Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: rosencrantz on April 18, 2004, 09:26:16 AM
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Accompanies a book : It Must Have Been Moonglow. Reflections on the First Year of Widowhood by Phyllis Greene.
Dear Mum
Time keeps moving on...
I don’t share my feelings much. Perhaps I learn that from Dad. I usually show caring via gestures - gifts, cards, being ‘helpful’, sharing information, etc.
When Dad died, I bought this book for you - at the time, you seemed too fragile to accept it in the positive way I intended and so I have been waiting until the time would seem right.
I think I understand now that you felt very angry then. It felt as if you received everything I tried to give you as a weapon to use against me. Perhaps you were using it as a weapon against yourself. Overwhelming pain makes us very complicated creatures, doesn’t it?
The reason I bought this book for you was because it was a story from the heart. Someone a little like you, she experienced bereavement in her 80s and wrote about re-creating a life for herself ‘as it happened’. As others appear to have done, I thought that you might find compassion, solace and hope in it.
So, this now is my gift to you, along with a bouquet of bright yellow tulips the colour of life, hope and rebirth, some to keep and some for the grave, to mark the one year anniversary of the sad event of a year ago.
You’ve made tremendous strides this last year, painful tho it has been. Me, too. I know it will get progressively easier even tho the ‘getting easier’ is intertwined with the pain of knowing the past is fading. It hurts very much to let go of a safer, happier past and face a more challenging future.
Try to be aware that tender feelings which cause you pain are not proof that the world wishes you ill but know instead that the people around you are trying to reach out and help, inasmuch as you will let them, in the best way they can.
I thought you would want me to warn you that there are some papers (2) inserted amongst the pages of the book which may make you feel sad. I found them in Dad’s address book amongst all the bills. I wanted to send them back to you earlier but, again, the timing didn’t seem right. But if you feel strong enough to look, a year on, you’ll find that his heart is still here with you.
We will never lose who he was to us, will we, as that’s firmly ensconced in our hearts.
Take care.
One piece of paper is a poem in my father's handwriting :
The life that I have
is all that I have
and the life that I have
is yours.
The love that I have
of the life that I have
is yours and yours and yours.
Asleep I shall live
a rest I shall have
yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
in the long green grass
will be yours and yours and yours.
Leo Marks, 1943, 20 years old.
:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:
The other piece of paper is a wedding anniversary wish - I'm not sure if it was from my mother to my father or vice versa.
As you might imagine, there's plenty of 'sub-text' in that letter. Like 'let go of the long ago past, too - let ME go, too!!!' And 'I wouldn't share my feelings with you if you were the last person on earth.'
I guess the sub-sub-text is 'I understand'.
I think this is probably the first time that I have used my own 'voice' (of compassion and consideration) with my mother. No, that's not true. It's the first time I have used my voice of compassion and consideration and known she can't hurt me. But I have more 'understanding' that I've had before.
I have no hopes, no expectations. In fact, I'm going to quote here from an earlier post of mine (edited):
Oh God how much I want to reach you, who you really are, pull you out from that terrible place and look after you. But God how you hurt me. I just have to come near you and you fight me and spite me. The more I reach in to you, the more you hurt me and I retire wounded, damaged, depleted...
But I tell you, the reality had better not ever come to pass cos quite frankly the amount of pain and bullying I've had to withstand, when I pull you out of there, I don't want you around me. Ever.
R
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PS On re-reading this, I realise just how much my mother likes to look a gift horse in the mouth. That it really isn't my problem. And just how much she's missed out on with her irrational desires for possession and revenge.
She actually does have a WONDERFUL daughter!!!!! :shock:
I feel desperately, ache-ingly sorry for her but the words honour and respect have no place in our relationship. Perhaps understanding will gradually replace contempt but I won't hold myself to it.
R
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Hi Roencrantz,
You're such a caring person, and your mum is so lucky and doesn't realise it. Or maybe she does :?: and doesn't know what to do with it or can't receive it, or has no, or broken, inbuilt receivers or antannae for such qualities in others.
You clearly express your care, it comes through in so much that you say.
And I don't know about the stuff about not showing your feelings. I suppose it all depends on your perception, who you're with, and what you feel are other's expectations. It all turns into fruit salad at this point for me.
I guess after reading this letter to your mum, and then reading your dad's beautiful poem, I'm thinking or reminded of the story you wrote about when your dad phoned your son last Easter (was it?), independantly of your mum, and the painful experience that followed. And then here you are, one short year later, reaching out, writing her this wonderfully open-hearted letter.
I hope she acknowledges your mutual pain and grief, and recognises your loss at this 1st anniversary.
I'll pause here and say you have my warmest thoughts and deepest sympathies at the first anniversary of your father's passing. As time passes and you remember the wonderful moments you shared with him, and the strengths you recognised in him, I hope that you can record these thoughts for your's and your son's benefit.
I sure hope you made a copy his poem for your mum, and kept the original for yourself.
Gosh, sharing him with her in this way, through his poem, is such a clear expression of your feelings of love, forgiveness, kindness and generosity. I don't think I would have been able to do that. I wouldn't ever want to ever share anything about him with her again. But then I guess I'm backwards in this whole area of healing.
I hope she 'reads' it, because it seems so much of it turned out to be true. He did give her his life. That is so sad in some ways.
I think you inherited your ability to express your feelings in writing from your dad, isn't that just so lovely that he lives on in you. I wonder if your son has that gift too?
((((Rosencrantz))))
Love CG
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Thank you so much for sharing this letter to your mom with us, R. And what a nice thing to send her pretty yellow tulips along with the book and the papers. :D I bet you're right that she might not appreciate it, but it's so great that you were able to send them anyway. It was about doing what you felt was right, without worrying about her reaction, am I right?
I feel desperately, ache-ingly sorry for her but the words honour and respect have no place in our relationship. Perhaps understanding will gradually replace contempt but I won't hold myself to it.
This really touched me. I was feeling a bit out of control with my anger, and while I don't really want to stuff it down again, I don't want it to take over either. This really helped bring me back down and remember how, in spite of it all, I do feel so sorry for her. And I think I can do that now without compromising myself - because she can't convince me I'm worthless again. I won't let her. So thanks for sharing this letter and your response to it. :D
Wildflower
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HI!
Difficult time for you..Rosencrantz, one year later. Your dad, I remember you writing, was a very nice person..knew what you were going through but couldn't quite help you because of his devotion to your mom. I think you know how much he loved you. The fact he would have such a lovely poem ( which I wrote down on a piece of beautiful white parchment btw.) amongst his personal effects demonstrates how close he was to his feelings for you too.
I'm envious that you at least connected with one of your parents and that you could feel it! I'm also happy for you that you could..
Keep on keeping on Rosencrantz, you're doing great. I've grown quite attached to you myself!
Thinking of you on this one year anniversary.
Love Nic :)
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Thanks, you guys. I know. Thanks.
It's a famous poem but it shows where his heart was, even if he wasn't allowed to show it much - or, like me, found a shell to protect himself behind. And it is special to him because he was stationed at Bletchley Park for part of the war (that's where they deciphered all the codes - Enigma and all that)
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/197.html
As far as feelings are concerned, my wording was really just signalling to my mother to "look out, there's some caring about"!!! "You may not see what you think you want to see but this is how I (am prepared) to express my feelings towards you." She really has no idea that a gift is intended to be caring - she'd see it as some mean, spiteful 'message' of some kind. (And it was also my realisation that I'm always sharing information and it is a 'gift' and 'caring'.)
I actually tore out the first page of the book as it had a picture and autobiography of the author. The CV celebrated academic and community success and she'd just use that to belittle the gift. She'd feel belittled by it. It would press her shame button. So she would belittle me to get rid of the feelings and dump them somewhere else. But even the most innocent expression of hope is full of spiteful meaning for her - how can you help someone like that??!
I guess I'm saying I had the confidence to be me and express my intention irrespective of how she would be inclined to receive it. I define me; she doesn't. And therefore I can define me as 'caring' and pursue it throughout the letter and demonstrate it to be true. Each paragraph was full of effort to stay upright and deal with each of the blows she might 'choose' to experience and which I would then have to experience in turn. Explaining in minute detail every nuance of the gift.
I've been surprised and then blown away to discover that people perceive me as this kind, considerate, compassionate, caring person. I had no idea. When people say something like - 'that was considerate (but you know that of course)' or 'how much patience you showed' - I did??? I was??? I have no idea - because I've been defined by a mother who can't 'see' anything nice coming in her direction so all I'm doing is walking a tightrope, 'expressing my meaning carefully'.
And, sadly, my H seems to have many of these traits, too. Both of them create in me the negativity they crave in order to beat up on themselves - and then they blame me and 'make me' suffer for it!!!!!
Well, I'm much more 'objective' with my H now. I'm absolutely not going to take the care with him I take with my mother. She has real 'mental health' problems and absolutely no insight into her situation - whether or not she is diagnosed and whether or not she is getting the right kind of mental health care. He's not in the same category.
I 'hissed' something at him the other day. (I'm an equal - not a therapist giving feedback or a parent protecting any more.) 'Get your act together and don't do this damaging thing'. I won't put my carapace on or stomp about either - I'll 'front up' to you instead. Call it how it is. Use my insight. Put a stop to it. You can sulk for days if you like, but I'll call it like it is. I'm not afraid any more. Come on, keep up! Be responsible. Grow up. Let out the child. Get off your high horse. I feel (almost) that he was startled - but we've got work to do and he's been dreaming. (Channelling again!!!)
But he has a sane brain; he has logic and objectivity to call on (even if he doesn't!!). My mother is lost in her own world. Only she does nice things for other people but, even then, she believes that those things are never appreciated, never recognised (because she can't 'see' anything nice coming towards her). You know why??! Because anyone who is nice to her is in competition with her for 'nice' of the year! - and no-one can be allowed to 'win' because that would mean her whole world would come tumbling down!!! And unfortunately she only does 'nice' things in expectation of a payoff (manipulative) - and people know and don't respond kindly.
It really is no wonder I've spent so much of my life being confused AND not known who I am. I can almost see how she made me into her rescuer (be considerate), then victim (you'll never win), then tyrant/persecutor (and anyway you are always bad) and how that translates into my life as an adult coping with other people.
Well, I've spent hours here again 'chatting' with you!! I just can't seem to get away!!
I really do see how horrible that letter is from my mother's perspective, however much caring a normal person might see. So I'm grateful for the feedback. My H thinks it's a terrific letter, too. :D
Love all you guys, too!!!
Take care
R
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Hi R:
I really liked your letter. I thought it was very well written and had just the right 'tone' that you stated that you were trying to achieve.
I'm curious though - how are YOU feeling on the anniversary of your Dad's death?
I remember 'the firsts' after my mom's and dad's, and I'm wondering how your experience has been.
I get the thing about your mom re: this. My mom slapped me standing right in front of my dad's coffin at his funeral because I wasn't paying enough attention to HER, so...
I want to know about YOU!
Warmest regards, Peanut
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Just to follow up...
Why do you think that you did not express how you were feeling about your Dad's anniversary in your letter?
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It's a famous poem but it shows where his heart was,
Yes, it must have really spoken to or connected with his soul for him to write it down. And being a soldier, it just doesn't fit with the popular image of a soldier, does it? Recording poetry I mean. I love it.
I really do see how horrible that letter is from my mother's perspective :D
Yes, well you more than anyone would know about that. I can't imagine how complex this whole situation has been for you. I mean, I would have been shopping for a month to pick the present with the least amount of 'problems'. Even the wrapping paper would have taken me and my war council a week to decide on. :D
But I hope you are okay at this time, even though I know he's inside you now.
Well done & ((hug)) & love
CG
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LOL CG - You've just written in one sentence what I've just taken hours to work out!!!!!
I realised that what I was trying to achieve in my letter was 'sanity' and 'truth' more than caring.
I discovered the book and I chose the flowers. I searched for a long time and bought several before I found this book but felt passionately that it was the most appropriate. My next thought is that I'd better justify it pretty damn quick or else there'll be hell to pay. Why did I choose this book? What made me choose those flowers? I'm not sure!!! She could say it was for this mean reason or that mean reason so I've got to work very hard on making the N/F part of me be understood and represented in words.
Right, I've worked it out - these are the words that represent that heart/soul decision. Am I quite, quite sure that's true? No nasty little surprises lurking within my soul??? Am I really quite, quite, sure I haven't got a negative intent lurking somewhere in the depths of my unconscious? Right, OK. No - just let's have another little check - heart, mind, soul - absolutely, totally clean??? If there is the merest speck of dust, I'd better clean it up and inspect it 'just in case' and 'sort it out'. OK, whiter than white. No mean sting in the tail anywhere in sight. Sure??? OK, everything sanitised. (No wonder I'm exchausted!)
Next stage...
I'd better spell out my intention so clearly that nobody could possibly misunderstand. Using language with total precision, with any luck, I'll escape this interaction unscathed or at least only a little battle-scarred. (High hopes, always fail). What still nags at me is that these gifts weren't the perfect solution. But actually there isn't a perfect solution and I can just go on hesitating for weeks, months, years waiting for a better solution!!! (As indeed I do in much of my life) I could give something innocuous, or I could 'throw money at' the solution. But I actually do want to put my heart into it. I want to express 'who I am' - to express my own voice and not be invisible!!! :shock: I want to be my passionate, feeling, caring self! :shock: :shock: :shock:
But, yes, CG - I'm OK. As usual, I'd been more worried about my mother and how to handle things than thinking about my own feelings about dad's death. And, anyway, I'm not supposed to have any feelings!! My mother sincerely found it strange that I should have any grieving to do. :roll: ooops - there's that :roll: again. I'm learning.
R
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Hi Rosencrantz :D
I'm so glad you replied because I wanted to ask you a question and then I thought not to, cause it could be so frickin' insensitive of me to analyse your situation with your mum at this special time. But then I think, "bugger it, I'll ask you my dumb question anyway and you can tell me to bugger-off if I'm being invasive, and that would be okay with me. :D " I'd understand."
Is your mum the type to show her friends your gift and card and letter, and use it as centre-peice topic of conversation with others? Would she let, or even encourage them all to analyse, and to scoff at your gift and card? And allow, and even enjoy them imposing their ignorant, biased, tainted distorted opinions of your gift and card and letter? All created by her views and comments in the first place.
((hug))
CG
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You're not insensitive by nauture CG - you're straightforward. Intention is everything. Makes a difference.
And, apres tout, the answer is very short : no, in a word!! (Me, use one word - never!!!) :lol:
I think her shame button is too big. She'd use a gift to demonstrate that she is thought about, cared for, but nag me in private for its subtle hurtful slights and imperfections (as she saw it). She's not devious. She's not strong enough to do what I hear some mothers doing. I suppose she might be patronising eg say 'she meant well' in order to demonstrate that she'd brought me up properly as a 'nice' daughter. She's walking on a tightrope of her own making here, isn't she! She's saying "I need you to be terrible but I can't have you be too terrible or that will reflect on me as a bad mother and that's even worse."
The more I write all this, the more I see that she really does have quite entrenched mental health problems. I've learnt so much about living more contentedly, effectively but she doesn't want to know - 'learning' means you are imperfect doesn't it and I guess that would never do (especially from a daughter). Trying to share stuff with her - in all humility - just brings out the worst in her. She rejects all sorts of things as 'not good enough' (meals on wheels, psychologist's visits - it's not just me :wink: ) so her pride stops her even starting on the road to health.
Actually, I'm still amazed that she signed a sheet of paper that described her as having mental health problems!!! Perhaps she thought it just meant 'depression'!
I think it's possible to choose not to hold her in contempt any more (I've moved on since my earlier post!) nor laugh at her (my own defences against being hurt and being driven mad by her) - because I understand. And I can express my caring because I can and because she can no longer define me otherwise. It is a 'grown up' kind of protecting. But that's because I'm now an adult while she's still a child!!! :shock: But I don't expect that I will increase the amount of verbal contact or visits. I'm still allergic to her. I'm not THAT strong!!!!! I'll still need :roll: as a sanity check!!!
I've learnt so much from you, CG - how to protect someone without rescuing them, as well as :roll: ! :lol: But I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say that I'm sure there's a great big hole waiting for me to fall into. I've been lucky here - really strong support around me from different kinds of people which has enabled me to find out 'where I'm really coming from'. If I'm exposed to craziness again - I'm not sure I won't just get confused again and be right back where I started from.
'Defining' me is deciding what my motivations are. 'Defining' me is deciding what I intended. 'Defining' me is implying I said something and then taking it for granted that I did in such a convoluted way that I can't find my way out. 'Defining' me is anything that confuses me!!! If I feel confused, there be scorpions!!! The confusion is in me because I can't draw back far enough to find an objective view. My uncertainty will always be there cos she's programmed it into me. She has no intention to confuse - it is simply the consequence of the state of her mental health.
To survive, to avoid the damage she inflicts on my mind and soul, and that others could impose, the alternative is to remember what has happened here, remember when and how and why I felt strong and stick like a limpet to that feeling, turn away from confusion. And just keep marching on regardless with a :roll: in my pocket to keep me company!!! :wink:
Actually maybe I'm having a bad day but it all seems totally hopeless. All these words, guarding against the truth that no matter how hard I work at it, it's all hopeless. He's gone. He'll never say well done, you finally sorted your mother out. What he wanted to know in his last days was 'what is it about you and your mother'. Well, now I can tell him but he had to 'go' before I could find out. He had to get out of the way and I had to descend into madness myself.
Hopeless, really, really hopeless. I did it Dad and look, it's hopeless. It's hopeless because it won't bring you back and it's hopeless because it's just a hopeless situation. I'll never be able to give her what she wants BECAUSE she is incapable of receiving it and BECAUSE she drives me mad. I'll never be able to 'be' myself with her - at the best a substitute protector like you were. :cry: :cry: :cry:
My H just came in so the tears had to go. I don't need scooping up. Just realistic. I'm off to have a caffeine break. And I've just learnt I can type even when the screen is invisible for all the tears!!! :wink:
R
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I came back, wrote some more. Something else 'hopeless' then something special to share. I was just about complete, the word 'joy' entered my head. I hit the mouse feeling triumphant and the whole message disappeared. I've had a terrible headache ever since. And now the headache is getting in the way of thinking - but I've found some music to listen to so I'm off to 'chill'. The actual 'anniversary' is tonight close to midnight UK time.
R
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Just been sitting pondering, wondering about phoning my mother. I'm going to leave it for another day. Make sure things have arrived. Give her time to 'subside' after whatever emotion grabs her. Keeping connected with you guys just by staying near the screen.
I just noticed this, CG :
it just doesn't fit with the popular image of a soldier, does it? Recording poetry I mean. I love it.
There was too much sentimentality and naive heroism and millions lost their lives in the First World War, but (you have reminded me) some great poetry came out of it.
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England...
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Rupert Brooke
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/projects/jtap/tutorials/intro/
A century on, we may think differently about combat, but this extract about dying gives me a feeling of peace and forgiveness and I'll stick with that for now. Thanks for the prompt to look further afield and find this. And thanks Peanut for the invitation to share my feelings. And thanks to the people posting about music which reminded me to listen to some of my own favourites. I've neglected myself for too long.
R
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Your dad was proud of you, R.
((((((((((R))))))))))
Wildflower
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Hi Rosencrantz, I was thinking about you and imaging you in this rough, sad time. It took on the imagery of an earth tremor, and you had to rely very much on stance and balance to move through it????? And there is still so much time to go before you phone her. How stressful!! Almost like a husband pacing in a waiting room, while his wife is giving birth.
The more I write all this, the more I see that she really does have quite entrenched mental health problems. I've learnt so much about living more contentedly, effectively but she doesn't want to know - 'learning' means you are imperfect doesn't it and I guess that would never do (especially from a daughter). Trying to share stuff with her - in all humility - just brings out the worst in her. She rejects all sorts of things as 'not good enough' (meals on wheels, psychologist's visits - it's not just me :wink: ) so her pride stops her even starting on the road to health.
Actually, I'm still amazed that she signed a sheet of paper that described her as having mental health problems!!! Perhaps she thought it just meant 'depression'!
Gosh, it's sad where it all ends up in old age sometimes. And for those who've denied the real issues all there lives, how can they then quickly learn to deal with them in old age??
You know, I was trying to visualise what I'll be feeling when the time comes for my home psychologist's visits and meals on wheels. I don't know how gracefully I'll slip into that. :shock: I'm not a too sure about other people bathing me either. And I suppose the older we get, if we don't keep actively engaged and enjoy life, the more time we will have to ponder and mull on these depressing aspects of the future. And look for ways to avoid them!!!
Hopeless, really, really hopeless. I did it Dad and look, it's hopeless. It's hopeless because it won't bring you back and it's hopeless because it's just a hopeless situation. I'll never be able to give her what she wants BECAUSE she is incapable of receiving it and BECAUSE she drives me mad. I'll never be able to 'be' myself with her - at the best a substitute protector like you were. :cry: :cry: :cry:
No, it won't bring him back. :cry: And no, you'll probably never be able to give her what she wants, because she won't take it. :cry: And yes, it may drive you mad if you keep trying. :cry:
But you know what I believe??
That your father lives on in you, :D
and he lives on in your son. :D
He lives on in you both. :D
I know the last thing you could bear is for your son to ever say to you, "What is it between you and your mother?"
All this love and protection and care that she rejects, has a home. It rightful place is towards yourself and your son.
It reads to me that you dear dad's final thoughts were approval and desire for communion. He so clearly expressed this to me, by following through with his desires for contact with you and your son and I daresay, wanting to let you know how important you were to him and his love for you both. That is so beautiful. He even did this at the risk of getting in trouble, and violating a household law. He was saying something to you loud and clear, even by violating a life long practice and trust, to do so.
What terrible grief you've experienced losing your 'best friend' parent. Add to that, being left alone as an only child, with the tremendous sense of responsibility that you have, to care for the 'worst friend' parent.
If it were me, I know I'd have wished it had been the other way round and that if one of them had to go, it would have been her first. Oh Gosh, I probably shouldn't say that, but it would seem so natural to feel like that, even though I'd get consumed with stupid guilt and embrrassment after for thinking it, no doubt!! :oops:
But I was visualising again. If your dad were here today, what would you do? Where would you go? What would you talk about? Let's not include your mother in the picture. Let's leave her out. You could go for a stroll together arm-in-arm, take your son, and enjoy watching him run and laugh, together. Chat about what a lovely boy he is. I don't know, I'm just playing with the idea here. But you'd have to do it in your head if you did go for a walk or onlookers would think you were barmy!!! :D :D
But, I just think you really can still do this type of thing. You have enough of him inside you to still spend time with him, and maybe even work some things out.
I just wanted to have a chat with you Rosencrantz, and share my convoluted thinking with you. I hope I haven't been prodding or hurtful, it isn't intentional, I'm just feeling my way here with you.
Love ((hug))
CG
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Hi R: Hope you are making it through, Ok. :-)
PS. Did you see my reply in this thread? Just wondering what your thoughts were on it. :-)
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Yes, thank you Peanut. I did see your reply and I have responded in my earlier posts. :)
It's always difficult to know what to say to people in these circumstances, isn't it, as we don't know what's going on their mind. I wrote to some cousins on the death of their mother and they never responded and then didn't come to Dad's funeral or contact me at that time. We exchange Xmas cards but any other attempts to contact them remain unanswered. I often wonder if I said something really stupid or naff. She was my godmother although it was something that had never been discussed and she'd not stayed in touch with me directly over the years. I think she used to send me a birthday card each year.
Another Aunt went into hospital after a stroke. I sent her a soft toy partly motivated by a gift she'd sent to my son and because flowers seemed so pointless. A charming bright yellow (that 'colour for life' again) beaniebaby-style duck. I fear that she never recovered consciousness so never received my message and I have always felt terribly agonisingly embarrassed about my stupidity (for revealing myself I suppose and making it so personal!!! And for being so inept and inappropriate - tho I have no idea if others perceived it that way - and tough taters really!!! I believe in me, now, don't I! And if she'd lived, she might have liked the sentiments and the duck might have been a little cuddly beacon of light during long lonely days of recovery as I'd intended.).
My new mantra : Intention is all!!!
What I intend is what matters and those who wish to receive through a distorted lens are defining me in ways I don't accept. (Wow!!! I finally got there!!!!) Hang on...
What I intend is what matters and those who wish to receive through a distorted lens are defining me in ways I don't accept.
(Just in case I didn't get the message!!!!!)
Wildflower - it might be a funny thing for me to say but I 'admired' what you chose to say to me. And CG, well, you read me like a book! Would you hang on while I catch up on a few chapters :lol: No, don't! I like it just like it is!!! There's absolutely no point in worrying about upsetting me when you're just holding the door open waiting for me to get along and walk through!!! How do you do that??! Bless you for being you!! And if I said your post had me in floods of tears, it's a blessing not a reason for any feelings linked to guilt!!
I'll be back later to respond and I want to see if I can write down again the post I lost yesterday.
TTFN
R.
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Hello R, hope you’re ok right now…..here’s another one of my voices….
Intention. Ahh. What happened here then? -edit
..........Maybe that’s why some intelligent Ns become therapists? Hmm? “Oh yes, tell me how you feel, let me feed off your emotion, let me see the pain in your eyes so I can feel so much better than you.” Love it.
I hope your mother reacts in some civilised way to your gift. But if you’ve given your gift for you, then her reaction won’t affect you……will it?
those who wish to receive through a distorted lens are defining me in ways I don't accept
fair enough, but will you keep banging your head against a brick wall if it hurts? It’s their distorted lens – they are not going to change it….but you know that.
Against the flow? Probably. But why not. Keep loving the living who love you - P
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Hi Portia - Good to hear your 'voice'!! I do have a small voice of my own questioning the 'reality' of the work I'm doing here. What will happen in the big bad world? It's all very well 'working' here but what's the reality? Instant collapse again???
But I think what I'm doing is coming to terms with my own feelings (and thoughts?) before she can 'get' to them. I know what I intend and, in fact, I've begun to realise that in receiving responses from other people here I can get some idea as to how 'normal' people would respond. Hey, we might be the injured but we're NORMAL!!! :idea:
Now my mother and your mother. Similar but different kettle of fish??
I can sure understand and respect the dying friend's response. She deserved better than that. And I feel pain for her hearing the story. And I can just hear my mother complaining about somebody not being grateful and not being able to be aware that the 'donee' might have other things on her mind at the time (like dying!) or just not wanting to deal with her.
I mean, I might be 'in' my own feelings so much that I might not 'hear' the other person (another mantra - I don't have to be everyone's therapist and I don't have to be everyone's mother so I can be 'in' myself and I don't have to feel guilty about it!!) but if a third party pointed it out, I'd 'hear' - even if I wanted to disagree!!! The shock of the last year is realising that my mother really can't hear even when you hold up a placard with big writing on it. But I don't yet know if it's permanent or just in response to loss and therefore temporary.
I know that she wanted to control every last bit of me and her environment when I was little and so it became a problem as I grew older. She still does have that need and she creates confusion and chaos IN ORDER to control her environment. Perhaps, it's like a baby flailing around in a panic trying not to drown. Again, it might be her reaction to loss or exacerbated by loss.
However, I'm taking it (at this moment in time) that she's not 'normal' like you and me. She's floundering because she's chosen to be totally dependent on one other person. And she's done that as a punishment to the rest of the world for not appreciating her and not respecting her enough. But she caused most of that in the first place.
And that's because her tragic flaw is paranoia (is there a better word?) - It's believing that the world is out to 'get' her and 'do her down'. Everyone she can't control is trying to harm her. And sh*t - really big SH*T here - that's where my H comes from, too.
Now that's where I've got to start. I'm hoping that my H is not a lost cause. But that's another story and relates to the post I lost yesterday so I'll come back to him another day. (Rats that I lost that post)
There have been two occasions recently when I've heard my mother react in a way that seemed to demonstrate she wasn't totally in the grip of her 'tragic flaw'. So I have to work with that and see how far I can get. I've changed, let's see how far she will change.
I can't be her parent if I've told her that she's the parent! That seems to have got through. So I can't be her 'bad mother' any more. She realises that she's lost her confidence and she wants it back. That's good. She's gone about getting it back in a peculiar way that blames me but, hey, if it works, it works. And, presumably if I 'gave' it back symbolically, then I'm the good guy for a while.
She discovered that I'd sent a letter of complaint (absolutely justified, and fulsome apology received) to the social services for something they did outrageously wrong so I'm 'the good guy' there, too! So I've agreed and seen that something was bad that she didn't manipulate me or anyone else about. That's a step forward, too. She doesn't phone me and hassle me. That's a huge plus. She took back a suicide threat. That's great, too! She seems genuinely to want to understand 'why' things happened 'back then'. And I seem to be getting strong enough to be able to tell her. Maybe she's getting strong enough to understand, too. Who knows.
I accept she's always going to be a bit peculiar. This is not normal behaviour. I won't expect her not to feel paranoid but the penny finally dropped for me that SHE NEEDS her purple clouds with yellow spots. I know they're shades of blue, grey, white (with a touch of lavender where I live now!!!). But hey, I don't need to prove it any more!!!!! And I'm really, really sorry that I caused her so much pain by needing to. I needed her to validate me. Well, I believe in myself now. I've worked hard enough for my sanity!!! It's about time I did believe in myself, my thoughts, my feelings, my intuition, my senses - just try me. Ms Super Sensitive, I am!!!!! (That's a come back to someone who recently said it sarcastically!) I never said I was psychic, just 'aware'!!
BTW, Portia, my mother would probably have got the same response from the dying lady because she would have turned into a fussing over-the-top Florence Nightingale during the cruise - 'needing to be needed'.
Oh yes - I flagged 'see how far I can get' cos I'm not quite sure what I mean by that. Where DO I want to get???
Hmmm - well, I think this has to do with 'personality'. If I've set myself on the trail of something, I pursue it to the end. I discovered this concept of 'narcissism' and I wanted to know what it meant for me and my mother. I'm in the middle of a road I need to hoe. That's all I can say. I'm certainly more than half way there.
Hmm - I would like a relationship with my mother that is not based on terror. Why the h*** shouldn't I be able to have a civilised conversation with my own mother?
Hmm - well, she may never be able to stop 'controlling' and forcing her OWN solutions on me. But maybe I can be distant enough to laugh rather than fight. You know : do a bit of :roll: :wink: :lol: right at her.
I got the impression the social worker's assistant did that - not mean, not shaming, just not taking the manipulation seriously, reaching a more rational part of her - 'come off it, D'. No one else amongst the professionals has been able to do that for her - they all respond in the usual negative way Ns bring on themselves. Rejected. Actually that 'come off it, D' wow - I just heard about ten different voices saying that phrase to her. My father, my aunt, my cousin. WOW! Why didn't anyone let me in on the secret before????? (Because they'd be encouraging me to be 'cheeky' instead of respecting my mother!)
Dear, dear, dear. How do we help our kids out of these holes we create in our society. Alice Miller again, I guess.
I do know my mother's in a lot of emotional pain. She's never been on a cruise. Doesn't drive. Never had an affair. Doesn't drink. Is diabetic, had heart failure two years ago, has had laser surgery for cataracts and can't see very well, has had electric shock treatment for 'depression' in the past, and lives in about a square foot of space surrounded by mountains of paper and things and photographs of me. :cry: She's too ashamed to let anyone in (house/soul) - and anyway, people can't get in to help (house/soul). There are no small luxuries in her life and little human contact. It's painfully, painfully sad. :cry: :cry: :cry: And I don't want her to live like that. But I know it's a choice and it's her choice. Sortof!
School's out. Gotta go.
R
I'm embarrassed this is so long. What did you put in your post, Portia - cascara????!
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If it were me, I know I'd have wished it had been the other way round and that if one of them had to go, it would have been her first. Oh Gosh, I probably shouldn't say that, but it would seem so natural to feel like that, even though I'd get consumed with stupid guilt and embrrassment after for thinking it, no doubt!!
Sure, I've had that thought. Overall it's been better for me - and I take it as a gift!!! - that he went first. I am in such a better place in my life. I can see so clearly now, it's almost unbelievable. (I think that, even through the screen, you're gonna to see changes comin'!!! :wink: )
I'd rather it had been the other way round - we could have fun, at long last - he'd have so enjoyed his grandson - truly. They deserved each other in the best sense. That's the hugest loss. They only met twice. I just couldn't bear to be around my mother.
I'd have had him come and live here - he'd have loved to have come. I know I'd have enjoyed him being around. He'd have loved village life. There's so much here for oldies. He'd have loved walking into the village and round and about. He once joked that if mum died first, he'd come and live in our paddock in a tent! And I've noticed I keep looking out on the green visualising a little tent!!!!! :roll: but :D
But he looked after me, truly looked after me, by going first and then taking me on this mad merry go round to really sort out 'what is it between you and your mother'. Maybe. That's how I choose to see it anyway because it makes me feel cared for and comforted. And who knows. It doesn't matter. I don't need 'the truth', starkly, all the time!! :wink:
If your dad were here today, what would you do? Where would you go? What would you talk about? Let's not include your mother in the picture. Let's leave her out. You could go for a stroll together arm-in-arm, take your son, and enjoy watching him run and laugh, together. Chat about what a lovely boy he is. I don't know, I'm just playing with the idea here.
Yes, that's lovely. Thanks for bringing Dad back into the picture. That's where I need to stay really. I've given my mother too much of my attention. :roll: ooops - there she was again! It's a lovely picture CG - I start crying every time I read it. Both :cry: and :D. I wish for this thing which never happened. It's lovely. That's a gift!! A lovely gift. Thanks.
R
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I’m struggling. I was very shocked – very shocked - by your letter and gift. Perhaps this a fundamental difference: I commend you R if I may for what you have done and what you aim to do but we’re so different. My psychic bank account wouldn’t let me do what you do. I’m keeping out of it now – too different and I don’t want to upset with endless, useless questions which only serve to explain to me. That is definitely not the point! Best, P
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Hi Portia - Come back! I'm here as you post!! I know how different it is for you and me. Did you only just realise??? My mother - in me, on me, everywhere with me. Suffocating. Your mother has her eyes on a different horizon. You are nowhere to be seen. But I see you, Sunsilk girl. (Have you seen it yet, the ad?)
'Close' relationship? I don't like it like it is with her but that's 'what I know'. Same for you in your difference, your distance!!! It's what feels familiar and safe to each of us. The result : you, Bloomsbury bohemian; me, boring English middle class!!!?????
But my mother doesn't 'see' ME! Just like your mother didn't see YOU! Just different ways of not seeing!!! Sunsilk girl still waiting to be noticed, little ladybird jumping up to get into the line of vision. I'm full on. Here I am. Car smash. Different ways of being.
You had, I think, more freedom to find out who you were and to be that person because nobody bothered (with) you. (?) I was not allowed to find out who I was as my mother was too busy being me!!! LOL
Don't commend me. I don't seek commendation. :) I'm not sure I'm doing the healthy thing yet, the right thing, what's good for her or good for me. I'm experimenting. I believe I'm meeting her expectations but meeting them 'my way'. I'm watching. It could be absolute failure; maybe she'll be happy. I still want to drag her out of that terrible place she's in but I'll know soon if it's possible or even right.
I don't even want a relationship with her. But she has no-one else!!! And I see her and feel so much pain. The truth is I don't care but I feel. (??!) How can you 'care' about someone who has smothered you, bludgeoned you and demanded everything for herself in the public guise of giving everything to you????? But I feel her pain. It feels like MY pain. Maybe it IS my pain. Maybe she doesn't feel anything at all. Maybe it's there inside her but she doesn't feel it but I feel it. She's trained me well as a dumping ground. And here, I'm back to not knowing who is who.
I don't want her round me for the confusion she causes in me. She demands love. I don't love her. Can somebody love my mother for me? Please? Can somebody build her some boundaries so she won't invade mine? I just want somebody to take her away - perhaps look after her and make her feel better, then I won't have to!!! But MY pain, the pain that's really inside me, that's what I'm going to conquer. That's the road (row?) I'm hoeing. Then I'll know, I'll really, really know what it is about me and my mother!!! :wink:
Phew! Thanks for that. (More cascara??!)
Why were you shocked? What's does psychic bank account do? :D
R
PS I'm not giving my mother attention here, I'm giving YOU attention. And I'm giving ME attention. Because I want to!!!
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Oh sh*t what happened here. I've been working, working for days, getting as nice as pie, working so hard so I'm the best I possibly can be for dealing with my mother, calm, smooth, yes, thinking of dad, calm, kind, happy thoughts, tears and maybe (intake of breath) sentimentality - never mind, it works - feelings, anyway - and my whole apple cart just shot into the air and everything has fallen and landed harshly haphazardly all over the place. I've got another headache. I haven't phoned. I should have phoned but I'm all over the place, tense, rattled - she'll have my buttons pressed in no time and I'll be after her like a rattle snake, a wolverine, pouncing and pressing all the wrong buttons back.
Sod it - she can phone me. Or write to me. She won't. She'll say it proves I didn't care because I didn't phone. I can't live my life like this. :cry: :cry: :cry: I'm so angry, angry, angry with her. And I don't know who I'm angry with any more. I'm so sick of it all. I'm sick of being good. Sick of being controlled/having to be controlled. Sick of being the butt of everything. Yes, she SHOULD have been the one to go first.
She bitched and bitched at me after I supported her when dad died. I supported her too much, then removed myself briefly. That's what she can't bear - abandonment. She said irrational things in a crazy way, nagged me and blamed me and made my life hell. She certainly paid me back. And it's all just like when I started to make the move away from home at 19. Me, the innocent, bewildered. Huh? I never knew I was this terrible person. Headaches. Doctor. Psychiatrist?!!!!??? You mean this person I'm chatting to each week is a psychiatrist!!!? Hey 8) - it was the 'in' thing to be chatting to this particular guy at that particular time in that particular environment. Yes, really! My mother hates him with a passion to this day. "You took my daughter away from me. You ruined my life." Er, no...that was me! Per-lease will you just let go.
And then I think I'm a terrible mother - I feel so useless. Odd moments of brilliant mothering but the rest of the time like Wildflowers mother or Portia's. God knows what stories he'll create about his childhood with me!!! "I went to all these efforts to entertain my mother and still I was boring". "She just avoided me all the time - even if we sat together it would be to watch telly or she'd have her nose in some junk mail catalogue." "She never believed (in) me." "She was always saying she loved me, but I knew better." He's 'just like' my mother!! It's never enough. A permanent uphill struggle to get him to think positively and rationally about the world. (Perhaps I expect too much of a ten year old?)
Back to my mother. She terrorised me my whole life and hasn't got the faintest idea. Change the goalposts, rewrite history. She'd want to know 'why' so I'd give an example. "Oh, I wouldn't say that dear. I couldn't. That's not nice. That's not me." Maybe I went mad and didn't notice.
I think of my life to give you examples of how she terrorised me tho - and I HAVEN'T GOT ANY. I haven't got stories like CG. All I know is what happened this last year. And the terrible ways I've felt and what's she's 'done'. This year has been a microcosm of my life as a child. I KNOW that it's been like that my whole life long. Why else would I have watched a film called Sybil and say 'I don't understand how or why but that's my life up there. And Gaslight. That's HOW I FEEL but it's not WHAT I KNOW.
And the guilt when I finally 'realised' that it was ALL MY FAULT. (Not that I would or could have done anything differently)
AND I CAN'T DO THIS ANY MORE. :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: I CANT I CANT I CANT. I JUST CANT.
r
CG For God's sake throw me one of those T shirts and let's get outta here!!!!! XXXX size please.
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Hi R,
Can I join your anger sorrow grief, R? I wanted so much to be out playing tonight but I’ve got a bad case of the blues. :cry:
And then I think I'm a terrible mother - I feel so useless. Odd moments of brilliant mothering but the rest of the time like Wildflowers mother or Portia's. God knows what stories he'll create about his childhood with me!!! "I went to all these efforts to entertain my mother and still I was boring". "She just avoided me all the time - even if we sat together it would be to watch telly or she'd have her nose in some junk mail catalogue." "She never believed (in) me." "She was always saying she loved me, but I knew better." He's 'just like' my mother!! It's never enough. A permanent uphill struggle to get him to think positively and rationally about the world. (Perhaps I expect too much of a ten year old?)
I’m so, so sorry if my stories of my mother have upset you and the other mothers here. But he’s only 10, R. My trouble started when I was 8. You have so much time to hug your son and love him. Listen to him. Notice him.
I realize that some of the things my mom said are mild, and that any good mother could say these things. Taken alone, any of the things she said could have been forgiven, even laughed off. But the neglect and criticism piled up. There was little to nothing to balance it out.
When my mom put me off, she never followed up. Except maybe once in a blue moon. She rarely played with me. She rarely spent time with me. She turned her back on me over and over and over again. And when she criticized me, she criticized who I was. She would say really mean things to me and then laugh them off when I got mad or upset. “I’m just teasing honey. Can’t you take a joke?”
I went to a therapist once when I was 8 or 9, on request of the school counselor. The therapist was this large matronly woman with white hair down to her shoulders. We played tiddly winks. We talked. I was closed up. She asked me if I needed a hug and asked me to crawl into her lap. I did. And I wanted to stay there forever and runaway all at the same time while she held me tight. I was already starting to feel so bad about myself. Years later, I asked my mom why I only went to see her once, and she told me we couldn’t afford to go anymore. Okay. I understand. But then she said, in a gee isn't this interesting tone of voice, “You know, she told me that something had really hurt you.” And that’s it. That’s all my mom said. She was TOLD by a damned therapist that I had been really hurt – and she did NOTHING. Jeez I’m so mad and sad right now.
(BIG WAILING EMOTICON)
Anyway, I dated a guy for a couple of years and he had this habit of holding me close to him – he wouldn’t let me get away. Turns out that’s what I needed – the worlds longest, safest, most dependable hug. I just needed to know someone cared about me.
Just be there for your son. Hug him. Let him know he can count on you when he’s in trouble, that you’ll be there when he’s hurt, that you’ll love him when he makes mistakes. Love him for who he is. I sense you already do these things. Give yourself credit for that. You don’t have to be perfect. My mom was far beyond fumbling and being a little confused – and the more I look back and am able to handle the truth, the more I understand that.
I think of my life to give you examples of how she terrorised me tho - and I HAVEN'T GOT ANY. I haven't got stories like CG. All I know is what happened this last year. And the terrible ways I've felt and what's she's 'done'.
You know what I’ve discovered? That my mom didn’t mean for me to feel the way I did. It wasn’t her intention. But I did. My feelings were real. I was confused, yes, but my feelings were real. And my feelings were a sign, a big red flashing sign, that things were not okay. My feelings pointed the way to what was confusing. Your mother may never have terrorized you in the physical obvious sense, but she certainly terrorized your sense of who you are. She invaded you. You don't need terrible stories for that to feel terrible.
((big hug))
Wildflower
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I just realized that I could be a complete heel for submitting that last post when what you said you were trying to do was collect yourself for a phone call. I hope you know that I was trying to take away some of your doubt, not stir up more questions.
And about that phone call. If you feel upset, that's your right. Yes, she can call you. She knows how to use a phone just as well as you do, no?
And if she demands an answer to the question (or even hints at the question itself), Why didn't you call?? Tell her the truth. You've been grieving. You miss your dad terribly. You wanted to be able to give your mother support, but you were too upset yourself. It's your right.
Or better yet, you decide whether or not she deserves to know how you feel. Just know on the inside that you don't have to justify yourself in this time. You're hurting just as much as she is. If not more.
All my best,
Wildflower
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Hi Rosencrantz,
I just wanted to say I've been trying to reply to you but I have had so much backlog of paperwork I've had to work throught the wee hours with no distractions. I popped in quickly and read your posts and want so much to spend some time talking with you. Hopefully I can shortly, but in the meantime I'm shooting off this note to say,
((((((((BBBIIIGGG HHHUUUGGG)))))))))))
CG
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Hi Rosencrantz finally, :D
Oh my gosh, so close to end of financial year, and the paperwork has gotten almost beyond me. I wish you here to keep me focussed on the task! We could chat and fly through it, unravelling the meanings of the painful memories of our past.
I've been reading and reading and reading, and an image of your mother's relationship to you has been fleeting and darting, attempting to either be discovered or hide from my conscious mind. Dunno?? But I got some clear pictures today, I THINK :!: :idea: I know I've got an overactive imagination, so I'm not sure if they're accurate or not. I was gonna run them by you if you're up to it. Don't worry about it if you're not.
But if you are post back and say Yes, or just leave it. It's your call and I know I'm not the gentlest person in the world so I'd completely understand.
And I wanted to say to Wildflower's comment on this thread about talking about her mother's mothering and how it may have affected or made some mother's here feel bad or rotten. Not me, I appreicated the perspective very much. I think it's good to hear what's been done that causes pain in relationships intentionally as well as unintentionally. Especially where our children are concenerned. I used that last night for example. And did a little reminder and put it guess where :D DAH DAH!! ON THE FRIDGE OF COURSE!!
Also Rosencrantz, I've realised from reading your posts that I don't fully grasp the victim, persecutor, rescuer (whatever triangle) as much as I previously thought, and I wanted to do some more reading on this. Especially when you talk about it in the context of when you've rescued your mum. That blows me away!!! Where did you get this stuff from? I forget. I know you posted something on it recently. I thought I had this one down pat till I've reflected on some of your points. Oh how wrong I was.
((((Big Hug))))
CG
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Yes Guest - the answer is 'yes'. Anything to get me out of this misery. You might say something I 'know' or something I really do know or something that wipes me out with the pain of guilt and shame. You might have to pick me up off the floor. But I'm listening.
I came in earlier and wrote :
It's early morning and I stopped off on my way through to breakfast. As soon as I opened this thread the tears were pouring down my cheeks. But I have to hide them and button up before anyone finds me.
No Wildflower. I keep telling you :wink: you never hurt me. I don't think you're capable of huring anyone. There's nothing you can say that would hurt me - so keep that voice going. :-)
And Portia, I'm so angry with you. I'm your FRIEND and I'm angry with you - can you tolerate that. Come back in here and cope with INTIMACY!!! with all its ups and downs. I feel like the Guest who was angry with me for starting a thread about 'identity and not having to be consistent' (because of what happened within the thread). Why, why, why did you have to do that, she shouted at me. I didn't I replied. But the damage was done. Do I know what I mean, here?
I'm channelling again - Portia - am I talking to you or my mother or myself?? I mean you no harm - you're my friend (whether you like it or not!). Whatever you do or think or feel right now, don't let guilt in the door.
Here I am, back hours later.
Will more shame rattle up to my neck if I post this. I posted with passion yesterday in reply to Portia and then looked for an escape in other threads. Ooops - I wasn't needed there. No escape, then. Falling apart instead. Helping other people keeps me glued together. Heart, mind, soul completely wrapped up in someone else's being. Just like my mother did to me. Except I do it then let go. I say what I see. Some people find it helpful. Look Ma, this is how you do it!!! You honour, you support and then you just 'let go'.
I got exhausted when I did all that other work here a couple of weeks ago. So much more was still coming up - like lava from a volcano that had finally erupted. I wanted to look, wanted to see, peer into the eye. But I was exhausted. I just couldn't keep going at the same pace. And that's OK. Sigh. Lives to live.
Shall I post this? I'm still sobbing. And suddenly I've got this illogical thing going with Portia - "Come back here!!!" "Stand up and be counted". "Don't you weasel out on me now." Portia - does that make sense to YOU???
Oh God - I'm talking to my father. He asked 'what is it with you and your mother' and I struggled to find him a temporary answer (I can't cope with the emotional bruising, dad) and then he weaseled out on me. Just like you did Portia. Well not exactly the same - he died; you haven't even had chance to get back to your computer!!!!! :wink: But you said you were shocked at my reply and that you were 'keeping out of it now'. No, I know that's still not exactly what happened - but that's where it roosted somewhere in my psyche.
Sigh. Exhausted again. Stuff 'grips' me and I'm so afraid of what it might do, how destructive it is/I am to those around me. I'm leaking, too, CG, seeping. I don't want to live my life outside these four walls because I never know what's going to 'grip' me next. Will I hit out before I've worked it out? Portia - are you all right? Did anything I said have ANY basis in your reality???
Sigh. Over and out.
R
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Dear Wildflower. If I say there's nothing you could say that could hurt me, does it mean to you that I'm not listening? I'm listening.
Tell her the truth. You've been grieving. You miss your dad terribly. You wanted to be able to give your mother support, but you were too upset yourself. It's your right.
Or better yet, you decide whether or not she deserves to know how you feel. Just know on the inside that you don't have to justify yourself in this time. You're hurting just as much as she is. If not more.
Thank you. That's what's so hard for me to find/define. The truth. I know that's the truth and I know those are the choices I have. But it takes SO MUCH WORK for me to 'analyse the situation' and get there. Thanks for the script!!!!!!!
R
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Three in a row - CG, I'm competing!! :wink:
The thread about forgiveness had come up again a second time, so I decided to look in.
Forgiveness is empathy.
"I think it means...putting yourself in the position of the other person, and wiping away any sort of resentment and antagonism you feel toward them." Jimmy Carter
"Forgiving is an act of mercy toward an offender. We are no longer controlled by angry feelings toward this person."--Robert D. Enright, Forgiveness is a Choice
Is that what I'm trying to do here? Is this what the motivation behind the letter is all about? Is that what the tightrope is all about. Trying not to fall into the victim, persecutor, rescuer role. Trying not to fall off either side into anger or anguish. Trying to leave no buttons exposed!!!
In that case, I'm not doing very well, am I. A moment's inattention and RAGE erupts. I'm ANGRY at them BOTH. But perhaps you can't forgive UNTIL you've done the anger. It wasn't 'how do I rationalise what I've done' when dad was dying (by saying 'I honoured my parents by getting out from under', trying to justify and make sure she didn't get to make the most out of my guilt and shame) but how do I get past HER rage and MY rage in order to get THROUGH this terrible time in our lives?????
I have no idea. It can be 'both..and' but the latter seems more 'clean'.
(Didn't I quote : We're going on a bear hunt...oh no, we've got to go through it)
Come to think about it, I don't remember 'feelings' or 'emotion' every coming up as a topic of conversation in my parents' house!!! Do they? Should they?? In normal homes?? Is this relevant???
One day I realised that my son was 'creating' feelings in ME! I said out loud what I was feeling, then said - I wonder if that's what HE's feeling. So then, rather than wondering how HE felt, I started asking (even tho it seemed illogical) what he wanted ME to feel. He seemed irritated, then puzzled, then stopped and thought. And SAID what it was. (He wanted me to feel what HE felt!) And then it all made sense. And things got better. Maybe I forget to do that often enough when he's being 'difficult'.
But see how my mother invades me by doing the same thing. It's OK for a child to do it to a parent but not the other way round. It's too overwhelming for a child to handle being invaded in that way. Child to parent is appropriate; parent to child is 'invading'. That's my 'opinion'. I don't understand enough about this. I'm stuck. But a huge part of me is terrified of my mother because I don't know who's who and whether my feelings are mine or hers. Why am I looking at this right now? How does it fit in with being angry????? :?
Well, I've stopped crying at least. Is everybody all right out there??????
R
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Hi Rosencrantz,
I just wanted to say Hi again, and make a few coments,
I do have a small voice of my own questioning the 'reality' of the work I'm doing here. What will happen in the big bad world? It's all very well 'working' here but what's the reality? Instant collapse again???
For me personally, I find the sounding boards here are so varied, that taken on the whole it's extremely balanced. Much better advice and comments and feedback than I get talking to myself all day :D :D :D
But I think what I'm doing is coming to terms with my own feelings (and thoughts?) before she can 'get' to them
This reminds me a bit of the thing I thought about the time, effort and consideration required on your part to buy the gift with the least 'problems'. This would be so draining for me, having to go to these lengths just to relate to someone. I don't think I could handle any relationship that stayed like this long term. Something would give because it creates just too much stress on one side.
I know that she wanted to control every last bit of me and her environment when I was little and so it became a problem as I grew older. She still does have that need and she creates confusion and chaos IN ORDER to control her environment. Perhaps, it's like a baby flailing around in a panic trying not to drown. Again, it might be her reaction to loss or exacerbated by loss.
However, I'm taking it (at this moment in time) that she's not 'normal' like you and me. She's floundering because she's chosen to be totally dependent on one other person. And she's done that as a punishment to the rest of the world for not appreciating her and not respecting her enough. But she caused most of that in the first place.
And that's because her tragic flaw is paranoia (is there a better word?) - It's believing that the world is out to 'get' her and 'do her down'. Everyone she can't control is trying to harm her. And sh*t - really big SH*T here - that's where my H comes from, too.
You know what I see here in your mum Rosencrantz, not so much a paranoid, although I'm sure that's where it's led or become, but I see a complete 100% perfectionist. A perfectionist who never met or achieved her own impossible, unrealistic, unattainable, inhuman high perfectionist standards.
And that's why she superimposed them onto you. That's why she wanted to control you, believing that by her influence and control, you could/would achieve what she hadn't. She thought she knew where she'd failed in her own life and thought she could achieve this high standard through you. Maybe she even blamed your dad for herself not achieving it, and hence she stood between you and him, so that he couldn't get in the way of you achieving it. And some of the things I've read about perfectionists is that they are usually terribly harsh critics and procrastinate all the time too.
How am I doin'? I'll stop on that one for now, cause if I'm way off base, no point me continuing. And if I'm saying what you already know, then not need me continuing. And if it's a new slant worthy of your consideration because it provides some light then your brain is better than mine on this stuff anyway. But that's one of the thoughts I had. We can keep going on this one if you want to. I'll wait for you to come back
She discovered that I'd sent a letter of complaint (absolutely justified, and fulsome apology received) to the social services for something they did outrageously wrong so I'm 'the good guy' there, too! So I've agreed and seen that something was bad that she didn't manipulate me or anyone else about. That's a step forward, too. She doesn't phone me and hassle me. That's a huge plus. She took back a suicide threat. That's great, too! She seems genuinely to want to understand 'why' things happened 'back then'. And I seem to be getting strong enough to be able to tell her. Maybe she's getting strong enough to understand, too. Who knows
.
There is some good stuff in here, I'm glad there are some positive signs.
Hmm - well, she may never be able to stop 'controlling' and forcing her OWN solutions on me. But maybe I can be distant enough to laugh rather than fight. You know : do a bit of :roll: :wink: :lol: right at her.
How about 'trying' to control and force :D I like the laughter bit, it can relieve a lot of tension. I'm trying to think of what you would have on a T-Shirt if it was the only thing you could ever say to or about your mother and you thought she'd be able to laugh and not take offence!!!! How about,
They call me stupid, wanna know why
My mum F**KED up her life and I've
given her mine to F**K up too.
Or
What's the definition of stupid,
Letting someone who's f**ked up there life ruin yours as well.
I'm just playing here Rosencrantz, I try not take to take myself too seriously, I'd love to make a T-shirt like that
I do know my mother's in a lot of emotional pain. She's never been on a cruise. Doesn't drive. Never had an affair. Doesn't drink. Is diabetic, had heart failure two years ago, has had laser surgery for cataracts and can't see very well, has had electric shock treatment for 'depression' in the past, and lives in about a square foot of space surrounded by mountains of paper and things and photographs of me. :cry: She's too ashamed to let anyone in (house/soul) - and anyway, people can't get in to help (house/soul). There are no small luxuries in her life and little human contact. It's painfully, painfully sad. :cry: :cry: :cry: And I don't want her to live like that. But I know it's a choice and it's her choice. Sortof!
This last part is the sad reality of her choices and where they have led her, and it's not to be denied. I think you connect so much with her pain because she's made you painfully aware of herself since you were born.
I have the image that you could move to another galaxy and still be in fine-tune with her. That would be okay I suppose if she was well and good for you and a healthy-minded giving freeing loving individual. But I figure that at the moment she has such a hold over you that you could not see her for 6 months and you'd think about her nearly everyday. even when you don't want to.
I see it a bit like that movie Dragonheart, where the good dragon DRAGO and the bad prince shared the same heart and felt each other's pain. Only the difference here with you and your mum is it's one sided and it seems to me like you're feeling all her pain as well as your own. That's terribly suffocating, confusing, help-me-I'm-drowning, stuff. Imagine the confusion of having a perfectly nice time. But you're in tune with some-one else's pain and you don't know it. All of the sudden you get pangs of their pain or anxiety, and yet you know there's nothing wrong with you!!!
How freaky and confusing would that be.
I think the answer, it seems to me, is all mixed up with you detaching, and or learning how to detach somehow. You moved out, but somehow the psychological fasteners and bonds have remained as strong as ever. You crave and desire to stand strong and independant. You have to learn to disengage. I just looked up the dictionary at detach and detachment. It's worth doing. It gave another type of good context example for detach, "troops sent on a separate mission". How cool. You're on a separate mission to your mum. What is it? Get the journal out and work on it. She's nearly completed hers, sadly. But you aren't anywhere near completing yours, you're still well into it. And yours and hers, they 'ARE' completely, totally, separate, unconnected missions. this is different to cutting off. I'm talking about an emotional detachment here, but I guess I figured you knew that.
You said somewhere something like you don't so much feel concern for her but you feel her pain. ( I may be slightly misquoting you, I tried to find it) That is such a powerful image you express. I feel the key to your freedom in this realtionship lies in that part of it, somewhere. Bringing to an end this part of your relationship where you feel her pain. What do you think? And I wonder so much about Wildflower's points, like you're the child who'd lost her father, why isn't it her ringing and comforting you?
I hope I haven't made anything worse with writing this. I felt so checked by what Portia said about people who prod and poke to see others pain. I'm trying so hard not to do that here, but I don't know if I still am. I hope not. And I'm a bit chicken to butt in here on this one, cause you're both so great, but I thought I could see how Portia ducked out for a while cause she was concerned about saying something to you Rosencrantz that might cause you more pain now at this fragile time in your life. What a true friend :D
((((BIG HUG))))
CG
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Hiya R.
Can I forget previous pages for now? I want to play questioner today. Looks like you want answers, a conversation, so maybe we can talk about you. Just you. I want to try and understand, which means I want to be invisible, definitely not noticed. Here we go, straight to the point, this is no time for messing about, being polite, this is me going in like a surgeon:
Is this what the motivation behind the letter is all about?
What was/were your motivation(s)? Forget everything you’ve ever read – look inside yourself for the answer. I really want you to look hard because this could be a great big whopping key for you. Read your posts in this thread. But don’t tell us unless you want to.
But perhaps you can't forgive UNTIL you've done the anger.
Exactly. No doubt about it.
how do I get past HER rage and MY rage
There is no other way than separating.
I don't remember 'feelings' or 'emotion' every coming up as a topic of conversation in my parents' house!!! Do they? Should they?? In normal homes??
They do in normal homes, I’ve witnessed it in other people’s homes (my current step-mother is an expert, loving mother and her sons have no problem with talking about their emotions).
One day I realised that my son was 'creating' feelings in ME! I said out loud what I was feeling, then said - I wonder if that's what HE's feeling. So then, rather than wondering how HE felt, I started asking (even tho it seemed illogical) what he wanted ME to feel. He seemed irritated, then puzzled, then stopped and thought. And SAID what it was. (He wanted me to feel what HE felt!) And then it all made sense. And things got better. Maybe I forget to do that often enough when he's being 'difficult'.
I’m not sure I understand what’s happening above. It sounds like you were empathising with him and not realising it? Otherwise what was it? Might be an interesting area, worthy of more talking.
my mother invades me by doing the same thing
You choose to empathise with her brain. You allow the ‘invasion’. She cannot physically get inside your head – thank God. And empathy is not an absolute truth of exactly what another person is experiencing: you can never ‘know’ exactly what anyone else experiences. Okay, I’m breaking my first line and going to quote from page 2 where Wildflower said this fantastic thing:
Wildflower said: Tell her the truth. You've been grieving. You miss your dad terribly. You wanted to be able to give your mother support, but you were too upset yourself. It's your right.
See, it’s all about how YOU feel, not about her. Exactly. I was applauding WF at this point.
Wildflower said: Or better yet, you decide whether or not she deserves to know how you feel. Just know on the inside that you don't have to justify yourself in this time. You're hurting just as much as she is. If not more.
Ah – “IF NOT MORE”. That deserves capitals. You do not know how your mother feels, however much you think you do. Did your mother ‘love’ your father? What does she mean by ‘love’? (Ask any ACON or PartnerON here what an N means by ‘love’ and you know the reply – Ns don’t have a clue, cannot have a clue.)
But a huge part of me is terrified of my mother because I don't know who's who and whether my feelings are mine or hers.
Your feelings are yours, but some are caused by her smothering. But they belong to you. And you can change them! But understanding this (as I know you do?) is not feeling it, embracing it and letting it change your view.
Why am I looking at this right now? How does it fit in with being angry?????
Because this lady who appears to be so needy, so sad and who appears to depend upon you utterly – is ruining your life. And you have every right to be angry about that, angry with her. And especially angry with yourself, for ‘allowing’ it to happen.
What did that external person say? “Your mother is trying to hurt you.” I wonder why she is. It doesn’t matter though, the reason, because I’m only interested in your life, not your mother’s. It is enough that she tries to hurt you – her motivation is her problem and she’s not here to talk to.
So - why do you try to empathise – so deeply - with your mother’s feelings at this sad time? Why not instead concentrate on your own? If your mother wants to talk to you, I’m sure she will. As Wildflower said, “You're hurting just as much as she is. If not more.”. Precisely. You are a separate person. You have to separate. Even if she doesn’t want you to. Even if you don’t want to.
You are a wonderful human being. With love and best intentions, your friend, P
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Hey Portia I mussta' just beat ya' by 1 second :D
CG
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CG, I don’t know what synchronicity happened for us to post at the same MINUTE there (yep, you got me by seconds), but I’m glad it did. Hey, I gotta say:
I felt so checked by what Portia said about people who prod and poke to see others pain. I'm trying so hard not to do that here
No way CG, you are not an N! ....come up to you real close and peer at you, looking for emotion with a kind of fascination. I can see N therapists might be in their own personal heaven, the bastards.
Thanks for your kind words CG about me ‘ducking out’ too. I had to take time off the board to think about your letter and posts R. You got me stumped and I had to work it through.
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Hi Rosencrantz,
I see Portia and CG have posted, and I don't have time to read their posts so this may be repetitive (but maybe we need all the reinforcement we can get).
That's what's so hard for me to find/define. The truth. I know that's the truth and I know those are the choices I have. But it takes SO MUCH WORK for me to 'analyse the situation' and get there. Thanks for the script!!!!!!!
This reminded me of how I felt for a while with Dad. Under so much pressure to DEFINE MYSELF because if I didn't, he most certainly would. Faster than I could blink. It was before I knew about NPD, so I just had these vague ideas that I was being violated. I knew something was wrong, but not what. He would run over me in conversation (hah, conversation), and I would kind of grunt and try to push him back. More a gut feeling than anything. I couldn't find words.
But he saw me trying to push him away and it made him LIVID. He had tantrums and DEMANDED that I explain myself. WhenI tried to say, I don't know, I'm trying to figure that out, he responded in a desperate rage by "advising" me that I couldn't know what I was thinking until I found the words to describe it (read: the words to give him so he could dismantle my thinking, argue it down). Well, he's right in a way. I have the words now and I'm much stronger and more in touch with my feeings. But no amount of pressure could change the way I felt, and I deserved the time to figure out how I felt without someone yelling at me.
You deserve that time, too. So it's okay to say, hmmm, I think this is how I feel so I want to try to respond to what little bits of truth I'm holding onto so far. You do NOT have to have all the answers right now, though I can understand how your mother might pressure you to feel that way.
And by the way, it's so much easier to say this to someone else - I'm not attached to your mother so no cloudy thoughts there. My mother, though? :roll: :roll: :roll: Hopeless I am. :wink:
Take care (of yourself),
Wildflower
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Wildflower, good advice towards the end there.
R, to add to WF's post: you don't have to post back quickly either. No pressure. I won't go away, I won't take it personally if you don't post for a month (tho' I might worry about you). So don't think you have to talk to us, answer us, whatever. Because this thread isn't about us - it's about you. And that's ok. Maybe you can take some time to think inside, without the pressure to 'solve' it.
Sometimes the best answers come when we least expect them (like when I'm washing up!) - give the brain a break...let it run free and lazily and it does incredible things all on it's own, like dreaming.
Give yourself a break gal if you want to, you deserve it ("because you're worth it!") P
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Picture : I just keep marching along, dragging my ball and chain with me. The ball and chain just turned into my mother hanging on for dear life and I'm just trying to ignore her. Anybody got a hacksaw (except I'm afraid I'll lose a leg :idea: in the process of prising her away - or I might hurt her even more than she's hurt herself already).
As my mother hasn't let go the past, neither have I! She didn't let go of me and I didn't let go of the shock!!!
It was a shock - to have your own mother DESPERATE for you. Desperate for you like a lover might be. It's creepy. Wanting you over and above your father. What can you do with that? Sorry, mum - if I had more than one life, I'd dedicate one of them to you but I've only got one and I've got work to do. Guilt, shame.
I just can't remember what I felt. I know I limped!!! (Now I know why!!) Guiltily I have feared I must have been an N! I didn't care, did I? I didn't 'see' her anyway. I really was indifferent. She was being a pain. I'm sure I used to do this a lot :roll: If I talked about her, it would be in a disparaging way. Oh, 'her'! Shake of the head. :roll:
But I think it just got worse over the years. Her pain got worse, her blame got worse. She didn't recover. She didn't 'get over it'. She didn't 'make a life'. She drowned.
Or did she? What I'm discovering is that she roped in all my cousins - or the ones she could manipulate. Do this, do that. Run this errand. Get me that. (Oh, gosh - N Queen again) She gave up on me, she gave up on the world and decided to become Miss Haversham - totally, totally dependent instead.
I wasn't interested in her AT ALL (well can you blame me? I'll take it as read : of course not!) Until, after 20 years she started to say 'well, if only you'd say you love me/us' and it would stick in my throat. Thoughts : "Honestly? No, I don't love you. I almost despise you. But I've been indifferent for so long and had to get along on my own for so long, I don't even know who you are." Even that was probably more painful to her than if I'd hated her.
I can't remember a time of 'love'. I really have no idea what that means. Comfort, warmth in exchange for being a 'good girl'. She knelt at the side of my bed and listened to me when I whimpered about how everyone at school hated me. Oh, she loved that. In fact, they didn't! They all put together to buy me an LP - my first!!! I put onto them the negative stuff I was experiencing at home. I didn't know how to react to the gift and hid it.
By the time I was in my late 30s, I was so frightened of her calls that my husband had to hold onto me to keep me from 'flying off the handle', getting my buttons pushed. Had she no shame? Trying to control me from a distance. Putting herself in the firing line. Getting herself consistently and constantly rejected.
I think when dad was ill, I opened up for the first time to HER, to what she was, to her pain and I was horrified at what I discovered. And the guilt was crushing.
But I hadn't banked on the manipulation (I didn't know what it was - like I said - I don't KNOW I just FEEL. Wrong words - there's more than one way of knowing. Knowing as in knowledge/brain and knowing as in intuition/sensing. I don't KNOW in either sense!!!!! I really solely only FEEL. And then I have to ratchet up the brain cells to try to put meaning to it all. The community psychiatric nurse gave me the word 'manipulation'.
So there I am, great gaping wounds, father dying, mother much quieter than I might have expected, much less demanding than she used to be but I know I'm going to have to avoid getting the blame for so much that went wrong at that time. She got close a couple of times, but I've steered her away (sensibly cos I know I couldn't stand it).
But time and again in those few days I was with her, she nearly drove me mad. I don't know how or why but she'd just 'go on and on'!!! Stop it, I'd plead. Stop it, I'd shout. Stop it, I'd rave. STOPPPPPP IIIIIIIT. AAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH. Let my brain alone.... (I guess she wants to take over my brain, so things are done her way???) "I want this thing done" "OK" "Now BE ME, I'm in control. Move 3" to the left, now wave my magic wand and pouf! Where's what I wanted? Oh, it's all wrong - why did you do that you horrible, horrible child - you did that on purpose just to get at me." Or if I ignore her and go ahead to achieve this thing she wants, she'll go on and on at me until it's done. How to survive??? She has no idea how to achieve some task but wants to control how it's done.
Oh Portia - brain - yes, I know I don't know what's going on in her brain. Except I used to think that she'd say black was white if it suited her. And I know you understand what that means. This is different. I'm guessing that it may not be in your experience if you've had a 'distant' relationship with a parent. What I describe is accurate and true. I found this idea of 'projective identification' in the Nina Brown books - and I recognised it as 'that thing' I think my mother does. I could be wrong - I've been wrong about so much, why not that, too. I have had great fear about it - but no more - remember, I believe in me now! :-)
But I'm wondering when I first thought this. When did I come up with this idea that I feel other people's feelings???
School's out - gotta go. CG - Perfection - no that's not my mother - it's me but not her. I'll be back.
R
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They call me stupid, wanna know why
My mum F**KED up her life and I've
given her mine to F**K up too.
Priceless! Ever thought of setting up your own business. You know like The Shrink is In from the Peanuts cartoons. Get a life T shirts. Mantras R Us. Fortune Cookie T shirts.
You'd make a bomb with your spot-on accuracy and searing wit. :lol:
R
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R, fine, yes, I understand projective identification and I’m starting to recognise when it happens to me (it happens to me, not I make it happen). However: you understand the concept, you understand and feel the feeling, but then you stop it. You stop it happening to you. You stop it. People will still send those projected feelings to you – but you learn how to stop them.
It’s like tennis. They serve, you catch the ball and hold onto it.
Instead: they serve, you watch the ball, catch it but then go ‘oww it’s hot’ and drop it.
I recognised it as 'that thing' I think my mother does.
It’s not one way. Someone has to be there to catch the ball. And then they ‘choose’ to hang on to it. You have to find how to make that choice.
I have felt this. And I’ve caught the ball and held it for minutes and then chucked it away. If only I could reach the stage where I don’t even catch that bloody ball. Now that would be progress.
R – you are responsible for your mental health. You are not responsible for your mother’s mental health.
It was a shock - to have your own mother DESPERATE for you. Desperate for you like a lover might be. It's creepy.
Yep, I know. Very yucky. It’s called emotional incest and it’s just as bad as physical incest, except you can never be sure it was really all that bad can you. Where are the scars? Where is the evidence?
RUN AWAY. SEPARATE. Do you want to?
I have to go buy food now. And I should really have a shower.
I will be back too – sometime! P
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It was a shock - to have your own mother DESPERATE for you. Desperate for you like a lover might be. It's creepy. Wanting you over and above your father. What can you do with that? Sorry, mum - if I had more than one life, I'd dedicate one of them to you but I've only got one and I've got work to do. Guilt, shame.
Just a knee-jerk response here (peeking in instead of working :roll: ). I stumbled upon a paragraph while reading Secunda last night, and it made me think about you. I was going to save it for later (you have enough on your plate), but since you brought it up....
It's on the bottom of page 74-ish (left side). Not sure. Secunda's talking about triangling, and in this one paragraph, she says that some parents triangle their children in and exploit them by making them fulfill what the marriage isn't fulfilling. Something like that...wish I had the book with me now. Made me think about how you leaving home may really have been about her husband leaving her in a weird way. And the way she reacted (bitched then whined and clung desparately) when your father died and you helped her out. Just an alternate reading on whether or not it's abandonment that sends her reeling.
Wildflower
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It was a shock - to have your own mother DESPERATE for you. Desperate for you like a lover might be. It's creepy. Wanting you over and above your father. What can you do with that? Sorry, mum - if I had more than one life, I'd dedicate one of them to you but I've only got one and I've got work to do. Guilt, shame.
Gosh :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: , It's almost a case of seperating a set of siamese twins Rosencrantz. There you are with 2 heads and bodies, but only one set of lungs and heart. One has to go. The surgeons have to decide???? Which twin has the greatest prospect of survival.????? The greatest prospects fo a future????????
Then another thought hit me. Bang. When you talked about her surprising silence now, since your dad died. How scary and unpredictable. Is she going to eventually going to say it???? Are you waiting for the blame. Will she try to blame you for it? "It's because you cut off, you never contacted us, he'd probably still be here today if..." you know what I'm saying? :cry:
CG
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Yeah Portia, and have one for me too while you're there. Gosh, I've been off the fags for a month now. Gee I think I could really enoy one about now. But I'll resist the urge to.
Portia, I think you're right about the Emotional Incest thing. Wish I could remember the name of the book I read.????? The thing I remember reading about parent/child E.I is how the child/survivor of E.I finds it nigh impossible in the future to ever experience the type of depth and intimacy in any other type of relationship. Because they took on early responsibility for the parents happiness and needs, and were never free to be 'child', they were always busy 'substitute partnering' the parent, they missed out on normal childhood. They tuned in so deeply and intimately to the parent wants, needs, amd dreams, and sadly at great cost 'tuned out' of their own. The reltionship is telepathic, or telepathetic, and all future relationships seem almost 'lacking in depth' in comparison. Which is actually just a very powerful illusion. What they are really lacking is the 'sickness'.
How are you going Rosencrantz???? Not getting too much for you, is it? Just sing out when you want me to shut-up :D :D :D :D :D
((((HUG))))
CG
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I can't stop - I'm hurtling down this helter-skelter. I'm worried about you all out there but I just can't stop. Son is happy on his own computer. H learning to leave me to my tears.
CG - you're right that paranoia isn't the right word - I'm sure it isn't. But nothing's ever 'right' in her life. It's not that SHE isn't right. The world isn't right. The social worker says she's having a 'great' time at the Day Centre, 'holding court'. They said that when she 'flounced' off to hospital, too. Holding court, slagging off all the nurses, getting everybody else involved in her fantasies of neglect and cruelty.
Honestly, she's in a fantasy of her childhood. But maybe how she felt in her childhood was a fantasy, too. How 'cruel' her sisters were. Then one of them dies and suddenly she was her best friend. But no-one is ever good enough. Her demands are 'outrageous', unrealistic, inappropriate. But then, the demands she used to put on herself were outrageous, too. And then she feels so badly unappreciated when the world doesn't stop to admire.
The purpose of the funeral was so that she could be Queen for a day. We discern by contrast : Her first thought was new shoes, I hadn't even thought about what to wear - what did I care what I wore? Finally realised I'd better look the part to meet the expectations of others.
"You should look after your mother - you've only got one mother, you know." What would you know about MY mother. You deal with your own!!!
Oh dear, I've started to 'betray' her. I let people know by subtle and not to subtle means what she's really like. Hey, why should I let her slag me off to the world. I'm fed up with it. (Originally I felt I didn't want to interfere in her relationships with others - let it be - but this is MY integrity which is being called into account and I can't stand the guilt!!) They are dumbfounded when they realise they've been misled and perhaps I'm not quite as she's described!!! I know the sound now over the telephone. A sort of a small 'oh', a kind of deflation and a silence as it's digested. Then I know they know!!!
A couple of people suggested my mother's problems are as a result of low self-esteem. It was certainly difficult to see that behind the spite and the sarcasm and the irrationality she expressed towards me. (A defence? Please do bite the hand that feeds you!) But I see sparks of it - I pat her on the head and she's like a puppy, a beaming child. "You did well" but frankly, she didn't and she just screwed things up even more and caused even more havoc. "For God's sake, let ME do it" Do I say that? In action, if not in words. I'm not patient. I get too roughed up by her if I am. Can you see how impossible it all is. We're close to the R/P/V thing again.
Hell's teeth - I'm not even sure she DOES need me. Father asked me to pay money into the bank to pay the standing orders and I took over from there. Of course, Dad - you trust me. You know I'll look after things properly. And probably she felt a child again with parents, him and me. I strode in. I should have tip-toed in. I assumed she 'needed' me, that things were still as they had been where we left off 20/30 years ago!!! That ol' 'here I am - car crash' thing again, I suppose. (And anyway, I'm glad I did - it's one thing she can't manipulate me about although she manipulates everyone else - "poor me, me no understand, me no money, help me, pity prease". Gotcha - SMASH! It really is mpossible, isn't it. I'm getting there!!!).
And anyway, she was the one who went straight back to 30 years ago. :idea: It was because father asked 'what is it about your mother' (over the phone from hospital bed) in front of her and her neighbour and she felt shamed!! (I only just put that particular 2 and 2 together!) Dear, dear, dear. NOT because SHE cared!!!!! :roll: It's only taken me a year to work that one out!!! Grrrr!
I think she was very lonely when she was little but I don't really have evidence for that. She felt unwanted. Always being 'turfed off' somewhere. Hey, I was due to stay overnight with her mother one time when I was little and I hated it! Maybe they were pretty horrible. All of her neighbours are out to get her, too. I spend time with her and I begin to think so, too!!! But dad got on with them all OK - they liked him, thought he was a 'nice man'.
Ah - it's too easy to slip back into seeing the world through her eyes. My H has taught me much kinder ways of relating to self and others. Or he taught me it's OK to be more relaxed about people. It's OK to be generous just cos you feel like it!! It actually does make me feel good to 'give' (not if somebody feels 'obliged' back tho - just genuine 'give and take' not counting who owes who).
What's the title of that book about borderline PD? I hate you, don't leave me. That's my mother (or is it me?). Both...and? At least I chose a man who wouldn't force me to play that game. He may have taken me by surprise with something I was blinkered about - but he was a good choice considering all the messups/pain I could have hankered after!! I used to alternate between the unavailable ones and the ones with 'problems'. Oh, do I have time enough in this lifetime to get through ALL the different kinds of 'men with problems' that exist, I did once wonder!!!!! What 'life experience' they gave me. Give me the sick bag. Puke! Whatever problems we may have, I certainly respect my H.
Right - standing back a bit to take an overview. I know I'm being a headless chicken. I wonder if this is how Ulysses got written. LOL Portia - I just can't look. Ok, I will. But I need a break. Maybe what I've written here is sufficient mea culpa. I DID separate. But I can't NOW. Not since I've seen how much PAIN she's in. My poor H got used as a therapist this afternoon. I sobbed and sobbed and shouted all this stuff about wanting someone else to love my mother for me. It's real enough.
I'm glad you know what that means re the projective identification. But you must have good boundaries. I don't know about it happening until LONG after it's in me. I think that telling me to do it your way is like asking me to have a personality transplant. I can't SEE the ball, I can only feel it - later. And anyway I was always told I wasn't feeling what I was feeling so how should I know??! :wink:
Who decided voicelessness was to blame - what about feelinglessness :wink:
Much later...
Wildflower - that script is really giving me a resting place and helping me not fall into the abyss below!!!
You'll all be glad (bloody thankful probably :-)) to know that I said to my H a few minutes ago 'I'm coming home. I seem to have been away a long time, but I'm coming home now'. I guess that bit of channelling means a bit of peace for us all!!! Thank you!!!!!
R
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I've missed some posts - coming back tomorrow - exhausted right now. I'll be replying!!!!!!!
Thanks for being there.
S/R
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Hi Rosencrantz,
Hope you’re getting a good night’s sleep after all that tough work today.
Dear Wildflower. If I say there's nothing you could say that could hurt me, does it mean to you that I'm not listening? I'm listening.
Caught red handed. :oops: :D Talk about reading me like a book. :D But I’ve got to work on that, don’t I? That and worrying all the time about hurting people. :wink: So it’s my issue and it’s been duly noted to self. No worries. But thanks so much for posting that. :D
My poor H got used as a therapist this afternoon. I sobbed and sobbed and shouted all this stuff about wanting someone else to love my mother for me. It's real enough.
I think it’s great that you said out loud to your H that you want someone else to take over the job of loving your mother. Great that you said this out loud and great that you said it to him. Has he heard this from you before? Does he support and understand how much of a drain your mother is on you?
I'm not even sure she DOES need me.
So, I just want to change the emphasis a little here. Does she need YOU? What does she do if you’re not there? What did she do when you got away? What is it about YOU that she needs and can’t get from anyone else?
I took another look at that passage, and on second reading I’m not so sure it applies, but in any case, it’s on page 72 of When You and Your Mother Can’t Be Friends. This book is so great, by the way. Thanks for recommending it!!! :D
Thanks for supporting and filling out the ideas in my posts, Portia and CG. I felt like the Zorro of posters today (who was that masked poster?) :D
Wildflower
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Hey guy, this thread is giving me a headache. Wanna come and play???
I want to come back and respond to all the thoughts and support. I've got so much out of this. Thanks again. But I 'skipped out' today. :shock: The opportunity came up to go to town and I grabbed it!!!! And I bought pressies for my son and more clothes for me.
And one T shirt I shall probably never wear but it has the most elongated elegant little cat you have ever seen as a white outline on a black background, sitting as upright as could be with a little pink diamante-studded collar. And she is ME! [I'm sorry guys but she's also got a pink diamante studded pink tiara - can we forget that bit!!!!!]
Of course, the contrast between me, for real, and that little cat couldn't be further apart but I'm gonna keep this somewhere I can see it, cos she has the BEST expression on her face and she just brings a smile to my soul.
She is SO pleased with herself, but has good reason to be and is quite beautiful. And you just know she brings pleasure to all who cross her path. Even if she is a bit princess-like. :wink:
Gee - I couldn't share that with anyone else - I know you won't hate me for it. (Agh - I hope. :oops: Having a 'hot moment'. Struggling a bit here!!) Anyway, it's who I was 'meant' to be and might be yet!!
THE END - for now - is that OK? Any unfinished leftovers - if I've inadvertently left you in the lurch - see you in Healing or somewhere new. You can ask me what you like, if you want. Just...somewhere else. :-) OK? I just need to get out of here. :D
Hugs, hugs, hugs, hugs, hugs, hugs, higs, hugs, hugs, hugs CG, Portia, Wildflower. :D
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I am still the child from whom my mother's mental health was kept a secret.
Did other members of the wider family ever know? Was it ever called a 'mental health' problem? Not that I'm aware. But things were 'different then'.
My father was too afraid of losing her to the mental health system. Like her sister had been before her : in and out of hospital, pills, drama, containment, control, divorce, lost children. I felt sorry for my aunt - why couldn't she spend her money as she wanted, see who she wanted; what else did she have? But 'the family' did not approve. Self-righteous prigs. Were they all hoping for a bit of her money when she died??? (The diagnoses changed over time. She was probably bipolar - or perhaps NPD.) So my father wasn't about to have my mother 'in hospital' or 'treated' for 'mental illness'. Mental hospitals weren't very nice in those days.
When I was in my teens my mother looked at me and said I was depressed and that I was making it all up to copy her. I guess that absolved her from guilt, or having to 'deal' with it.
What she did was define me twice (four times?) over - as depressed and as making it up and as copying her and as not depressed. It's that convoluted kind of statement that I still get lost in. It just won't be pulled apart for me to make sense of and work out what applies and what doesn't. What she implied was that she was depressed. (Should I have understood what that meant, at 16? In the 60s? Probably not) But I didn't realise that this was a mental health issue.
I tried to get help for her (against my father's wishes) - but they just said 'well, your daughter's here now'; I wrote and they didn't reply and my mother's reactions just got more out of touch with reality. And then my father started to become irrational (new word!) as well. Then I was really lost and alone. I still didn't realise that it was a 'mental health' issue. Or that it can be 'contagious' if you live with it.
It stopped me from doing many things I wanted to do and from getting close to others. I was always afraid of being 'found out' - as being the wicked daughter or of being the one with the mental health issues!!
And then 'I wouldn't have told you if you hadn't phoned' said my father. My mother was in hospital having electric shock treatment. I sent a greetings card every day but when we spoke on the phone, she complained that I hadn't written 'love from me', just 'love, me'. I rolled my eyes - 'that's typical of my mother'. But I still didn't realise that it was a 'mental health' issue. :shock:
Nobody sat down with me to explain, to discuss the implications, to apply a label. Well, it's not nice to apply labels to people is it?! She didn't complete the course of treatment. She was still 'depressed' because of 'me'. I should have been shocked myself but I didn't accept her 'diagnosis' of the reasons seriously, so I didn't take the rest of it too seriously either. No-one actively 'involved' me in anything other than as a scapegoat.
And now I assume that I am the adult from whom my mother's mental health is kept a secret.
But it's not a secret, is it? It's not a secret any more. It says so on the Attendance Allowance application. Mental Health Problems. And I'm going to have to get my head round that, find a new persective on it without the guilt of not having understood through all the years.
But no-one else understood, did they? Or at least, nobody sat down with me to explain or explore. My father seemed to think I was the enemy, going along with my mother's definition of 'it would be all right if only my daughter would be different'. This was all my fault in one way or another. He was angry with me because my mother's refusal to let go meant that I'd come between them. It wasn't my choice, Pa!
I guess he finally mellowed.
I said my final goodbyes to my parents about five years ago on the occasion of a special wedding anniversary. Or at least, I thought I had. I didn't realise it's what I'd intended. I made one last final try to reach my father. It wasn't to be and so I 'said goodbye'. I was so startled last year to realise I was going to have to open up old wounds to say goodbye again!!! Family expectations. Family phone calls.
Well, yes. I'm glad I did, of course.
What my father had really wanted to do in his last years was revisit the places he served in the war (in France). :cry: I wanted to take him but couldn't face handling my mother. What my mother really wanted was a party - to be the star of the show. She got her wish - a funeral wake.
What lives people create for themselves. I shiver.
And the daughter?
Well, that's not my life. I gave up their life a long time ago. I refused the invitation to carry the 'mental health' burden on through the generations. I refused it a long time ago. This last year I thought for a while it was my only option again - to 'carry' her mental illness for her so she could be well - but I've had to refuse it again. Sorry, Ma! The buck stops with you.
Whatever my life is, it's not dark and enclosed and sheltered and alone and contained and small and lonely. It's VAST. People I've known, places I've seen, lives I've lived! I have space and views and summer and companionship and love. And laughter. Lots of laughter. And a whole load of pain, I admit. And talent to use. And more people to meet. And money and hope and...mess. A whole load of mess, too. There's too much of 'me' and too much of my things and clothes and paper and books and just 'things'.
But it's a start.
Thanks, Ma, for what you gave me that was good.
R
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It's never too late to be what you might have been.
~George Eliot
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PS And tonight I wore my pink pussycat T shirt - and my son loves it! :wink:
R
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Gee Rosencrantz, I was so enthralled by this last post of yours, no not the pink pussy cat T-shirt one, although I thought about that too, like, "GO ROSENCRANTZ, YEAH, you wild girl, GO!!!"
But the one before. I had an image of you of stepping back. Kinda' takin' it in, in a bigger view than ever before. You know what I mean. That is how I see it. Time, distance, healing, and WAMMO - the perspective changes, and makes more sense in a whole lot of detailed ways. There's wholeness that comes from seeing it as a whole, I think?????Duh????
Gosh that's powerful what you talked about!! I got a clearer picture of the struggle.
And I wanted to add on the other thread, but didn't want to break into (not too much anyway) on the workings between you and Wildflower at the moment, but you don't miss me (minutely) at all. I'm sorry for giving you that impression, and I can see I have. :cry: I just feel like a board-hog sometimes, 'cause I talk too much. I've rejected the notion of commenting on every way you have helped me and HIT-ME (in a good way) right between the eyes, but I can see I should and I'm so so so so so so so so so so so Sorry!!! You put a lot of time and effort in helping me sort out some serious shit!!! Now I just had to include a swear word or it wouldn't be me, I can't legitimately wear my 'Warning this body contains adult themes, nudity and strong language' T-shirt tomorrow. HAHAHA. :D
Like Wildflower says, I value you and what you have to say. All of it, even if I'm a thicky and don't get it right away. I love your style. 8)
(((HIG)))
CG
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Thanks for the great big belly laughs. And...you always make everything OK. How do you do that! I wish you were around as part of my permanent 'friends' network. You'd always bring 'perspective' and fresh air and 'moving on'!!! Make me laugh at myself when I'm getting my knickers in a twist of embarrassment and hope and pain. 'You wild girl', indeed! LOL LOL LOL I don't have words enough for that! Being mocked with love is a good experience!!! LOL LOL LOL!! (You're right, I couldn't cope with wearing any of your T shirts! Bit I'm aware that I have this T shirt in remembrance of you tho, just as WF has her fish!!!
I've rejected the notion of commenting on every way you have helped me and HIT-ME (in a good way)
I want to hear that too much in my life generally. It should become less important (yet more valuable somehow) from now on.
I'm sorry for giving you that impression, and I can see I have
I wasn't quite sure what you were saying - but you are missed very much. Be a hog, please. I've been a much bigger hog. I need someone to catch up and take over to keep me in my place LOL. (Hogs, higs, hugs, what theme do we have here, Mr Freud?! Triple :wink: For ONCE I'm not being serious!!!)
Which reminds me, the word for what I am is not 'serious' but 'earnest'. YUK!
But...to complete the thought I started with...friendships are so 'complicated'. Especially when I seem to be this 'hello, here I am, car smash' kind of person. And the people around me seem to implode or explode into millions of tiny fragments. (ooh, I just 'heard' myself again then - that means something and I don't know what it is!!! Fragments, fragmentation. Is that my mother again...hang on, doing a web search...
See Portia - I need my books!!
A fear of fragmentation of the personality, also known as disintegration anxiety, is often observed in patients whenever they are exposed to repetitions of earlier experiences that interfered with development of the self. This fear may be expressed as feelings of falling apart, as a loss of identity, or as a fear of impending loss of one's vitality and of psychological depletion.
Do I really do that to people??? Or did I do it to my mother, just by 'existing'. Maybe I do do it to some people in the present - but if so, that's their issue, not my 'fault'. And with the vast majority of people, I'll just be misinterpreting what's happening for them (so I'm not such a lethal weapon after all LOL)
Just a minor teeter on the brink of 'is it me or is it her'...Nope, I really, honestly and truly do not think I have the kind of problems that relate to mental illness or personality disorder. If I did, I've worked through them a long time ago and live a pretty adult life inside my brain, inside my heart, inside my soul. Just currently dealing with a whole load of misapprehensions that resulted from the heart and mind of someone who 'meant well' but who was too often 'ill'.
I've been 'avoiding' the concept of Borderline Personality Disorder for some time but all the arrows are pointing that way now. I've just found a website with a series of articles and every other article has a title that's setting off bells (and alarms!). I'm off to have a good read!!! (Not because I'm after 'labels' but just to find a better understanding of 'what' and 'how')
Toodlepip
R
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Thanks Rosencrantz for all that positive re-inforcement, feed-back, affirming. You said so many lovely things and I'm wanting to say 'TA :oops: ' I hope to be friends for a long time, here/now and in the future. :D
Now I'm quickly off that, feeling awkward :oops:
I heard something that pierced me the other night. I was watching a doco on the real bridge over the river kwai story. A survivor was talkin' to the interviewer, 100,000 people died building that rail line for the Japanese in WW2. This guy who survived, had shared some of the most blood-chilling, tear wrenching, heart-breaking stories that I have ever heard. He's still alive today, but he suffered terible inhuman brutality everyday, many times a day. Being beaten to keep working, not being able to stop, watching friends dropping dead from exhaustion or beatings, trying to keep going. Having to work with malaria and dysentary, and if slowing down they'd get whipped with wire.
This part really made me sit up and think. He said as his final comment on the documentary, "When the Japanese officers and soldiers surrendered to our troops who came into our compound to free us, I thought about freedom, what new meaning freedom took on for me. I realised then what freedom really means. Freedom means/is the right to say NO."
I thought isn't that powerful, and I'm still thinking on it.
Just wanted to share that with you. Don't know why????????????
(((HIG)))
CG
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Just following on from my post about the Borderling info...I came back in to borrow one of your HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAs - the biggest most strident cackle you've got please. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
What a brilliant description of me I found amongst the borderline literature. After me saying nope I really don't think I've got that kind of problem. HAHAHAHAHA. It's fun being a mental hypochondriac!!! (Read that two ways!)
Ach well - if we've got personality, we're all on a continuum between healthy and unhealthy, ordered and disordered. Personality is, after all, the human condition. And we're humanly not 'ordered'. It's just that some of us whizz along to the top of the scale too easily. That's probably why we talk about being 'centred'. Not too far up the scale towards 'dis' order and not too far down the scale towards 'too' ordered!! Just nicely human, thank you!!
Now then CG - did you mean you didn't know and were kindly inviting me to find my own reality or DID you know??? :wink: I want all the feedback I can get. I'm worn out with trying to work it all out myself. I don't listen straight away but it bores into my soul and finds a place and then eureka! it leaps out into consciousness!!! :wink:
I'd take a guess that I haven't yet acquired the freedom to say 'no'. NO NO NONONONONONO! Actually that didn't hurt much at all. No mother, I don't want to. Thank you, but no. See, it's quite easy to say in isolation and I think I have the freedom to say no. I didn't phone my mother in the finish. No thank you mother. Not today thank you mother. I think I won't get collared today thank you. But I need to learn to say no quicker and earlier in all sorts of situations.
But the borderline stuff is quite enlightning. Especially the stuff about containment and projection. I've been busy 'containing' stuff for other people all my life. Criticising myself for trying to be everyone's therapist was post-rationalisation - I was trained in it as a child!!!
I like this : One treater said, “I hope you know, all this anger you are projecting on to me is not my anger, it is YOUR anger.” The client coolly said, “Can you think of anything better to do with it?
www.toddlertime.com HAHAHAHA! Indeed!
Very, very soon I'm going to have to pluck up my courage and talk to social services and the community psychiatric nurse again. I do need to find out a bit more about what these mental health issues are/were all about. But I go into a total panic every time I think of it. And I'm not entirely sure why. It takes me straight back to a year ago - and a rug that was pulled from under me...
TTFN
R
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Hiya R
Very, very soon I'm going to have to pluck up my courage and talk to social services and the community psychiatric nurse again. I do need to find out a bit more about what these mental health issues are/were all about.
I'm not going to come in with tough feedback, I just want to ask: why? This is about your mother, right? Is she deteriorating and causing you more problems? Is that why you have to talk to those people? Or are there other reasons? I just wonder and I am interested, for you.
And as for feedback...I still have that 'bad thing' to say about your Dad (signalled in PM, not on the board). My take on something you've said, but not until you want to hear it, if ever.
But interested in you talking to the services - why?
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I'm confess, I'm thick. Who is the borderline stuff for? YOU? I could find if I kept sufing that I have every disorder known to man, and some they haven't nailed don't yet, so I flick my hair, turn my back, walk away holding middle finger firmly high. And go and play, have some fun. Go skating, did that just last week, and made a paper mache money box too.
I'm gonna be well and happy if it kills me!!hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha
Hey, how about this for a T-Shirt "Say NO to mental illness!"
((HIG)))
CG
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Hey, how about this for a T-Shirt "Say NO to mental illness!"
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Okay, PLEASE. You must make that shirt. How much do you want for it?
Wildflower
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What a good idea :idea: I might just trot (HEE-HAW) off to the little printers and get an iron on stencil made :D
(((HIGS & Double HIGS)))
CG
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PS,
Just be my luck that the little dame at my printers will get the wording wrong as usual, if I order it over the phone. She doesn't speak english very well, and reads it even worse. If I don't write it out clearly for her, I'll probably end up with a T-shirt that reads,
"Say 'NO" to Mental Health!"
hahahahahahahahahahaha
hey, I like it!!!
CG
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Hi Portia - Why I'm talking to the services? Cos they're the only ones who are likely to have any kind of description/label for what's going on with my mother. The context for this is only just fully realising that my mother has ALWAYS had mental health issues. I thought it still all had to be secret. I suspect that it's the 'symptoms' that have been 'dealt' with on occasion eg 'depression' (not seen as simply a tantrum of mega proportions at not getting her own way!). Anyway, that's why. And I need to do it soon before she comes off their lists and it'll all be too late. I can see myself setting that up for myself!!! Remember : my mother wants me for a zombie!!!! :shock:
BTW Love's Executioner arrived - very readable - opened it right at a page about an old woman who had just lost her husband!!!!! Can you remember why you recommended/mentioned it???
Hi CG - I was looking up BPD to see if it could help me understand my mother better - BIG abandonment panic issues. I don't really think I'm BPD but there were a couple of descriptions which sounded eerily familiar!!!!! Can't find the page now...Clearly not important enough :wink:
Hi WF - What is it about YOU that she needs and can’t get from anyone else? Woo-hoo! The answer came in a woosh - she needs me to collar me, and shake me, and give me a good metaphorical beating, to take all her rage out on me - so she doesn't have to take responsibility for what she's chosen to do with her life. I'm this great big HUGE comforting momma that can take all the rage and look after it for her. And, of course, provide her with all the good things she thinks she's put into me that I've stolen from her like her confidence. You know she even sounded 'amazed' that I'd got a husband and son, like I'd even stolen THOSE off her, too!!! (Scuse me, but they're mine! I worked for them and this is one lot of MY things you're NOT having)
Well it's amazingly late again and I've been on this PC practically the whole day. I'm coming back up for air after an incredibly fragile month. Just bought a second hand laptop so I can go on holiday and pack you all up and take you with me! Now that IS scary!!!!!!! :wink:
R
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I don't know how I alighted on this thread - but it was the first one I saw with my name attached.
Since then, I've been through cancer twice.
The first cancer was a wonderful journey, the second came after some terrible (mental, emotional) knock backs (you may remember gaslighting et al on this board when I came back in a tizz). Never quite managed to recover and the second very aggressive cancer followed. After a year of treatment, surgery followed. In a weird way, surgery not only got rid of the cancer, but scraped out all the depression and angst as well! Yay - life reborn! Only a couple of months out of that wood, only to discover there was another one festering away in the background.
So I'm revisiting past friends and acquaintances to say thank you, expressing gratitude to those of you who responded to my posts - I know many have moved on but there are still some who will remember me and I see names here that I remember. It seems I will be bowing out in a few months.
I always said I had asthma symptoms because the way people treated me 'took my breath away'. It seems that thread in my story is the one which is killing me. I think I'm all out of fight and resources for this one.
Thank you so much Dr Grossman for having made this board available and making the learning and sharing possible. It made such a difference to my life. You know that because I've shared my thoughts with you in the past. Even the horrendous bits were fabulous, etched in my mind. Double rainbows. Sliding down a helter skelter ride so fast I couldn't stop. Working through shame invisibly - I'd never have been able to do that face to face with anyone - and it made it possible to come out and be counted as 'me'.
My son is 18 now and has been through some extremely challenging times but I do believe the light at the end of the tunnel is widening. He's lovely. Made my life worthwhile because it brought him into the world. And made it worthwhile having him because he made my life bearable - he is the source of the few bright moments in my life. Sad thing is - there's nobody else I will 'miss', that I am sad to leave. I've already had to leave so many people behind or been left behind. I know I've had a positive impact on some people so I can feel I have left some kind of legacy. But I also know that there has never been anybody for me, that I can turn to or rely on. I've never managed that trick. So I guess I'm off out of it. I hope I don't have to come back to earth to live an earthly life again because it sure sucks! ;-) Dark humour will get me through!! ;-)
Not true there is nobody I miss. I miss CG especially. Always have. But she is already gone. We were in touch for a while but then something happened and I never heard from her again. The chaos of my own life may not have helped but I shall never know.
Bye for now. May see you on the other side!! ;-)
PS All those problems with my mother? She had Aspergers Syndrome. No empathy! People with an ASD can have empathy - or strive to - so don't write them all off! And see if you can educate the ones who don't. ;-)
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(((((((((((((((((((((Rosencrantz)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
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Dear Rosencrantz,
I am so sorry to hear the news. It has been an honor to have you here on the Board, and your presence has been a blessing to many Board members when they were in need. When I think about the history of the Board, yours is one of the first names that immediately jumps to mind. I have always appreciated your wisdom, honesty, and willingness to openly share the painful parts of your life over the years, and I will never forget your contribution here.
As always,
Richard
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Dear Rosencrantz,
I am very sorry. Your name is one of the earliest I remember when I first ventured onto VSMB years ago, and your openness gave me courage to share when I felt awkward and unsure.
Thank you for the grace of coming here to say your farewell. That has often haunted me--how, when people grow close here--do we cope with just not knowing?
Thank you for taking the time to post again and for having the grace and courage to share this message. I wish you every small comfort and peace on your journey.
Hopalong
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Hello Rosencrantz,
I am a newer member to the board so don't know you from before. But I read your post (and then some of your earlier ones) and I just wanted to say how sorry I am to read this. Your son sounds lovely and a real credit to you. I am so sorry I have only got to know of you now.
((((((((((((((((((((((((Rosencrantz))))))))))))))))))))))))
Love from Twoapenny
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Dear ((((Rosencrantz, ))))
Your writing is lovely. I am relatively new to the board, so I didn't know you at the time you were most active. So sad that we had to meet like this.
Your son sounds wonderful. I hope I do as well with mine.