Wow James
It feels so wonderful to know that someone else can understand what I am saying.
I felt my reply to you was rather long, and rambling but that’s only the basics. It’s interesting that you could hear my pain and sadness. That has been said to me before and I wasn’t sure it came through, as I state these details in a rather nonchalant way, as though I read it in a book somewhere. Does that feeling come over you? It does seem strange to write something so real, but without blubbering all over the keyboard.
It is definitely a painful and life-changing place to be, a child who never knew love. Yes I built that wall, buried things, compartmentalized, whatever and as new pain arrived in my life after leaving the family, it just automatically went to wherever pain was stored. I just couldn’t feel it enough to kill anybody, or anything that dramatic.
I had some of the same reactions like you did. I became a good employee where ever I worked for me this was about earning love that I never had but of course back then I had no idea of what I was really doing
How very interesting as I did exactly that as well, and in looking back, I might not have been looking for love, but certainly looking for appreciation, a pat on the back, acknowledgment….and I think that feeling of , not ‘needing’ but, having appreciation stated still boosts me to a good level.
When it came to a relationship, I was quite aware of men who were not ‘for me’, for whom I had no special feelings, and when I met my daughter’s father, the feeling was different. In retrospect this was not the unconditional love we ought to have had, as it failed, we never married, but cohabited. and had a child. He killed himself in 1979, when our daughter was 15 and hadn’t seen him in 7 years. (I had left him in ‘66 but we had another year together in ‘71-‘72) She sobbed for 2 weeks straight over a man she never knew, but had fantasized into a knight in shining armour who would come for her some day, and bring her a horse. I knew this somehow, and she told me this only in our latest emails of importance about 2 years ago. I didn’t cry when he died and he is still in my mind and my dreams a lot and my not crying was excused as having to stay calm to comfort my daughter his funeral.
I so disliked the family gatherings when we were grown with our own families and were with our parents. I felt that everything was so ‘put on’ when some truths were meant to be shared, and those that were shared, although painful, were made into jokes. So laughingly partied when , if I could fully feel my distress, I might have taken an UZI to them all. Now we know the cause of a mass murderer: s/he was not loved as a child. So I therefore am willing to remain as I am. (You might notice that I use hyperbole at times.--it is a big help with my sense of humour)
This 2000 miles away moat is absolutely great. This is a No Contact form for my life, although I think I can see N-ism in one sister only. My brother and another sister came for a couple of days last year (Aug holiday weekend) I notified in advance that they would have to live in my world (of disability) when they were here, and I slept and did my morning things then called them at the B&B when I was set to see them. If they had to wait, well tough bananas. I have waited so often when someone had to run into a house and leave me in the car, or go down to the Hot Springs and leave me on the mountainside. For the first time I ‘had control’ over siblings. An able bodied person has no idea how to plan for a disabled person in the group--that’s family--friends thought about me. I stated my ‘outlook on life’ (meaning what you and I are saying) to that brother and sister when they came and they listened but did not discuss or ‘appear to understand.’. My intention in doing this was to say, I would always be here and would never ‘go home’ again. I had previously, jokingly serious, told them all that I would need one month’s notice if there was a death in the family. I would have to make arrangements to rent a hand-controlled car from Avis to be able to attend. That remark received with no response.
I said 1% to let you know that I know and I ‘feel’/ know the feeling, but am unsure how to determine a percentage, but it would be low. It is definitely clearly a problem that began with my family. No one else. Anything that is of a feeling nature is numbed down for self-protection., I believe So your feeling of going sane….I have to admit that is a very good way of stating about myself now. I have gone sane. I understand me. I understand the FOO , but I still don’t have 100% feelings and don’t want them. Are you in search of 100% feelings about your whole life?
I have tried all my life to ‘get to know my siblings’ and I cannot. They do not talk like this. I wonder if they, too, suffer this same disconnection that I do but won’t admit it, or don’t know what it is. I gave up on them after I moved away. Just a few emails and I could see the lack of caring. 3 of the 4 are with the original spouse, 50 years, 45 years, 40 years and I have never heard of one anniversary celebration.
Finding someone who will listen, who will totally understand can be a lifetime search. I don’t know your age, James, but did you have a time that ‘you knew what it was’ that put you off kilter? My family never knew about my lifelong therapy trips, until I told my brother and sister last year. As I said I knew something at 15, but figured it out in a long session with myself from 2002-2007 and finally knew at the beginning of this year.
Yes being banned from my daughter’s life and the lives of 2 grandchildren, and to not know about the 3rd being born was painful. I did cry initially, after driving away that day with a big empty, scary, black hole inside. Then the following year, 1992, I had a crying spell that made me know I was depressed, after crying all day. After that I never cried until March 30, 2008. Nothing made me cry until I watched the movie ‘Eight Below’. When the first dog died, I cried for an hour and ,as I continued to watch, more and more things happened to cry about in the movie, up to the end. I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie, but I’ll spoil it a bit. When those beloved dogs were left behind by there owner, because of an emergency elsewhere, they fended for themselves for …what was it?..close to a year? They were like ‘brothers and sisters‘, loving each other and helping the lame, sharing their food and sharing their strengths, and as I think of it now, I had a little brother die when I was 7, but already disconnected. The first dog died mid-movie and that brought on the tears. I remember thinking that Johnnie might be a ‘friend’ of mine, as I played with him a lot but he died at 6½ months.
I am so glad you understand the rip in my universe, and I’ve wondered, did I say? if I had stepped in through that gap I saw, …..well was it something I could have done? I could see another world of pretty flowers in there. I can sure believe your dark shadow rolling out and down the hall and disappearing. It is wonderful that your therapist didn’t ‘pooh-pooh’ it. AH!! so that is ’seeing’ emotions’! WOW! Do you ever see black shadows in your peripheral vision? I see many. I believe they are ‘helpers’ not ‘vicious’.
My therapist was also interested in my out-of-body’ experience at the time of my car crash that disabled me. I was 30. Wow! long time. There was no ‘walking toward the light’. For real, the sky was a medium gray, at 2:00am, and the trees were totally black. When *I* left my body, the sky became a mixture of all pastel colours, and the trees became a very light gray. I was a muti-colored ball of little twinkling lights (a bit like Christmas lights on and off at different times) just pin points and I was moving, not hurtling, upward to the South-East. I had left my body behind and, as though I has eyes in the back of my head, I could see more cars stopping and a man putting a blanket over me, another turning on his search light. It was so peaceful, so calm, without fear for my daughter (then only 5) in the future, without fear at all. Then, after how long??? I ‘backed up’ into my body and could again feel the dew of the grass on my cheek.
A ‘third type of love’--an invention of mine? I know who I love (and who I like etc,) but it is not fake and it is not all consuming. I think of my daughter and my grandchildren every day, but not in the forefront of my mind. They are always there and I have a ‘soft, peaceful’ feeling about them I don’t hate them, or wish them ill. I love them and wish them all well. In comparison to my siblings, I know they’ve survived life do all of us are over 65, and ‘now’ the deaths will begin. The eldest is 72, but her husband is 78. They had a 78th party for him. Why not wait until 80? Maybe he is unwell and my sister doesn’t find it necessary to tell me? This requires knowing what to do under the circumstances, so I have planned to send a single rose to the Funeral home, (if I know) and it will be for the one who died signed “’Bye Wilbur. Safe journey. Izzy.”
My little 4½ year old KC came to see me. He rode a motorcycle from Ontario to BC at age 20. He bunked over for 2 nights, and he was KC, but not KC. I told him about the KC I knew and he didn’t remember any of it. I said he was a kind and loving little boy! He was happy to hear that! I told him how I talked him down from the top of a pine tree, and how one day as he and Maggie, a baby then who he would hit and my legs were between them, and I were on the big bed and he heaved a sigh, oh what a sad, sad sigh, so I put my arm around his little shoulders and asked him what was the matter. He said, “Oh Gram. One day you are going to die and I am going to be so sad!” so I talked to him about all the things he had to do before I died, like get his driver’s license, graduate from school, find a lovely girl to marry, and have children of his own. These were all things that Grandmas like to know. Then when, in a long, long, time ahead, I died, I would ask God to make me a twinkling star and every time he looked up at the stars and saw one that twinkled and changed colours, that would be me, still loving him. He began to sing “Twinkle twinkle , little star--” and all was well.
He was 3½ and I never had things like that at that age or ever, to my knowledge. He had a voice. As I spoke with 20 year old KC, he was a different person from the 4½ year old KC. I was not around to see him grow and change: the same with Maggie from age 2, who is now a lovely 19 year old, and the 3rd, Matt is 16.
I was alone and ignored and age 3½ . It’s amazing too what we forget and what we remember. I expect that many of my blank spots were ’not too bad times’, and the ‘not so nice’, were lonely, sad, wondering and voiceless.
My daughter’s husband is a full-blown Narcissist and she would relate to all that is said here, I’m sure. She was brainwashed and emotionally abused, and I didn’t know about N-ism. I met my own N, who brought me out here, and was after my money as it turned out. I now understand everything my daughter went through and why I didn’t like him before I even met him, and why she could never stand up for me in his presence. I have forgiven her for that. An my sweet KC is living with Dad and I noted the beginnings of N-ism in him and I am so sad about that! My grandson, a Narcissist!
I was happy to share this with you, James, because I felt you would understand, and Voilà! Yes it gives us a connection that is very hard to come by.. When two people can talk on basically an equal level of understanding, it’s great! My manner of writing, I believe is quite straightforward and not all dressed up with pretty adjectives. It’s just plain the way it is!
Are you so sure you are a ‘false self’. REALLY? I am beginning to think that I am the most real of my entire family, with everything I have expressed. I doubt they would be as honest.
Take a really good look at yourself, then look at your family (if you 'know' them at all) and you might not be performing at all. I wondered about me at first and I realized I was NOT performing.
You are the Truth!
We are the Truth!
….oh is that deep?
Izzy
