Reply to Portia.... re: love thread.....

[Healing&Hopeful]

I do get where you are coming from with why my parents probably want to keep my brother home, and I think you probably have a very valid point.  My Mum and Stepdad spend a fair amount of time on their own as my brother is at work, and the other week they went away together without my brother for 5 days (the first time they've been away on their own!!!), so hmmmmm, could go either way, and I do think my brother goes along with what they want also.... 6 of one and half a dozen of the other.

and Mum said it was all my fault, look what I had done and to get out of her sight. 
Okay at this point you know how I feel about your mother right? I don’t need to say it. Except she’s no mother. You know what cold anger is like, the kind of anger that says truth without grace? Yah, that’s how I feel about your mother right now.
Maybe this is reciprical or something like that.... she said it with that cold anger, exactly like you describe, that anger that pierces you to the core!

Yep! We are survivors.... and I love them but I can have and enjoy my own life because I value it.

[Portia]

and Mum said it was all my fault, look what I had done and to get out of her sight. 

 she said it with that cold anger, exactly like you describe, that anger that pierces you to the core!

This is interesting because when I read it first I imagined your mother crying, being upset, saying it in hot anger, or desperation, speaking (or shrieking) without thinking – and you say it was said coldly…..which gives me a totally different image: one I’m afraid worries me more about your mother’s state of mind at that point. I mean, to have said those things to you…was she really projecting all of her feelings about herself on to you? “It’s all my fault, look what I’ve done, I hate myself (I want to get out of my own sight)”….. not a pretty picture, a very unhealthy mind, if that’s anywhere near the truth.

I know that cold anger, piercing voice – the one that is somehow removed/detached from the speaker, as though they are ‘outside’ themselves (they don’t look you in the eye, or if they do, you know that they’re not seeing ‘you’, they’re looking way beyond your eyes). Scary stuff for anyone, but for a young person, scarier. My mother did that to me – the stare that doesn’t see. It’s quite nuts. I'm sure I've done it too in my time (not any more). Eyes are mirrors of souls.

Yep! We are survivors.... and I love them but I can have and enjoy my own life because I value it.

You are free to love them! Free to make the choice. They may not be free to love you as you would wish them to (free in their own heads); but maybe they do their best. And maybe they behave like shit on some occasions. If your mother does the exposure routine again, I’d maybe go (like you would to a five year old)  “mummy, you’re showing all of us your knickers again” with a sort of indulgent but firm smile? Haha. You first! I’m too chicken for that kind of assertiveness with my own parents!

[Healing&Hopeful]

Mum showed both kinds of anger… hot anger was slapping and hitting, like taking too long over eating my dinner…. Cold anger was, well I’m not sure really…. I can remember many a time she said in that horrible cold voice, He (my bio dad) used to look at me the same way, with his eyes filled with hate.  Yours are just the same.

Or Get out of my sight… I can’t bear to have you in the same room as me…

Oh the joys of childhood!

I don’t think she would try to show her knickers again…. She does respect my H, and his family and she would be more concerned that he would tell his parents.  However now she knows my H’s response, if he did that again that should be a clue for her.  At least I did raise it with her, which I found difficult, but it had to be done.  I don’t think I could say it out loud like that… I’m too chicken too….

[Portia]

Oh ….so she was - “it’s all your fault, look what you’ve done, get out of my sight.”  talking to your dad, which makes sense? Oh who knows! I’m throwing my hands up. She was nuts at that point. And she hurt you terribly?

I couldn’t say that knickers line either. With the person I saw doing it, I moved between her and him and pointedly looked at her and asked if she wanted another drink. I then turned to him and gave him a look. He asked me some foolish factual question about the birds. People. 

But why do women do this very primitive show-their-knickers thing? I mean it's seems so........desperate...needy.....stupid......downright..... offensive. I don't know!

[Healing&Hopeful]

I think offensive, definitely offensive.... until I spoke to Mum I honestly thought it was unintentional.  I think it easier to forgive something when you know it's unintentional, even if it hurts, personally for me anyway I find it easier to forgive.

When you realise something is intended, intended to hurt then there's no mistake there to forgive....

I am still better off though because I have a happiness in my life that they can never reach.... while they live in their monotonous lives, they will never realise the joy in life, the joy in living.  How can you live if you're half dead already?

[Portia]

Yes, I agree about intention. When it’s intentional and there’s no acknowledgement that an error was made – and then remorse whatever – well, like you say, what is there to forgive? I can understand in that case with the woman (she’s obviously not happy in her life and is trying to get something from flashing her ex) and she was sensitive to being shamed - but my understanding doesn’t help her. I don’t know.

Intended to hurt. Hmmm. See this is where I get caught up. Once I think I understand, I don’t always feel hurt. Someone can want to hurt me, but I decide if I feel hurt or not. And is it me they want to hurt, or something I represent to them? It’s such a fine line between compassion and protecting your own emotional well-being I think.

Dorothy Rowe says something about lecturing psychologists in training. That she would stand in front of them and felt that they all wanted her to tell them the great secret of “how to make people better”. And she had to tell them, there is no great secret, (in my words now) it comes down to the same things that have always applied: that wisdom comes from experience and reflecting on that experience; that no pill alone will cure a mental illness etc. Getting people to see reality differently is a major key.

How can you live if you're half dead already?

I used to see my (various) parents like this. I wanted to be free, to live my own life, to live as I thought they didn’t. Now I know it’s true. I went wrong/awry somewhere along the way, or maybe I just wasn’t equipped to understand people – who would hurt me, who wouldn’t – and now I feel like I’ve caught up with ‘me’ again and that’s a great feeling.

I guess it’s better not to realise that there is joy in life if you’re not experiencing it. A bit like someone with NPD knowing for sure and understanding that they have it and being trapped with that knowledge: I wouldn’t wish that on Sam himself; although again, what you don’t know, you don’t know. How can I attempt to judge what he feels and thinks? No way!

[Hops]

We’re survivors of crazy environments and they aren’t.

H&H, Portia:

Y'all make me bawl. I am so proud to cyber-know you.
I have such a better glimpse now of what you went through as kids.
Your mothers cheated themselves of such bright, amazing, full-hearted daughters.
What fools. What petty, sad, pitiful fools.

Their daughters are no fools, though. So somewhere in the genes was something FINE.

I hope in addition to your H/partner, you are out there in the world making friends.
You deserve them, and you have so much to share with people.

Thanks for sharing it here.

Hops

[Healing&Hopeful]

((((((Hops))))))) (((((((Portia)))))))

I guess I can't understand how someone could want to intend to hurt someone.  Well, actually I guess I can see how... in a kind of revenge way.  I once poured 3 pints over an ex's head and I intended that... he was quite a sh*t though 

Now I've matured though (you know like a good cheese, but hopefully without the smell  ) I don't have any intention, no matter what, now I have more of a rise above it and walk away attitude. 

Changing the subject though I would like to share something... this Saturday just gone I was round my BIL's and his wife... they had her grandkids over, twins who's 3.... I spent quite a while just playing, splashing them in the paddling pool and them getting me back and splashing me... they were laughing, and shrieking and it was such fun.  So many adults complain of getting wet (or maybe that was just my family again) but I was soaked... but it was only water, and it was a nice day so I dried off very quickly... but we did have FUN!  And fun is so important. 

Hops.... I'm not sure what to say... so I'll just say thank you.

xx

[Portia]

Hiya Hops, thank you for your kind words. I have friends here who are dear to me.

H&H

I once poured 3 pints over an ex's head and I intended that... he was quite a sh*t though   

But was he worth wasting 3 pints (3! ) on? Good for you!

Yes, water is just water! I find that many adults in the UK seem to see children as irksome inconveniences to be tolerated. I think we have that attitude, culturally. In Spain it’s so different and in Greece you get really scorned if you shout at your children. I like that. Folks don’t know how to have fun. It’s sad. But some do!

[Healing&Hopeful]

Worth every penny of those 3 pints....

Here's to fun *clink*