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Nasty letter from father...where my difficult child is living now
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 619944" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>I'm sorry this is happening, BITS. I am so glad you shared the trauma of it with us. With each of us replying, there will be tiny pieces of truth and healing and strength coming in to expose and verify the toxicity of what is happening and to help heal the hurt and the shame of it. </p><p></p><p>Bad as this stuff is, it's worse when we are alone with it. But you aren't alone with it, anymore.</p><p></p><p>***********</p><p></p><p>I know what you mean, about the power in any communication from father to daughter. You are being hunted (snail mail once you defied him re: email) by someone who understands he can torment you <u>because</u> he is your father. He fully understands what he is doing, and he is doing it with malice aforethought.</p><p></p><p>This is so eerily cruel. </p><p></p><p>There are parents who create and then, fasten onto their children's vulnerabilities, BITS. My mother is one. Your father is one. I think it would have been worse, had my father been the one out to destroy me. That would have been like, global condemnation. A mother's condemnation had to do with who we are as women. The men in our lives can teach us a different truth where those hurts are concerned.</p><p></p><p>But who can help you know what is real if it is the father condemning you?</p><p></p><p>When we stand up, when we begin to get healthy and start to see ourselves and our situations differently, those who have a vested interest in keeping us broken are going to take their best shots.</p><p></p><p>Even if they have to resort to snail mail to do it. (That was a little attempt at humor. It may have fallen flat. :O)</p><p></p><p>And the crummy part, the even worse part, is that even if you hadn't read what he so carefully tailored to weaken and destroy you? He gets to believe that you did, gets to believe the toxicity he sent out hit home. And that is why he mailed it. It has nothing to do with you, BITS. This is the nature of your father's illusion. He has enough money to keep everyone dancing to his tune.</p><p></p><p>So, you are sort of trapped.</p><p></p><p>And that trapped feeling, that desperate hollow feelings, is the taste of the shame that is the source of his power over you, BITS. It is how he has controlled you, all of your life. Like my mother did when I became an adult and discounted her toxicity, your father, always the opportunist, struck at the vulnerable place that was opened in the adult you through the pain you were in over your child.</p><p></p><p>I believe you are correct in describing the isolation from family as an outcome your father planned for you once you defied him by taking back your power when difficult child was 6.</p><p></p><p>I think you posted one time that difficult child quickly became your father's favorite.</p><p></p><p>That again is eerily cruel, and is pretty heady stuff for a kid.</p><p></p><p>From that, I am going to guess that, like my mother, your father too plays favorites for the purpose of setting up competition between those family members for whom love should be a given, but becomes a prize, instead. </p><p></p><p>It's an especially nasty, hurtful game for grandchildren, and an added vulnerability for the parent. </p><p></p><p>So, a piece of all this would be, not just who gets to inherit, but that he was smarter than everyone because he made the money in the first place. He is 78. He needs to get his family in order before he goes...implying you are all too stupid to make it without him or his money.</p><p></p><p>And then?</p><p></p><p>He disinherits you.</p><p></p><p>Hmmm....</p><p></p><p>For the second time.</p><p></p><p>It is important for you to recognize the patterns, the taste of the shame and humiliation, so you can see through the Wizard of Oz facade your father has erected. Like me, you are Dorothy, looking so desperately for the safety of home and family. You are the Tin Man, wishing for a heart. You are the Scarecrow too, wishing for his brain and the Lion, wishing for courage.</p><p></p><p>And you know what happened for each of them, once the Wizard was exposed for the charlatan he was.</p><p></p><p>Recovering was right, when she suggested Brene Brown's books or TED talks. She teaches that rather than try to stop the pain, we ride it's edge. Seek to stay with it. Refuse to be afraid of it. I have been doing this as a practice? And the result is that we see through our own eyes, instead of through the eyes of whoever it is who likes to twist and torture and condemn us. We lose our vulnerability to them because we know we will not cower away from the pain, but will eagerly ride its edge, keeping it with us, watching and feeling and tasting it until we have no fear of it, or of our tormentors, at all.</p><p></p><p>I think that is the only way out, the only answer there is.</p><p></p><p>I loved MWM's "free as a bird" paragraph:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So, that is what where you are going looks and feels like.</p><p></p><p>I have no answer for the hold your father has over difficult child or for the isolation he is forcing upon you. Know that it is part of his sickness, to do these things. It helps me, when something especially rank has happened with my mother or my sister, to mourn not only what happened, but to mourn the good things that could have happened but did not.</p><p></p><p>It helps me to see my situation with greater clarity.</p><p></p><p>It isn't just what we got that matters, BITS ~ it's what we should have had, and did not get.</p><p></p><p>There is anger there, in those kinds of thoughts. And with anger, comes strength, strength enough to begin to redefine your situation relative to your father. What did you need when you were 12 and made the comment about the chauvinist? </p><p></p><p>That is what you should have had, BITS.</p><p></p><p>And that is the nature of your father's crime against you.</p><p></p><p>And he hurt you instead back then, and he is hurting you instead, now.</p><p></p><p>It is good to see the toxicity clearly. Then, we don't accept it into our hearts.</p><p></p><p>Keep posting about it, BITS. </p><p></p><p>We will be angry for you until you can see with the clarity you require.</p><p></p><p>For now, for today, your son is where he is. Life is very long; you will outlive your father.</p><p></p><p>You are difficult child's mother.</p><p></p><p>Grandpa is not going to win this one. Not in the long run.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p><p></p><p>I forgot to add that you are married and don't need his money. That must so rankle him! My mother hates my husband for that reason, too. One time? We bought this house and whatever. So, my parents come to see it. My mother starts making nasty comments right out loud about "rich man's hostas." (Just to clarify a point? We're not rich.) Anyway. So, I tell my mother we'll be happy to give her some root stock so she can have them in her garden too, if she likes them. Do you know that my mother, dressed in clothes for dinner, went directly to the hostas and started trying to tear them out of the soil?</p><p></p><p>It was one of the craziest things my husband had ever seen.</p><p></p><p>Me? Unfortunately, I was all too familiar with having my mother destroy my things....</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 619944, member: 17461"] I'm sorry this is happening, BITS. I am so glad you shared the trauma of it with us. With each of us replying, there will be tiny pieces of truth and healing and strength coming in to expose and verify the toxicity of what is happening and to help heal the hurt and the shame of it. Bad as this stuff is, it's worse when we are alone with it. But you aren't alone with it, anymore. *********** I know what you mean, about the power in any communication from father to daughter. You are being hunted (snail mail once you defied him re: email) by someone who understands he can torment you [U]because[/U] he is your father. He fully understands what he is doing, and he is doing it with malice aforethought. This is so eerily cruel. There are parents who create and then, fasten onto their children's vulnerabilities, BITS. My mother is one. Your father is one. I think it would have been worse, had my father been the one out to destroy me. That would have been like, global condemnation. A mother's condemnation had to do with who we are as women. The men in our lives can teach us a different truth where those hurts are concerned. But who can help you know what is real if it is the father condemning you? When we stand up, when we begin to get healthy and start to see ourselves and our situations differently, those who have a vested interest in keeping us broken are going to take their best shots. Even if they have to resort to snail mail to do it. (That was a little attempt at humor. It may have fallen flat. :O) And the crummy part, the even worse part, is that even if you hadn't read what he so carefully tailored to weaken and destroy you? He gets to believe that you did, gets to believe the toxicity he sent out hit home. And that is why he mailed it. It has nothing to do with you, BITS. This is the nature of your father's illusion. He has enough money to keep everyone dancing to his tune. So, you are sort of trapped. And that trapped feeling, that desperate hollow feelings, is the taste of the shame that is the source of his power over you, BITS. It is how he has controlled you, all of your life. Like my mother did when I became an adult and discounted her toxicity, your father, always the opportunist, struck at the vulnerable place that was opened in the adult you through the pain you were in over your child. I believe you are correct in describing the isolation from family as an outcome your father planned for you once you defied him by taking back your power when difficult child was 6. I think you posted one time that difficult child quickly became your father's favorite. That again is eerily cruel, and is pretty heady stuff for a kid. From that, I am going to guess that, like my mother, your father too plays favorites for the purpose of setting up competition between those family members for whom love should be a given, but becomes a prize, instead. It's an especially nasty, hurtful game for grandchildren, and an added vulnerability for the parent. So, a piece of all this would be, not just who gets to inherit, but that he was smarter than everyone because he made the money in the first place. He is 78. He needs to get his family in order before he goes...implying you are all too stupid to make it without him or his money. And then? He disinherits you. Hmmm.... For the second time. It is important for you to recognize the patterns, the taste of the shame and humiliation, so you can see through the Wizard of Oz facade your father has erected. Like me, you are Dorothy, looking so desperately for the safety of home and family. You are the Tin Man, wishing for a heart. You are the Scarecrow too, wishing for his brain and the Lion, wishing for courage. And you know what happened for each of them, once the Wizard was exposed for the charlatan he was. Recovering was right, when she suggested Brene Brown's books or TED talks. She teaches that rather than try to stop the pain, we ride it's edge. Seek to stay with it. Refuse to be afraid of it. I have been doing this as a practice? And the result is that we see through our own eyes, instead of through the eyes of whoever it is who likes to twist and torture and condemn us. We lose our vulnerability to them because we know we will not cower away from the pain, but will eagerly ride its edge, keeping it with us, watching and feeling and tasting it until we have no fear of it, or of our tormentors, at all. I think that is the only way out, the only answer there is. I loved MWM's "free as a bird" paragraph: So, that is what where you are going looks and feels like. I have no answer for the hold your father has over difficult child or for the isolation he is forcing upon you. Know that it is part of his sickness, to do these things. It helps me, when something especially rank has happened with my mother or my sister, to mourn not only what happened, but to mourn the good things that could have happened but did not. It helps me to see my situation with greater clarity. It isn't just what we got that matters, BITS ~ it's what we should have had, and did not get. There is anger there, in those kinds of thoughts. And with anger, comes strength, strength enough to begin to redefine your situation relative to your father. What did you need when you were 12 and made the comment about the chauvinist? That is what you should have had, BITS. And that is the nature of your father's crime against you. And he hurt you instead back then, and he is hurting you instead, now. It is good to see the toxicity clearly. Then, we don't accept it into our hearts. Keep posting about it, BITS. We will be angry for you until you can see with the clarity you require. For now, for today, your son is where he is. Life is very long; you will outlive your father. You are difficult child's mother. Grandpa is not going to win this one. Not in the long run. Cedar I forgot to add that you are married and don't need his money. That must so rankle him! My mother hates my husband for that reason, too. One time? We bought this house and whatever. So, my parents come to see it. My mother starts making nasty comments right out loud about "rich man's hostas." (Just to clarify a point? We're not rich.) Anyway. So, I tell my mother we'll be happy to give her some root stock so she can have them in her garden too, if she likes them. Do you know that my mother, dressed in clothes for dinner, went directly to the hostas and started trying to tear them out of the soil? It was one of the craziest things my husband had ever seen. Me? Unfortunately, I was all too familiar with having my mother destroy my things.... [/QUOTE]
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Nasty letter from father...where my difficult child is living now
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