heal this. It feels like I've lost the war, in a way. Remember that Laurel and Hardy movie where the skinny one has never left his post though the war is long over and everyone else has gone home?
That is what this part feels like.
I can't believe the war is over.
It doesn't even matter who's won.
So, this tells me how much of my energy went into deciphering the world through those filters. Imagine how much brain power I will have, once this part is finally over and behind me. I mean, think about how much energy it must take to keep denial roaring away in the face of the things that happen in my FOO.
It may turn out that I think just fine.
Well, I mean, think about it. It would make sense that I would think it through and that my mother would attack that. Given that her intentions were to keep the same weird energies roaring away.
So I suppose I must always have wondered whether I ~ well, that is probably why I was convinced I must be stupid, to have been unable to change anything for my kids.
Thanks, mom.
Here comes the sun, everyone.
BusynMember
Well-Known Member
Short break here.
YES! I love this.
We are stronger as "I." This means our FOO weakens us and we are stronger standing without them Brilliant! I know this is true for many of us. In FOOs that do not nurture one another, and there are many, we are much more able to accept ourselves without "them." I have been Operation Oblivion for a while now and feeling good about me, not missing "them" (they are fading from my memory as real people) and not consumed with whatever happened in the past to make me have issues. I can attack the issues, but without them I don't have emotional flashbacks and less talking in my head by those who didn't value my high worth. Yes, I feel I have much to offer and it's their problem. I don't care what they think anymore.
Even in functional families sometimes I'm glad I don't have to deal with a big one. It's like Jabber and Lil. There is always drama in any family and I'm as pro-no-drama these days as possible. I don't want to deal with all the players in a big family. I am happy I was able to raise my kids without their feedback...uncles, aunts, cousins, whatever. I am not really sad about not having that to deal with on holidays. I need support sometimes, but have learned I can get it elsewhere and that sometimes even functional, mostly loving families can do bad stuff that makes it worse, like at the Reunion.
The less people I have to deal with in a family-type way, the more I am me, an individual, a person who can control my own life without annoying feedback that often isn't asked for and backbiting and gossip. Nothing spells "drama" like a family crisis. It is unlikely I'll ever have to deal with one again. I'm happy about that.
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Ha! This is what I was writing when your response came in. PERFECT. Thank you, SWOT.
I was slipping, was unable to get to the other side of it. It is like being caught in quicksand when we go back there deeply enough to see and heal it.
I am going to post the nasty thing in case it will help anyone else. Remember that quicksand analogy. I just kept digging myself in deeper and deeper.
So, here it is, then.
***
SWOT, you suggested we answer three things that we are. The ugliness in my three answers was astounding.
So, I keep answering that question.
My answers had to do with being pretentious. With not being able to think right or draw correct conclusions.
With being ugly. With being so publicly not able to think right that people routinely take advantage.
With cowardice, in that I did not address issues as they came up and may have hidden behind believing I was working to make it better.
With my legs being too short.
?
I don't know what that has to do with anything. But for the past few days, I have been pretty darn sure my legs, which are actually very nice legs indeed, and have served me well for the past 63 years, are somehow too short.
?
So, here is where SWOT's post came in:
Oh. Good point.
Great point. "...and not consumed with whatever happened in the past to make me have issues."
:O)
"I can attack the issues, but without them I don't have emotional flashbacks...."
So, these feelings I am feeling today. Those are emotional flashbacks. Yay, SWOT!
Thank you!!!
"I can attack the issues...."
Yes. I can and have and am, successfully attacking and addressing the issues.
I forgot about that for a minute, there.
***
Back to what I was going around and around about before SWOT's post came in.
Again, the value in it is how we can be sabotaged in our healing and hurt, instead of healed, when that happens.
***
Here is the thing: I feel so foolish for having insisted we (my FOO) could do this. I don't know whether I was hiding from reality or believing in a better one. I get it that my mom's voice is condemning the way I think. It feels like she must have been right about that ~ that I am somehow essentially foolish in my thinking. Like I was too cowardly to face up to what was real, so I pretended it was better but didn't mean it. Like I have been living a lie and willfully so.
Fraudulent, then.
The answer there has to be: She lies. My sister lies, too. (Well, and they do. But why would they lie about this, about what they believe about me, about who I am.)
What would Cedar do.
ouch
Circle.
What I know for sure is that I have some places they have undeniably told lies.
The lies were told to adjust reality for their benefit.
So that is probably true about the things they have said about me ~ about my capacity to think, about how I see possibility, too.
But you know what I think of then?
I remember that I believed the male who beat my daughter had changed, too. I remember that I believed in him, too.
And you know what happened there; what he did, over time, to my daughter.
So...there is that thinking problem, again.
I should have kicked him right in his *** when she brought him to our house. Instead, I let him come in. I let him stay. I taught him how to make pastry. I listened to his stupid lies and I believed him and I believed in him.
WTF.
Or am I beating myself up because that is what I was taught to do.
I am definitely beating myself up. Part of that is because of the family of origin situation and that I feel guilty about turning away instead of believing we could do this. Circle, again. But the truth is they did what they wanted to do whether I believed in them or not.
I am thinking about my sister when my father was in the hospital and she insisted he have suckers. It sounds foolish, but it is a sterling example.
Because so much of it is foolish like that. Stuff that doesn't matter to the point that you (that I) do not take a stand. Is that cowardice? Should I have stood up and said: "He needs glycerin swabs, you idiot sister. That is why they make them. Suckers worked for the man in the nursing home because he had not just had surgery."
But if my sister wanted to try suckers, I was okay with that. We were going to get the suckers together and my sister practically ran all the way.
Why is this coming up now.
To see her clearly.
And this is where SWOT's post came in.
Emotional flashback. Man, those feelings suck. I was circling further and further into them.
Close call, everyone.
Whew.
Cedar
I was slipping, was unable to get to the other side of it. It is like being caught in quicksand when we go back there deeply enough to see and heal it.
I am going to post the nasty thing in case it will help anyone else. Remember that quicksand analogy. I just kept digging myself in deeper and deeper.
So, here it is, then.
***
SWOT, you suggested we answer three things that we are. The ugliness in my three answers was astounding.
So, I keep answering that question.
My answers had to do with being pretentious. With not being able to think right or draw correct conclusions.
With being ugly. With being so publicly not able to think right that people routinely take advantage.
With cowardice, in that I did not address issues as they came up and may have hidden behind believing I was working to make it better.
With my legs being too short.
?
I don't know what that has to do with anything. But for the past few days, I have been pretty darn sure my legs, which are actually very nice legs indeed, and have served me well for the past 63 years, are somehow too short.
?
So, here is where SWOT's post came in:
Oh. Good point.
Great point. "...and not consumed with whatever happened in the past to make me have issues."
:O)
"I can attack the issues, but without them I don't have emotional flashbacks...."
So, these feelings I am feeling today. Those are emotional flashbacks. Yay, SWOT!
Thank you!!!
"I can attack the issues...."
Yes. I can and have and am, successfully attacking and addressing the issues.
I forgot about that for a minute, there.
***
Back to what I was going around and around about before SWOT's post came in.
Again, the value in it is how we can be sabotaged in our healing and hurt, instead of healed, when that happens.
***
Here is the thing: I feel so foolish for having insisted we (my FOO) could do this. I don't know whether I was hiding from reality or believing in a better one. I get it that my mom's voice is condemning the way I think. It feels like she must have been right about that ~ that I am somehow essentially foolish in my thinking. Like I was too cowardly to face up to what was real, so I pretended it was better but didn't mean it. Like I have been living a lie and willfully so.
Fraudulent, then.
The answer there has to be: She lies. My sister lies, too. (Well, and they do. But why would they lie about this, about what they believe about me, about who I am.)
What would Cedar do.
ouch
Circle.
What I know for sure is that I have some places they have undeniably told lies.
The lies were told to adjust reality for their benefit.
So that is probably true about the things they have said about me ~ about my capacity to think, about how I see possibility, too.
But you know what I think of then?
I remember that I believed the male who beat my daughter had changed, too. I remember that I believed in him, too.
And you know what happened there; what he did, over time, to my daughter.
So...there is that thinking problem, again.
I should have kicked him right in his *** when she brought him to our house. Instead, I let him come in. I let him stay. I taught him how to make pastry. I listened to his stupid lies and I believed him and I believed in him.
WTF.
Or am I beating myself up because that is what I was taught to do.
I am definitely beating myself up. Part of that is because of the family of origin situation and that I feel guilty about turning away instead of believing we could do this. Circle, again. But the truth is they did what they wanted to do whether I believed in them or not.
I am thinking about my sister when my father was in the hospital and she insisted he have suckers. It sounds foolish, but it is a sterling example.
Because so much of it is foolish like that. Stuff that doesn't matter to the point that you (that I) do not take a stand. Is that cowardice? Should I have stood up and said: "He needs glycerin swabs, you idiot sister. That is why they make them. Suckers worked for the man in the nursing home because he had not just had surgery."
But if my sister wanted to try suckers, I was okay with that. We were going to get the suckers together and my sister practically ran all the way.
Why is this coming up now.
To see her clearly.
And this is where SWOT's post came in.
Emotional flashback. Man, those feelings suck. I was circling further and further into them.
Close call, everyone.
Whew.
Cedar
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
And...I'm through it!
Awakened this morning feeling more like myself than I have since beginning this exploration of the underpinnings of self.
Dream: I have taken my son (pre-teen) to the doctor. It is an old-style doctor's office/hospital with a Norman Rockwell feeling to it. A sports physical for him or some good thing like that.
It was like going to the doctor in Mayberry, with Andy and Aunt Bee and Barney Fife somewhere around and going about their business. That normal and good a thing to do.
As we are leaving, one of the two male doctors there hugs me for the longest time. It is exactly what I need, and feels just right. There is a sense of regret at all that might have been as I draw away. I feel valued; validated. There is a sense that I am very special; that this was not expected and has gone unrecognized; that I have done well.
It makes me sad for the son I once had; it has been a very hard thing, to lose him, to have lost everything he represented. On the other hand, I have been blessed with so much, in having had that to believe in.
I awakened thinking about that dream, and with the distinct feeling that something is over, that a noisy, chaotic time is coming ~ things with which I am unfamiliar. Things like those party favors where you blow into them and something rolls outand confetti and a parade and balloons.
I am happy.
Cedar
So, I think the doctor may have been my father.
Again, the feeling is cherished, is of having exceeded expectation altogether.
Like American Pharoah.
Awakened this morning feeling more like myself than I have since beginning this exploration of the underpinnings of self.
Dream: I have taken my son (pre-teen) to the doctor. It is an old-style doctor's office/hospital with a Norman Rockwell feeling to it. A sports physical for him or some good thing like that.
It was like going to the doctor in Mayberry, with Andy and Aunt Bee and Barney Fife somewhere around and going about their business. That normal and good a thing to do.
As we are leaving, one of the two male doctors there hugs me for the longest time. It is exactly what I need, and feels just right. There is a sense of regret at all that might have been as I draw away. I feel valued; validated. There is a sense that I am very special; that this was not expected and has gone unrecognized; that I have done well.
It makes me sad for the son I once had; it has been a very hard thing, to lose him, to have lost everything he represented. On the other hand, I have been blessed with so much, in having had that to believe in.
I awakened thinking about that dream, and with the distinct feeling that something is over, that a noisy, chaotic time is coming ~ things with which I am unfamiliar. Things like those party favors where you blow into them and something rolls outand confetti and a parade and balloons.
I am happy.
Cedar
So, I think the doctor may have been my father.
Again, the feeling is cherished, is of having exceeded expectation altogether.
Like American Pharoah.
