My journey out

[Gaining Strength]

Thank you so much Hops. 

I feel such an affinity and deep caring for so many here.  I am truly not feeling animosity or even hurt.  I don't feel fully understood but not in a way other than from people "trying" to understand which is VASTLY different from my childhood experience of intentional "gotcha" setup - MISunderstanding.

I am still acting out of that experience that I endured from, say, ages 5 to 10.  The problem is that at that period I did see myself as they saw me.  Had I understood that THEY were the problem and not me - then I would have just been biding my time in survival so that i could flourish when I finally got out.  But I thought they had it.  I thought I really was wrong, bad, incapable, a bad seed, worthless, undeserving, a moral failure.  And it is this jumble of a message that I am certain that keeps me where I am. 

Could I put words to this all then I could counter it.  BUT I CAN'T and I MUST counter it any way.

These wounds are deep and they are child wounds and I am a child in dealing with them.

I have been reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.  It speaks to me so loudly.  In one tiny section he makes the point that people who succeed had people in their corner.  He looks at a group of geniuses who were studied by a man names Ter------ (something) and he called his subjects the Termites.  He followed his genius through the academic careers and into their careers afterward.  They were no more successful as a group than a group of non-geniuses.  IN fact, when the geniuses were grouped according to their career success the common thread with those in Group 3 (the lowest functioning) was that they came from families which did not encourage then or stand behind them - they had noone there for them.  That was me.  No one.

[sKePTiKal]

OK...I'll be around off/on all day. I actually woke up thinking about you this morning and that I needed to see if there was anything I could do for you... at least, check in and see how you're doing.

I'll try my best to not take any reaction, personally. I will read twice before responding. What you are attempting can be quite emotional and upsetting... but I hear your need to get on with it. It takes a lot of guts to do this on the board, if that's what I understood from the below. Bravo!!

I simply need a place where I can share what I am doing and why.  It may not be what anyone else would do nor why anyone else would do it but maybe you can cheer me on anyway.  Probing questions can definitely be good but looking through my FOO experience lenses, probing questions look like ammunition gathering tactics rather than the thought provoking tool they may be meant to be.

Is this the best way for us to help? To listen... commiserate... comfort? Does "little girl" need a different kind of help than you - the rational adult - does? What kind of help? I ask because you said:

I am still acting out of that experience that I endured from, say, ages 5 to 10.  The problem is that at that period I did see myself as they saw me.  Had I understood that THEY were the problem and not me - then I would have just been biding my time in survival so that i could flourish when I finally got out.  But I thought they had it.

I gotta ask, 'coz I don't understand: what do you mean you thought "they had it"?

I do know what you mean about getting the worries/anxieties out from they've been buried, and into your conscious mind, so that you can work on them. That will entail a conversation between you and "little girl"... and she may not want to say "in so many words". She might communicate very clearly in other ways. And she may be "squirmy" and uncomfortable about the whole subject...

Have you simply asked "little girl" what she wants? That might be a good starting point for your conversation with her.

[Gaining Strength]

Wow - PR, I have received from you and Hops actually more than i could ask.  Though I am not articulating what I need both of you haved opened your hearts and your minds to try to understand.  I have never had ANYONE do that before and you caring is salve to my woundedness.  Thank you would wake up thinking about me means that your caring has already surpassed that of either of my parents and my brothers and my former husband and my late husband.  None of those who have been the "closest" to me have EVER woken up thinking about me - Ever.

I feel very selfish, self-centered.  When I read back over yesterday's postings I notice that at no point did I commnt to Hops how sorry I am for her struggles with her housemate.  That is a profound struggle you are experiencing Hops - on a number of levels - one being that you even MUST deal with a housemate and another that your woundings are being awakened regularly in such a way and thirdly, of course, that you have such woundings at all.  For all of this, I ache with you. And I celebrate that you see it, are aware of it and can bring that wound into the light and dress it and give it tender care. Love and healing to you Hops.

PR - I so hope that you won't take anything personally.  From the depths of my heart - nothing I write intends to hurt you in anyway.  This self-centered place of 2 year old wounding is not a very compassionate place - it is a narcissistic place - me, me, me, me.  Not pretty - on any level.  It is rageful - a lion caught in a trap who does not differentiate from the trapper and the one who would be my liberator.

Is this the best way for us to help?

Wow - I have never been asked that question before.  I don't even know how to answer.  I am so humbled.  Touched to the depths - t the core - to the tears to you would ask.  yes - I think that is it - a pat on the back for the little girl.  She just wants to hear, "good job,"  "you are on your way"  "Keep going".  The grown me needs no help whatsoever - learned to be self-sufficient - totally but the little girl is frozen in age - never progressed. She is left out in the rain and not missed and is hurt and angry.  When she gets let in - they just complain about the puddle she's making rather than pull her in and hug her and bring towels and comiserate that she was left out and not noticed.  I'm just a two year old stamping my feet - crying and hurt and angry. Having a two year old fit or 5 year old fit or something not becoming my age.

"thought they had it"  means that I thought that when they said or implied that I was wrong or inadequate or whatever that THEY were right.  It never occurred to me that they were mean and that I was inadequate because I was a child who was supposed to be loved and taught.  I assumed that I should already "know" and the very fact that i didn't was proof that I was inadequate and lacking and undeserving.  The more I didn't know and the more that I needed proved everything they already said and proved that I didn't deserved to be loved and included.

This is such a raw nerve that I want to scream and rage as i type.  I am so angry and so hurt and feel so inadequate.  Every bit of it floods back but then every bit of it has never been very far away.  The "going back through" is so miserably wretched.  It feels as if it will kill me even though i know it is the only way out.

I do know what you mean about getting the worries/anxieties out from they've been buried, and into your conscious mind, so that you can work on them. That will entail a conversation between you and "little girl"... and she may not want to say "in so many words". She might communicate very clearly in other ways. And she may be "squirmy" and uncomfortable about the whole subject...

Have you simply asked "little girl" what she wants? That might be a good starting point for your conversation with her.

This is what I have watched you do here for some time.  It is a marvel to watch.  You do it with such beauty and poetry.  I am not expecting perfection but I am needing functionality.  For the past year or so I have finally quit asking why I haven't been functioning like other adults - finally, after years of excoriating self-flagellation I have that answer but I also have done a lot of healling and I need to push this through to a level of functioning to at least be able to provide for myself financially. To hell with the rest. - To set a goal like "clean the dishes" and do it. to not be frozen out.  To not have a supressed anxiety level that is everything about these subconscious voices that are laughing and belittling and ridiculing behind my back!!!!

My mother still belittles me behind my back and when/if I call her on it she has no idea what I am talking about.  And i rage and then fall into the trap because as I rage i prove them right - look at her - that is what we have all had to deal with forever.  Trapped - no way out.

{this last part is the work - I see what is going on - catch 22 = rage; rage = proof of unworthiness; unworthiness = trapped - cant get out b/c don't deserve better.}  craziness looping in on itself

I stand before the sink and stomp and crumple or go become zombie and go to computer to zone out and not feel.

[sKePTiKal]

Well OF COURSE you're angry...

when you've been tricked or set up (in general) - once the trick is revealed, most people are at least indignant at the bait & switch. And when it's the people who are SUPPOSED to care about you (we are taught) who are doing this repeatedly, apparently without concern or awareness of it's impact on you... well, that anger must be overwhelming. Little girl might not be able to express that anger - she might be afraid of what ELSE would happen if she did... or there might be other emotions involved, too - blended up like a smoothie with the anger... and so she collapses into herself in paralysis, rather than risk the OR ELSE. It was safer back then.

You said rage = proof of unworthiness. I humbly disagree. In my opinion, rage is the instinctive "self" survival instinct... not physical self - psychic self. It is proof that I care about my self and how I feel; how I'm being treated. I suspect it's what I had to resort to, to even get noticed sometimes. In the scenario, where your parents are judging your rage as proof of unworthiness... Little girl doesn't have to agree with them. Parents don't know EVERYTHING, even if they think they do. And even the best parents make mistakes. And if there was a sane, caring adult in LG's life... I'll bet they would've told her just that, too. But I see this paralysis you talk about, as all about YOU - not about THEM... or what they did/didn't do. Now, it's up to you to help LG...

So... subjectively - to you/LG personally, emotionally - this is a swirly, downward spiral, painful awful mess. But, if we can step an inch or so away from subjective, long enough to look at objective:

You know your parents were wrong. Not just bad parents... but believing you had no right to your emotions is factually incorrect.

Being angry at being tricked and mistreated is as natural a reflex in humans as gasping for air, if released from being held underwater too long. "Little girl" needs someone to tell her this - just like Twiggy needed to know I'd let her be angry as long as she liked, as long as she told me what she was angry about (that took a dozen journals) and let me decide what to do about the anger in my current life. Maybe it's like a "chink"... a weak point in the loop - and a way out. Validation for LG and freedom for her anger.

And well - it's OK that "little girl" didn't know this about anger: that it's NOT always "bad" or shameful to be angry. The parents who should've taught her about anger, along with the other nicer ways to feel, apparently didn't. (just the facts, ma'am.) It's NOT HER FAULT that she didn't know this. As Lily Tomlin used to say: and that's the sssstruth!

You might be able to negotiate a deal with LG: she can be angry (only in such a way as) as long as, she lets you get on with what you need to do. Let her know this is important to your ability to keep taking care of HER. Because you're responsible for taking care of LG now. She's precious - angry as a spitting wildcat, sure - but STILL precious, to you. She needs to loosen her grip on you just enough, that you can attend to the important things in your life right now. And she might make you promise to set aside a regular time/amount of time for her, too....

OH... and if it helps... I'll be willing to listen to and talk to LG, too.

[Ami]

Dear (((GS)))
 I don't know if this fits in here but I was doing Yoga exercises for depression. They were saying that the cure for depression is to get in touch with your real identity.So the opposite, not being in touch with your identity would create depression.
 For me,and it seems you, our child self was deeply rejected. For me, I have rejected my own thoughts and feelings. That is what I mean when I see I think I am "bad".
 However, I am seeing from my relationships with people who have healthy self esteem that THEY do not reject thoughts and feelings as bad,only actions get the labels.
 For me, my deepest struggle is to throw off the overlay from my NM of 'Who do you think you?" and "What are you so big about?"
 I think you and I have human everything but were made to feel less than human.
      Love to you,   Ami

[Gaining Strength]

First I must say thank you to you PR and to you Ami for responding here.  Your time and your responses and your caring are food for my soul and succor for my wounds.

PR - thank you for this point

You said rage = proof of unworthiness. I humbly disagree. In my opinion, rage is the instinctive "self" survival instinct... not physical self - psychic self.

  I do agree with you.  When I wrote that, I wrote what I think the unconscious is voicing rather than what I believe.  Those are the words of what that little girl experienced.  My parents and brothers would, to this day, deny (even to themselves) that their behavior aligned with the words "rage = proof of unworthiness."  It took me many, many years of therapy and internal work to understand that that is part of the identity that I took on and suppressed but none-the-less operate out of.

Anger could be good, perhaps even would be good, if I channel it push forward rather than allow it to anchor me in an impotent rage fest.  Sometime ago I got stuck in the helpless, powerless rage position that is weak.  So clearly this is an important area that can be shifted from powerlessness to empowering.  Bringing it out of the unconscious, into the conscious could allow me to make that shift.

where your parents are judging your rage as proof of unworthiness... Little girl doesn't have to agree with them.  And if there was a sane, caring adult in LG's life... I'll bet they would've told her just that, too. But I see this paralysis you talk about, as all about YOU - not about THEM...

  I get it.  This is exactly where I must make the shift. In the techniques I have developed what I see is that I must identify this unconscious thing as their voice about "unworthiness" etc and say to it exactly what you are saying.  I no longer will agree with that voice that I took in so long ago.  That is the process that I see.  That is the shift, the way out.

"Little girl" needs someone to tell her this - just like Twiggy needed to know I'd let her be angry as long as she liked, as long as she told me what she was angry about (that took a dozen journals) and let me decide what to do about the anger in my current life. Maybe it's like a "chink"... a weak point in the loop - and a way out. Validation for LG and freedom for her anger.

Yes - Yes - Yes.
This is what I have read in so many of your posts.  This is what I connected with and wanted for myself.  This is where I am and I do know that the "chink" is right before me - before my very eyes and I must and do believe that my eyes are coming in focus to see it.  As I have written many times here - there is nothing new in my understanding now.  And I am not just rehashing - though it looks like it and at times feels like it.  But this repetition is the groping, the feeling for the chink BECAUSE I know it is there and because I know I am near.  BEFORE the rehashing was more of a continued railing in pain - the pain is still there but now this repetition is part of the healing rather than being stuck.

You might be able to negotiate a deal with LG: she can be angry (only in such a way as) as long as, she lets you get on with what you need to do. Let her know this is important to your ability to keep taking care of HER. Because you're responsible for taking care of LG now. She's precious - angry as a spitting wildcat, sure - but STILL precious, to you. She needs to loosen her grip on you just enough, that you can attend to the important things in your life right now. And she might make you promise to set aside a regular time/amount of time for her, too....

This is where you give me something that I have not artidulated for myself.  I get this. 
I did know that I needed to create some space around the dysfunction, the paralysis but just the way you have worded this gives me the image of that that means.  SHE, LG is holding the grip on me.  It is NOT my FOO.  I CAN negotiate with LG.  I CANNOT and never could negotiate with FOO.  LG wants me to be free, to succeed and I want her to be free to succeed.  We have the same hopes and desires for each other.  Unlike FOO, I do not, did not have to fight LG.  LG gets me, agrees with me and hears me.  I AM NOT voiceless to LG. 

LG gives me space and I can help LG.  It is a two-way street. 

I pray that I can take this and move forward with it. All I can say is thank you.

"Well OF COURSE you're angry... "
Yes and LG can let me be angry and I can let her be angry and we can help one another.  We are NOT one another's enemy but we have been acting as though we were.  We must make peace.  We must work with one accord.  Wow that is something indescribable.  Something right there that I could not yet see. indescribable.

Ami - when I read your post I thought, "You know, I'm not really depressed but I connect with what Ami is writing here." Then I thought that "depressed" is relative.  I am not clinically depressed but on a different place on the continuum I suspect that I am certainly depressed.  If not me then perhaps LG.  And then I saw something big - "only actions get the labels" translates for me "only the INactions get the labels."  I'm setting myself up to get the labels.  The unconscious dictates that I deserve the labels and the inaction does that for me - that's my payoff.  It is my comfort level.  It is yucky but the yuck is comfort for me.  Got to make that shift - my life truly depends on it.

Again - thank you both for dialogueing with me.  Just to have your attention is a gift beyond words.  It is the attention that LG NEVER had and it is life-giving.

ABOUT my life right now. 
My little one is at camp through the end of June.  This is the first time in 8 years that I have been responsible to and for noone but myself - actually longer.  But the first time in his life.  This is a brief window in which to focus 100% on LG and me and push, push, push.  If I push too hard I can get into bed and pull the covers up.  Not that I need to but I do not have to worry about pushing too hard and still having to provide and care for another. 

One other very remarkable thing that is difficult to describe.  A person I have long known from a distance contacted me in recent weeks.  There is a long story behind this but the short of it is that she wants to work on a project together.  She has very good background in personnel/psychology/staffing and we share some interests.  It is one of those rare colliisions where we may be mutually effective towards similar life-long goals.  Even if not - there are some interesting things coalescing.  We have a way of thinking about things similarly and share similar interests.  That sounds sort of mundane.  But I have lived a life of thining about things and being interested in things in a different way from most people.  It has been part of what makes me feels so left out and ostracized.

We had a conversation today that lasted for several hours and there was still much to discuss.  She is feeding me books that are speaking to me in a profound way.  For example - Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.  That very book may be part of something that changes my life.  I connected to it and could understand part of what happened to me in my life.  Should nothing else come of this - that alone would be a great benefit.

[Ami]

Dear GS
 You really got what I was saying about the labels. They are NOT us. They have no  reality. They were from N's rantings and splitting off THEIR "bad" on us.      Ami

[Gaining Strength]

LG is angry.

I was invited to have dinner with my oldest brother and his wife and our mother some time ago.  I understood the invitation was for 6:30.  I was feeling some angst about the event but repressed it.  Then on my way to dinner LG claimed the angst and irritation.  It belonged to her.  It was old stuff.  That was a great feeling.

I walk in to the restaurant feeling a gentle comfort.  A separation between what is mine and what belongs to LG.  It felt great.  I thought I was on to something and moving into something significant.  Perhaps I was, am.

Noone was there.  I went back out to my car.  Called my brother.  Dinner was for 7:00 and they were running late.  I turned the ignition, called my mother and said I would not be joining them for dinner.  Lg was having a tantrum and there was no turning back - cutting of my nose to spite my face. 

I was hungry and would have had humans to share a meal with for the first time in a week.  I would have had a chance for adult conversation. I would have had a chance to see my brother and sister-in-law.  I would have had a somewhat decent - so-so meal.  I would not have looked like a bratty, tantrumy human who is set off by g*d only knows what this time.  I blew it.

What was LG so mad about? 

LG is furious that once again she is a tag along.  My mother made the invitations and made the arrangements.  This is the first time I can think of in which I have been invited to have dinner with my brother and sister-in-law.  This is also the first time I have been without my son for more than a few days in his entire life.  My mother asked my brother to select the restaurant -( LG would like to get to select the restaurant just once.) Petty - yes - it is LG because LG NEVER had the option to make a choice.  Top it off - there are 5 restaurants that I go to.  All of them because they are restaurants where children are the norm and where there is something for my very picking little boy to eat.  Out of the hundreds of restaurants in town - the one selected on one of the few nights in my life that I am free to eat dinner with adults only is at one of the few restaurants where my son will eat.  They have pizzas and salads and pasta - I can cook better for myself.  LG is angry - bratty angry.

And what is LG angriest about - that she ALWAYS considers others - where they are - what their needs are - what might be an extenuating circumstance for them.  But LG's family NEVER considers the same for her - par for the course. 

Double-bind?  LG is angry - AGAIN.  FOO is tired of LG being angry and storming off.  LG has sabotaged herself yet again.  Any progress made towards having a semi-relationship with brother and sister-in-law just smashed.  That's too bad and LG and I are sad and angry.  LG and I want to undo what has been done but it is too late.  LG and I would like to be able to say why we are angry and have FOO care - not going to happen.  This is a lonely, lonely place to be.

[sKePTiKal]

Well, you're not totally alone. I may be late, but I'm here... if hubby will just stop trying to monopolize my attention!!

Look - old ways of thinking are at work again; LG's old comfort/safety zone. Look at what you wrote...

I think that what happened wasn't the catastrophe you described; and I completely disagree with you about LG being bratty. She's justifiable upset; it's another score for the other team, ya know? I'll bet she does want to pick the restaurant; I'll bet she doesn't like being setup yet again... dangling at the whim of people who didn't care enough to confirm the time and any changes with you.

If LG were your son - and it was him instead of LG - wouldn't you support him? Validate that anger? Agree with her that she was treated callously? Stand up with her, with dignity and say - "we don't have to allow them to treat us like this and ruin our good time". And find a way to soothe that anger - by giving her a "special treat"? When I was 10 - my neighbor Ruth gave me the one & only birthday party I ever had. My parents thought that inviting a bunch of kids to a party for ME, was just a waste of time and an annoyance. You need to be a Ruth, to LG.

----------------------------------

My questionable advice aside - you ARE "there". It takes a good long while and a lot of practice to take the glimmer of the chink you see - the way out of the loop - and actually make it real - put it to use in real life. But that's not to say that you're far, far away from it, you know? YOU ARE THERE... so now, it's just practice makes perfect. Putting into use, what you know LG needs... to heal, to finally recover from the old wounds, to grow and mature, and to be a precious, treasured part of you. She needs the caring adult, loving parent that you ARE.

And this project that looks promising - if this is new territory for you, so much the better! New "adventures" allow you many opportunities to try out, experiment with, new ways of thinking... feeling... and acting. You're ready for it! LG will want to persist in the old patterns... the old comfort zone... but as her new parent; long-sought and longed for - you can help her see that anxiety and fear are just the negative perspective on excitement, taking a chance, diving right in... to something new.

One caution: when you are learning something new - and this way of interacting with LG is new - you are going to make mistakes; miss things you later think you should've seen. It's really EASY for the old ways of labelling things to start up again... because you've had a LOT more practice at that. You've got to be kind, patient, encouraging when those mistakes happen. Pick LG up, brush off her knees, give her a hug and a kiss and tell her to try again next time. Persist in your questioning the old labels... put your excellent mind to work at seeing more than one way to interpret situations and those mistakes.

Don't beat yourself up for not getting it right the first time. (That's what THEY would do, right? Make you feel bad for being a beginner at something??) I'm STILL learning more and more about this works in "real life" - and not just in theory. I'm STILL making mistakes and vowing to "never do that again!" I'm trying to learn how to really laugh WITH myself, when I make mistakes like this. And you know what???

So is EVERYBODY else. That's just a part of being alive, human, and interacting with others. That's where you can find all of sudden - hey! we've got a connection! with someone else.

[Gaining Strength]

Thank you PR.

Yes I would have been there for my little boy. I do understand what you are talking about.  I am going to spend some time with LG today.  She is very lonely and feelng ostracized and setup.

Suddenly my mind flashes in 2 different directions:
one is back to the long pages of posting you did about Twiggy.  I see that LG needs much of my time.  She has been trying to get my attention for a long, long time and I have been working very, very hard at repressing her.
the other is this process done with me by a lovely young American living in NZ whom I met in an EFT forum.  She guides me through a holographic memory to interact with LG.  It is time to do that again.

I have so much to catch up on.  Thank you - you have opened a large portal for me.

[Ami]

Dear GS
 Your relationship with LG has started me on a road to accept my LG more.I  rejected most of the LG qualities such as self centeredness, needing attention,pettiness, being judgemental. I had them but I put them in the bad category and myself with it.
Lately, I have been feeling what I feel and it is  strange.
 I still think *I* am bad when I have negative feelings to s/one else. How did that get set up, I wonder?
 I guess my M programmed me not to think or discern so I wouldn't see her.       Ami

[Gaining Strength]

I hear you Ami.

I was thinking about this this morning.  I have repressed LG for so long and tried to move on.  But she is SO angry and I have been dragging LG and her bubbling rage right along with me just pushing it down, pushing down her anger and pushing down all those repressed voices of FOO which I took on as my own.  So I have been a walking nightmare of early FOO experience moving unsuccessfully through life.

Now I have to go back and reintegrate LG and excise the FOO.

The FOO voices have won for so long.  Now I feel as though I am splitting conjoined twins where one is toxic and the other's life depends on it.  I am thankful for your support.  This is a place where one person's healing surgery can lend healing concepts to one-another.  The pain of this process - whereever we are in it - is indescribable.

Here I am receiving help and encouragement which I have never experienced before in my life.  PR, your words, that LG is justifiably upset, act like a surgical knife, cutting a wedge between LG and FOO voice. I have FOO voiced LG my entire life.  That is the paralysis.  LG needs help.  FOO denied her help. FOO hated her.  I sided with FOO.  Still hoping FOO will accept me.  Wrong option.  I need to side with LG.

I was thinking about this earlier.  LG gave up everything to try to connect to, belong with FOO.  I sided with the oppressors waiting for crumbs from the table, meanwhile seething and fuming inside. I believed that FOO was my best hope - never believing in myself never realizing that cutting those ties and becoming my own person would have allowed me to flourish.  Locked in the FOO double-bind - I saw cutting the ties as proof of their disdain for me.  The price seemed too great - but - it was the price of staying that was too great.

LG had fabulous ideas and interests.  She is not dead - just frozen.  But that is the good news b/c I can redirect LG away from FOO.  I know I can do this because as a teen I saw my mother's incompetence and just bided my time to get out of her house.  It was my father and the extended family that could not let go of - it was a psychic suicide.

[Ami]

Dear ((GS)))
 I think you are making the error of thinking you had a choice about absorbing the FOO role for yourself. It was pure survival.    Ami

[Gaining Strength]

Ami - I think you are right.  I have to look back and see whose voice I am writing that in.  Thank you.

LG is still mad about the dinner thing last night.  She wants to talk about it and she wants to do it here where she might get some support.

As an aside - she and I are having a stuggle here.  LG doesn't want to open herself up to criticism she only wants support.  That is not a realistic request  - except if LG were in the hospital b/c of a physical wound NOONE would expect her to be subject to prodding and poking.  People with physical wounds are given a space for healing.  Why doesn't that extend to people who are suffering deep emotional/psychological wounds?  It does for those who are lucky enough to have someone who stands at bat for them.  For those with no help, no harbour opening up (necessary for healing) is something of a mine field.

LG and I are tired of being prickly and of having thin skin.  I want to "lighten up" and have a sense of humor return.  I want to be a duck so that jabs and thoughtless comments roll off like water.  I have been working on this for some time but don't feel as though I have made much progress. Perhaps I have made more than it seems.

I am finding yet again that opening the doors to a new healing process also opens the floodgates to the full force of emotions.  It is a very unpleasant, miserable experience.

Back to LG and dinner last night.  Here is a succession of things that makes her mad.  It ends in a double-bind issue that is as old as she and I are - complaining and reacting get a "There she goes again" while all she longs for is "I'm sorry.  I see you are hurting.  Can we do something different to take the pain away?"
Today I had a chat with a cousin on FaceBook.  
SHE asked how I was doing without my son at home.  SHE knew it would be difficult.
But my brother and sister-in-law who have been mourning the empty nest syndrome for the 2 years of their son's college time.  They are controlling some of his summer because they hate being without him.  HE is 20.  THEY are a couple.

These words are mine but the anger and hurt is LGs.  If I had ANY idea that someone I was having dinner with was having a hard time I would do what ever I could to make it better. LG and  I are having such a hard time about this because our hurt and angry response put us in that "cutting off our nose to spite our face" reaction that is so strong that rational thought does not overcome the emotions.  And I get it - LG (me) never had anyone REALLY care - just a word, just a thought, just an effort.

"i'm sorry."  "I see you are hurting."  "I see you are lonely."  "I see you feel shut out, disempowered, judged, unwanted ...." "Let me help." "You don't have to do this alone." "We are family." blah, blah, blah.

I can't tell you how jealous LG and I are over people who get or have what we LONG for.  That jealousy and resentment are poisons that are eating me up from the inside out.  But I am seeing now that if LG gets the love and encouragement and autonomy that she needs then those poisons will dissipate.

I am whining and crying like the 10 year old that LG is.  I am crying to you, my family because I know (she writes with trepidation) that you care.  That is the way out.  LG must be loved and cared for and supported on her own venture.

[Ami]

For me, GS, I think I need at least one other person to see the real me  under all the distortions.
 I need to be seen. I need s/one to say"I understand". It is not you who is this crazy creature . You are under all the pain. It has to be blown away and then you willl be there.
     Ami