What do you do if you can't/don't 'trust'?

[Peanut]

Dear Rosencrantz:  What you said is exactly where I am right now, too, (FINALLY).  

You said:  

4. I can discriminate. I can choose who to believe. I can choose who gets into my support network and I can choose those things on which I ask them to give me that reality check. I don't have to treat everybody the same. I know they have different experiences and different blind spots and I am finally 'allowed' to take that into account.

Isn't it exciting!!!

It IS very exciting, even though I'm still way shaky about something that seems so obvious now, but that in 43 years never, (and I mean never ever), even dawned on me.

Thanks again; great thread all!  Warmly, Peanut[/size][/color]

[rosencrantz]

I love your enthusiasm, Peanut!
R

[Anonymous]

rosencrantz,

I'm happy to be helpful. Hey, everyone needs reality checks.  I need them all the time. So it's good to find decent reality-check people. And *you* get to choose them.  

bunny

[Anonymous]

Reminds me of a B&B we stayed in. Flamboyant older woman owner, big lady, big voice, colourful clothes – vacant eyes. When we arrived I knocked and after no answer, walked round the back – she was nude sunbathing, with the local air-sea rescue helicopter circling overhead. Anyway, she had a local lady who made breakfast etc. That local lady – spinster-like, small, angular, dressed in black – ran the place and ran rings around the owner. Her breakfasts were very pretty – kippers laced carefully with orange slices – but served stone-cold. We got out as fast as we could. And the local lady wasn’t pleased.
 


PS Enjoyed the old joke Guest. Reminds me of the even older:

Masochist: “Hurt me”
Sadist: “No”              
(which has been beating about my head for a little while now.)

Oh Portia thanks for the laughs. Love the joke, hadn't heard it before. Rosencrantz is right, get to work on the novel. Race ya'. You took me to the B&B and it was better than Fawlty Towers. The owner sounds like they cloned Kathy Bates in that Jack Nicholson movie after. What was it called. Oh yes, "About Schmidt." She climbs naked into the hotub and Jack takes off. Hilarious. What disorder was he portraying, I don't know? But I think he had a good healthy dose of NPD thrown in as well. Eeuuhgh!!! I hate kippers.

Bye
CG

[Wildflower]

Hi R,

I get the sense from your recent posts that you're having all these epiphanies - and they're surprisingly guilt/shame-free  

Don't really have anything to add at the moment  but this:



Wildflower

[rosencrantz]

Thanks Wildflower.  I have really appreciated having you around.  You've been cheering enthusiastically and openly from the sidelines without a moment's hesitation.  Cheers to you!!

You've also helped me not to feel I was being totally, totally selfish in being so self-centred!!!  A very 'giving' child methinks (just thinking of that rhyme about the days of the week...Monday's child etc).  Hope you recognise and value that in yourself.

My, my - haven't we all brought out so much good for and in each other!!!  After the rain, the sunshine.

My H used to say I had a backpack of troubles I took around with me   Well, I've had mine open on the bed and I've been throwing everything out of it at top speed.  Over both shoulders, strewn around the room.  And I'm just shaking the last bit of dust out of it.  Here is it, open and face down.  Shake, shake, shake.  Peers inside.  Nope, nothing left.  Hmmm - what am I going to do with all that left strewn on the floor??? I guess I'll have to leave that for the cleaner to sort out.  Not my problem any more

Toodlepip
R

[Portia]

CG   Wildflower    R  

R's cleaning lady  
R's backpack  
Ahhhhhh! Smiley sighs. P

[rosencrantz]

       

I am feeling kind of warm and fuzzy myself.

R

[rosencrantz]

Ah!  Just realised I've got one more to add.

6.  My support network is unashamedly elitist!!  If you want to join, you're pretty special.  Way, way special.  They may be queueing up round the block to join but only a very few will get in!  Yes, I value myself that much.  And that's also how my support network will know just how valued and special they are, too.

(I can't believe all this is happening!!!)

TTFN
R

[Wildflower]

You've been cheering enthusiastically and openly from the sidelines without a moment's hesitation

Must be all that cheerleading 'experience'.   Glad it's been of use.

I got a real kick outta the backpack analogy.   H wasn't standing in the room while you were flinging stuff over your shoulder was he?  

Wildflower

[rosencrantz]

No!    But he was glad to learn I'd got rid of it!!!  I told him about the elitist stuff, too.  I was completely bowled over when he gave me the biggest smile ever!!!  He knew immediately what it meant (self-esteem etc).  He's changed, too.  I had anticipated he'd give me one of his 'looks' (meaning 'I can see trouble ahead' or 'I'm better than you because I'm a pushover'   ).  

I don't suppose I'll ever be a willow - but he was right about the oak.  I wonder what kind of tree I am now.  A silver birch - elegant, tall, graceful (hooee - who does she think she is?!) and... stark.  I'll have to see about finding a few leaves.  Maybe a eucalyptus.  Still tall and graceful, but evergreen and koala bears like to mumch on the leaves - much more useful!

That last bit about who gets in to my reality check network digs right back into the past and I realise how my need to be the/my parent has ruled my life.  I think I might even say 'ruined' simply because I was so driven to create and recreate the same exhausting situation - like a permanent Jack and Jill loop.  Climb up the hill to success, tumble down the hill in exhaustion.

Anyway, must get the family on the road.
TTFN
R