Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Lupita on January 09, 2008, 07:08:00 PM
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I remember my grandmother saying “are the girls coming?”
The girls were 60, 57, and 50 yo. Gramd mo was 81.
Now I see members yelling, probably because they are older than us. But since we do not say our ages, we do not know who is older.
I am wondering who is 40-49, who is 50-59 and who is 60 or over.
That way when somebody sounds like a mother, I would appreciate it instead of rebelling. I would say yes mom.
I am sorry if I sound like my students. They get mad if I do not sermon them and accuse me of not caring, and if I sermon them they talk back and tell me “I am not your child” bla bla bla.
So, sorry hops.
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45
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Dear Lupita
This is a public forum and as I have just posted on a thread today, we are all searchable by chosen 'nickname' and everything we type.
AGES is a no no for wisdom, privacy (internet / identity fraud) and safety (regarding dv)
So, just to let you know so that you won't feel ignored, I refuse to post my age, or age range, on a public domain.
Leah
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It is ok. lea. Thanks.
I am 50.
Feel shame that a baby 45 knows more than me. lol
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Dear Lupita,
AGE is but a number and as such has no bearing on Wisdom, understanding, knowledge and enlightenment.
Just because someone is older does not make them Wiser
Just because someone is younger does not make them lacking.
Leah
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I was just trying to be kidding.
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Hi Lup,
I removed mine, thanks to Leah's reminder.
Let's say I'm sagging beyond middle age...
xxoo,
Hops
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41
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48
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39
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54
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One thing I notice is that on one in their 20s knows they are screwed up yet.
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Heh... I knew.... there just wasn't any computer or message board when I was in my twenties, lol.
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Well I guess I knew something was not quite right but I was unable to identify it or had enough of what it takes to stop it. It took me hitting a wall and falling apart. My anger drove me to start the healing process. I believe as I look back that the series of events in my life got me to where I am today-still learning and getting better!
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I read the book, WOMEN WHO LOVE TOO MUCH at some point in my twenties. My bf's mother gave it to me, lol. She's Auntie P in my life now.... one of my best friends and I adore her still. We intellectualize life, ad nauseum together, and enjoy ourselves thoroughly.
I carried that book around like it was a bible.... then went back to re highlight ever so many years, in different colors. It was interestting to see what jumped out at me with each reading. Different things according to my current struggles. (I did this with all the books I read on figuring out unhealthy patterns)
I wish there was a message board back then.... but reading reading reading was what I had and what I did.
Lupita.... our age isn't an idicator for our emotional health.
I spent my twenties and thirties working on me..... building careers and paying down a mortgage. I probably read 20 self help books and journaled a couple years of my life away.
My failures taught me lessons. The books provided signposts I recognized as I navigated life.
My age has nothing to do with my emotional health.
You're stronger than I am in many ways...... you'd have kicked my ass in school, no doubt, but nobody ever mixed a more perfect color chart than me and I was always done in minutes. Turned out I was good at winging it..... screwing up my courage and knocking on doors well enough to succeed in sales.... of all things.... but in a creative field. I had no idea I could pretend I was competent..... then work hard until I became so. Who knew? What can I say.... it was an important lesson that I've assimilated into other parts of my life.
Fake it till ya make it. That was internalized by age 30. Not earlier.
Everyone I come in contat with, amazingly, has strengths that always surprise me. My life, looking back, has been a largly selfish pursuit. I planned it that way......... I'm glad it's been what it's been but.... I don't know where I'd be had I spent some of my youth caring for children..... and not just myself.
I'd probably be in a different space, as far as figuring myself out..... had I gone through medical school, nurtured children then become a single parent in my young adult life, no doubt. but maybe having to care for others would have taught other lessons that helped me grow faster in deeper ways?
Hard to say.... this is an interesting topic though.
It's interesting that you draw a paralell between you and your students and other posters here and youself, you see the irony there.
BTW..... I'm not feeling real swell lately.... so please ask for clarification on something if it comes accross sideways.
Long posts put a lot out there that might come out wrong, I realize that. Just had a lot to say to you this morning.
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hug to you Lighter
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I'll take that hug, RM.
Thanks.
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Me too, (((((((((Lighter))))))))))))).
That book peeled off a layer of my eyeballs.
A side note: one thing I LOVED about that book was that at the time, the author, Steven Carter, had his name on one book called Organizing Your Closet.
Very cheery struggling-writer story. :)
Lots of love to you today,
Hops
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Thanks for that big hug, Hops.
I feel like throwing up right now so not going to stay up and post much.
::wondering who I gave all my old books to::
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Hi lighter, :oops: (Sorry lighter)
Hi Lupita).
You know that saying, If a woman will tell her age, she'll tell anything... :lol:
Anyway, the main reason I come to the board is in search of wisdom about my present stage of foolishness. She (wisdom) is timeless and I believe ageless.
tt
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tt.... all the sudden, my age doesn't concern me one little hankey, lol.
I stopped counting about 6 birthdays ago...... reallly. I coulnd't remember how old I was if I wanted to tell you, for a while there.
I wouldn't allow anyone to plan a celebration, etc.
It was a private mourning....
my birthday.....
for many years, lol.
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The thing that strikes me is that time just simply flies. When I tell parents of young children that before they know it their kids will be grown they cannot fathom it and neither would I at that young age but I look back and it has been 30 year since I graduated high school, 20 years since I had my baby who just got married and 6 years since I finally hit the brick wall and took my life back-away from my mom! It is a runaway freight train with no brakes! Life is truly a vapor.
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Lupita,
I am 38. And I learned in AA that there are teenagers who are way wiser than I am. Some of us "get it" early on, and some of us take a while to see where our lives can be helped. I am grateful that I am one of the people who looks for a way to make my life better, as there are many who never look to see what damage they are causing.
Love, Beth
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Hi everybody, thank you for your nice responses.
Grat, I never thought you would be so young. I am sorry that you are so young and struggling. I wish I was 38 again.LOL.
Dear Laighter, your post was so deep, and so interesting. I just wook up. On January or 2007, one year ago I opened my eyes for the first time. Not knowing anything, being so cinfused, so deperate. I slept walk throu fifty years of life.
It happened when I thought I was an N mother and I felt so guilty and so sad about my son, and found the book children of the self abosorbed.
Then I knew I was not an N because N do not feel guilt, do not feel remorse, and never rectify. I have always apologized to my son when I screwed up, I always invited my son's friends to our house and fed them and drove them to the movies, and promoted his talents. As opposed to my mother who isolated me totally, even from my own sister and brother, did not allowed visitors, and always told me that the only person that I should love was her because she was the only one who would give a kidney to me.
So, it was difficult to like people or to love people, when I was punished even when I made nice comments about my aunts, or anybody else. My mom got mad at me.
So, after reading that book, I knew, I was a co-N. Cnfused as a mad cow, blind, sleep walking all the time. Fortunately I let my son go to live in university dorms at 17, so I did not damage him more.
My son says I was a good mother. He loves me. That tells me I was not so bad. Not and N for sure.
So, the point is that some wake up at 20, my son wook up at 17, when he went to university, and now he is excelent person.
Others weak up far much later. Some never wake up and sleep walk thougrh life until death.
I have been so empty these last days, that it was hard to post.
I see so many people walking in circles, but there is nothing you can do when somebody is deaf, blind, difficult to help when you have no strenght.
Like in the airplanes, they say, you have to get your own oxigen mask first, before you try to help your child. You cannot help your child if you are not breathing well.
Same way with beach life recuers. Some times they have to nock off the rescuee to be able to help him or both will drown together.
I dont make any sense. I am empty today. Blunt.
GFM wants piano lessons from me. She is coming today. How can I say no to her? My son, what would he want me to do? I tried to ask him but he did not asnwer the phone that I pay.
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A good post. I could hear and feel your anxiety. I like the analogy of sleep walking-you are line of a zombie walking through life. Pity is that is how our n moms want us. Mine wants me all docile and shaking my head yes to everything she says. Yes Mommy Dearest!
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Dear friends, I have no idea what I meant with my previous post. I do not know what I want for you. If you tell me what to do, I probably wont do it. if you tell me soory you feel that way, it makes zero impact on me. So, any answer you give me will be welcome. I feel so flat.
I just pray the Lord to please, keep my son safe, because he has suffered so much. Being an only son of a single lonely mother struggling through life is not an easy job.
So, that is the only thing I am praying for now. Zero excitement. Zero energy. A pile of dishes accumulated all week in the kitchen, dirty clothe to wash, I refuse. My hair looks so ugly.
Hello Hopalong, today I am asking questions, I am not offering help, I am not being "intellectual". I hope that you see this.
Plus, they hired a new choir director at the church and she just killed yesterday the little self esteem I had. I hate choir directors.
Is that the only thing for which I feel so bad today? Or is it a combination of losing my son to an N family, not being appreciated at my job, so many things.
Life is difficult, then you die. It is over.
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OH OVERCOMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can relate to that so much dear girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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lup-You sound depressed dear friend. I remember the house work and laundry getting overwhelming while I lay in bed feeling sorry for myself! Can you get on some meds? Or take vitamin D for energy?
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I am falt. Depressed physically. Exhausted of so much work. Tired. Not sad. I think I am not sad.
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Do you live where there is much sunshine? It was dreary around here and all I wanted to do was sleep! Yesterday the sun came out and I was just basking in it! We lack vitamin D when we do not get sun. This deplets our energy. Take cod lives oil or vitamin D and your energy levels should go way up!
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Lupita:
Your entire post made sense to me.
It's hard to believe ourselves though..... completely internalize our own feelings.... I think you're doing that and it comes and goes.
You can invalidate your own posts but..... I want to say..... you made sense and you need to start believing your own words.
As far as the piano lessons. You want to say NO to her. Say no, sorry, I can't fit that in right now.... I have X Y and Z things to do but I'll get back to you on that if I can figure it out.
Or..... give her a lesson and relax into your strength...... try to make it a sacred space between you and her, where she can't bother you.
If you're laughing, oh well.... just threw that out there in case you got something out of it.
I can't fix anyone's problems.... maybe not even my own but..... I like to get other people's opinions and perspectives bc it sometimes helps me find my own unique answer that I otherwise wouldn't have been lead to.
Sometimes it just makes me feel less helpless and lonely to listen to other people's thoughts about my situation.
I understand about the energy and body image right now..... it doesn't help to dwell on the negative.... must do some positive and the negative begins to come around, is my experience. Will see.
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just washed the dishes. little by little.
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I started school admission paperwork yesterday..... little by little.
Still have Christmas to take down: /
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Went to the gym. Will practice piano for church tomorrow. Study a little of my Step 3 and make payments, go through my mail, so much prorastination.
What is the purpose of my life?
Life is difficult, then you die.
What can I do to get a residency training position?
I dont even know where I want to go or what I want to be.
At my age, that is bad.
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And one more thing, what school? to study what? how will you pay for it? will you go at night?
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I have to get my 5yo into another school this year.
Her school ends at preK.
That means the admissions process for the school my oldest attends, and several more, just in case she isn't accepted...... seems daunting to tackle right now.
It's a struggle for me, even when I'm not living like I'm under siege.
Very tired and past the point of procrastinating on bills.
At least you raised your child.... I still have that before me and I'm about at the same state in life as you.
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"At least you raised your child.... I still have that before me and I'm about at the same state in life as you."
This is the first time I have heard you complain. I have never heard you complain before. I am so glad you did. That means you are human. I started to think that you were from Mars.
That is not the worst part, Laighter. The worst is when they grow up and they become independent and you have to let go.
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is painful as hell.
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And when you start worying about their partners, boyfriends, girlfriends, knowing what you know now, you dont want an N for your babies. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
And then when you tell them they get mad at you and dont want to listen no more. NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You pay cell phone and they send three hundred txt messages to GF and do not answer to you. NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
And then GFM brags that they spent time with her and watched a movie together until 2:00 AM NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :evil:
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::Putting fingers in ears:::
lalaallalalalalallalalalalalalalalalalalalalal....
I can't quite wrap my mind around that struggle just yet, Lupita...lol.
I have some time to research and study that before it lands on my head :shock:
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And then they get married! NOoooo!
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LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!
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When I was 11 I knew there was something wrong with me. I felt like I belonged to a different world. I cried so much as a child. I thought when I left home everything would be ok. If I got away from my N parents then life would get better. It did not. I carried with me all the introjects so firmly embedded in mysoul. I have been very unhappy most of my life. There were some good bits but mostly I have been full of emotional pain. I just never knew how to be! Started reading self help books in my late 20s in the hope that I would learn something. I desperately wanted to change but had no idea how to go about it. Started therapy in my thirties and I honestly believe that was what kept me alive. I think my 40s have been the worst and best of times. I know I don't have to be a victim any longer and that is huge. I hope it gets better, wish the time would slow down a little though.........those birthdays keep coming faster and faster.
axa
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I am 46 and 47 isn't that far down the road. I can't believe it! They were right when they said that every year goes by faster. :)
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((((((((((((((axa)))))))))))))
Just as I am/was. At 15 though, wondering what was wrong with me. I know there are some things you post that are dead on with me.
I know that feeling when it carries on year after year, even when leaving the dysfunctional home, because we take ourselves with us.
In my journey, my problems were bits and pieces of each and every self-help book....no definite one.
.....and yes the birthdays come faster. I joined here at 68 and 69 now looms. Imagine. I don't look 69 though. I am taken for 45-50, but my thoughts are 68-9 years old, as is my body. My mind in another way feels young as are some of my actions. Sometimes it is said that if we really missed our childhood (really never had a good one) we become a bit stilted in our maturity until our mind catches up to out bodies. Ns however, and alcoholics seem to act the age they were when either was determined in their minds. N here was 13 when he realized alcoholism and most of the time acted like a 13 year old.
I had my last leg x-ray today and when I left, Dave, the male nurse, who saw me through a broken ankle in 2003, said "I'll see you next time!!!"
Hang in there and remember "It was not your fault"!
love
Izzy
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Thanks Izzy, you are a peach!
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I am 46 and 47 isn't that far down the road. I can't believe it! They were right when they said that every year goes by faster. :)
hiya emptied
Whoever 'They' is, they seem to know it all. 47 to me feels like about 20 years ago. It does really, and in this journey some memories from further back feel like less time.
Just a crazy point of mine
xx
Izzy
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in England where I grew up if someone said 'how old are we?' in a certain tone of voice it meant 'oh, grow up!'
I just remembered it.
so much prorastination.
I just read a great book called 'What's your sabotage?' by Alyce Cornyn Selby, I think she did one on procrastination too.
I put off my taxeses and expenses all year because I couldn't face dealing with ex....then remembered, I don't have to now. It took me about a week, honestly- and three of those were wasted days because he decided that was the best time to replace son's computer!
Hops wrote a lot of stuff about procrastination a year or two ago, she said do a bit each day. I've finally cleared my desk this week & started a weekly system for filing etc.
~W
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Good job! Baby steps is the best way to go.