My Feelings

[Certain Hope]

Dear Izzy,

I've been reminded of the many times that my "feelings" have led me to try to work on relationships long beyond the point where there was any rhyme or reason.

You've opened the door to communication and that is the very best gift you could offer anyone... access to yourself, your inner world, at your discretion, if the other is interested.

My daughters 25 and 20 sometimes seem so very N'ish to me, but for one at least (the younger one), I figure it goes with the age.
I heard today that she has a computer now and has contacted daughter 16 who is here at home, to talk on messenger... and I felt dread
... that she could lead her teen sister into that spin-cycle, as she herself was led by her oldest sister. I want the cycle to stop, but can't control what will be each one's own choice. Hard reality doesn't over-rule the feelings though.

I remember reading about your grandson's book on another thread. Maybe he is an enigma, too.

From one odd-ball to another, I feel that either appearances rule in some folks' lives... or they don't, and therein lies the oddity.

Love,
Hope

[isittoolate]

hi Hope,
Feelings-AHA--if only I had shouted "stop it!" or "shut up!" or some such thing at the siblings, I wouldn't have those feelings plunge inward to become a stuck emotion.

I just asserted myself today, a new post, and feel good about it.

I have been more assertive for the past 2-3 years and it is a great feeling to know my thoughts were spoken out loud---I notice then that the incident/whateveer fades away and doesn't stick in my craw.

Yes I have the doors open for daughter and my family.

Your girls will make choices, as did mine, and choices /actions have consequences. Gad I wish mine had listened to me!

take care
love
Izzy

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[isittoolate]

Here I am again on this thread about my feelings!

After my sis and bro left on Aug 5 (3 weeks ago) there have been no emails from them. I am bewildered. Maybe I shot off my mouth too much?

I wrote (same email to both) an email to them today with some wondering in it!

I again mentioned my car 'snorting' that wasn't fixed with the first trip, sent sis some pics that I had aLREADY SENT TO BRO--SO HE HAD SEEN THEM.

I TALKED VERY BRIEFLY ABOUT THE bOOK ON MY GRANDSON'S NEAR FATAL ADVERNTURE, BUT DID NOT GO INTO ANY DETAIL.....AS MY SO-CALLED 'FRIEND' DID, TRYING TO TELL ME EVERYTHING BEFORE i HAD THE BOOK)

oh darm I hate Caps--sorry!

I had written the letter to my bro, as he asked, that I write to tell him how I felt about our visit, and I did.

I wonder if I was supposed to say something else?????  Like "I love you all and I want to come back so you can all ignore me in Ontario rather than BC.!! Lordy I can be sarcastic.   Ah well!

Oh i loved that description of me on my other thread about daughter marrying an N.

By the way Izzy, when I think of you, I think of a saucy intelligent creature who is ageless, timeless, and unique!

Lollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Loved it changing and tt agreeing

You know that is me and I am SO surprised to see it in writing from someone I have never met. Yes I can be saucy/sarcasticly funny, I have a high IQ/ I can post a pic of me 20 years ago, in the same sweater-lol--(elbows have holes) and I will look the same as today/and I am unique-------------however we are all unique but I would like to be the uniquest unique. KC's 3rd birthday in 1989 and I took a self portrait when I was 67 in 2006.  Time to get on with age, wrinkle, turn gray and be old.

   

I am asserting myself, have identified a couple of feelings while my therpist has been away. I put that is sis/bro email, as we had talked about my problem here, etc.

my family is not into this "crap" that we are into. It makes me mad. I've been trying to tell them ALL MY LIFE.

I was so fast I must have hit Post. Maybe that is God's interference telling me to STOP

love Izzy

added another of the same sweater and a thyroid scar!!! LOL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1999

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[Certain Hope]

Dear Izzy,

I'd be bewildered, too... and I think it's very good that you wrote with some wondering. That's an honest, caring, inquisitive step to take, seems to me. I used to tend to hypothesize all sorts of things when faced with a lack of what I consider reasonable response, but just coming straight out and asking, "what's up?!!?" is alot less painful and aggravating.

Well, Miss Spicy Saucy... if you plan to wrinkle enough to look your age, you'd best get at it... cuz you got alotta catchin up to do 

I found this today... you might be interested, I dunno  http://www.christiansoulcare.com/increaseiq.html
... about increasing emotional "iq".  Just more food for thought.

Love and hugs,
Hope


P.S.  Iz... I just read another one, same site   http://www.christiansoulcare.com/reactiveorresponsive.htm

This really got me:  Interestingly, men and women who appear to be very calm or rational can also can be reactive, overly sensitive, moody, and unstable. Sometimes those with an apparent "cool head" are actually just overly detached from their feelings. When they get into an emotionally difficult situation they too are liable to "lose it." Being calm, cool, and collected is their defense against emotional reactivity. They've tried to "cut off" their emotional side.

And note... sarcasm is listed as one of the signs of emotional reactivity.

Wee..... 'nuff readin for me for today!  xxoo

[changing]

WOW Izzy!

Is there some sort of Dorian Gray business going on here? Regardless , send me the secret recipe posthaste, before the onset of the next wrinkle sag or bag, I beseech you!

Expectantly,

Changing

P.S. The same sweater under the same painting? Outrageous! Oh, one thing more- no wonder your sibs are jealous!

Love,

C.

 

[isittoolate]

hi hope
Right now I am trying to see if I am smarter than a 5th Grader---- I love it!--Brings back memories of things I never learned --lol
............but I'm not bad after all this time... when Geography is different--renaming countries etc.--math has changed--- and it's all American and I am Canadian!

Yep. My recipe, pay attention changing, is to smoke a pack a day for almost 50 years, but if no one tells you that you will wrinkle, you won't (remember I grew up knowing nothing, because I was told nothing) I haven't used soap on my face for about 40 years, and I haven't taken my makeup off at night for over 45 years. Now if I were to start doing things right, my face might fall down to my knees.

will check out those links later. Thank you!

so changing

Did you read the first, to Hope? my recipe?

Well, it's nice to look younger when I am still scrambling for a life. If I were really old and fat and bald, folks might wonder why I was bothering! If the truth be known, it's the genes. All 5 of us are over 65 and don't look it!

Just threw those in for conversation, but I still think that bro and sis ought to have written by now. Therefore my wondering/i] email of today!

Love Izzy

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[Certain Hope]

lol... Izzy, I've seen that "smarter than a 5th grader" deal... and failed. Oy vey. My son's in 6th now, so we're learning together.

Also, I'm convinced that the soap manufacturers are in cahoots with the moisturizer makers... use one, need lots of the other!

Yer gorgeous, Iz.

And... I'm thinkin about people who are not self-reflective... and how they'd have a hard time writing in response to an unveiling sort of letter...
and I'm thinkin it's a good sign, in a way.  (Sorry, I can't keep resisting the urge to think.)
To me, it shows that they are aware enough to know that a simple little "great to hear from you - howdee do" just won't cut the mustard, at this point.
And it is exactly at this point, I realize, where I used to get to feeling guilty... for having made someone else uncomfortable enough to withdraw. Why? Isn't it right to hope that there are some people in this life who should know us, inside and out? Doesn't make us "bad" if they have no desire for that knowledge or if they don't know how to respond to us. Doesn't make them "bad", either, does it? Just different? Just... unavailable?

You said that your family isn't "into this crap " that we do... and that makes you mad.
Me, too. It's like we have to dissociate from our own feelings just in order to try to communicate with them without putting them off... or scaring the daylights out of them.
It's like asking them to unlock the door to those feelings... by sharing... or at least to knock on the door, by asking...
but they won't.

Beneath that "mad" is alot of hurt... why don't they want to know us?
Like for me, if I share any of what I've learned with my parents, I know it'll stir plenty of defensive reactions, and I don't want to hurt them. I don't know how to share myself without putting them on the spot and giving the impression that I'm blaming them.
But then I realize that everyone is "into" something... just a different form of "crap".
My dad drinks and denies... that's his crap.
My mother controls and perfects... that's her crap.
They each think their particular crap is superior crap, because it's harmless... heh... and righteous. Oh yeah, righteous.
Now that is crap.
Anyhow, I'm still trying to figure out why I'd write, at this point... Dad is 87 today. I sent a card, no note.

Thanks for sharing your crap with me, Iz... it's the real deal.

Love,
Hope

[isittoolate]

Hi Hope

I just loved your response because I feel the same way. I am also glad that you like to think: don't stop or you're in trouble!

Yer gorgeous, Iz.

Thank you; now think carefully. My response is usually "It's all done with smoke and mirrors". Get it?

In the emails I just sent to bro and sis, I asked if I had said anything they didn't like. for instance, I needed an example of the awful taunting when I was say about 10. I knew both of them would not know what it all meant, but that they were coerced into taunting me, at ages 8 and 6.

It was becasue I was changing clothes one day and I heard scuffling outside my door. In the old farm house the doors were warped, so there were 'peepholes'. After that all 4 siblings, the other 2 being older 12 and 14 were calling me 'baldy'. I had no idea why. None at at all.

When I mentioned to them here , they had no memory of it, none at all and I said, "I expected not, as I know they couldn't have begun the taunting, that they were too young and that they were just told what to say". Here comes baldy. Hey baldy. etc.

Well the reason was that at 10 I had no pubic hair. I never even knew about it. I expected my N sister had been peeping and began this. I was bewildered, felt stupid, felt left out, felt there was something wrong with me, but what?

Now I recall an incident. I am wondering if my mother heard these taunts and knew my discomfort etc, becasue that year she had had a hysterectomy. She was 40 and we shared a bedroom. She asked me if I wanted to see her scar.--which meant "yes you do so come here". So from the other side of the bed I crawled over & peered over her shoulder, saw her boobs, her scar and a patch of dark hair.

OH MY, says I!!!! Is that what my problem is? I need hair down there? Well I bought a huge magnifying glass (just kidding) and checked my crotch every day for about 2 years and finally I found one hair-- I was no no longer BALD! yippee yippee!

If that was my mother's way of telling me what would happen to my body--well it worked but was damned dumb!! and I do not remember when the taunting stopped.
SO!
Being that i told sis ans bro and they were a part of it, they wouldn't NOT answer my mail when I had already excused them from wrongdoing---right?

Funny that it took so long to not be bald and now everyone is shaving it off!

Love Izzy

The only writing I would do at this point would be to either of them, if I had breakthrough after breakthrough, as otherwise they understand, maybe, so why beat them over the head with it?




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[Certain Hope]

Dear Izzy,

"Smoke and mirrors" ... as in, an illusion? Are you doctoring your photos, Ma'am?   
When I think smoke and mirrors, I think N... so that's my own mental block.

I'm trying to imagine where you were...
I grew up pretty much as an only child, since my brother married and left when I was 10.... but in my mind, he never missed an opportunity to tell me how he regretted my birth. I remember very, very little from his time in the home. The story goes: he prayed and prayed for a little sister... and then, finally, along I came...  and he wished I hadn't.
I remember him mocking me for being undeveloped... small breasts.
He really seemed to enjoy commenting on that.
Once I'd had a couple children, he chose to repeatedly comment on my hips... but his opinion didn't bother me much anymore; I was okay with my figure by then, just wondered why he was so obsessed with it. He's the one whose weight has always been a problem... but this is old news. I knew what he was long before I heard of npd and simply ignored him.

Kids at school could be cruel, but they didn't gang up on me. I was younger than all the ones in my class, so they all developed first and that was quite obvious, common knowledge. Kinda makes you want to disappear... having it all be so clearly visible... but there wasn't a whole lot said, as I recall.
And yet I spent my entire childhood feeling bewildered, stupid, odd, and left out of the loop.

So I can only barely imagine that sort of taunting you had X4  siblings.
To have the younger ones not remember now... doesn't allow for closure, does it?
You've released them from accountability for the taunting, but have they shared any of their own memories and experiences? Maybe they feel that's what is expected and are reluctant to go there?
I don't know, Izzy... I freeze up just considering what might happen if I wrote to my brother and tried to address his past crap.

Your mother's scar... whew. Maybe that was her way of showing you how what you could expect...  but quite the shock at 10, I'd think!  What really gets me about it is that you knew then, you had no option... she asked whether you wanted to see it, but it was an order. That's the problem I see.
When it doesn't occur to a child to say "No!"... that is always a problem.

Iz, I have been very un-concise again. That's what happens when I sit down with coffee and oreos. It's the double-stuffing... activates the verbosity switch 

I know what I would like, for the part of me that's in your shoes.
I would like to know whether the only sort of relationship these people find acceptable is the sort where you all "nod and smile" and forget the rest.
And I'd like to know how they have managed to process the past 60-odd years of life... because people are interesting! At least the ones willing to share.

Love,
Hope

 P.S.  Cool jitter-bug you got there

[Hannah]

Oh Izzy.

I relate to your experiences with an angry father. And being super-sensitive. I always felt that I must be from another planet I was so sensitive.

Good for you for hearing your own voice.  :

Hi all

For those who don't know, my feelings have been buried fo(all of my?) 68 years. Too many traumas beginning with my physically abusive father who raged incessantly, right on through the car crash, the estrangement and living with a psychopath. I left him 5 years ago and am 'almost' through talkiing about Ns and Ps. I want to pay attention to my progress and ability to 'voice' myself.

One day I saw a little 3-legged klitten in a TV commercial about abused and injured aniimals. I got a lump in my throat, but didn't cry (I haven't cried since 1993.)

I took my car to the fix-it shop and had a thumpity-thump thump attraction to the mechanic. ( Being that I am always attracted to the wrong man, I suspected those kind smiling eyes where the same as my psychopaths were, and hiding something. He was flirting and talked too much. He said he brought that service station back from near bankruptcy and was so happy to finally own his own business--misleading or a lie? I took my car in today and he is no longer there. The Real Owner is there.)

I had an adrenaline rush --first in a long time and I don't know if that is connected to feelings.

When I last cried in 1993, coincidentally it was my sister who came out here just recently who was the one who popped along that day. I couldn't stop crying. It was about my daughter, so sister well remembers and when I said,when they were here, that that was the last time I cried, she went bug-eyed and asked "REALLY??"

My therapist sees and senses progress but I think I need a jackhammer to get through. I was the super-sensitivve child of the 5 kids.

Love Izzy

[isittoolate]

Thank you Hannah

and this?
And being super-sensitive. I always felt that I must be from another planet I was so sensitive.

I sure relate to that. I really thought there was nothing right (human) with me and that gave way to imaginings of all nature for many years.

Izzy


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[isittoolate]

Oh Hope

smoke and mirrors--- I smoked and didn't wrinkle and I sat in front of a mirror to apply my makeup and style my hair! I said that to a doctor once when he said I didn't look my age, but he got it right off!

Growing up can be very painful. Your brother sounds as though he made up his own taunts!!! Did you ever complain to your mother? I never did!
In Grade 5, I was 8. The only other girl was12, Shirley, and she had breasts. I heard the Grade 8 girls asking my oldest sister why I didn't have breasts like Shirley. I don't recall, or never heard, her reply, but I was mortified and felt alien!

I don't recall being picked on by any children except my sibs and I always felt on the outside looking in, the odd-ball, the black sheep.

Yes I always thought that weird of Mom to do what she did and I can only explain it to myself as I did to you..............that is was her way to let me know I woiuld have pubic hair.  And saying No? I doubt it ever occurred to me to say NO to either parent. I never heard anyone do so, except for once.

I was 16, in grade 13 and studying for my final exams. My younger sister came in from doing the farm chores and she told Dad that she was no longer going to do them (She was supposed to...from age 8 until entering Grade 13) She had help from my brother (yes the two who were out here.) She and Dad had a fight (Mom was in the hospital ready to go into the wheelchair, age 47) Ruth got off from doing the chores and Dad went upstairs and cried. I was in the downstairs bedroom and his room was above it. I was angry with Ruth for making Dad cry..... I didn't know men were allowed to cry.

Yep we are all 65 and older and I have no idea "who they are" and vice versa, was why I wanted someone to know about me....in case the idea ever came up about my moving back to Ontario. I am staying here, and when the time comes that I am a better me, I will let my daughter know, but right now I cannot imagine ever seeing her again, either. I have no problem thinking that way, for now. I can also say that I don't know who their spouses are either. Odd! but when a teen, Ruth's now husband was a good friend of mine. We talked and talked a lot. Same age, and she told me that he said I was the smartest one in the family. He and I never speak now, other than "the initial greeting!

Get togethers were filled with reminiscing and laughter, but always about superficial things. I always thought of them as 'phony'

Love
Izzy


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[Certain Hope]

Izzy! I thought the smoking was a joke.. but now I get it! 
Used to be, I'd pretend to get something, just so as not to feel so dumb.
I would just nod and smile and go along.
Feels good to just say no, I don't get it.

No, I never complained to my brother about his taunts. I would just laugh and ignore it. I never knew what to say. He was the mouth of the family and always got away with shooting it off as he pleased. He would go around referring to himself as "the star". I was the mouse. That's just how it was. Actually, it didn't seem strange to me... or wrong... at the time. In many ways, his talking just confirmed what I already thought of myself. I was that beanpole (I think you said awhile back, in another post)... a stick with 2 peas. My first man>> became my first husband, gave me a t-shirt he had special made for me... big joke - said "IBTC" - "Itty bitty titty committee".  ha ha. I was used to it by then.

Years later, I think it was during the worst times with npd-ex, my mother said something to me like, "I guess you just must not have thought much of yourself." 
Gee, she's insightful.
I never said "no" either... except when I said no to music lessons at 13-14.
Have you ever read Dr. Grossman's essay called "Voicelessness: A Personal Account"?  I relate alot to that. That was when my mother cut me off cold, I think... and I feel that, to her, I died then. Now she digs me up when she wants a shot of supply.

That must have been shocking to hear your dad cry, Iz.
How did Ruth rate, getting out of the chores 2 years early?
I wonder whether she was jealous of you... or just taking advantage of your mom being out of the picture then... or... I don't know what else. She sure exercised some power at that moment. More than I ever would have dared... but then again, I got alot more daring my last 2 years at home, from 19-20.
Just a late bloomer, I guess.

Are you afraid that they'll try to get you back to Ontario, Izzy? So you're cutting that notion off at the pass? Do you think they would ask you to do that... just out of... convention? For appearances? I grew up in the Detroit area. A drive across the bridge or through the tunnel to Windsor was a frequent Sunday afternoon outing.
They tried to get me to go back "home" after npd-ex. I said, this is my home.
I know that was just for appearances.

I understand phony. I never have fit in with those get-togethers. Always on the fringe...
It's said that Peace lies in acceptance.
I guess I've rejected their rejection of me.
They started it.

Love,
Hope

[reallyME]

I took the evaluation on myself.  I am just over the line of being a highly sensitive person, mostly because of my problem with loud noises, chaos around me, too much going on at once.

~Laura

[Certain Hope]

Laura,

Those are the most troublesome areas for me... the rest I can tune out, at least for a time, but still don't deal well with trying to learn, read, concentrate, whatever.. when there's lots of commotion around. I'm pretty much making peace with the fact that's just how I am... and knowing that helps to work around it and not let it build to the point of discomfort. .

Hope

P.S.  It's still taking me awhile to sort between the stuff which is really a part of my own personality and the stuff my mother imprinted on me.