Surviving parent, whom I love, sad that his kids are estranged

[Copabanana]

Copa, you did right by your mother. Perhaps sh e did not do right by you, but you did right by her.

And you did right by your son. He reaches out to you, as my grown kids reach out to me.

M. values you and he seems like such a smart and wise man.

Thank you, Serenity.

All of these things are true. I know they are. Thank you.

COPA

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

It is mandatory that we listen to those who have had better lives than we did (as children) or who lived in loving homes and can show us their shock at hearing things like:

Yes. We were taught it was just fine to treat us that way. We were taught that whatever the abuser did was fine. And even worse, we were taught that whatever the abuser (whether that was our mother or our sister) did to us was fine.

Growing up was like being one of Ghengis Khan's generals in that way.

And you know what that sick **** required of his Generals.

We didn't break. We never did. That is why we are shunned, today. Funny how different everything looks as we come through it.

This post is pretty much all over the place, everybody. I like it though, as I am coming to like most things about myself. As I posted above, everything looks radically different, as we heal.

We need validation that our experiences were abusive.

We do. I have been surprised at the tenacity of denial. I know, on an intellectual level, that everything about what happened was deeply, weirdly wrong. And was awful in a sickening way. Yet at the same time, what I seem not to know on any level, even the safely intellectual one, is that it was wrong for my mother (or my sister) to do those wrong things to me.

I remember saying, at Group Therapy for Family of Origin issues: "It was as wrong for my mother to kick me as it was for her to have kicked that dog."

It's like that, for us. We were hurt, so we think that it must be okay to hurt us.

It was never okay, what those people did to us.

Anymore than it was okay for them to kick their dogs.

But they did that, too.

***

So, as I wrote this morning, these aspects of self were incorporated. The post is a little uneven because it was active process. So, I left it as it was, other than to read it again before posting, as I am doing now, so we all can see how it works.

Thank you for sticking with me. It matters that there are readers. It keeps me focused, keeps me honest, keeps me connected instead of stuck out there in that place where everything is so cold. And where I don't matter enough to do this for myself, maybe. To devote this kind of time to myself.

Thank you.

:O)

***

It's like I am stuck in some weird forgiveness mode. Or like there is a place of amnesia between what happened to me and myself. Maybe, the family I am lonely for is myself; is all those frozen places where I am holding that negative energy I needed to seal away to survive what was happening.

I hope this is so. I don't admire my family of origin very much, anymore.

But I am beginning to admire myself in an extraordinary way having to do with strength and with integrity of purpose. I was wrong about them, for sure, but I like it that I never gave up, and that I wasn't stupid, and that I wasn't afraid until the family D H and I had created fell apart and I didn't know why, and lost my way in life. Lost my core self, or something. Here is how that connected: If I had failed as a mother, my children would be morally bankrupt as I somehow knew, all along, that my family of origin had been a moral Dead Zone without water or air, like in the poetry. And that is what happened and I just would not see it because (maybe this is so) I refused to put my children, whom I loved and who had awakened me with their Sleeping Beauty kisses, in the same category as what I knew all along and would never admit, that my mother and my sister belonged.

Drugs will do that to us.

What happens to our children.

It turns them into people like my mother, and like my sister.

In any event, hat is when I became vulnerable to my mother and to my sister, again.

My father was always kind. Even in his betrayal of me, he was kind. I am fortunate in that.

It will be an amazing thing, once we have seen the family dinner imagery evolve as my healing is completed.

***

The most important thing I have learned through this process is that the more the memory covering denial glitters, the more hurtful are the truths it contains ~ and the more beneficial for us to work with those exact imagaries.

Family Dinner imagery meant everything to me.

Through it, through that imagery, I have tracked hope and despair and come real.

I have alot of imagery around my babies and my kids, too. Those parts of me feel sacred.

:O)

Each of us has that imagery that will stay with her through her entire healing.

Imagery of my mother has been very strong these past weeks. What if feels like is: Some flash of some disturbing true thing about my mother. A few minutes later, or maybe, the next day, I am filled with glowing, happy imagery of my mother (or of my sister, the process was the same), one after another. I feel happy when I experience those beautiful imageries. I feel really crummy and reviled and rejected because I do not have these lovely women in my life to laugh with and etc. and to spend time with and I feel lonely and so on. (I think now that we give those kinds of imageries to ourselves to remind us that we do love ~ that we are nothing like them. We do not know yet where we are going, or that we are ever going to come through this or that the feelings will ever stop. This is very sad. It feels so essentially unbalanced. This is where those concepts of work, of Benedictines and Buddhists and Copa's concept of reclaiming Germany come in. That is how we survive clearing the ever-widening spiral of toxicity these memories call.

Joel Osteen has been instrumental in setting me into the correct emotional and intellectual place to do what I am doing.

Exercise and meditation and yoga will help but I think it is important to stay with the emotional reality. There are such things as guided meditations which may be helpful in keeping us in a positive mindset...but I am thinking they should be used only for respite. And when we think we cannot take it anymore, we are actually nearly there, so I think no guided meditations.

But I may be wrong about that.

Maybe, that is an easier, less painful way to clear the negative and come to cherish ourselves without being mawkish about it. Something here to do with respect.

I must not be there, yet.

I have not used them (guided imagery tapes) for a very long time. I have been intentionally focusing to have what lives beneath those beautiful imageries camoflaging denial. That is a harder way to do this, maybe. But it is working for me.

When I am face to faceless face with the ~ with what I've lived, and with the nasty toxicity even after I was grown...I don't know how guided imagery could help with those sealed away energies; with those things that we know.

But maybe I will try them again, soon.

There are no atheists in foxholes.

***

In any event, the imageries on both sides become stronger until the negatives are born into full consciousness along with the feelings beneath the glittering imagery.

And it really sucks to have the feelings because so much of this is wordless.

And even when we know what is happening, it is grindingly difficult for a number of days. We come into balance by striving for balance.

And it comes.

But there will be a three to five day period that is really hard. Learn all you can in that time. Imagery helps me. Go to Google Image and type in whatever it is that comes up. When you find what you need, you will know. As you guys already know ad nauseam infinitis, a huge part of my process is posting here.

Thank you, again.

We are doing this.

***

Somehow, on so many levels, because those things did happen, not only to that little girl that I was, but to that young girl, and to that young woman, and to that young mother and to the new grandmother and to me now, in my aging when I am being shunned by morally reprehensible people I should be able to label and walk away from and I cannot because somehow I am still in a battle with myself over whether my mother could possibly be the liar here or is it me.

Even though I know what I know.

Even though I called in witnesses.

And though I know that too on an intellectual level, I just don't believe it in my heart. In my heart, I feel so deeply unhappy a thousand times a day that I do not have family to share this or that with. I don't understand how I could feel one way while knowing, just as clearly as a bell ringing, that I never had any of those good things I think I am missing, now and forever, bereft. I am still so certain in so much of my belief system that they (my mother and my sister) are not the nasty bits of work I know them to be. There was no one who was kind ~ not in all those years, and not through the culmination of every stupidly abusive episode where whatever it was I'd worked to provide was dirtied...why can I not get that?!?

But I am not there yet.

That is what I mean about knowing a thing intellectually but not believing it emotionally.

What it feels like is that I am in a kind of emotional collusion with the abuser that, though these things that have happened to me in every aspect of every smallest dealing with my family of origin ~ that is the thing we are not getting here, you guys. That is why this is taking so long maybe. These people are wicked in every thought they have. There were no good times. There was nothing right about any of it. We were never safe; we have posted before about being pulled out of sleep as little girls by an enraged abuser (but for me, that was only when my father was not there) like that was just one of those unfortunate things that happens to everyone and we need to stop being babies about it. None of this was normal, you guys. These people are not normal. They are sick little weasely creeps who should never have been allowed anywhere near us. Why doesn't matter and they do not get a free pass.

Our lives are our own to make of what we will. We were not born to be sacrificial victims to morally deficient mothers, sisters, friends, husbands ~ or children. That is just what happened. We made what meaning of it we could. We rise above them when we blindly pat ourselves on our wonderful backs, creating or ourselves martyrs with incredibly elastic abilities to forgive.

We were not born to forgive.

Whatever it is we were born to do, getting clear on what happened to us at the hands and the behests of our abusers is mandatory, before we can claim our own lifetimes for ourselves. Until we get this piece, we spend our lives believing martyrdom to their causes adequately defines us.

It doesn't.

It is unbelievable that we could ever have believed our precious time here belonged to them before it belonged to us.

Or should I say that it does define us if we allow it.

Don't.

Our lives are given to us to live. Not to heal stupidly, pointlessly wicked people who should never have had access to us or our children or even one of our thoughts or our smiles or our loving hearts.

That is why it matters that our experiences be validated.

We have lived our lives at the merciless mercy of some amoral, really nasty people. We are fortunate ~ and the more I see what it really was, and how little a part the things we actually remember play (and how rottenly overwhelming a part the wordless things we separate from, those things that are safely frozen away altogether or alive somehow still and glimmering away beneath that denial-fueled dinner imagery) the more surely I understand that we are fortunate beyond naming to have somehow survived it, at all.

Who cares that we had to freeze parts of ourselves to do it.

It is beginning to look like whatever it was that was the matter with our mothers (with mine, for sure) that same nastiness is how my sister functions, too. What this will mean for us is that everything we were taught by them, and much of what we will have learned for ourselves as adults about life and about what matters...is wrong.

We cannot understand that until we see them for who they are.

And we cannot do that until we can see them as wrong.

And that is why it is crucial that our abuse at their hands is validated.

But Serenity. For sure, they are never going to admit who they are.

But you know? I believe now that they do know who they are.

I believe they knew, all along.

***

I don't understand why it is taking this long to believe what happened was wrong and stop defending the abuser and reclaiming those energies devoted to protecting myself. I know I fear the depth of emotion when I am healing an aspect of self. I don't understand how those feelings could be so virulently live now, a lifetime later.

Well, because I continued to see my abuser.

So, the wicked, nasty thing (As I posted about all of this, I came to include my sister in the same realm as my mother.) So, we will change the above sentence to the wicked, nasty things hurt me all of my life. Because my sister hurt and stalked and was just an awful person too, but I would never believe that about her until she hurt my child.

(Leafy, if you are reading along, that is when I stopped being loyal, in any real way, to my sister. Like they say in wherever it is that they say it, all the rest is just what happened, next.)

This is important for us to realize, too.

They never stopped.

We were safer, once we were adults. But they never stopped.

They are sick, wicked people.

All abusers must be that same way.

Whoever they are hurting, they never stop.

I wonder what will happen when I am through this; once they no longer occupy all this mindspace I am freeing up.

I can hardly wait. I am so curious.

Everything will be new.

***

I know we are making progress. I remember when I used to think I was strong enough; I remember when I believed forgiveness and believing that of course everyone was good at the heart of them, however they'd been hurt, was a correct way to see everything about everything.

I was wrong.

My family of origin are still, today, wicked, stupidly hurtful people or none of this would have happened in the first place.

Or none of this would have happened in the first place.

Do you see the depth of what they have done to us?!?

And for what.

I still don't get the win. The difference is that the win was important to me so that I could understand why and forgive. I get that piece about myself now.

I no longer care what their win was. I no longer care why they did what they did. They are still doing it. They did it then and they are doing it now because that are stupidly wicked people by their own choice.

Who could ever have believed such a thing could be true, before.

Had we taught this to our children, rather than teaching them the world was good and everything would always be alright, maybe everything would be different for all of us, today.


***

I believed (and you will see it written, on sites that are all about how we need to forgive them) that the abuser was short tempered. Or tired. Or had done the best she knew. (This one belief stops alot of healing in its tracks.) Or that the past doesn't matter and that, in future, we will create family out those selfsame people who were nasty enough, or so morally deficient, that they repeatedly hurt their own children! If we forgive; if we accept responsibility for our own lives, now, in this moment, and forgive them.

What if none of that is true.

What if there really is something very badly wrong with our mothers and our sisters.

***

There are so many emotional protections around traumatic events. Even as adults, perfectly safe now from all of it, the protection provided by denial makes the wounding very hard to see so we can acknowledge the damaged places and heal them. And when we touch those places, the emotions are still overwhelming. Even after a lifetime.

Isn't that something.

The first step is validation: Yes. What happened to us was abusive. Such a simple word for such an ugly truth.

Cedar

My mother never felt she did one thing wrong to me, which is amazing.

Neither did mine.

And I have posted here about just how wrong what she did was.

And you know I couldn't believe it either, Serenity.

Abusers know exactly what they are doing, both when they take the actions they take, and when they lie to hide who they are and what they have done. That is how they can be so perfectly defended from even the smallest decency or mercy. Even, or maybe, especially, toward a child. What this says about them isn't really our business, but we do have to see how who they are has affected how we think about ourselves. Once we see how the pieces fit, we are free of them.

 

[BusynMember]

Somehow, on so many levels, because those things did happen, not only to that little girl that I was, but to that young girl, and to that young woman, and to that young mother and to the new grandmother and to me now, in my aging when I am being shunned by morally reprehensible people I should be able to label and walk away from and I cannot because somehow I am still in a battle with myself over whether my mother could possibly be the liar here or is it me.

Are you seen as a liar outside of FOO, Cedar?

You would be seen as one, if you were.

Think about it. Your mother and sister are two people. If twenty others don't see you as a liar, they are in the minority and wrong. I mean, a nyone can call somebody a liar. I lied a lot as a kid and in my 20's, mostly to exaggerate and make myself seem better. One day I got honest with myselsf and decided to stop lying and to this day I never purposely lie, except for white lies that I use not to hurt people. I'm sure the early lying came from my hideous mother who made me think I was nothing.But it was an inappropriate coping skill and the blame is on me.

My sibls still say I lie. Should I believe them or all the other people in my life who would laugh at their assertion? My life with my mother was MY life with her, and I know it was not their experience, but I'm still right about how she treated me. And she was the parent. And she started when I was an infant. And they can stand on their heads or hold their breaths until they turn blue, and what I say about her is still how she treated me. Sorry, Charlie. It was the truth.

Cedar, don't believe FOO or what they say about you.

On another site, somebody asked if the FOO abusers enjjoy picking on the scapegoats as a group. I think mine do. After all, my sister brought my brother to read what I write here and she didn't have to, but, if she didn't, she wouldn't have somebody to talk bad about me to. In fact, my FOO are big gossips and, I'm ashamed, I was too. We do love to make fun of people in our FOO. Now that I see this, I hope to just not talk to anyone in real time about them again. But they will st ill love getting together and laughing about me. And that's ok. It says more about where they are at than me.

"What you think of me is none of my business." I love this.

Cedar, love it too

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

My sister takes absolutely no responsibility for her part either, although I have e-mails that show how hateful she was at times.

I can remember talking to my sister about why she did the things she did. She said: "I know! But I can't help it."

So, we just left it at that.

But now I believe she was lying about that too.

Sometimes, I feel like I am being arrogant.

For now, that will be alright.

So very true, the past is the past, and I do concur, important to examine to reclaim ourselves.....that inner child that is waiting for affirmation.

I think the children we were require that we hear them, Leafy. And their stories are ugly and hurtful. We have to be very brave, to claim what happened to us.

Yep. And in my opinion worse when siblings refuse to accept that they happened at all.

And I wonder if this is a true observation: The sibs that refuse to validate reality abused us, too. They did not have the power to hurt us the way the mother did. But they destroyed us behind our backs, to our own people. Just like they are doing now, with the cousins and extended family.

Just like my mother destroyed the reputations of the lady driver and the priest. There was no benefit to her in doing so.

So, that would explain the sibs' behaviors.

Just another cheap sellout for a gain we will never understand.

Was it just yesterday I was posting that maybe my sister behaves as she does to fill an emptiness?

I no longer believe that.

Today M's niece came again (when she knew M would not be here.)

Do you feel this was a kind of threat, Copa? That if you expect loyalty from her, there are certain things she will need from you? None of it ever spoken aloud or even implied of course, but the threat of exposure was made.

And here she is, when he is not there.

Did you know she was coming? Had she come by your invitation, or did she just come to the door.

Ostensibly she came to help with reconciliation, but we do not think that now.

We think she came to lay the groundwork to ask for money, inventing an unbelievable story. For me. One that made me feel dirty and unsafe. In my own home.

You are not as she remembers you, Copa. This relative too is in for a long-overdue surprise.

She told me that her rental car with shot with bullets by a car that was following her and a man. She said she wanted $500 to pay the deductible for her insurance. She works full time. She did not want to tell her mother. I told her I did not want to be involved.

We believe she may be selling drugs. And the money is for something related to drugs. She is a college graduate. Working as a teacher's aide.

Why do I feel dirty and corrupt, when it has nothing to do with me?

It could be that those feelings are the same mix of feelings called in you whenever you are presented with the kinds of situations predators fabricate or create. As we learned about those overwhelming feelings of responsibility (which we now know have to do with our having been abused when we were little girls ~ or, little boys) that saw us throwing money and time and effort into our children even when we no longer believed our giving would help them, we give to others too, in response to our own overwhelming feelings of wrongness and sometimes, of disgust, if we do not give.

It could be something like that, Copa.

I am so proud of you Copabanana for responding with dignity and grace and courage and I know that is flowery writing but I mean it with all my heart. And you were alone and unprepared and believed the relative was coming to reconcile.

And she hit you with something filthy, instead.

And there was that threat she had made against M, eating through everything like acid without her ever having to refer to it directly.

It was blackmail, Copa.

And you were the victim and M, and your life with him, was the unspoken price of refusal.

You see. I am not like M. I believe it happens to me. Around me. I did something wrong to deserve it. Or I am bad and that is why bad things happen around me.

Remember when we posted about always saying we were sorry for everything that happened? Even if it had nothing to do with us? I think it is like that, Copa. The situation is just so awful, and the reasoning behind it so starkly, unapologetically ugly and yet...just like when we were little girls, our hearts ache for the hurt in it for everyone and we wish we could help, whatever the cost to ourselves. And if we do help, and the person is a predator, things get worse. And if we do not help, and we send the person away and we never do get to know whether the person was a predator or whether the right thing was to help, then the next thing we know BOOM. In kick the negative tapes. It's what our brains do. Everything gets all balled up together because there is no time sense in our brains really and the pain of childhood and what happened with our kids and the shock in what is really happening now instead of what we thought was happening tips us right over and into a trauma response.

Which is right where the predator wants us.

***

This is something the hero therapist, the Ally in the poetry, told us, Copa. However many of us there were, all women, all raised in horrifically dysfunctional families, we all believed that whatever it was, we were somehow at fault. We all, every last one of us Copa, believed we must be drawing bad things, must be somehow enticing bad people or somehow condoning really bad situations. Or, that we must be somehow stupid. (Remember my posting about the reasons I went back to school.) The therapist told us about some of the men she had dated. And then, about some of the rotten things that were happening to her in her private life, right then. And she said: Bad things happen to all of us. Bad people are everywhere just as there are good people everywhere. The difference between us (those in the therapy group) and everyone else, so she told us, is that when we have been hurt in our childhoods, we are afraid in our hearts when we see the shark coming.

And that is why the shark hones in on us.

Fear.

That is the enemy.

Not the predator. That woman (or man) is not really a shark. They are nothing more than amoral, morally reprehensible people who thought they smelled blood in the water.

Nothing more.

Okay. So, I added that part.

But the therapist really did tell us that there are bad people and that bad situations happen to us all and that we needed to stop thinking in those same old destructive ways. Then, she explained about the amygdala, and the automatic ways our brains process similar situations.

So Copa, could you say no to those feelings? Just say: Amygdala-generated response that is no longer applicable. Choose another way to feel about what has happened and legitimize it instead of the old, amygdala-generated material.

It won't feel right Copa, but it will be a beginning.

And you have done way harder things than this.

I think part of it is faith, too. Why Joseph did not need revenge or feel it in his heart. He believed, like M does, that everything comes out in the wash. That we are punished by our evil deeds and evil hearts. He does not need revenge because he believes the consequences will always accrue to the bad actor. Even if it does not seem to be the case. Especially if it does not seem to be the case.

He once said about my sister that she was going to have a horrible dying. Because of all of the evil in her heart that she will not have the means to defend against when any power she has, no longer exists.

To me, M is describing what it is to trust, Copa.

I can't do that either.

I can have faith, which is an active process. But I cannot simply trust. Or complexly trust. I just don't trust. Like I don't cry in public. I just don't do it. Once in awhile it accidentally happens (trust) but I know better than to believe in it.

I think this will change for us as we heal, but if it doesn't, I will be just fine with that.

For me, to trust is to have nothing to protect. That would be my definition of trust. I could manage that, and I am working toward it. For others, trust is an unshakable belief that the sun will come up tomorrow. For others, trust is about having been treated with kindness and with mercy and with never having known what we know.

But now, we know this about ourselves.

And over time, that will make all the difference for us.

Today I told M, I am afraid every time the phone rings. He responded, that fear has got to stop. What does that help, he said? To be afraid. What is going to happen will happen. You will meet it if it does.

But see, ultimately, I live in a very, very dangerous world. Because harm always is circling to threaten me. Because it is what I must feel I deserve.

I think this goes back to trust, too. We can hold faith (like I did with my family of origin in that family dinner imagery), but we do not trust. I could excuse everything my family of origin actually did because I believed in a future I was able to hold faith with no matter what happened in the present. I could do this because I do not trust them, which is a present moment thing. Faith is about what may be. Trust is about now. When we were little, when we truly were powerless Copa, we learned that to trust was dangerous and even, foolhardy.

This is a trust issue, I think.

I am the same way.

Forgive yourself, Copa. Over time, we will learn a variation of trust that we will be able to believe in. For now, bravery will serve as well. Remember that piece about bravery from the Kennedy who is involved in Special Olympics?

"Let me win. If I cannot win, let me be brave."

That helps me.

I have been organizing papers. My life has been out of control now for a long time. I have no idea how much I spend. Or have. Or have lost. From this internal dread, I create chaos, create the possibility of dangerous and fearful consequences for myself. This is how I feel comfortable. It must remind me of my life before. The word for that is ego-syntonic. Danger and threat, feel like home to me. That is what ego-syntonic means. There is no dissonance. I have no dissonance to danger and risk. I guess that is why I worked in prisons. It feels like home.

I wonder whether we do this because we cannot relax unless we know where the danger is. A kind of complex PTSD response, maybe. Every so often, especially if I am working through something here that has me unfocused, I struggle with punctuality again. I learned not to punish or berate myself. Somehow, this has to do with those negative tapes, hissing away where we do not have words.

I admire our abilities to do this, to care for ourselves in these ways we have devised. It's just that now, we are learning better strategies. We are beginning to feel safer, and all the warning lights are coming on.

Could the fear response be a way you are punishing yourself, Copa?

Because you are taking a stand, and are not afraid in the same deep, all-encompassing way?

That is where we are going too. (*I used a Cedarism here.) We are going to a place where there is order and tranquility. Where our homes and affairs and internal lives are islands of internal coherence, awareness and balance. Where we are open to all of the good, and fear and disorder and threat do not touch us. Not because we do not recognize it. But because we do not own it. We do not accept it or call it our own.

Yes.

We are teaching ourselves now, with every answer, that we merit these goodnesses. More importantly, as we are able to understand how our psyches were twisted and why, many of those behaviors evolved to keep us functional when we did not understand why these things were happening will disappear.

That part is happening a little bit for me now, I think.

It's like hearing an orchestra tune up. All cacaphonous racket and then, suddenly, those same instruments and musicians make the magical sounds that, taken together, are music. And it's really beautiful.

Lots of racket for a time though.

Maybe, part of trust is to understand (instead of holding faith with or believing) that the music will come.

Why else would we be listening to the orchestra tune up.

Because we were punctual and not late, and because we trust that the music will come.

***

I mean, I know I am the one who said it?

But I really like that imagery, you guys.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

We had been found out. I did not deserve to be loved because I was too mad.

This is interesting, Copa. I had been found out because "Just don't think, Cedar." "Who do you think you are." "Don't you dare."

And I did dare. And I was someone I liked very much. And I dared to think I was thinking nicely.

And I was wrong.

So...I was never mad, Copa. Not in any way which would have damned me to the hellishess of what happened when the family D H and I had created fell apart. But I had done all those things my mother had told me never, ever to dare do.

Were you punished for rebelling against what was happening to you as a child, Copa? Is that how they justified what they did to you?

It is strange that for both of us, the reason we "deserved" to lose those we loved and who loved us back have to do with how our families of origin justified abusing every decency and harming their own children.

Those things were never true of you, Copa. Anymore than it is true that I cannot think and should not dare and whatever the other one was.

Out they go, Copa.

Those outmoded belief systems may have kept you safe once (it would be better to know why they hated us, or seemed to, when we were little). You know, that is it I think, Copa and everyone. That may be why those things ring for us now. What Serenity's mom said to her, what my mom said to me, what Copa was told, either openly or by implication. These may have been the things we believed so we could limit the global nature of the abuse.

Maybe, that is how we survived. Parts of us were good. Just not those parts.

All the toxicity is there, in those phrases.

Well, I don't know. But I think I am on to something.

This is who she is, Cedar. As is my own sister, in her own way. And M's sister, too.

Yes. And today, I think she is a malignant narcissist. And I know that doesn't mean anything because I found the term on the internet and so on but today?

I feel like name calling.

And I just know I will feel really badly about that tomorrow? But for today and yesterday, too, I am throwing roses in the air that turn into one of those sky banners that say "Malignant Narcissist" like it is a real thing.

So there, and take that, Mother.

Not that I would ever actually say that to anyone.

This is just pretend.

But I mean it, for today.

Yes.

Okay. Little bit of a circle, there.

With me, I think I am in touch with those feelings, to some extent. For the majority of my life, I was alone. I did not have a protective cocoon around me of somebody who loved me.

Yes.

This made you very strong.

The anger that I thought I had was a screen emotion. Underneath I am not angry. Just sad and afraid. Vulnerable.

I think this feels different than those fantasies of vengeance and not taking vengeance. This is like...I don't know. Like, how dishonorable would it be for a criminal family like a Mafia family to dishonor themselves by victimizing those who were defenseless. Those who did that would be beneath contempt or honor.

And that is as far as I got with that imagery.

Consciously anyway, Cedar adds, waggling her eyebrows.

:O)

I do not understand exactly to what you refer in yourself. Can you say a bit more?

This is in reference to stepping back re the sisters. I think it is a lifelong training to be watchful of the sisters, to protect the sisters because we were the older sisters. It isn't exactly a conscious thing, but it is about not getting into the sisters' faces when they behave like reprehensible amoral and many other bad words. In that sense, we do not defend ourselves from them, nor do we stand up to them. In that sense, there would be in there somewhere a layer where we have been taught that to compete truly is wrong. If we win, it is because we are bigger and we should have let the little guy win. If we lose, we are really dorky because after all, they are just little guys.

Somewhere that is in here too.

I only fight to win with D H.

He says that, too. That I seem to have no problem standing up to him.

But I do, to everyone else.

Like, I am supposed to help, not win. This is true. I went gambling one time, and won? And when those pretend coins came out of the machine and all those lights and etc were going off?

I felt really bad for the persons near me because I won and they didn't.

And that is why I don't like gambling. I don't get the win there, either. I mean, I know it's money, but where is the value in trusting to luck. Plus, you could lose, also by luck.

I like to know why I am losing.

Cedar

(Which is a sly attempt at wittiness you guys. Get it? I like to know why I am losing, in the context of PTSD and etc?)

 

[New Leaf]

The story of Joseph, being sold into slavery by his brothers, because his father loved him so. 20 pieces of silver.......

Sis sold me out so many times.....

what was the win of this?

I will never understand it.

I haven't posted much in this thread, been following along. Then Cedars FB quote.....

My parents tried their best. I do not think it is so much with my folks, although there is some onus, because the torment was not stopped.We were oft left up to our own devices, as was the way in those days, we could roam freely about the neighborhood. Sis, was the BOSS.

I think sis must have been very good about turning it all around on me to my parents. This must have been why, I was the one ended up in my room, sobbing. Stop crying Leafy, get over it.....I certainly supplied sufficient evidence with my crying, and holing myself up in my room.
I just now, got a flashback of Sis, silently opening my bedroom door grinning with triumph and quietly laughing at me. I see myself, red eyed and puffy faced, just this forlorn, lost little thing........

To them....it was me....I was overly sensitive. In an era, where "suck it up" was not yet the verbiage, it was definitely the theme in my house. For me, anyway......
This song plays through my head, from one of Moms albums (sheesh dating myself...you remember record players?)

You know guys, I have a good relationship with my Mom, she is loving and kind. Her role here has been more of "water under the bridge", it is what it is.....everyone is different and unique.....look the other way....if it is too hard to deal with it, don't....

I think it has kind of kept me in my role.....in a funk, between my memories and feelings about my past, like an inner battle, truth, reality, am I over-emphasizing?
It is sort of Twilight Zone-ish....

IS this what you are talking about Cedar? Believing yourself, your childhood memories?
When all around, folks are denying it?

Then, there is the component about trusting ourselves, and trusting others.... have we become these targets, at times, for others to prey upon, because they can sense a brokenness about us? A wounded pheromone?

Being taken advantage of, or folks having these expectations. Scapegoating.....
At work, there was an incident with kids, and I told my boss. Later on, I asked him why he suspended one child but not the other. "Because you never told me this detail........." I just looked at him incredulously, because I knew that I did. I didn't fight it, I knew it was a losing battle.
Perhaps I should have. Scapegoated again.
I walked past the secretary, and she whispered "You DID tell him, typical man, always the woman's fault......"

I have to let you know, I have read these posts and mulled over them. There is a part of me that says, well I do not really fit in here, maybe I shouldn't post.
Or even, "I have to try and get over this."
Which I do...But then again, it feels like that old bag of clothes that was meant to go to Salvation Army, but is still in the closet. You know?
There, but hidden, then something comes up.
It is like driving by the Salvation Army, and saying, "Oh dang, I forgot that bag again."
Sting.....out comes a memory.

Any hows, thank you all for your unbelievable strength and courage to soul search, FOO search and share here.

Speaking of Salvation Army...I am coming out of this feeling of holiday forced cheer, a semi paralysis, and my house looks like it absolutely threw up.
I started cleaning and dusting and pulling things out. It is a mountain.

So, of course, on top of that, Hubs gave me the job to go search for tires for his truck......so I will leave you to post later.

I am going to fill the back of the truck and get rid of some junk that needs to go to the dump, then go get tires.

Will have lunch with Son, while waiting for the tires.......

You guys are just too awesome
thank you for sharing your stories and hearts.

I will symbolically throw some of my negative tapes into the dump with my junk pile.......

(((HUGS)))
leafy

 

[Copabanana]

I have to go get my blood work done (and a mammogram). It is 1 pm here and I have not eaten.

But I know my priorities. I will respond to the first part of your post, Cedar, and when I come home will address the rest.

Just like my mother destroyed the reputations of the lady driver and the priest. There was no benefit to her in doing so.

That you could discern, Cedar, by your own values and perspective.

Your mother behaves sadistically, Cedar, when she does so. She does these things to show her power. To herself, in herself. She may feel she was indebted to this woman. This kind woman. And she degraded the woman so as to demean her, to achieve her own dominance. Inside of herself. And to show others her cruel power over.

Remember I wrote in some thread that I was so surprised to learn in reading anthropology that charity is considered in many tribal or traditional societies to be a means for powerful and rich people to demonstrate for all to see their superiority. That they have things to give, and do, shows their status. This is similar. To demean and degrade this woman, shows her to be beneath contempt. It destroys whatever power your mother thought she gave her, by accepting her help. It is an ugly dynamic.

It says: I do not need you. I never needed you. Rid that thought from your mind. You are beneath contempt. You deserve nothing from me in exchange. Your role is only to give, at my command. When and if I say so. There is no relationship of equality here.

It is what your mother did to you, too, Cedar.

Do you feel this was a kind of threat, Copa? That if you expect loyalty from her, there are certain things she will need from you? None of it ever spoken aloud or even implied of course, but the threat of exposure was made.

When I first read this, I thought back to another, much earlier instance, when I confided in her, believing her to be a different sort of person.

When my mother was ill she came over to help me. M had liked this niece believing her to be intelligent and industrious. I had been having problems with M. I told her of some of them. When I read your words, Cedar, I thought about that.

But the night before I rid those prior confidences of any power that they might of had. I tell M everything. That his family says about M, and that I may have said to anybody about him. First of all, there is that. Nobody can use my words to them, against M or me. But the night before, the 3 of us together I said this: You know I have had problems with M. I told you them. Those problems exist in the past. The memory of them. They cannot be papered over, the memory of them. But they do not matter. Because we have gone on. We do not exist as we existed then. Only in memory. The people we were then no longer exist. Those problems cannot hurt us because we each decided to continue together. We made that choice. By that we became new people. We gave ourselves and each other that chance.

Nothing in the past can hurt us. We have changed. It is a decision.

But after I saw what you meant, Cedar, I realized. I had never thought that somebody would be so evil as to do that.

I had asked M the night before after she left. It was never mentioned, the threat. M said that while it was unspoken, it was remembered. How chilling.

You are not as she remembers you, Copa. This relative too is in for a long-overdue surprise.

When she first told me about the story of the bullets and being shot at, I told her, the money is the least of your worries. Your life is at stake.

Do you think M will tell my mother?

I do not think so, but I do not know. Your parents, both of them, need to know. You live with them and your sister. Everybody that is around you, potentially, is at risk.

She left for a few minutes to print a document at the copy store. When she came back she said, "don't feel any pressure to loan me the money." I think she was rethinking the advisability of having seen me as her mark.

I told her. I do not feel pressure. I do not want to involve myself in something like what you are involved in. In any way. And I left it at that.

It could be that those feelings are the same mix of feelings called in you whenever you are presented with the kinds of situations predators fabricate or create.

Yes. And if the predators are your parents, your sister, your family? The child must feel that something about them calls for the predator. Screams prey. That they have the mark and scent of prey. What a horrible, horrible thing.

And you were the victim and M, and your life with him, was the unspoken price of refusal.

Cedar, it never, ever occurred to me, this.

It chills and infuriates me that she could have felt any power over me.

How far I have come in my life.

She could never know that this woman I am is so far from her prey as a star is from a cesspool.

I would never submit in fear to a person like her, by means she employs.

I see her as a dirty thing. In every way. I do not want her dirt in my home. I will not keep any of M's family away from my home, but I told M: I do not like the way I feel when she is here, or the way her life touches us.

M said: My sister is not a good mother to her daughters. And left it at that. I think in him this is about as bad as saying somebody might be a serial rapist. (Bill Cosby is on the news.)

I will now go to get my blood work. And be back for the rest of your post.

 

[Copabanana]

I came home for a few minutes before we go shopping. I forgot to put this piece of things in my last post and still have to complete reading your post, Cedar, which I will do later.

You know our favorite Monty Python piece with the french man? When he replies something like: we already got one, and it is better? And the general contempt he shows for the English King and his men?

That I think is what your mother is doing with the woman driver. In her own head, that is. She is saying: I may have taken your generosity and taken advantage of your kindness. But get this straight: I do not need you. You do not have any power here. There is not even reciprocity. I am big. You are small. Get that?

Your mother, in her brilliance, is divining the anthropological finding, that to accept something from somebody else, to accept their superiority. She wants no part of it. She is saying: I fart in your general direction, to establish again her dominance. That is why she has to trash the woman driver.

The sad part is that the lady driver is a nice person, to whom it never, ever occurred that she would accrue "power over" by providing a favor. Nor would she have sought advantage or gain by it.

But this illustrates how it is to be in relation to our family members who live from a completely different paradigm. The lady driver lives by one paradigm (as do we) and our family members from another. Each is speaking according to a completely different worldview.

I am thinking now of Donald Trump (he is ever useful). And the admiration of Putin for him, however much this was a ploy to minimize Obama (which is all part of the dynamic, too.) They may, these two men, understand each other, because the operate from the same paradigm or world view.

I will return later.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

I forgot to talk about the priest, in fact, did not pay attention. I will. That is a very fascinating topic. To discuss him in this regard. On to Costco.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

I have to go get my blood work done (and a mammogram). It is 1 pm here and I have not eaten.

Yay Copa, you did, it-good for you!

leafy

 

[Copabanana]

Just like my mother destroyed the reputations of the lady driver and the priest. There was no benefit to her in doing so.

We may see no benefit but she must have or she would not have done it deliberately.

I am thinking about the co-worker who tried to get me laid off (and succeeded). She was the one who was most responsible for spreading the rumor that I was the big boss's lover.

I am back to with the priest here. Well, I was responsible for training this woman when she started. She idolized me (to my face.) Using words like "zen-like"
"brilliant" "gifted." Well maybe I am making one of those up. Or two. But not all 3.

Then she turned on a dime. She began to compete directly with me. She could not top me in quality of work, so she tried in quantity. Still no go. Then she tried to get me removed from an after hours position I had created, where I succeeded in lowering a certain problem rate by 75 percent. She succeeded at replacing me in that position because I was a per diem employee.

From expressed adoration she came to hate and try to destroy me and my reputation.

Why? It is easy to think about a diagnosis. Too easy. I want to know what her motive was and your mother's Cedar for trying to destroy the reputation of the priest.

What are they saying by their acts, your mother and this co-worker?

You were too low for me to ever want you or think that you are worth anything at all. Nothing you have is worth having (I will see to that.) Nobody needs you. I am bigger than you. I live on. You do not. There is not room in the world for both of us.

Think about this. It is a form of shunning. Some of this sounds like my sister.

These people require the total social death of a person in order to feel their own power. If they cannot possess them or control them, they kill them off socially.

If they cannot actually shun them because they have no real control over them, they do so by destroying their reputation. The priest could just leave your mother's orbit. But these people like my co-worker still need to feel they have destroyed the person, humiliated them, stomped them into the ground. It must be a form of shunning.

Look at how my sister shunned my mother, as my mother died. It must have been a way of dominating her own lack of control, impending loss, or fear. While at the same time punishing the other person for it all. It is a reversal. I am not small and broken they say, as to be unable to be in relation to you or to compete with you. You are the small and broken one and I will show you how small and broken you are. By shunning you and by disgracing you and abusing you. Watch me.

I think your mother, Cedar, knew she could never sustain the relationship with the priest. She knows that parts of herself would have come out, and she would lose control in the relationship. She did him in to make him not worth having. She did it to not feel loss. To not feel herself to be the damaged one. Which of course, she is.

Why would somebody have to destroy somebody (in their own mind) to move on?

I would think these people are really very very fragile inside. But capable of causing a great deal of hurt. Because they masquerade as powerful. I am thinking of a certain other sister here. You may fill in the blank as you choose.
COPA

 

[BusynMember]

If they cannot actually shun them because they have no real control over them, they do so by destroying their reputation.

They do try. They can't always succeed, but often they can, if there is family left that both of you talk to and they can do what they love to do...bring others along for the shun ride.

They can't let us go. Amusingly, my sis still posts about me on ANOTHER board now. Maybe she was banned from the first board. I don't know or care. The first time I saw her posts, I was angry. Now I sort of chuckle She was even HERE. I am more in her head than she is in mine. She can't control me over the internet and it must infuriate her.

Thankfully she w ill never be able to influence the only FOO who matters to me, my father.

But, yes, they are leeches who say t hey let go and never do a nd try to bring others along for the ride so that they can gossip and laugh. She once did this with me against my brother. Now she suddenly likes the brother she abused and is recruiting him to make fun of me...I know here well enough to know she does this with him. It is a relief not to care and a comfort to know that my father will never listen to her nonsense.

It is what it is what it is etc.

 

[New Leaf]

I am sorry for coming in later to this discussion, I needed time to sift through all of this material. I read and reread, and am blown away by the work, and, well it takes awhile for me to process.....
Please forgive me, for as I have said before, what you all have experienced is way more than I. I am truly sorry for the pain of it, the intensity and levels of hurt.

Drugs will do that to us.
What happens to our children.
It turns them into people like my mother, and like my sister.
In any event, that is when I became vulnerable to my mother and to my sister, again.

So, in effect, are you saying that loving our children as babes, woke us up with the sleeping beauty kiss, then, when they turned to drugs, it was a reawakening of our childhood traumas?
Not only because of what our children became through drugs, but also, the intense emotional trauma, we went (are going) through? It linked together, with our childhood trauma?
The memories came out of the closet......pulled out by the horror of what our d c's exhibited......Cedar, forgive my naïveté, but the things you have written, the degree of abuse you suffered as a child and beyond....was some of that so thoroughly buried within.....then came boiling up to the surface? It is the memories, or the feelings attached to those, or both......or this continued imagery of what wasn't....
I am asking because most of my bad memories are of my sis....My folks didn't really intervene, now that, I do not understand......
I cannot fathom the degree, that you, Copa and Serenity have suffered. I am sorry. It is awful. I will be your witness, I am horrified at the depth of your despair.

I feel happy when I experience those beautiful imageries. I feel really crummy and reviled and rejected because I do not have these lovely women in my life to laugh with and etc. and to spend time with and I feel lonely and so on.

I am sorry for this loneliness.
I am thinking of this, you wrote to me......

All we have then to guide us is whatever moral structure we've devised to see us through it the first time.
It is like that saying I am always quoting: "What of him who has nothing? He will lose what he has."

Joel Osteen has been instrumental in setting me into the correct emotional and intellectual place to do what I am doing.

I am glad you have this. From an interview I read.... Joel-
"We are made in the image of Almighty God. [Yet we] go around not feeling good about ourselves with that weak-worm-of-the-dust mentality. So many people even talk about themselves: “You know what? I’m unattractive, my mind’s so slow, and I can’t do this.” And you know what I tell them? “God didn’t make a mistake when He made you. You need to see yourself as God sees you.” I like this very much, it is true Cedar.

Exercise and meditation and yoga will help but I think it is important to stay with the emotional reality.

Yes, movement is good. It always helps me, I have to get back into the routine.
Can you explain staying with the emotional reality?
Because it doesn't feel good, it feels like being "stuck" to me. I have been stuck for days......well, weeks. UGH.

And it really sucks to have the feelings because so much of this is wordless.

I am sorry Cedar. This is so very uncomfortable, but when you come through, I think things will be much better.

But there will be a three to five day period that is really hard. Learn all you can in that time. Imagery helps me. Go to Google Image and type in whatever it is that comes up. When you find what you need, you will know. As you guys already know ad nauseam infinitis, a huge part of my process is posting here.

I am reading through all of this Cedar, and I am feeling wretched for you, because you are describing such....agony. When you do post, it helps, not only you, but others (like me), who are experiencing similar things.

Somehow, on so many levels, because those things did happen, not only to that little girl that I was, but to that young girl, and to that young woman, and to that young mother and to the new grandmother and to me now, in my aging when I am being shunned by morally reprehensible people I should be able to label and walk away from and I cannot because somehow I am still in a battle with myself over whether my mother could possibly be the liar here or is it me.

The battle is with the image of what a mother should be, not your mother. It is not you, a thousand times not you. She was not a mother to you, not in the sense of loving, kind, caring. Biologically, yes, nurturing no. Mothers do not leave their children feeling as you are. I am really upset with her, Cedar, you are good and kind and so intelligent. You are retraumatizing yourself with all of this. It is about loving the little girl you were, and loving you now. Not about your mother, your sister, internal locust of control.........

In my heart, I feel so deeply unhappy a thousand times a day that I do not have family to share this or that with. I don't understand how I could feel one way while knowing, just as clearly as a bell ringing, that I never had any of those good things I think I am missing, now and forever, bereft.......
That is what I mean about knowing a thing intellectually but not believing it emotionally.

Yes.....

We were never safe; we have posted before about being pulled out of sleep as little girls by an enraged abuser (but for me, that was only when my father was not there) like that was just one of those unfortunate things that happens to everyone and we need to stop being babies about it. None of this was normal, you guys.

No, this does not happen to everyone, it is not normal, this is straight out of "Mommy Dearest", it is horrible.

Our lives are our own to make of what we will. We were not born to be sacrificial victims to morally deficient mothers, sisters, friends, husbands ~ or children. That is just what happened. We made what meaning of it we could. We rise above them when we blindly pat ourselves on our wonderful backs, creating of ourselves martyrs with incredibly elastic abilities to forgive.

Yes.

Our lives are given to us to live. Not to heal stupidly, pointlessly wicked people who should never have had access to us or our children or even one of our thoughts or our smiles or our loving hearts.
That is why it matters that our experiences be validated.

Yes.

But Serenity. For sure, they are never going to admit who they are.

I have found this to be true.

So, we will change the above sentence to the wicked, nasty things hurt me all of my life. Because my sister hurt and stalked and was just an awful person too, but I would never believe that about her until she hurt my child.

(Leafy, if you are reading along, that is when I stopped being loyal, in any real way, to my sister. Like they say in wherever it is that they say it, all the rest is just what happened, next.)

I am reading along, Cedar, and I am perplexed, because, I do feel a sense of-wait I wrote loyalty...... then thought about it. My sister is family. I named her Atilla, after all. That is not so loyal.
So, then, I feel badly, because I do not want to be false, either. I do not want to be hurtful, a backstabber, you know? I do not want to put on "theatrics", but will be polite, and how do you say it- even keeled? This is sort of the antithesis-to SWOTS topic, because her Dad wants the family to be "together", but it is too late for that, there has been too much going on. I do not blame Serenity one bit, especially after what I have read.
Mom wants the same, so I am willing to "bury the hatchet", but I also feel, in some ways, the extent that Serenity's sister went to, is way more than what I have fared? Yes, my sister has done some horrible things, is domineering and controlling, and somewhat conniving. Okay ewwww, writing all of that, just ewwww. Ahem.....
Anyways, I am okay with walking softly, so to speak, so that I can try to give Mom the peace she wishes for? Geez, just the look on her face, "I just wish you all could get along"........
Then comes that whole betrayal of self, and integrity question......It is definitely puzzling.
Am I being nice and sacrificing, or am I playing the martyr role, will it eventually slap me upside the head? I do not know. I guess I will have to cross that bridge when I get to it? Would it be better to duke it out, put all the cards on the table......
Maybe all of this work, will help me be a little more prepared? (I hope so). It will be hard enough to lose Mom, but if it ends up with ugliness......I will be very upset, to say the least. It is a scary thought, I hear so much about family upheaval with the passing of the surviving parent. SIGH.

We were safer, once we were adults. But they never stopped.

It is true, it hasn't stopped. I am low contact right now......with sis.

I wonder what will happen when I am through this; once they no longer occupy all this mindspace I am freeing up.
I can hardly wait. I am so curious.
Everything will be new.

Yes, I believe so Cedar, everything will be new. Free.

I no longer care what their win was. I no longer care why they did what they did. They are still doing it. They did it then and they are doing it now because that are stupidly wicked people by their own choice.

Who could ever have believed such a thing could be true, before.

Had we taught this to our children, rather than teaching them the world was good and everything would always be alright, maybe everything would be different for all of us, today.

But, I did teach my children to be careful, that some people can be cruel, I am sure you did the same. My children saw firsthand, the ravages of drugs, their grandfather on hubs side, was a user, they knew, and they still went there.

Or that the past doesn't matter and that, in future, we will create family out those selfsame people who were nasty enough, or so morally deficient, that they repeatedly hurt their own children! If we forgive; if we accept responsibility for our own lives, now, in this moment, and forgive them.

What if none of that is true.

But forgiveness does not mean forgetting. There is a lesson to be learned, a story to be told. Spiritual books are full of these lessons.

Even, or maybe, especially, toward a child. What this says about them isn't really our business, but we do have to see how who they are has affected how we think about ourselves. Once we see how the pieces fit, we are free of them.

These are your words to me Cedar, and I will write them here for you.... We were meant to be whole, and to heal......Whatever it is for you, that will be why you have sacrificed yourself to their interests. Whatever dream you hold about your family of origin, that is what you (and I do too) need to understand, to somehow come to terms with never having. If they could have given us what we needed, they would have.


That is what I mean when I post that quote: What of him who has nothing? He will lose what he has.


Because love was, first.

Then, came the hurt.

We are meant to be whole.

Love came first.

Damaged, not defective.

Love came first.

And once we lose what we have, Leafy?

We are free.

And this........

Love that little girl that you were.

It's like I am stuck in some weird forgiveness mode. Or like there is a place of amnesia between what happened to me and myself. Maybe, the family I am lonely for is myself; is all those frozen places where I am holding that negative energy I needed to seal away to survive what was happening.

Cedar, when you write like this, I worry for you, but I do see that we have to go through what we have to go through to heal from all of this.

I am thinking of you and praying for you to come through this time, to love yourself, the little child, the young woman, the mother, the new grandmother. What has happened to you is wrong.
Just think Cedar, THINK.

Keep posting, we are following along and holding your hand.
Breathe Cedar, you will come through this....over the rainbow....

hugs and love


leafy

 

[BusynMember]

"I just wish you all could get along"........

I would put on an act once or twice when in Illinois with sibs for my dad's sake, Leafie. It is them who won't. It would make him so happy even if it was false. What would be the harm? He wouldn't know it was fake and it wouldn't have to be for long and the whole time I'd be feeling rather sick. And I'd bring my husband with me for support in case one of them couldn't pretend. I'll admit, it would be very hard and totally uncomfortable.

But it's not something I have to worry about. I can't do it alone. Nor can you.

 

[BusynMember]

Your mother behaves sadistically, Cedar, when she does so. She does these things to show her power.

I'm not so sure, Copa. In a very real way, I think they LIKE to hurt us because our lack of submission to them hurts THEM. We don't mean it to hurt them, but it does. Behind their bullying, they are very weak people who crumble easily. As were we once, which is how we became scapegoats. I think they do it mostly to hurt us. Our mothers, our sisters, anyone who deliberately goes out of his/her way to hurt over and over again is doing it on purpose to be mean. Now maybe, in their minds, they interpret US as being mean. We can't control what their perceptions are. If they do, they are acting no better than they feel WE have behaved.

What does that say about them?

 

[New Leaf]

She left for a few minutes to print a document at the copy store. When she came back she said, "don't feel any pressure to loan me the money." I think she was rethinking the advisability of having seen me as her mark.

I told her. I do not feel pressure. I do not want to involve myself in something like what you are involved in. In any way. And I left it at that.

I am glad you saw this for what it is Copa. I cannot imagine this coming from a niece. But then again, my two, have been capable of similar things. I am glad you saw through it and stood your ground.

Yes. And if the predators are your parents, your sister, your family? The child must feel that something about them calls for the predator. Screams prey. That they have the mark and scent of prey. What a horrible, horrible thing.

It is horrible. I have thought about this and instances in my life where I must have silently screamed prey.
So, how does one stop this?
How does one get rid of the scent?

But this illustrates how it is to be in relation to our family members who live from a completely different paradigm. The lady driver lives by one paradigm (as do we) and our family members from another. Each is speaking according to a completely different worldview.

It must be so, for people to be able to use and abuse others, a different worldview....

She idolized me (to my face.) Using words like "zen-like"
"brilliant" "gifted." Well maybe I am making one of those up. Or two. But not all 3........Then she turned on a dime. She began to compete directly with me. She could not top me in quality of work, so she tried in quantity. Still no go. Then she tried to get me removed from an after hours position I had created, where I succeeded in lowering a certain problem rate by 75 percent. She succeeded at replacing me in that position because I was a per diem employee........From expressed adoration she came to hate and try to destroy me and my reputation.

This is awful Copa, the world has more than it's fair share of wolves. I am sorry this happened to you.

What are they saying by their acts, your mother and this co-worker?..........You were too low for me to ever want you or think that you are worth anything at all. Nothing you have is worth having (I will see to that.) Nobody needs you. I am bigger than you. I live on. You do not. There is not room in the world for both of us.

Think about this. It is a form of shunning. Some of this sounds like my sister.

Mine also...ugh.

These people require the total social death of a person in order to feel their own power. If they cannot possess them or control them, they kill them off socially.

This is what happened to me with the non-profit lady, she "killed me off", well with her cohorts, anyways. There are many people in the paddling world, who have been the victims of her actions. But she continues to climb the ladder. Those who have control now, in her inner circle, are much like her. Knowing what they know, how can they even trust one another? There is no win, no gain, no money to be made,(or, is there....) it is all about power and control......

I am not small and broken they say, as to be unable to be in relation to you or to compete with you. You are the small and broken one and I will show you how small and broken you are. By shunning you and by disgracing you and abusing you. Watch me.

Yes, I have seen this over, and over again. The "Ursullas" of the world.

I will never understand the "win" of it. Never.

leafy

 

[New Leaf]

Guys I am off for tires again, yesterday was to crowded (Costco sale...) going to Sam's early in hopes I will be there in time...first come, first serve.
Busy day today.
Plus, my keyboard is acting up, I hope I am still under warranty, certain keys stop working......never had that happen before, but intermittently lose -return,p and ?
Now that I am writing this they are working....go figure!

Have a great day, if I am not back, Have a wonderful New Years Eve, where did 2015 go?
Seemed to fly by, but I will be happy to start a new year, hopefully better.....
(((HUGS)))
leafy

 

[New Leaf]

Omg at SAMs 7:00am and there is a line....crossing fingers....
leafy

 

[New Leaf]

I would put on an act once or twice when in Illinois with sibs for my dad's sake, Leafie. It is them who won't............ I'd be feeling rather sick. And I'd bring my husband with me for support in case one of them couldn't pretend. I'll admit, it would be very hard and totally uncomfortable.

But it's not something I have to worry about. I can't do it alone. Nor can you.

I think you are right on not doing it alone. Hubs is too quiet, I might have to bring my Hoku, or Blossom, they are Tigers......On second thought, that may be too much....Serenity, you so do not deserve all of this cr@p, no one does. I am glad for you, you have created your own family, and moved on from the misery.

My reprieve now is being so far away, so it is about being cordial over the phone, limiting FB posts, and staying positive with Mom. It is about knowing that the "friendship" I longed for, will not happen, too one-sided.
Also trying not to stress over whatever she is saying to Mom, or friends about me. I have no control over that. I do not care about money or stuff, people are irreplaceable....
The thing is, lil sis and bro have figured her out, dealing with dad and moms illness. She has pulled many a fast one with them, so, I have a bit of support there, ( I think?????) I do realize Sis will try to rein me in on her stance, so that would be tough......Until that time comes, I will just be me and breathe. I just have to be less me, when I speak with her? Not so sensitive and for God's sake leafy, don't share too much if she prods. It is a weird feeling, like speaking with an acquaintance, less is more. Am I compromising myself this way, Serenity?
I wish her no ill will. Just don't know where she is coming from most times......
Thank you SWOT, I hope to have you , Cedar , Copa and Feeling to talk with when the time comes.....I know my head and heart will most likely be all over the place. I love my Mom......Sis does too, but it gets twisted and she can be overpowering. Okay that does not sound like love........I am not looking forward to what the future of this holds........
Thank you for your kind words.....sitting at SAMs waiting for tires......fun...lol

(Hugs)
leafy

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

She idolized me (to my face.) Using words like "zen-like"
"brilliant" "gifted." Well maybe I am making one of those up. Or two. But not all 3.

Ha! Copa, you are so funny. I love it when we can laugh in these serious matters too. And I liked the part about the French King, and farting in their general direction.

Funny. But so chillingly true.

About the lady you trained? That is exactly how they do it. Compliments should never be taken lightly.

Ever.

She left for a few minutes to print a document at the copy store. When she came back she said, "don't feel any pressure to loan me the money." I think she was rethinking the advisability of having seen me as her mark.

To me, this seems like: Your first refusal will not stand, does not bother me, and changes nothing.

The issue of money has been reopened.

Why Copa, would you feel "pressure" around refusing to fund someone who is behaving in ways similar to your son when you have refused to fund him.

What would be an appropriate response to this woman, should the issue be reopened? In a saner world, the issue will not come up again. But if it does, and if whatever this woman construes as "pressure" is pressed just a little harder, what would be an excellent response?

It will not be anger, Copa. It will not be whether she is or is not dirty or even, whether you do or do not want her in your home and have her there only because you love M and she is of his family.

What is an appropriate response.

"What do you mean?"

That is the appropriate response. Make her go naked.

***

But I am feeling especially, wickedly awake myself today, so I could be misinterpreting the perfectly innocent remark of someone who has been told once that you will not succumb to blackmail.

Then she turned on a dime. She began to compete directly with me. She could not top me in quality of work, so she tried in quantity. Still no go. Then she tried to get me removed from an after hours position I had created, where I succeeded in lowering a certain problem rate by 75 percent. She succeeded at replacing me in that position because I was a per diem employee.

From expressed adoration she came to hate and try to destroy me and my reputation.

I have seen people like that when I worked too, Copa. The reputations of those they destroyed, their meteoric rises in their careers, the bodies left behind them ~ all of it, as you describe.

Two people like that I have seen in my professional life.

There is no way to fight them. They are single-minded in their purpose. They know exactly when to stop, when to back down, when it is safe to attack again. Eventually, they are fired. It always happens that way from what I have seen. But until they are fired, their rises are unexplainably meteoric. The lives they destroy on their ways to "the top" are still destroyed.

And no one can really say why.

And that is how we know when a predator is in the vicinity.

The desecrated corpses of persons once respected.

It is the same scenario that plays out in our families of origin.

"What would Cedar do?"

Why? It is easy to think about a diagnosis. Too easy. I want to know what her motive was and your mother's Cedar for trying to destroy the reputation of the priest.

What are they saying by their acts, your mother and this co-worker?

My mother (and my sister) created a paradigm in which each was better than she is, and my sister got what she wanted and in a way, so did my mother. It is difficult to ascertain who manipulated who with what, here. I have posted before about my sister having believed herself "duped" when she learned my mother had seen the man behind my sister's back. And about my sister's outrageous, connect-the-dots belief that I too would feel duped when no one had been talking to me for almost a year by that time.

For heaven's sake!!!

It was in that conversation that I first said, "Why are you calling me." And I meant it. And I really did not know. I was trying to pt the pieces into some coherent order and there was no coherent order. I am more familiar with their natures and tenacity, and with the stupid pointlessness of their ugliness, now.

Where was I going with this.

Oh. What are they saying. I don't know! I don't know why they do what they do. For once, Cedar is speechless for the thousandth time.

Which means we are in denial, again. Cedar, as is all too well known, is struck speechy, not speechless.

Which is a very true joke.

This is my guess: It was my mother who pursued the man, initially. They had known one another in high school. She found him online. Whether innocently or not, my mother's initial intent may have been only to create relationship. But...my sister and what happened during the following years plays into this, too. The man became the point of contention, maybe. The one place my mother did not have to compromise to have what my sister was willing to give her because the man was happily willing to give her more.

My advice to my mother was to marry the man. Of course. She would have lived a very different life than the one she is living now. She would have traveled. She would have lived among a very large, tightly knit family. With huge family dinners and amazingly good food, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as the man was the patriarch of a very large, loving family.

Everything about our own family would have been different than it is, had my mother married the man. The "loser" in that healthier family which may have been created, had my mother married the man, would have been my sister. In the sense that she would not have the all of it and more that she has, now. But every other member of my family of origin would have been blessed by this man's influence, and by the influence of his large and honorable (and very well connected) family.

Which is why my sister hated him, and waged (what now appears, in retrospect, to have been) an incredible campaign against him.

So I don't know the answer, Copa. I only know there are people like that in the world. I know that we sense it, but that we override our own hackles rising because we are well mannered, and because these duplicitous types, mimicking real human generosity of spirit, present themselves as genuinely human when they are not.

***

They say Copa did you know, that if a murderer comes to our door and knocks, social conditioning decrees that he could not possibly be there to murder us or he would not have knocked.

And so, we will, most of us, let the murderer in.

That is how these people swim through the world just beneath the radar. They are not even ethical in their criminality. They are definitely there to do us in, they are fully aware of their intentions in targeting their victims, but they knock politely first, so we will feel that we must welcome them.

It is like Maya says: Believe them the first time they tell you who they are. We are not going to hurt them by pointing these things out to them because they already know who they are, through and through.

They are not fully human.

Nor do I believe they can change.

But here is the thing: We are destroyed ~ some essential something in us is destroyed, either way, when we are dealing with people like that. If we do not open the door, we will come to live small lives defined by fear. (Like Howard Hughes, with our nails grown over-long and our hearts broken. Because the reality is that, compared to them, we are all impossibly wealthy in the way Howard Hughes was impossibly wealthy. In our undeniable generosity of spirit. In our good humor. In the love we give and in the wealth of the Sleeping Beauty kisses we have received, again and again and again.)

If we do open the door, we will die.

You were too low for me to ever want you or think that you are worth anything at all. Nothing you have is worth having (I will see to that.) Nobody needs you. I am bigger than you. I live on. You do not. There is not room in the world for both of us.

I think they do not think that way, Copa. They are not like us. Nothing they do is about us. They move from victim to victim because ~ I don't know why. Maybe, they are cold, in their hearts, where we are warm. They probably wonder why everyone around them is forever turning up dead or destroyed and feel badly for themselves about that.

The ultimate predator imagery would be Ghengis Khan, hawking and spitting into his General's open mouths.

And he really did that.

And believed himself the Scourge of God.

No guilt. Pity aplenty, but no concept of Mercy.

That is how we learned not to extend the concept of Mercy to ourselves, Copa and everyone.

How awfully sad for those little girls (or little boys) that we were.

Think about this. It is a form of shunning. Some of this sounds like my sister.

I am beginning to believe that to be shunned is an honor, Copa. Those who shun are willfully employing a technique they absolutely believe will unravel the tenderest victim, and will deeply hurt the stronger victim. But they do it anyway. If we are being shunned...what kind of person is it who would knowingly engage in such behaviors?

Evil would be as good a description as a multi-syllabic diagnostic title which pretty much says: This person is majorly f***** up.

Run.

***

Generosity and laughter are intrinsic to "human". These people are neither generous ~ though they will give ostentatiously when it is in their interests to do so, and will proclaim their generosity to the heavens. Nor do they laugh with full, rich-throated laughter. They are incapable. They do laugh, of course. In fact, they laugh all the time.

It's just that their humor will have to do with ridicule.

And will slide toward victimization.

Every time.

These people require the total social death of a person in order to feel their own power. If they cannot possess them or control them, they kill them off socially.

They only kill them off socially if there is anything left of them. Which means they are losing. So, when we are being shunned and then, on top of that, seeing our reputations further destroyed in an ever-widening circle, I suppose we should take a minute to pat ourselves on the back.

For sure, no one else is going to.

The predator always shows his or her true nature. They are like simple, one-celled organisms in a way. Their repertoires of behavior are stupidly the same ones I think, all of their lives.

That is why they must move on.

Eventually there is no one left who will have anything to do with them.

***

Maybe that is the lesson about Joseph, Copa. There is nothing real they can do. They can destroy us, but not touch us. They can never be us. That is why vengeance would be an oxymoron where the brothers who had enslaved and sold Joseph's birthright and whatever else they did to him with the father's knowing complicity were concerned.

They were not human to start with.

Even their fear that Joseph was such that he would take vengeance was insulting.

You have taught us so much with The Story of Joseph, Copa.

Or Jacob. I am forever becoming confused between Jacob and Joseph. Joseph had The Coat of Many Colors. Jacob smote the angel on the thigh.

Both were human.

Like us.

But these people like my co-worker still need to feel they have destroyed the person, humiliated them, stomped them into the ground. It must be a form of shunning.

Yes, a form of shunning. I had not seen it like that before, Copa. You are right, exactly right.

They never, ever, stop.

Look at how my sister shunned my mother, as my mother died. It must have been a way of dominating her own lack of control, impending loss, or fear. While at the same time punishing the other person for it all. It is a reversal. I am not small and broken they say, as to be unable to be in relation to you or to compete with you. You are the small and broken one and I will show you how small and broken you are. By shunning you and by disgracing you and abusing you. Watch me.

I am sorry Copa, and I know that was your sister and you love her. I still love my stupid sister and I know better but I still do, too. Roar, and etc about that. But your sister had sucked the mother dry and put her in a home, Copa.

The sister was done with the mother; had decided to move on.

So, she did.

She would have done so whether you moved home or not. She would have preferred that there be no witnesses.

When your mother called you to protect her, she knew you would come; she knew you would protect her; that you would behave with integrity. What I am not sure of is whether she knew what it would cost you.

I am sorry, Copa.

But I think she knew.

These people do not think like we do, Copa.

They are nothing like us.

How does one get rid of the scent?

One does not. The scent is the scent of live and loving human. It is intrinsic to living beings. We all sense it; we may even sense more than the predator. The problem here is that we do not believe in evil.

So, it waltzes in.

***

There is no defense. In that each of the sisters seems to have gone to the trouble of eliciting allies from extended family, I think there may be no escaping their corrupting influence, either. But they do not win unless we collude with them in our own destruction. "It is what it is." is a good phrase to remember. Recognize when we have been victimized and admit to ourselves that is what happened and go on.

There is nothing else to do.

Everyone is targeted by a predator sooner or later, and usually more than once.

The difference between us and people who are not targeted so frequently is that, where such people feel dangerous to others they feel familiar to us.

Part of this process will be to accurately remember what really happened. Write it down. Do not color in the blanks for them with kind interpretation. They did do what it looks like they did, and they meant to do it. Stand back. Watch them manipulate you. Watch for it. It will happen. The last time I spoke on the phone with my sister, she went through a gamut of manipulatory defenses to my coldness, to my ten thousand whatever it was all meaning basically that she was wonderful and I was being a poop.

Knowing she would do that strengthened me against them.

***

Just write down the words they say. Initially, you will not understand them. Initially, you will find yourself reinterpreting for them what they must have meant.

Don't do that.

Or maybe, we are wrong about everything we think we see. But there are such people in the world. They do exist. We have all had dealings with them in one guise or another: The result is always the same. A sense of fearsome surprise, of dirtiness and hurt and betrayal that we don't really believe happened except that we are bleeding, again; a sense of something gone badly wrong, but with no clear sense of how it happened, of how it came to be.

The predator will have a pre-rehearsed rationale for how awful we are and how they never once saw it coming. If they are very clever (and they are) we will be left trying to figure out why we are such terrible, cheap imitations of people.

They will lie right to our faces.

This is why it is good to have things in writing.

It still sucks to have been taken by a predator, though.

Cedar