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healing
Wildflower:
Thank you so much CG and R. :D :D As you can probably imagine, there isn’t really a story that’s closer to my heart than this one. And I’ve never really told the whole story before – partly because I’m afraid people won’t really understand, but I feel like you and others here do. So thanks for that. :D
--- Quote ---Can you imagine if you hadn't talked about any of that stuff at all to him? I wonder what that would have meant for your future perception of your own imagination.
--- End quote ---
You know, I really can’t imagine because I don't think I would have made it this far. I feel so lucky to have had him and this experience in my life. That’s a big part of why I wanted to share my own experiences with and faith in my own memory and imagination – especially given the way you and Portia reacted to my straightjacket comment. Don’t get me wrong, though. I definitely still feel insane sometimes. (raising one eyebrow emoticon) :D
I don’t really have a good story on their break-up. Mom told me for years that she broke up with him because he was too irresponsible and she wanted to make sure I wasn’t exposed to that :!: (wow, I’m really hearing that now, and that’s just absurd :shock: !). :idea: Actually, she blamed all her breakups on me, giving one reason or another why they weren’t good for me – usually after I’d finally let them in and started to depend on them. :evil: Ooof. Anyway, when I try to talk to Mom about my good dad now, she starts weeping and talking about how he was the love of her life – which effectively prevents me from getting any facts or being able to talk about how difficult it was for me to lose him, too.
My good dad told me two things. He said that he wanted to marry my mom but she refused. Twice. And then he told me something that I really don’t know what to do with. He told me that I walked into their room one day after they’d been fighting and told them, straight up, “You’re not happy.” He said that hearing that from me made him realize that, no, he wasn’t happy. But he also said that it was so hard to leave that he took off to Greenland for a year (I remember the pictures) and buried himself in music and drinking. Boy did I mess that up. :roll: I shoulda said, “You’re not happy. If you leave, take me with you.” How bad can Greenland be? :wink:
When I found him again, I didn't move close to him because I wanted to 'get better' before trying to get too much back in his life. I know that may sound reversed, but while being with him woke me up, it also made me aware of how much work I had in front of me - how much damage I needed to 'undo'. So in the meantime, I've been maintaining contact with him while learning to look for the things I love in him in the people who ARE in my everyday life. :D
--- Quote ---Something goes wrong, he swears and kicks the cat (you). And then someone else comes along and swears and just stops there, doesn't kick the cat. It's like "Hey rewind that scene. You didn't finish. I feel weird now."
--- End quote ---
Exactly. It was so disorienting. And you know, when I “woke up”, I couldn’t remember how I got on the very front of the boat in the first place. It was so, so strange. And wonderful. And liberating. Hmmm. All of a sudden I’m thinking of all the other less subtle times I’ve learned to stop expecting people to follow the lines. I’m sure there are others I haven’t learned yet.
--- Quote ---But regardless of how much my mind may have increased his kindness, there was still a good amount of kindness there to be thankful for. And I do appreciate it. And the same goes for that mother of mine. Regardless of how my imagination may have magnified her cruelty, she was completely and totally over the top in her cruelty to me and others.
And I shout to my mother in my head, "You're wrong mother, all men aren't bastards!"
--- End quote ---
So true, CG. On some level, it really doesn’t matter how long and accurate the itemized list on either your mother or John is. John was kind to you (he doesn’t sound indifferent at all by the way you describe him), and he’s probably kind to many people. Your mom, just based on the few stories you’ve told so far, is, as you say, over the top in her cruelty. I wonder how anything she said/believed could really have been right? At least, gotten to by honest, heartfelt means? Maybe it’s wrong for me to say that, though.
I’ve been wondering for a while now - but wasn't sure if I should ask -about that 35 years that keeps cropping up. What happened to finally break your silence?
--- Quote ---And the ball of string thing came to me when I was reading some of Rosencrantz's recent posts. She's doing some really good work isn't she?
--- End quote ---
YES!!! Again and again and again. Great work, R. :D :D :D
--- Quote ---Did you realise how centred you were, how much love was inside that story, how strong you were??? It just oozes strength, composure, 'womanhood', riches of the heart.
--- End quote ---
That was such a nice thing to say. :D Thank you. :D No, I didn’t realize. I think I’m a different person (the pre/post/anything-but-in-between me) when I think/talk about him.
Thank you both so much for reading and hearing and sharing and… and … :D :D
Wildflower
Anonymous:
--- Quote from: Wildflower ---
I definitely still feel insane sometimes. (raising one eyebrow emoticon) :D
Mom told me for years that she broke up with him because he was too irresponsible and she wanted to make sure I wasn’t exposed to that :!: (wow, I’m really hearing that now, and that’s just absurd :shock: !). :idea:
Actually, she blamed all her breakups on me, giving one reason or another why they weren’t good for me – usually after I’d finally let them in and started to depend on them. :evil: Ooof.
I’ve been wondering for a while now - but wasn't sure if I should ask -about that 35 years that keeps cropping up. What happened to finally break your silence?
Wildflower
--- End quote ---
My mother did a good job of getting me to doubt everything and everyone (including myself) EXCEPT her actions, choices and opinions. I used to think I was crazy because my life was crazy. I don't anymore, not seriously anyway.
When she found a new boyfriend she would hammer away at me to think he was fantastic too. She wouldn't be satisfied if I too didn't think he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then when she'd bust with him she'd educate me about how evil and depraved he was, and play the victim with me nursing her poor wounded heart.
And she always was able to justify to herself her cruelty to him by his supposed cruelty to her. And I often swallowed it. She would even occasionally use me as the reason they split. And I knew that was crap.
I used to feel sick when sometimes in a rage she'd make me look at her stretch marks on her stomach shreiking, "You did this to me. Look at what you did to me." Aaahhh please, I hope I never remember that again.
Hey, thank goodness when she had me she never had to be snipped and have an episiotomy!!! :shock: :shock: :shock: or she may have made me look at that, AAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Some mother's??????? leave me speechless. That's why these stories you tell Wildflower about your mother's efffect on you!!!! I'm sometimes speechless for a while. I feel a bit like a pinball machine, ping 150, ping 250, ping 350, ping 500, ping 1000, TILT!
But why did I break the silence. I think I was shocked, hurt, confused, angry and scared about something she'd done and I was trying to express and connect with her. I was probably using John's death as an example, saying something confrontational like, "You always ignore my feelings. Like when John died." I think I was trying to express my unexpressed grief and have her understand that my feelings about him and lots of other things were different to hers, but still valid. I wanted to tell SOMEONE, ANYONE, HER that I hadn't stopped loving him like she had.
I used to try to explain to her, "Just because I don't feel the same way about someone that you do doesn't mean I'm your enemy." She always expected me to like who she liked, and to hate who she hated. Otherwise I was disloyal and deserving of cruel and wicked treatment. And I had to embrace and replicate her feelings immediately. When and where she decided, on the spot. No time to think. Quick, hate him or her now. More than once I heard groaning from the bedroom and looked in and there she was, shagging away, her butt going 50 to the dozen, pleasuring some guy who just the day before was (according to her) the greatest arsehole ever created, and she'd told me I wasn't to let him in if he came to the door. :shock: Baaarf! Where's the bucket? Hey, but I could handle it, I was maybe 8 years old. I still get emabarrassed about this.
And what a shock, total confusion and extreme anger I had when I learned John hadn't died in Vietnam. Probably pretty much in that order too. Every visit of hers always ended up causing the same series of emotions in me. Fortunately her visits only happened once every few years. And like an idiot witha short attention span, I'd forget it, get over it and come back for more. All this seems like a million years ago somedays. Blaaaah. Fingers down throat!!! to get rid of the taste of her in my mouth.
Definition of Insanity = Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Thanks
CG
Anonymous:
Hi, it's me again, peeping out from under the rubble. The world just collapsed again, temporarily of course. I'm made of pretty tuff stuff.
I just remembered something I forgot to add. It's that I never know what to believe with my mother. Some of the ways I've witnessed her screw with people's heads would make your blood shiver.
I can't even believe her 100% that John didn't die in Vietnam. She's just the type to tell me that, and go away laughing at how stupidly I would be combing the interstate phonebooks. Making hundreds of long distance calls looking for a guy who died decades before ( and with a really common name). She would love that, it's just the sort of thing she would do.
Once, for my birthday, I don't know, maybe I was 5 or 6, she gave me this huge wrapped gift. She had few of her goodtime card playing buddies over that night. The gift was wrapped in colourful paper and it was huge. I was so excited and happy, and I started unwrapping, and unwrapping and unwrapping. Never ending layer after layer after layer of newspaper. The gift was geting smaller and smaller. Get the picture. The outside wrapping was wrapping paper, the rest was newspaper. I kept unwrapping and unwrapping. I eventually revealed a bloody coin as my birthday present, to go and buy something the next day. Ha Ha. Very funny. They all thought it was a hoot. She'd forgotten my birthday (her excuse later) and did this as a party joke. I remember I cried kept a brave face, but later cried myself dry.
Hard to believe, isn't it, that any person could do this to any child. I guess I have reluctances on many fronts re John.
CG
write:
More than once I heard groaning from the bedroom and looked in and there she was, shagging away, her butt going 50 to the dozen, pleasuring some guy who just the day before was (according to her) the greatest arsehole ever created, and she'd told me I wasn't to let him in if he came to the door
it's so horrible for children to be dragged into their parent's sexuality, so abusive. I've known several non-n people too who've done this in these supposedly 'enlightened' times, thinking they are teaching their children to be unrepressed or something...totally unacceptable blurring of boundaries.
Definition of Insanity = Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Yup, but how often we all go round the same cycles over and over.
Every visit of hers always ended up causing the same series of emotions in me.
it's horrible isn't it, one moment you're this confident capable adult, the next a helpless frustrated child again.
*sigh*
Portia:
Ah CG.
--- Quote ---Hey, thank goodness when she had me she never had to be snipped and have an episiotomy!!! or she may have made me look at that, AAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
--- End quote ---
You made me spill coffee down myself!! *Snort*.
Don’t be embarrassed CG, get the crap out if you want to. She blamed everyone except herself didn’t she? Even blamed you directly, out loud, for the stretch-marks. If only our child’s mouths could have retaliated with adult words like: “it was your rabbit-shagging that got you pregnant - your fault, not mine!” Typical, seeing you as just an extension of her, making you agree with her feelings, opinions, for what they were worth. But no real emotion at all? Sounds N in my book.
Just read your birthday gift post. Damn it. Suppressing my anger for you, ok? BUT what the hell made her go to the trouble of actually doing all that wrapping up? That must have taken a while? Or was it really *funny* to her and the *joke* kept her going at it?? Or maybe she thought it could be the pass-the-parcel game? Ha – no, as if you’d have had your own friends around! I am really angry for you. How bloody humiliating and crushing – especially in front of other people. She was nuts! P
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