Interesting Emotional Response

[scent of cedar]

Reading your dream about those old fuse boxes immediately brought one word to my mind..........power.

When I mention that I am done with the healing, it is the family generational healing I am speaking of.

The detachment from my daughter, seems to have set me free............and whatever happens with my difficult child, I feel as if she is free too...........

I am not entirely sure what that means for her, she may be too steeped in the darkness to recognize freedom..............but it is now up to her to find her way to the light.

I am afraid of the word power, Recovering. That is why I can only accept "authenticity." There was a time when I worked in a lock-down psychiatric unit for a little while. I saw so many of us who tripped over that word "power." What they tripped into were harmful belief systems having to do with power-over; luridly colored by the unresolved toxicity of their childhoods, the belief systems destroyed these patients, for awhile. They lost sight of what was real, and of their own goodness, and even, of the goodness of the world.

Authenticity I can strive for, believe in, anticipate with real joy. Power? Not so much. I suppose that is why that dream scares me, to this day. The wires connect. And the music...plays of its own accord.

Something to do with power is what happened to my mother.

I'm having my own scary Haloween post, over here!

Goosebumps.

Ewwww!


*************************

Generational healing, Recovering. I don't know how to help anymore, either. I told you all a little about my mother in an earlier post. In my life, when I could do it, I really did try to hold strong for my family ~ for my siblings, especially.
It sounds like you did too, Recovering. Good for you! You never know, no matter what it looks or feels like, how you might have helped, what little difference you might have made that will grow into the thing someone can use to rise. But this is what happened, two years ago, in my family, because, like you Recovering, I try to hold on generationally.

So, my sister and I have a special kind of "we are going to make it what we saw elsewhere and believe it until it is real" thing going on. It has been a source of comfort, both to give and to take and to validate reality, for years and years. After my father died, my mother has become closer (scorpion, remember) to the remaining sibs. And this is what the relationship my sister and I kept working to make real turned into: Remember that, for a time, there was a saying, "What would Jesus do?" Well, in as snide a voice as possible, repeat that phrase, only say..."And mom and I said ~ wait! What would Cedar do?!? Ho Ho Ho and Ha Ha Ha....

Now, where was I going with this. Oh. Generational healing. Holding a good thought and great, big, servings of detachment...because poison is poison.

And scorpions are scorpions.

*******************

I feel that way about my daughter too, Recovering. (Not that she is a scorpion. We are going back to the last items I quoted from your original post.) I know she is steeped in darkness, sometimes. I know she is often afraid, and that sometimes, she doesn't understand herself what happens. I know she believes, beyond question, that this is the path she is meant to walk.

For me and husband, it becomes a question of money and life time. How much of our life time should be devoted to trying to change the path our daughter seems determined to walk? How much pain, until we accept that she is determined to do it just this way? How much money do we see thrown absolutely to the wind. (As you have seen too Recovering, with your daughter. Every single penny is gone, and nothing, nothing at all, to show for it. All the nights worrying and hoping and losing hope and being afraid ~ and she goes right out and does the same thing, again.) It took your daughter a certain number of months to come back to this place she has tried for so long to go. Our daughter? Slipped right back to the streets and expected, given that the bad man had totaled her van in trying, one more time, to kill her, or to kill them both, that we would drive her to the jail to see him.

And we did that.

?

And we let her go back to the streets with a new sleeping bag and some good, white socks.

And do you know, I even sent rigatoni and peanut M&Ms for she and the bad man to eat?

???????

She is asking us to accept her for who she is and for what she wants. So...we tell her we love her. We tell her we wish her well. We give her more money. But this time we tell her, and each other, that this is the money with which we buy ourselves out of this. She is on her own, again. I think we might mean it, this time. But is she going a dark way, Recovering? Is your daughter going a dark way? Or is she following the path she needs to follow, for reasons we will never comprehend?

Now, why do you suppose this happened, to our daughters?

What are we all supposed to understand?

I don't know.

I don't know anything, anymore.

difficult child is putting things back together. She is living with our granddaughter's father.

And that's all I know.

I know how detachment looks Recovering, because I feel it in your posts, now. I don't know where I am, on that spectrum.

 

[scent of cedar]

I recall as a young person a therapist telling me that I had been abused..........I argued with her!

sometimes seeing that truth is the hardest thing we have to do. In particular, where our children are concerned.

amazingly, we humans have great capacity for healing.

I remember that happening too, Recovering. It's like I knew bad things had happened. But what I didn't know is that it was just as bad that those things happened to ME as it would have been, had they happened to someone else. That is probably what was so traumatic in witnessing what I saw with my sibs. Much of my therapy revolved around the fact that it was wrong that those things should have happened to anyone. Then, I could see the wrongness of it. Then, I could change my perception of which of the people involved in the interaction was wrong. Humans will strive to rationalize, to make sense of, everything that happens. It is what keeps us sane. So, when we are mistreated, we rationalize that, too.
There is a part of me which survived it by being able to "take it." It is a good part of me, a strong part. But she does not question the validity of what is happening; she simply assures we will survive it.

It is difficult to find a thing consistently strong enough to confront and face down those old teachings, a thing strong enough to enable me to question the validity of shame.

Thank goodness I have my grandmother's love to wrap around and light my way out of there.

So, love must be eternal, then. My grandmother has been dead a very long time.

Sometimes, right now, it feels as though I must not be telling the truth.

Surely, these things cannot have happened. It feels wrong to question, wrong to blame and accuse.

But it's just like what is happening with Witz. Whether we believe it or not, there are the marks; there is the family, still being so out of whack and abnormal and pointlessly, endlessly, hurtful.

So it must be true, then.

But here is the difference. Now, there is enough of me. I am authentic in more places, now. I am able to hold strong for the child I was, without questioning the validity of the story. That is Brene Brown. There is nothing we have to do. That is Joel Osteen. No rationalizing. No vengeance, no atonement. Just be there, stay there, and see.

It is what it is.

And it is better to know.

Thank you for reading along. It is good, to have a witness.

Cedar

 

[recoveringenabler]

Greenrene, thank you, as Cedar has mentioned, I too am honored to be a part of your emergence, your healing. It takes courage to look at this stuff and unravel it so that we can indeed feel wholeness...........I applaud you for embarking on this journey! And, really, I'm also sorry you need to be on it as well..............in a perfect world, to have a loving, nurturing, healthy and balanced mother should be every child's birthright. But, here we are.............

Cedar, yes, absolutely a witness is crucial. I've read repeatedly that even children who've been terribly abused can heal if there is just ONE person who can really see and hear that child's pain. Sometimes it's a teacher, sometimes a therapist, sometimes a grandparent, someone who can show that child a heart which cares.

If abuse isn't healed, it continues down...........it took me awhile to see that my parents had their own history within their own families. Part of my own healing was to recognize that they were doing to us what was done to them................that took time.

I believe my own mother shut down completely because of her own pain and in seeing my own aliveness, the spark still present in me at 5 years old, because her spark was already gone, she set out to destroy mine. Something a friend of mine said many years ago makes sense in this particular context, "when you shine a big light, what other's see is their own darkness." Children are filled with light. And, there is the jealousy, the unconscious anger...............that instead of nurturing that light, an unhealed person wants it extinguished. That is played out on the world stage as well as in families.

Over many years of listening to many women with "mother wounds" I've come to believe this is more common then I would have imagined. Beyond my own hurts, my interpretation has been that the inability to be our true selves not only damages us, it can damage our children in profound ways.

I see both of my parents having had their lives limited in massive ways because of not only gender expectations of their age group, but by their particular upbringings based on their nationalities. All adding up to being completely arrested in their development. The results for us, their offspring, was devastating. We were silently blamed, I think unconsciously, out of their awareness, for all they could not become.

That came down both sides of my family of origin and for whatever reason, I had a powerful internal commitment to alter that history and end the cycle of abuse.

My Dad has passed away, but my mother is 88 and although in some ways she has moved away from her cruel self, for my own protection I've had to develop clear boundaries because my interpretation is that she does not know healthy ways of getting her needs met other then by manipulation and deception and that makes her dangerous. I love her but I am aware of her power to harm. And, truthfully, I have empathy for her too because she never healed or became whole or lived her real, authentic life. It's taken me a lot of therapy to be able to integrate all of that...............the integration of all of those feelings is what allowed me to feel whole.

It appears that my daughter has inherited the same cruelty and need to extinguish the 'light' of those in her vision............

The way I see it is in terms of power, my parents didn't have authentic selves, so all of their power was in having power over us, the children, those who were too vulnerable to fight back. Had my parents been allowed to develop into their real,authentic selves, perhaps they would have flowered in their own lives and been able to empower us to do the same. I don't know, these are all my theories based in my own healing and what I believe to be true now. I also think that because I could see my parents disappointments in life, my mission, early on, became to be able to live my own, real, whole, healed and true life.

I believe many people 'sleep' through life, whether because of too many hurts, or fear, or holding back for whatever reason, I did not want to be one of them because of how I grew up. Sometimes I think that was a gift, many times I thought it was a curse. Now I think it just is what it is and it all happened for a reason which continues to reveal itself to me.

Cedar, I understand your stories..........I've learned not to trust a scorpion........and my daughter recently has taught me that I can't set foot into the poisoned pond where the rest of my family resides. These are hard lessons. It's hard not to open the bottle of poison Cedar, there are still those hopeful children within us trying to gain our parents approval and love. Perhaps give the bottle to your husband and when the need arises to open it once again, he can remind you of its lethal quality. Recently my SO has taken on that role, so now I've learned to ask, "do you see any holes in my thinking?" The fog of childhood can be pretty thick and our ability to see in that fog is shaky, sometimes we need a guide. Or perhaps, our own clear light.

I'm still reconciling my role in between my mother and my daughter.............your poison pond story gives me a different way to look at it..........in emerging out of that pond, shaking off the last remnants of the poison, I am free to be me. Leaving my daughter behind, still in that pond, is taking some effort to learn to live with..........

I love that you had your mother in law there to guide you. She showed you how to love. My best friends mother was Italian also, she was the mother image I related to from the seventh grade on..........I saw the look of love in her eyes when my best friend walked in the room..........it was so powerful, she was who I tried to model myself after..............

Love is the key. But first, we have to love ourselves............that's been my life's journey............

 

[scent of cedar]

Cedar- the power of words.............

[video=youtube_share;Hzgzim5m7oU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU[/video]

Know what this teaches me? That we are good. Humans are naturally intrinsically good.

That's important.

Thank you, Recovering.

Cedar

 

[scent of cedar]

Okay, so I have one more thing.

I have been thinking about the things you posted about what your daughter posts on FB, Recovering.

She sounds very like my mother.

Attacks so pointless, and so pointlessly hurtful, that we don't even get it that we have been attacked until someone who loves us points it out to us.

And then?

We are devastated, the strikes invariably blasting away at the things we believe are right and true and good about ourselves.

I suppose that, looked at in this light, those attacks actually serve the purpose of making those good parts of ourselves truly our own.

Authentically our own, you might say.

Dangerous, though. You were right about that.

Chilling.

Another similarity between us, Recovering.

It is good, to have an ally.

:O)

Cedar

 

[recoveringenabler]

Cedar, my daughter fits the profile of a narcissist.........eerily so. So did my Dad.

I watched my granddaughter whither in that environment..........makes my heart hurt for the child in you. (And, the child in me too)...........mothers and daughters'..............what a complex and often dangerous, murky, dark and shaky landscape it can be.........I make every attempt for clarity, truth and straight and honest communication with my granddaughter............I want all of that deceptive, manipulative, hurtful energy eliminated as much as I can.

There's a saying I heard in the 12 step CoDa groups........."you're only as sick as your secrets." Having grown up in the center of deception and secrets............. truthfulness, integrity and clarity are important, in fact, essential, to me. Makes life so much easier for me too. Everything is above board, not lurking underground............everything is in the light.

I just thought of this..............there is a book about the Feminine journey to wholeness, SHE: Understanding Feminine Psychology by Robert A. Johnson. He uses a myth to address the various "tasks" that we seem to have to overcome in order to become whole. It's good.

It's very, very good to have an ally...........

 

[scent of cedar]

I will request the book. I love having things explained through myth.

:O)

I am thinking about the Dali Lama's phrase. I get it, that love is the opposite of fear. Implied there is that love vanquishes fear, fills the space where it was. But how does the absence of judgment create love...acceptance of what is, I suppose?

Not buying in to the fear, right?

Absence of judgment is not buying in to fear.

So, you see clearly.

This is beautiful, Recovering.

Cedar

 

[greenrene]

My mother is undiagnosed, but she has many narcissistic, borderline, and bipolar traits. I've never felt any real sort of bond with her; in fact, I have always felt repelled. There was some physical abuse (I remember being shaken and hit), but the mental/emotional was way worse.

I never saw myself being a mother. In fact, I was secretly terrified throughout my first pregnancy - would I be able to bond with my child? Would I be able to love my child and give them what I never had? As soon as he was born and in my arms, all that fear just faded - he had my heart, and I loved him more than I ever thought I could love anyone. I was feeling such enormous joy and love for that sweet baby boy, and at the same time I was feeling intense grief - I was a baby like that once, how could my mom NOT love me like that? I grieved for the relationship that I'd always wanted and needed but would never have. It was a very intense, emotional time, made moreso by the fact that my grandmother (maternal) died when my son was just 5 days old.

Although having my own children has been a healing force for me, there is much that I feel is still unresolved. Raising difficult child has, I fear, stunted me and set me back quite a bit in my personal growth. And with that, I have to go - my newest little one is waking up...

 

[scent of cedar]

In fact, I was secretly terrified throughout my first pregnancy - would I be able to bond with my child? Would I be able to love my child and give them what I never had?

Me, too.

There was fear there, too. I was so invested in doing everything I knew to create something I didn't know the feel of. I didn't know what "real" family looked like, other than what I'd seen on television. For so long, it looked like we had done it, too. Then...not so much.

I think that mindset is the reason I felt so responsible when difficult child daughter went the wrong way. I couldn't see beyond my own part in who and how she was. Lately though, I'm coming to understand that genetics plays as big a part in who we become as nurturance...maybe, more.

How else could it be that, while some abused children grow up and pass that on, others develop intense compassion?

************** Congratulations on the birth of your baby boy!!! ***********************************

That is happy news.

:O)

You are so fortunate, and I am so happy for you, and for your husband. I loved being a mom at home!

And this also answers another question for my husband and me. Our children are only 15 months apart. We only had two, and always wondered whether difficult child would have been okay if we'd had other children.

Probably not, then.

 

[witzend]

Beautiful video. I have heard the scorpion story before, but not the frog one. How true. I would not have allowed my children to have any real contact with my family if I had had a different choice. When I was pregnant with M and L's dad and step-dad accused me of molesting her and cut me off, the judge ordered that I have supervised visits until there could be a hearing - five months later. Knowing that we did not get along, the only person they would approve was my parents. That was the day I wanted to turn away from L. That was the time I was going to turn away from L. Everyone said "You can't." I guess we're all old enough now to know that we can and maybe sometimes we should.

I often wonder if they hadn't had me to fight over (they were sadistic to each other as well) would L have turned out differently? I don't know. Life would have been very different for M.

The poison pond story rings very true.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Cedar, yes I too love things explained through myths. Those quotes about judgment, or the Great Way being open for those who have no preferences.........make me ponder what I hold as the 'truth' and often will bring openings, an opportunity to see beyond the veils of illusion I think we are simply born into. It helps to keep me on my toes so to speak, from getting too mired in my own judgments and opinions..........keeps me honest!!

Greenrene, I can certainly identify with all that you're saying. It's been said that when we have our own children is when our issues with our parents seem to surface. I just want to say that I am truly sorry you are on this path with Cedar, Witz, me and others.............having a nurturing and loving Mom is something every child deserves.............however, you are young and you seem determined and committed to your healing and wholeness and that is a recipe right there for success. As you can see, you're not alone. We're here with you.

Witz, thanks for the suggestion to archive this thread, I will do that.

Oh, I have an addition to my response to the poison pond story............yesterday, my SO and I went out to brunch and I told him the poison pond story and my reaction to it being that I had walked out of that pond and was still reconciling leaving my daughter behind, still in the pond. Well, in true SO fashion, he said, "you didn't leave her behind, you pulled her out of there repeatedly, hosed her off, used all your strength, reserves, money and everything you had to keep her out and in spite of all your efforts, she jumped back in!!" I couldn't help but laugh out loud when he said that! That is exactly what I did and she did jump back in. That old fog of feeling sorry for my daughter is so strong, it is so helpful to have SO there to remind me of the truth.

 

[witzend]

"you didn't leave her behind, you pulled her out of there repeatedly, hosed her off, used all your strength, reserves, money and everything you had to keep her out and in spite of all your efforts, she jumped back in!!" I couldn't help but laugh out loud when he said that! That is exactly what I did and she did jump back in. That old fog of feeling sorry for my daughter is so strong, it is so helpful to have SO there to remind me of the truth.

 

[recoveringenabler]

This quote seemed to fit here too.

"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.” -Lao Tzu

 

[witzend]

This struck me today.

Why worry?
There should be laughter after pain.
There should be sunshine after rain.
These things have always been the same.
So why worry now?

Mark Knopfler

 

[scent of cedar]

Cannot "like" to indicate that I read and appreciated, Witz and Recovering...but I do.

:O)

Cedar