In a totally new place and need perspective? Cedar? Anyone?

[Copabanana]

D H makes choke cherry wine in the Fall, Copa. Last year's batch was just awful.

There are many recipes, all different. It is hard to know how to proceed. I never even heard of a choke cherry. It must be a regional fruit.

There is a recipe from Univ of Minn or someplace like that that somebody posted. You boil the fruit on the stem, just covered with water, until the fruit skins pop. (I think the boiling helps kill off the wild yeast that is on the fruit. That is the thing that can go errant.)

Then you add yeast. (I bought the champagne yeast because it is supposed to be more powerful than bread yeast.) But this Univ of Minn recipe says you add a package of regular yeast and a dry piece of bread to float on the top. The proportions were 1 qt of fruit covered with water. 4 cups of sugar and 1 packet of yeast

You boil the fruit in a non metal or enamelware pot. You store the wine-wannebe in a crock, covered loosely with cheesecloth (I am using a flour sack cloth.)

If D H is interested I will look for the recipe.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I think this is the accusation I felt when my son started falling apart.

Me, too.

First with daughter and then, like a nightmarish confirmation, with son.

Had I been stronger to begin with, had I been good enough mom, son may not have fallen.

Enabling may never have become the tangled mess it became.

So, any unhappiness or failure to thrive on the part of my son became the accusation that I did not deserve anything:

Or, as is the case for me, that it was the thing my mother hated, that thing that made her do what she did instead of loving me, that thing, that wrong, hated, left behind thing I was so sure no longer applied...had reached out and failed my child, and then, my children. Terminal. Some terminal defect in me that caused me to fail them. That had led me to miss some crucial something every other mom knows.

"Well, I guess you weren't such a good mother after all, were you."

How, in all the Hells that ever were, could my mother have known to say those exact words. Quick as that, she said them. I don't remember the rest of the conversation. I will never forget those words.

I fail. I lose. My child suffers.

My child suffers! Because of that thing! A desperate quest begins, whose end is not visible until this very day.

One of the first indications of my healing: Damaged, not defective. I am damaged. Not defective. That makes all the difference in the world to our abilities to merit recovery.

Damaged; not defective.

I learned that in therapy with the lady therapist; with the ally of the poetry.

So, it shouldn't have been that difficult a thing for Therapy boy therapist to have accomplished that. I saw him for months. I healed, with her, within weeks. Healed enough to know: Damaged. Not defective.

Oh, roar.

Pray for their peace. Therein, find our own.

I keep inviting M to solve things for me and he refuses. I think he fears that I will hold him responsible. He is correct.

D H does that. And I struggle through and I blame him and then...I succeed.

And I crow, like a rooster at dawn.

Because that is very true: Responsibility is our right, or adult right. Good things happen and bad things happen and no one, no one in all the world, knows which it will be. We are not exempt. We defy our mothers every single time we face even the small challenge of what to wear in the morning.

No one knows the courage it takes for us to take responsibility for an outcome we are not sure of. In our uncertainty, our mothers thunder in, making true thought impossible.

This is what happens to us, Copa and Serenity. That is the battle we engage in over every smallest choice. To drive. To choose the color of the dress. To remove a chest tube. (Which I have done, and very successfully, too.)

To start and I.V.

To know what to choose in a restaurant, for dinner.

Whether or not to answer the phone.

What to say, when we do.

All these things, we need to acknowledge how traumatically hard it is for us to do what others do so easily.

We are extraordinarily strong. We will come through this with a sense of certainty and ease we have never known; not in all of our lives.

Risk.

We will meet it alone and without our mothers. And we will be stronger, so much stronger for it. Isn't that something. Think of all the celebrities you know of who say: "Thanks, mom! couldn't have done it without you!"

Same for us.

Only in reverse.

F-you-mom-pray-for-their-peace-and therein, find our own.

It's really so unfair, what's happened to all of us.

How fortunate we have been, to have come together here as we have.

Thank you both.

I do not know how we come to begin to live lives from secure and sound footings. Especially as late in life as I am. I can only assume that it comes from the choice to do so. The permission by circumstances, and then the choice. As we do with our children:

I think it will be like everything else we have learned here, Copa. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. And that changes everything. What informs us will change.

We will inform ourselves but without their horrifyingly toxic influences ever again.

It will be life Copa and Serenity, good things and bad things. But we will not feel fraudulent in accepting the good, or like dead, guilty things, when the bad things come, as they do to us all.

After living our lives as we have? That will feel like life, rich and full and gloriously colorful. Like in that Disney film where you see the incredible beauty in the center of the red tulip. The camera draws back and BOOM.

A whole field of red tulips.

Mind blowing, and so heartbreakingly beautiful.

That will be our life, the good things and the bad things and us, fully present and without witch mom's sick insistence on the grandiosity addict reality she created in our heads, and in our bruised hearts, ever again.

We will love, and we will live from, our full hearts.

Imagine that.

It will be cool.

By the way, I called the psychiatrist yesterday and left a message that I wanted to stop. I told him if he wanted to we could speak one last time on Monday. He called back and said, of course he respected my desire to stop but believed we would be benefit from the opportunity for review in one last session. So Monday will be the last time.

I bring this up here because there is a default belief in me that I do not know. That I am stupid. That I cannot take care of myself. That I am lost.

I read this somewhere: We are all lost. None of us knows. Those who pretend to are lying. Or worse, they believe they know and are therefore in a position to tell us (like my sister is, in the walk she and the Lord are enjoying), which is scarier still. Good things and bad things happen to us all. Had your psychiatrist lived the childhood you lived, he would be Basket Case Boy. This is true. We have been traumatized by our own mothers. How unbelievable is that. Who even knows what they did to us before we had words to remember it by. Now, your mom is passed on. How can you possibly review what occurred between the two of you as I can, hating her when I need to, being so disgusted by what she did when I need to. Loving her Copa, when I need to.

Knowing I could call.

How can you possibly come through this, Copa?

But you are. And you are doing beautifully.

And I will say it again, even though I know I say it all the time. Soldiers brainwashed and traumatized on the field of battle knew why what was happening to them happened; they knew that if only they could live through it, they would go home. They knew home meant safety and sanity and no more pain and like, clean sheets and really good dinners. And their moms; their moms wold be there. Family around them, so they would never have to be that frightened and victimized and alone, ever again. That is what PTSD is. Boom! They are back in that place to the point they cannot function in this time, even with their good people around them, loving and promising they are safe, now.

That it was bad, but it's over.

You are home now, with us.

We were home.

And worse yet, worse even than that...our families were there, too.

Knives flashing.

Mother on a rampage; men in her room. Little boys, screaming, their faces covered with s***.

Pray for their peace; and therein, find our own.

***

What was the reason you chose to stop, Copa?

Which are the questions you will ask, knowing this is your last session. Rather than wait for him to tell you what you need...which are the questions you want answers to? Take full advantage of the money you are paying him to know these answers, Copa. A diagnosis, a recitation of why you need him, or someone like him, or whether you should taper or double up on sessions ~ those things will be his interests.

Which are the questions he knows the answers to?

Your money. Your time that you gave him because he promised he could help you understand.

What do you want him to answer?

We will all discuss him and what he says if you like.

:O)

Right here. We are right here.

Maybe, you could ask Serenity's therapist whether there is a woman near you that she trusts.

I really like Serenity's therapist.

And I would not have recovered to the point that I did from the mess that first therapist left, had I not seen the Ally. Remember that poetry?

"...at the behest of the ally, gone before them
on the back of a white and a spirited mare."

Just like I've been condemned and found wanting (one more time) by my betraying family of origin. That is the shame in it. That of course this would happen. (Looks like you weren't such a good mother after all, were you.)

A clarification: When I posted what my mother said. (Looks like....) I should have clarified that. I did not mean for you to read it and at some level, take it into your heart.

My mother is such a sick, nasty little wiener.

Masquerading behind Universal Mom.

Typical.

Typical of her, to have done that. What did she do that I do not have words to remember, to pin down and see it.

Pray for peace for them and therein, find our own.

roar

Okay then.

On we go.

I want to believe that we can now. I do not know how, but I believe we will.

Oh, we are.

And whatever it looks like when we are through it, it will be so much better than where we have lived our lives from.

We really have been outrageously courageous. Just to drive a car, for us.

Whew.

But we did it; we do it and things like it, every day, every minute, of our lives.

Our beautiful, precious being alive.

A gift we were given; out of all the babies who might have been born...we were the lucky, lucky ones.

And now, after all of it, we are opening to the wonder of what is, of what it really is, just to be here, at all.

How lucky we are.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

it was the thing my mother hated, that thing that made her do what she did instead of loving me, that thing, that wrong, hated,

Cedar, did you come to think you had the same flaw that your mother had?

 

[Copabanana]

What was the reason you chose to stop, Copa?

I have wanted to for a long time, Cedar, but I have been afraid to insist upon it. When I brought it up a few months ago he resisted. And I did not feel strong enough to insist.

I know I have gotten stronger, and he sees it and he thinks it is the efficacy of his therapy. I have spoken in passing about this website but I doubt he would ever give credence to the power of such a thing.

I found his insights about my son to be clearly unhelpful. He insisted that I accept the deficits of my son as such that he would need to be supported and protected his whole life through. He has never met him. Even when I tried to tell him that my fear and limitation was the filter through which his vision of my son was created. He would not listen. He was sure.

This is not helpful to me. I do not benefit from giving up hope for my son. And even though he insists he is speaking from a position of facing reality...not denying hope...I do not trust his vision of reality.

The reality is I do not need him. I do not benefit from him. I do not trust his vision of me, of M or of my son. I believe that no matter how nice a man he may be or however professional he may feel himself...he is ultimately delimited and confined by that profession...more than he is elevated by it.

My old therapist, the betrayer, even when he was shamed, stripped of his medical license, his positions, his accolades and fame...continued to act as a therapist. He never ever doubted himself.

And continued to believe he could rightfully evaluate the experience and potential of others....as he did me.

I believe that my instinct to surround myself with women and women's work, textiles, art etc. is sound. I believe what I miss is friendship, and that with M and friendship and meaningful pursuits...I will be OK.

I will end this post here (something is in the oven) and get back in a bit.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I did not know my mother had a flaw, Copa. She was smarter, probably the smartest person she knew. She was most competent; again, I am sure, the most competent person she knew. That, it seemed to me, is why she felt such contempt for me. Because I was somehow not competent or smart enough or something.

Not enough.

Ever.

I am surprised today to see what it was like for me to grow up as her daughter. There was no one to talk about atomic bomb shame with. Like you, and like Serenity too, I put it behind me. I had my children. I made a life. I had D H.

And then, my children...we lost all of that. We were sad and worried sick and afraid and enraged and powerless to change any of it. And the helping professionals were not helping; just the opposite. (Pray for their peace and therein, find our own.)

So very many things to be angry for.

So much that was lost.

I believed that, like my mother, I had hurt my daughter and repressed it. Or, like the mom in Sybil. Then, our son fell, too.

It was terrifying, to bring that to a therapist.

But I did it.

I did it, every time, with every therapist.

So far, so good on that one.

It was really scary though, to think that might have been it. Not might have, must have.

Really, the though of it sickened me and was so scary.

Add what my mom said, that wiener.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Cedar, I am still not clear.

Even when your kids began hurting, and you feared and then accused yourself as having hurt them, you did not link this hurtfulness to the actions and attitudes of your mother towards you as a child?

You believed kind of your original sin? And repressed, at that time, her conduct in the family?

I always knew my mother was out of control and mean. I believe you did too.

Are you sure you completely repressed this as the kids began having problems?

 

[BusynMember]

Like my brother did Serenity, your brother betrayed you, too. I keep bringing Jabber into this. I think he would never allow his sisters to be denigrated, or to allow his relationship with them to lapse. I do not think he would switch with the prevailing winds regarding his relationship to them.

His first and only real love with our mother Cedar. No they did not touch each other that way but it was understood between them. He leaned on her and she bestowed him with unconditional praise, in a way that nobody else did. He loved her so much that he never had a love interest besides her. He was not a normal man brother who stands up for his sister. He could see nothing wrong with her,

Sick? I don't know, But, like we all said about Mom, "thats just Brother being Brother,"

 

[BusynMember]

To both of you, I never felt the responsibility to my mother than you two did and I wonder why, When I called her, as I explained, I wanted to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say I tried as hard as I could, whether or not it was accepted, and then there were my very strong spiritual beliefs, I did not call her so sh e wouldn't be alone or anything like that, I doubt she was alone, I hoped we could come to at least an understanding at the end, but it didn't happen, She didn't want it to happen, Yet she couldn tell me to bugger off, so to speak, I think she liked playing with my head rather than being honest, I w ish she had just told me never to contact her again, The little girl inside of my that wanted a loving mother would have grown up fast and given up, She gave me signals and signs, but did not say the needed words, Yes, the words were necessary,

Yet she was malicious about removing her from my life, such as when she had a brain tumor at age 68, This one was benign, She told everyone in FOO, including my father, who was her ex by then and she had no warmth toward him, not to tell me about this tumor, My siblings were so clueless that they never asked why so they couldn't tell me, Or maybe they did know and didn't tell me, If so, just another game, I found out during one of my attempts to reconcile with her, She told me about it herself, When I finally had a chance to ask her why it was such a secret from me, s he said something like, "Well, I know how high strung you are and I didn't want you to worry,,," It was a load of crapola, but that's all she said, I know the truth in my mind, "I don't want her to be involved in this, I don't want to see her, I don't love her,"

I donn't think I would have gone, by the way, I was trying to reconcile then by phone, but I still cared about myself, I do not believe I would have disrupted my entire family, the kids still in school and hubby at work, and run to Illinois for her operation,. We just were not that close, And my wonderful brother and sister did not rush to her aid when she was discharged four days later, as she explained what had happened after the surgery, She claimed she was afraid to be alone, but they made her go home anyway, She was at risks to have seizures,

I didn't know about it as it happened, but my sweet sister and golden child brother did not make arrangements to stay with her, Or say they couldn't, My sis was married at the time and living in a house with a huge mortgage, My brother has money, period, He did not in any way use it to get a private nurse to stay with my mother, She never once dared to mention that both my sister and my brother obviously had the resources, especially together, to do this for her and did not, She didn't tell me because in no way would she ever say a negative thing to me about my brother and, by that time, my sister either, My brother was the one who REALLY had the funds, My sister and her hub were borrowing monthly from her husban'ds father to afford their outrageous mortgage (selfish of them, no? Why not buy a house within your means), But I digress,,,that was the brain tumor story that I hard about years later,

My mom got brain cancer eight years later and my sister put her in a home and visited a lot and complained often about how hard it was, Brother did nothing to ease the burder and again did not take off of work, He is a teacher and had a lot of seniority and probably could have done it, but he didn't want to, I was already thinking that she was not my responsibility anymore, Had I not been in touch with Sis at the time (and that was just pure luck, bad or good), I would not have attended her funeral, Her passing did not make me sad, I didn't really know her in any sort of loving way, My memories of her were of a younger her and a mean her to me,

I know my situation is different, But I don't think anyone who isn't kind to us deserves two hours a night of our time, A quick check up call and five minutes of banter maybe, but not two hours, That's a loooooooooong time to talk to ANYONE on the phone!!!

 

[Copabanana]

Serenity, while similar I think each of our situations with subtly different.

After a many year separation my Mother did try to make a relationship with me for most of the last 23 years of her life. The most we were out of contact was a year and a half or so. Other than that we spoke many times in a month.

Cedar, I think, maintained a relationship with her mother into adulthood.

What we share in common was a very, very difficult early life. Very angry mothers who insisted upon complete compliance/submission at whatever cost to their daughters

The differences in our adult perspectives I think stem from the differences our relationships with our mothers played out in later life.

Your mother never allowed closeness. You cannot make a relationship and play two parts. She withdrew. What can you do with that? In a way, you were lucky. What could she really give you?

I think that is the understanding that Cedar and I are coming to, too. There is the understanding that in our relationships with our mothers there were never two people involved. There was the mother and there was the daughter she wanted us to be. Even in adulthood. That must be why I turned into an automaton with my mother in the end. Because I was playing out what I felt she had always wanted me to be. Whether it was true or not.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

The thing that is making these health alerts more difficult is that they are coming on the heels of my mother's swift decline and death.

Did I not get a good enough lesson in mortality, to not really require that so soon I follow in her footsteps?

Maybe, it's like a wake up call, Copa.

Another story. Back before I knew my sister was a terrible biatch, I was visiting. And we were invited to dinner at the home of a woman imminently dying of cancer. And I was uncertain about how to behave around that, but we did okay. As we left, the woman thanked me for coming with these words: "Thank you. It's been real." And then she said: "You know, none of us really knows how old we are. I have an illness and will die soon. It seems I am so much older than you. But you could be killed in a car accident on your way home, tonight. And you would have been older than me, closer to your mortality than me, all along. So what matters, whatever age we are and whatever our health status, is that real things happen in the time we give one another."

So, that's what I thought about Copa, when you wondered about where you are in the long or shortness of time.

You are coming real. Whatever happens next, that will be part of it.

Real.

Cedar

It will be different for me and D H, of course.

We are planning to eat kim chee.

Do you think once would be enough?

:O)

 

[Copabanana]

You know, none of us really knows how old we are.

There are questionnaire type evaluations online, that after you answer a number of questions about lifestyle, history and heredity, will evaluate your life expectancy.

I am quite a competitive person, especially with myself. But I did not know quite what to do with the results that I would live to be either 95 or 100 years based upon my input. I mean, I already ache all over. And who wants to live 100 years, really? With everybody so much younger? So, I was not sure what the win was.

So now, here we are. I had this cardio-pulmonary decline, all along, that as much as any other factor, or more, will constrain my life expectancy.

Nobody really knows how old they are.

___

But nobody is volunteering to live the rest of their lives limited...especially with breathing. M reminded me that I am no different than two days ago. Or 2 years ago. He says it started while my mother was still alive.

But I can do something. Now that I know. I can swim. Walk. Try to build capacity.

Thank you, Cedar.

 

[BusynMember]

Copa and Cedar, yes, I think our early lives bond us together, However, I read an interesting article recently which I didn't think to copy and paste and maybe I should have, I wll try to condense what it said,

When parents are abusive, the children who are their targets usually become one of two types of abused children,

Abused Child One becomes very frightened, timid and compliant (at least at first) both because he or she does not want to be abused and because he or she thinks that if she is just good enough she will be loved, School is often a big relief because many abused kids use school as a place to excel and to be accepted, although often they are ostracized there, Even so, often they have a special teacher they bond with, They never tell what it's like to be with Mom or Dad or both or whatever is going on at home out of shame and often fear of the parent,

Seems as if you and Cedar became Child One,

Child Two is the child who wants to be loved just as much as the compliant child, but has a different temperment and asks questions or tries to figure things out and every word spoken against the family dynamics, even if the child is six and asks why XXX's mother hugs her and you don't ever get hugged, is seen as a challenge and a swipe at the low self-esteem mother, My mother would say, "You don't like me to hug you, You push me away,"

It was my fault, And it was probably true, I believe I stiffened in her arms as an infant and kicked her away at maybe two or three, Little ones can tell when a hug is real or fake and who cares for them, I let my grandmother hug me, But if a parent is a normal loving parent, like most are, the parent feels bad, not angry, and tries to fix things so that the child wants to be hugged and loved by her,

We had this problem with Sonic, who has autism, Although he never really refused hugs, he was stiff at first, which is common in autism, But we didn't give up trying to physically love him and it become normal for him and for us, It was not fun when he kicked me a few times, but it was gratifying once he melted into my arms,

I tried because I loved him so much, There was no way I was going to leave it like that, autism or not, If necessary, I'd have asked his supports to help us with affection,

My mother did nothing and I asked questions and challenged her rules too as I got older, I would talk back because she talked to me in such a nasty way, She called me selfish, I'd hurt badly, then I'd nurse it and it would come out later and I'd say something to her and refuse to do something she asked, which often turned into a tantrum, which meant I was baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad, It wasn't her at all, I was just an impossible kid, selfish and baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad,

We fought a lot in my teenage years and I'd often go to my grandmother's apartment to get away from her, My mother did not drive so when I got my license, I was allowed to use the car (and, loking back, I'm surprised), All I can think of is they liked it better if I wasn't home, And, trust me, I liked it better when I wasn't home either, I did not like to hearing the yelling and fighting and being with them,

So my mother, who had no self-esteem, treated me like dirt under her feet yet expected me to respect her, And I talked back, I was basically a very good teen with a lot of problems, I had terrible learning disablities and neurological differences which made school awful, My parents did not even try to help me with school, I had depression on and off and it was BAD depression and my mother, for the most part, did nothing, I doubt my father even knew as he and my mom didn't talk about anything important, although I did not feel important, Even though I felt less important than cow dung, I never did drugs or drank or had sex until I got married and I lost a lot of really cute boyfriends because I demanded respect for my body, I thought that I was being good, even while I was being told I was bad, by trying to be straight and not do drugs or be a tramp or do what most of my peers were doing, Two of my closest friends got pregnant and were afraid to tell me "because you're such a prude," I was fine being a prude and I helped both girls, by the way, but that's another story, I digress,,,

When I escaped through marriage to a man who was all wrong for me, but able to rescue me from the awfulness, he said the "stupid" word to me all the time, He never ever called me selfish, He called me a humanitarian,,,lol, So he recognized some good in me, but the stupid was worse with him even than with my mom, I tried to turn to my mom for emotional support, but she wasn't there for me and she was not there for my sister, who was in college a nd struggling badly and calling me up to help her when I could barely hold myself together,

Of course, there was the incident when I tried to get my mother to care about my sister, I'm sure she never brought up to my siser, fifteen years later, that this was said during the time that she (Mother) was refusing to pay for my sister's medical care although the doctor was afraid shse had encephalitis (I believe), I'm sure she didn't say that I was furious at her for ignoring my sister, who was young and alone, and that I was telling her what her disregard of this child had caused her to do, My sister was in WAY more trouble than I'd ever dreamed of, but she WAS alone, Her eating d isorder amped up big time in college, I was spitting furious at my mother for ignoring her for her boyfriend,. So, yes, I told her off and, in thej bargain of being so angry at her for my sister's sake, got blamed for it fifteen years later by my sister, but she never knew my mindset when I called her, It may still not have made a difference, I did tell my mother the secrets that my sister told me, even if I did not tell her for the purpose of making my mother think she was baaaaaaaaaaaaaad, I just wanted my mother to realize my sister needed her,

Mother marked her time and told her fifteen years later, when me and Sis were getting very close, with no preamble of why I told her, It was not a cozy little conversation, I did not have those types of conversations with my mother, I did not like who she was, I loved her, but I didn't l ike her and from Day One I felt s he was not on my side a nd that the only one who could take care of me was me so I did defend myself,

This made me extra baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad and also abusive, I guess,

At this same time, I was observing ex's sweet angel of a mother and was unable not to compare, I'd think, "Why can't my mother be a REAL loving mother, like her?" I adored her, She was my idol for many years,

My mother did not try to have a relationship with her after the $5000, She never understood why I wouldn't do it and that had to do with her relationship with HER mother, See, my grandmother was also controlling a nd very partial to my mother's brother, He was her favorite, like my brother was my mother's favorite, What did my mother do when she was verbally abused, in the passive way my grandmother could do it?

My mother was Child One, She had to obey her mother, even though she DID talk back to her,,,OFTEN, But she was compliant and obedient, To her it was unforgiveable that I did not respect my grandmother's wishes about only giving money to one of my children because nobody EVER disobeyed HER mother, Certainly not her, She was dead, but apparently that didn't matter to my mother, That was the end of us, It was very bizarre, This is the reason she could never forgive me, although I'm sure sh e had other grudges on her list and she was not a forgiving woman, at least not with regards to me,

So the reasons we had different adult relationships, I am thinking, and the reason why it was easier for me to let go of her and to not want her back and to not want another chance etc is that I was a cold logical realist and still am and I saw her, I did think her behavior toward me was my fault until I was in my 30's, but I still saw her flaws and called her in on them, I did not call her in on them every day or often, by the way, It came up once in a blue moon, But I never did feel she was perfect, Did I want her to love me? With all my heart, but being nice didn't work so I was hurt and fought back (I do not mean physically), Did I love her? Warts and all, I loved her like every child loves her mother and was very hurt that she didn't seem to love me, and I did not try to tell myself that she did love me,,,I didn't believe she loved me, And I was moody and defiant sometimes (not always) because she hurt me so badly,

By the time I hit my 40s I'd met the guy who told me that he refuses to let anybody in his life, family or not, if they aren't nice to him and I had years to nurture that concept and after marrying my husband I got to feel true, pure, unconditional love, It never even crossed my mind that his man would leave me or ever stop loving me and it hasn't happened and, although I think he loved me more than I loved him at first, it is definitely equal now, I had love and a loving family and also, although Goneboy left and it did sadden me deeply, I do have four loving children who call me almost every day, It makes a difference than if one is struggling with ALL of their children or their only child, That might have made me mourn more for my mother, I do feel loved, When I started blogging here, as I calll this, it was really about my sister who I also loved too much to explain and was hurt beyond my being able to keep it all inside of me, My sister broke my heart so I came here to think about m y family and I started writing to maybe put it in print and understand,

And it worked,

I could see that it is as useless to love a sister who can't love me back and would even hurt me than to just let her go, And if it's true what she wrote a nd my brother agrees, then the same with him,

Often when my sister cut me off, it would bring emotional flashbacks of my mother's slap from the grave and make me mourn them both and that happened here,

Now that my sister has packed and left the space in my head, my mother seems to have gone with her,

And, all in all, I think this is why it is easier for me, Although, trust me, I will have plenty of emotional flashbacks to chronicle here, I am positive the dreaded day my father, who I love very much, passes away, I will need your strength, I will see them, even though I won't talk to them, It will be a trigger,

I don't think we ever forget completely, The hurt can lessen with time, but it is buried near enough to the surface to come back,

Gosh, I hope I didn't bore you two, I probably didn't tell you one thing you didn't already know, but it felt healthy and healing to write it down,

I wish you both a peaceful night and snuggle with the man you love they both sound amazing,

 

[InsaneCdn]

I never even heard of a choke cherry.

They are "free" here... as in, grow wild. Everywhere.
I wouldn't waste them on wine though. They make the best pancake syrup EVER.

 

[Copabanana]

after marrying my husband I got to feel true, pure, unconditional love

I am happy for you, SWOT.

 

[Copabanana]

I still saw her flaws and called her in on them....and fought back...And I was moody and defiant sometimes (not always) because she hurt me so badly,

SWOT, you were always strong. You never surrendered your voice. You insisted you deserved good treatment. You may not have succeeded in getting it, but you never, ever gave up your sense you deserved it.

 

[BusynMember]

WOT, you were always strong. You never surrendered your voice. You insisted you deserved good treatment. You may not have succeeded in getting it, but you never, ever gave up your sense you deserved it.

I did not feel I deserved it, I felt that I deserved to be treated badly because I was bad, That's why I got angry and emoted which is now being called abuse by me to those who truly did abuse me, It just is not my nature to be quiet, I probably made things worse for myself, My sister was very quiet, She took it,. I didn't,

The only time I was quiet was while bullied at school because with ten kids standing around me, I did not feel safe talking back,

In the end, I do feel I have a strong survival mechanism, But remember that from age 23 on there has been no time I have no been in therapy, most of it very good, and self-help groups and psychologist lead groups too, I was not really alone, I had a support system helping me to see that what happened to me was not my fault, I didn't completely buy it, but as the years fell away, I believed it more and more, Once my sis divorced and I saw th e real her with my own eyes,,,married men, abusive men, weak, weepy, unable to love,,,I realized I never knew her, She got mean maybe because I would not listen to her talk about her boyfriend any more, I recall that as being the real reason she cut me off,

If I could think she was a tower of strength, and I did (even knowing about her anorexia,,,I know, it doesn't make sense),,,but I did think she was t he strong one, If I could be so wrong about her and think she had the same moral code I had,,,even my mother would never have dated a married man,,.,,then I knew I could have been wrong about my entire family, Good, kind brother? Is he? I don't know,

And I knew I was right about my mother, My sister sees my mother from a position of weaknkess, She NEEDED her love, She let her get away "being mother," She let her do exactly what my grandmother had done that my mother had vowed she'd never do,,,,take her own daughter's side against my sister (sister's daughter who, at the time, was a problem), She probably let her get away with lots of shoot, My sister was not the golden c hild and could not do anything she wanted and still have Mother love, She needed to put up with a lot of crapola, maybe even some abuse, I wasn't there and I don't know for sure, but I do know my mother,

"This just mother being mother,"

Yes, Abusive,

At any rate, this was an early morning rant, I have work today and we're all going out to dinner tonight for Sonic's birthday, You all have a peaceful, serene and happy day, knowing that you are validated, You are believed,. And you both are great

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

When I called her, as I explained, I wanted to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say I tried as hard as I could, whether or not it was accepted, and then there were my very strong spiritual beliefs, I did not call her so sh e wouldn't be alone or anything like tha

That's what I mean by responsibility, Serenity. It is that quest in us, each of whom was left with so little, to do the right thing. I was thinking about that once, and realized I had not acted from joy. I acted from responsibility, not to my mother, but to doing the right thing by my own definition of what that right thing was.

So, as you have posted too, I could meet my own eyes in the mirror.

Others respond to their mothers, to their sisters and brothers, with joy...and with respect. We have learned to be so guarded around our mothers, and our families of origin. Until we came together here and began sharing our stories, I was so sure I was the one behaving badly. It is still unbelievable to me sometimes to understand how my family of origin ~ how those pieces fit together.

(Pray for their peace and therein find our own.)

I began this response last night. This morning, answering Copa's questions about guilt surrounding what happened to the family D H and I had created...I got something, a core thing regarding the responsible-for-everything a child who has been abused will feel.

I got that piece.

After all these years.

***

Mother marked her time and told her fifteen years later, when me and Sis were getting very close, with no preamble of why I told her,

I'm sorry she did that, Serenity. We have traced the ways our moms and our families of origin seem to practice a kind of hierarchy of importance, or outright exclusion ~ even reaching out to exclude and prevent the family healing after their deaths. Do you think your mom did that because you and your sister were becoming close?

How awful for you both.

Even when your kids began hurting, and you feared and then accused yourself as having hurt them, you did not link this hurtfulness to the actions and attitudes of your mother towards you as a child?

If you mean did I understand that the certainty that I was somehow responsible for everything would have come from the way I was brought up? No, I did not link that feeling of responsibility for everything (which I do have, to this day) to that certainty that I must be responsible for what was happening.

I wish I'd had a therapist point that connecting piece out to me.

That is why I believed, unshakably believed, that I was responsible whether it made sense or not.

BOOM

I had not put that together before, Copa.

Thank you.

***

We have each talked about the ways our moms seem to have no memory at all of having done what they did. Now, I know better, because at eighty, my mom drew her arm back as though to to strike me and laughed about it.

So she does remember.

But I didn't know that then. So it seemed that if she had done those terrible things she absolutely did do and had no memory of it, then it would be possible that I had done such things too, and had no memory of it.

That is what I went into therapy to find.

What had I done to my daughter that I didn't remember. (Son was still doing great at that time.)

And my mother had said "Well, I guess you weren't such a good mom after all, were you." So, somehow, I just knew it was me. Something I had done wrongly in my parenting that did not show, that I could not find.

And I never once connected the global responsibility feeling, which I carry to this day, to my belief that I was responsible for what happened to our kids.

Isn't that something.

And my mom would say things like: "I remember leaving your house and you would all be out there waving and we would think, what a nice family. You just never know what goes on behind closed doors."

Stuff like that.

Stuff about what D H might have done, and had I thought about that.

How could it be that a therapist would not just tell me why I felt responsible?

Surely they must have known.

Maybe they did and I could not hear it?

***

Even when your kids began hurting, and you feared and then accused yourself as having hurt them, you did not link this hurtfulness to the actions and attitudes of your mother towards you as a child?

You believed kind of your original sin? And repressed, at that time, her conduct in the family?

No. I always knew what my mother had done. I wondered whether I had done those same things to my own children and then, repressed my memory of having done so.

Four years later, our son would turn sixteen, begin working, do so well and then, boom. He would fall, too.

So...D H and I didn't know. I should say I didn't know. D H told me that of course he wondered how this all could have happened. He would tell me again and again that he spent one night ~ pretty much, all night ~ reviewing our family's workings. His part. My part. Extended family interaction. Friends our daughter had; friends she turned to and music she listened to. Just everything he could think about. He said I was too permissive a mom; that I was forever doing things for the kids they should have been doing for themselves.

And he came away with things we both could have done differently, but nothing horrible enough to have created what was happening to all of us.

And then, he was sure.

He would tell me: I concluded that, as I had found nothing to justify what was happening to daughter, we needed to look elsewhere. There was surely something happening, but it was a waste of time to believe it was something we had done if we could find nothing to justify what was happening. Even if there was something, he said, the correct action was to concentrate on addressing what was happening, now.

But I just couldn't see it that way. Now, I realize that, just as surely as I feel responsible for everything that happens today in my interactions, I did that same thing, when our family was so suddenly so troubled.

That is the feeling I mean. In my life, I am always feeling I should have known, should have seen this or that coming, should have been able to pull it together.

That is the hurt place in the center of me.

My fault.

I couldn't know where I'd gone wrong as a mom. But I believed I must have.

And I never did quite put those two things together until this morning. How incredible.

That's why I felt so sure it was me.

Now, why would a therapist have not been able to point that simple connection, that way an abused child would carry that sense of responsibility for everything into her adult life and be weakened, and turn within for the solution? And beat herself up, and shame herself.

Copa, that is what we did with those bad therapists, too.

We took responsibility.

We believe we were wrong. Intellectually we understand. But in the heart of us, no matter what the "crime" is, we are guilty.

That's it, Copa and Serenity.

That is the direct connection, the why behind the way that we see.

Huh.

Wow.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Gosh, I hope I didn't bore you two, I probably didn't tell you one thing you didn't already know, but it felt healthy and healing to write it down,

No, I am not bored, Serenity. In your story, I hear echoes of my own. I am fascinated, not bored. Just like it is with our troubled kids, when we first find the site and realize the kids, raised in so many different kinds of families, are engaging in the same kinds of behaviors. And finally, we can hear that it wasn't us; that we are not defective parents in some way we cannot get a grip on and address.

We can accept then that it could be a genetically mandated illness. Or that it could be drugs that are the heart of the problem and not that the kids turned to drugs because we had failed them somehow.

I am so gratefully, sincerely pleased with the way we share here, and heal here.

Thank you for sharing your story with us, Serenity.

We are all coming through it, at last.

I had posted earlier about finally seeing the connection between that feeling of responsibility for the mother's feelings when we are little, and the feeling of global responsibility we take on as adults.

Could it be that when you think you have been less than, anywhere in your life (like when you post that we may have found your post boring), that this is the core of what was hurt into you as a little girl?

Does that thread, that self assessment, seem to run through the rest of your thinking about yourself, too?

Look what happened to me because of that kind of thinking I was doing about myself without even knowing it, because it is so familiar to me.

I am just blown away by the way that thinking has affected every aspect of my life.

That is the core of shame.

That is why we think that way.

Cedar

Okay. So I am knowing everything again this morning.

But this is big.

It's like we haven't seen the forest for the trees.

Or like those Walt Disney tulip fields I was posting about yesterday.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I know you have designated alternate mother figures, like Maya...I wonder what other practices we could each dedicate ourselves to, to reinforce and honor that mother within us, or seek it in our lives?

One of the things is to see the way other cultures cherish their females. I am on FB with the mother, the sister, the cousin, the son, of the male who hurt daughter. I was so angry about it when it happened, I wanted to blame them, to never have anything more to do with that family. But instead, I FB the mom. I said we both were disappointed, that we loved both kids and were the grandmas and both felt so badly. So, I continue to receive their postings having to do with the Native community. Which I was about ready to give up on altogether. And I learned about the construction and the spiritual meaning of the dresses the women wear when the Native community comes together to dance. And, though we have a concept of that community as extremely misogynistic...that isn't true.

It is the dancing women who attract the attention of the Spirit, of the power that funnels through the tribe.

That is why the dresses they wear when they dance are made to jingle.

That is the power of Woman.

We have the opposite concept: Until pretty recently in the Christian religion, women were believed to have no soul. To this day (I think this is true) the Mormon religion believes the wife is taken up into Heaven on her husband's say so. The Catholic church routinely sacrificed the mother, if there were a question of the woman dying to give birth. That is where we had value as Woman.

Carrying the babies men gave us.

Inheritance, for us, passed only through the male line.

Henry the VIII ~ look at what happened there, for him to create a legitimate male heir.

I don't know how African people view Woman.

But that would be an interesting field of study.

How does the Latin community view Woman?

So...add the misogyny we were born into and grew into to the ways we were treated by our own Woman figure, our mothers.

Devalued, hated, reviled, blamed for Exile from the Garden.

Did you know the Lilith figure's sin was that she refused to accept subservience to the Adam? So then, in that belief system, the Eve was created.

Lilith?

Flew free; roared away. And has been condemned for it, ever since.

Just as we found a different kind of strength in learning the story of the pirate mother, throwing her skirts up and roaring she could make another, so we can find other concepts of female to counteract the misogyny running through our own culture like some dark, rotted thread.

Maya describes her mother backhanding her right off the porch. She describes other evidences of abuse. So she changed the story of her life, of its hardness and sadness and hatred, through changing its meaning for her.

That's what we need to do, too.

Especially given our breakage and the corresponding beliefs in us that we are powerlessly responsible, through some oversight, for every bad thing that happens anywhere near us, it will be good for us to study other ways Woman is seen.

We have surely vacuumed up every bad judgement our misogynistic societies have drilled into us. It will be good to counter that.

***

Joel Osteen, this morning: "Failure is an event, not a person."

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Greater strength and flexibility? Access to intelligence? Constancy to self? Power? Do they want to break us? Humiliate us? Humble us? Rub our faces in our temerity and resilience to think we deserve integrity instead of humiliation?

I don't know what they think, Copa. I do know that as my sister and my mom spent more time together after my father was gone, my sister's attitude got to be one of how poorly my mother was cared for here in the summer compared to how well she was cared for by my sister. Really, it was so blatantly obvious that she was massaging the facts pretty hard to come to those conclusions but to her, that is what she needed to believe, and so, she did. There was that same sense of crawling on top and justifying it through accusation.

That's all I know about that.

My sister does this around everything else too, I now realize.

But I first spotted it in the way she behaved when my father was in the hospital. It was off balance behavior. Nothing about it (the sucker incident) made sense.
She does that same thing now in her care of my mother.

Climbing on top.

We see it too in Serenity's sister's behaviors. Stalking, a kind of endless fascination with us, calling the police. (Or, walking with the Lord).

All ways of looking meant to diminish us, to find "proof" of our ~ of something. But here is the thing: Each of us has had experiences where our sisters were behaving inappropriately and excused it. How is it they seem committed to doing the opposite?

Since it's happening with all three sisters, it has to be a FOO thing. Probably, they believe themselves. I still think it has to do with their feelings re: pseudo mom and especially, with having seen pseudo mom abused by real mom.

Maybe that is the pattern they are trying to duplicate.

Cedar