I've texted with the friend I was trying to help with her health problems..... the one at the Nutritional Response Practitioner appointment..... yelling "She's a fucking bitch!"
That one.
I asked if her eyeglasses were fitted and the right prescription, bc she was afraid they were the wrong Rx BEFORE having them fitted to her face. I don't know what she did or didn't do. I'm trying to follow up and get that handled for her, bc she got the glasses from DD's old work place. We'd make everything right for her as quick as could be managed.
What I know is her mother had surgery and my friend has listed that as reason not to be in touch with me.... and it's tugging at my brain, bc I think I used to be THAT person who put off my basic needs in order to help people who didn't do their own work, take care of their own health or be a part of solutions.... they created problems, over and over.
And my friend might be one of the people creating problems.... for herself... for me. Maybe she took care of her mother, in the past, at the expense of her children...... I remember when friend took her mother in and cared for her only to come home one day and find her mother gone, along with all the toilet paper and paper towels in the house. Her mother wasn't in her life for the majority of her childhood, btw.
It was such a dick move on her mother's part to steal stuff and run out without saying goodbye or thank you or anything and her mother houses druggy half sibs.....my friend adopted one of those half sib's babies from the hospital. Has shouldered more than her fair share of family burdens and still..... she continues with the pattern of stepping up, bc she's typically the only one who does. Maybe the others don't bc they know she will?
Maybe they just aren't the kind to know how or identify when they should...maybe they don't understand they could or should OR....
maybe they have better boundaries? One of her 2 sisters was supposed to adopt the child my friend took, bc ut backed out at the last minute and left the baby in the hospital without a plan. That sister went ahead and adopted another child, so it wasn't about not being ready, etc. They had no children. My friend had raised 3 children with an abusive N who dragged her though years of good'ol boy courtrooms, just beating the crap out of her there and behind closed doors, before she got away from him and I really wanted to give her the hand her family never could or would. Once my friend left her abusive hushand with her 2 young children, and her family sent her back to him....he raped her and she got pregnant a third time. For Pete's sake.... some people just suffer and suffer and she's one of those, but I'm paying very close attention to this.....and......
I'm not so sure putting her own care on the back burner, in order to BE there for her mother at this time..... is the right choice. I'm not claiming I know, but it feels so familiar to me.... and such a boundary transgression at the same time..... one she's invited, like I did when my father didn't do his own due diligence regarding surgery.
He didn't pay attention when I did. I wasted my time and all I got was this stinking t shirt with "I was right, again" on it....and he did what he was gonna do, despite the time and energy I spent. I felt kicked in the teeth, in fact.
I didn't feel any better. I felt worse, in fact for going out of my way....steering myself out of my own lane, so to speak.
And I feel like my friend has done the same for her mother, again and again with nothing positive to show for it. One kick in the teeth after another and if we get kicked in the teeth.... again and again.... at some point it's our refusal to move, refusal to stop baring our teeth and making them available.... right?
That flipped my stomach, bc I'm positive our identities are tied up, to lesser or greater degrees, in caretaker/helping.....and...... we have to find our edges. Find them, harden them and defend them, IMO.
On a happier note, another friend...we'll call her Mama K, is more or less back in my life after being absent for many reasons for many years.
She's experienced devastation after devastation and overcome everything..... just a really tough cookie..... an Amazon for sure. My other friend is tough too... an Amazon BUT she can't see her edges. She's more deeply mired..... her boundaries have always been very blurred..... never hard and she's always taking in strays she can't afford to care for....... I'm sorry to say I believe her mother is in that category. She has less choice in her life.... is how it appears TO me.
::asking self if I feel bad about that statement about friend's mother:.
Nope.
That friend doesn't give up hope, even when people have shown her who they are over and over and over and I don't want to be a person repeating patterns, without end, even wen I have enough infomation to KNOW what's what, kwim? I want to learn and grow and most of all accept what's true.
So, Mama K has had surgery on 2 vertebrae recently, needs another surgery on a third, is up and going to horse shows and meetings with her just graduated from hs dd............working full time, dealing majestically with the loss of her son 13 years ago and loss of her dh 13mo ago to cancer.... she just keeps going and making choices that move her and her youngest dd ahead in the world. She lost a grandson.... suffered terrible childhood abuse at the hands of her sister and neighbood boys who harmed her over a period of years.... and she's just so authentic and down to earth and funny and able to find the darkness and laugh so she remains sane, but it does come and go and she sees it...can talk about it. Go back to making good and better choices. Practiing self control.
Is that it? Is it more or less posessing self control? The ability to put off gratification? Not so much about intelligence, but about habits, boundaries and resilience?
Both friends suffered at the hands of an abusive sister. Both divorced abusive men. Both had 3 children in their first marriages then a baby later in life.... after the older children were born, but they're still so different.
They both have health issues.
Oh dear. Am I spending time on comparisons? And if I am...... is there a good reason? Is there ever a good reason to compare people?
I know this.... I hope I never abandon myself in order to support someone who won't take care of themself or do the minimum self care, bc I keep doing it for them. Esp bc I keep doing it for them!
::looking at that statement and how it applies to my father and his caretaker.... my FOO in general::.
My Moss friend says she can picture my life if I were taking care of my own business and not everyone elses. Her words. Not mine. It was sobering to see myself through the eyes of someone outside my FOO and general circle.
AM I that friend..... am I the friend who doesn't do basic self care before helping others. Have I always NOT put my own oxygen mask on first and if that's true.... why? Does it matter?
I think changing patterns and putting the damned mask on myself first, consistently, is enough.
In the meantime.... Mama K has been gl/s/d free for 2 months in an effort to deal with the inflammation she's suffering with the spinal surgery. It seems so smart to me and she doesn't want pain pills.... she wants to change her habits, make better choices and get herself feeling better. All the trust we lost and all the time.... we're making up for it all, joyfully, and it's so good, guys.
mama K's GP asked her what she really wants to do and she said she wants to set a date to go to the Cottage with me.... not next winter, but the one after that and BE HAPPY, having taken good care of herself, dropped weight she intends to lose for her health, dealt with inflammation at the cause and simplified her life, which isn't simple now, bc.....
bc someone drew unemployment benefits fraudulently under her name while her husband was dying and sometimes really dreadful things happen to some people more often than others, but not bc of their choices..... so many moving parts. Always has been for her. Always.
Sometimes it's just the monkey typing...... the grass is green, the sky is blue. Things sometimes happen to some people, even if they aren't making sad choices..... but in spite of very good choices things happen again and again.... to some people. It's a thing. This is known.
The last time I spoke to Mama K..... when we were very close friends in 2008... her H was an arse and they were on the verge of divorce and in the time we weren't speaking....... Mama K somehow raised her husband, as she puts it, and he became a man and they fell in love all over again, then cancer came and took him away. After all that.
And this husband....this husband lost a leg in an accident before he met her and fathered a child with a married woman who's likely an ASPD and that son did his best to kill Mama K and dh's same age dd from the moment the little guy could walk. At a point Mama K got custody of him, bc his mother was into drugs and there was bad abuse in the home and that made RAD dx possible, which lead to mama K being stabbed by this child.... when he was about 7yo...... and so many terrible stories later this boy was placed into a home for troubled children and mama K didn't have to lock her dd in every night to keep her safe.... or herself.... what kind of luck is that? Is it a pattern? Did Mama K ask for all that trouble? Who could SEE that coming, even with the complication of a married woman being pregnant with her intended's baby at the same time SHE was newly married and pregnant..... who would SEE that coming?
And that boy and his mother are in the world.....
the grass is green, the sky is blue.
In the dating pool. Hopefully medicated. Just very dangerous people and I have to wonder....
SO much tragedy, so many complications and trouble....... how could she know?
I guess it's possible some unconscious part of her knew things would get this darned dangerous and messy? SO not sure about that.
Mama K stepped up. Tried to help that child, even though he was a menace and disturbed... poor thing...he was dangerous every single day he was in her home, made false accusations against her...... was sneaky every day trying to molest or kill his little half sib sister, tried to scratch and blind her while she was driving at high speeds on the highway, bc his mother poisoned his mind against her and her dd AND abused him in her unstable home with older disordered children and men in and out and here I am.... contemplating that which is not mine to contemplate, but it seems relevant to MY life in that......I want to make sense of my chioces and patterns and current situation...... where I'm heading. What I've left behind... the choices Ill make going forward.
Mama K has always been a growing person. Always risen above. So has my other friend, but...... she it's always 2 steps forward, one step back.... never 3 steps forward..... never not taking steps back, not able to overcome..... unable to overcome heartbreak and ties to a family unable to do better.....and so it seems she remains there... with them...... unable to grow beyond them.... I think.
So much potential, but never moving past those ties. Enmeshed. Codependent. Tied up in patterns she can't identify and therefore can't change.
I guess.
I had a lovely chat with my brother today. It seems my father's caretaker is asking to stay with him for a while.
Now.... my brother offered to take her in to live with him. She said NO.... she was staying with her dd.
I'm thinking about this.... brother had to take a call.... I didn't give him an opinion,but I'm thinking about that right now.
Lighter
