Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Gaining Strength on January 16, 2011, 12:47:00 PM
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I had a sleepless night last night - in a cave - with several dozen boyscouts and cubscouts and parents.
As I lay there in the solid blackness I thought about something that has been working its way to the surface.
I have been trying to put words to it for a few days - to post about it.
But I found that as I approached a computer - the little understanding I had would retreat - gone, disappear until another time when no computer was at hand.
This last night, in the wee hours, in the solid black of lightlessness, I had an understanding, an epiphany of sorts.
One of my greatest pains is an aspect of voicelessness which I choose to call dismissiveness.
Dismissiveness is when another person dismisses what I have to say - regardless of the reason or explaintion.
It is in fact the explanations and reasons that give the dismissiiveness credence and validity in the person who is dismissing me.
And then I knew.
I experience dismissiveness right here on VESMB.
And I experience it as often here as I do in 3-D life.
So, as I thought about the issue that is pushing its way forward, AND I thought about what I longed to share with someone, anyone who might or is willing to understand or even simply take my word for it when it comes to my experience, rather than coming up with some, ANY explanation about why my experience can be explained away, or is not important or not worth hearing or commenting on or ....
I knew in an instant why this issue became elusive as I approached a computer.
Suddenly - as clear as day, as large as a full moon, both absent from my sight, deep in the caverns and deep in my sleepless night - I say the parallels, running from my past into my future like a railroad track between my longing to express myself to my family and former friends and my longing to be heard here. In both worlds, I experience dismissiveness.
That sudden vision explained both the longing I have to come here and my powerful concomitant reluctance. My fits and starts, the overflowing of experiences to share and hope for connection and the unconscious, experience fed fear and expectation that as I begin lifting that enormous, burdensome weight of the manhole cover keeping me in the darkened sewer system away from the light and the hustle and bustle of normal everyday, 21st century american life that cover will be hit and smashed down and my thoughts, words and experiences ignored, denied, explained away, dismissed. That possibility is too great a risk for me now. I choose to keep it all to myself because it is safer and surer - to be certain.
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Oh, GS.
I do not understand what has triggered you here but I am so sorry you are feeling this way.
(((((((((((GS))))))))))
I would truly miss you and I hope you find a way to feel safe here.
with love to you,
Hops
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Exactly...........trust yourself. James
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((((GS)))) I'm sorry you feel dismissed, on the board and IRL.
Lighter
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Are you saying...
that people here don't accept your experiences, explanations - your experiences - at face value, as you state them?
or that it FEELS this way, to you? They are different things, I think.
(((((GS)))))
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Don't leave us when we are dismissive. I've thought long and hard about your post and I know that at times I'm dismissive. I've been indoctrinated my whole life to "stuff" everything. My problems, your problems, world problems. And although I'm striving against narcissism, I know that I have some of the traits, etc. So we need you here exactly to point out when we are dismissive! I know sometimes I absolutely don't know what to say because of my lack of knowledge and experience and then I have to be supportive but perhaps bland? I mean, I want the person to know that I Heard them. But I sometimes have no clue as to what will help. And if I can't fix it or suggest something -- perhaps we dismiss because to shoulder more pain is pointless? My needs and wants have been dismissed my whole life, even by me -- it will take practice to register and process pain properly. And as most here have overcome so much, it seems like that we can in fact overcome just about anything if we stick it out. Sometimes I express my pain, but I don't necessarily want anything but to be heard. Sometimes I am satisfied when my pained outbursts are ignored -- but I would never ever want to add to anyone else's feelings of isolation or voicelessness. Many blessings to you in your journey! Love Biddy
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GS - I am sorry if I have ever been dismissive of you. It would never have been my intention to be that way. I hope you feel that you could tell me if I said something that upset or hurt you? I would always rather know - I hate to think that I might have upset someone. I hope you can find a way to carry on using the board and work on the things that you feel you want to at the time. Lots of love xxxxx
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GS,
I see you are working very deeply looking for answers, searching for yourself. I found your post to be very honest, courageous and refreshing. One time several years back i posted that I was sexually aroused during the sexual abuse I went through. I was terrified to share this here as I thought I was awful that this happened. Seconds after I posted a member named Seasons wrote and said something to the effect of "Oh James you are helping so many people". I will never forget what Seasons wrote. Her unselfish gift was written with feeling to me, my heart,in my time of need and I felt it deep inside, still do. It is precious. At my own pace and in my own way I've discovered that I really do matter. Jim
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Since I posted this thread my life has descended into a series of dark tunnels chasing elusive rabbits. My father's psychosis has reemerged and his health care is rapidly failing though we are caught in a catch 22 between the medical and legal systems. He cannot be committed to received psychiatric care against his will presently because he has life-threatening medical conditions. We are unable to get medical care for him because his doctors will no longer see him because his raging and disruptiveness due to his mania and psychosis are disruptive to their practices. He will go to the hospital but not to the emergence room which is the only way he can be admitted to receive the medical care he needs.
He has been driving around with septic infections, taking prescribed narcotics for the pain for the past 25 hours. I found him parked in his neighborhood with the car running last night at 2am. Now the police say they will arrest him if he is found in his car because he is driving with a suspended liscense. If he is arrested he can be taken to the hospital and treated medically (love how the legal communtiy calls physical ailments "medical" and mental health issues "psych"). It has made for a crazy, crazy time.
I always appreciate the thoughtfulness with which so many people respond on this forum. This thread is no exception. I want to start by saying that I did not intend to throw out comments that would make people feel as though I was throwing stones. So I will try to address that as best I can in just a minute.
Jim - what courage you have in repeated that extraordinary post from several years ago. I applaud Seasons for her remarkable reply. How we all need such affirmation for the horrors we have experienced. Thank you for your comments on this thread.
PR - I am saying the former.
On more than one occassion I have made a statement about something that has happened to me and I have had replies that offer other interpretations than the one I stated. I expect this behavior IRL but I prefer to avoid such comments in both 3D and on the net. In my family, my experience was put down, ignored and discounted. My knowledge, my understanding and my memories were denied, twisted and belittled.
This format does not really lend itself to filling in the complicated and complete context behind the convoluted world of Nism and other twists and turns of the irrational life with N. If you ask me - we should not have to fill in that context.
Baddaughter and Twopenny and Hops - I am short of time but not of appreciation for your comments which deserve and will receive a response. Time is fleeting for me now and I have a meeting in a few minutes that I must finish preparation for but I have been thinking quite a bit about the posts here and feel very strongly that I want to writ to each of you. But for now I will say simpy and clearly that none of you have written anything that felt dismissive to me but that is the last time I will say that because I did not write to point an accusatory finger but rather to open my wound and let the poison out. It has been festering and I could not treat it until I named it.
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You've done the right thing, GS, by opening that wound and letting it out. I didn't take what you'd written as being aimed at anyone in particular, but I'm just aware that sometimes I'm so preoccupied with my own stuff that I can be (inadvertently) a bit short or not respond to a post or comment left by someone else. I always worry a bit when I read about something on the board and think "oh no, I hope that wasn't me". And I would always be so sorry if I had upset someone that I would want them to know it wasn't intentional.
Sorry to hear about your dad. What a ridiculous system we have where a man who is clearly unwell isn't being treated properly and his family are left to pick up the pieces. I hope someone does something sensible for him and helps him to start getting better soon and that life starts to get a bit easier for you as well xxx
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Ah. Thanks for clarifying! I'm sorry it's been this way for you. Hope I haven't been a part of that for you. I'm having my own struggles with how I communicate at the moment - and that's sort of what prompted my question. Sometimes my own perception of these interpersonal goings-on is faulty.... sometimes I feel something to be _____________... but later I realize my perception was skewed by some other emotional currents. I know I tend to "translate" or restate things people say... into my own intellectual "system" many times... and I was afraid you might think that was dismissive. I certainly don't intend it that way!!
You obviously don't have time for stuff like that, right now! It sounds like you're going to have your hands full and it's going to be difficult. I think you're as prepared and capable of the challenges - difficult yes, but not insurmountable - as you can be. I hope as you have time to breathe... you'll also reflect here on what you've been going through, too.
I'll be thinking of you and sending you strength... comfort... and I know you'll meet your challenges with grace and dignity.
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Gaining Strength: Thank you for sharing. Sometimes I come to this board and I don't really know what I want to say or write about and then I read something like this post that you have written and it comforts me because I feel a little less alone in life when another person like yourself takes the time to put into words the personal experience of being dismissed.
Sometimes I just come to the board and all I can really do is "listen" because I don't always have a lot of energy coming out of me it's just wrapped up sometimes. So I'm glad that you made your post because it is somehow validating to hear it.
I think that sometimes it's hard for me to find my own voice or hear my own voice so it's important to hear some authentic expression from someone else in the meantime.
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This whole process of getting medical and psychiatric care for my father who didn't want it is fully loaded with dismissiveness and absolute craziness.
The clerks at the Probate Court last Wed. gave me fake forms to fill out when I asked to fill out a petition. I believe they did it because when I went with my father's wife on Tuesday they heard that he had medical conditions that had to be addressed first.
I found the petitions that my brother and I had submitted in 2007 and it wasn't even close to what the jackasses gave me on Wednesday. Thursday the police were called and they in turn called the paramedics who had seen my father and his ulcerated legs and his mania full blown the day before. My father was sleeping in his car with the engine running and was reported by the paramedics to be in an altered consciousness. They transported him to the ER about 1pm. He was admitted to the hospital that night about 9. I was there most of that time except for when I had to pick up my child from school and get him fed.
Friday I had to hire round the clock sitters and the hospital had to keep watch because there is a husband wife team who are his accountant and the head of a non-profit that benefits greatly from my father's largess. These two did everything they could to get him out of the hospital and to keep him from taking his medications when he was hopitalized in 2007. I had to hire the sitters to keep anyone but family out and my father in.
Today he was transferred to the psych ward and the whole crazy thing began again. This time the craziness is not my father but the insanity in dealing with the dychotomy between "medical" and "psych". This young resident decided that my father needed none of his medications because his disorientation was probably coming from too many medicines and if he really needed them all then maybe he was not ready to leave the hospital and come to psych.
Wait until my father figures out that he can simply request release. But maybe this idiot doctor will solve the problem for him and he will end up released from this life entirely. This resident, based on his 10 minute conversation, with a man whom he acknowledged was not clear thinking, decided that my father no longer needed the heart medicine that he has been on for over 15 years nor any of the other medications for his other medical conditions including an antibiotic for this blazing infected and ulcerated sore on his legs that are incredibly discolored from vascular disfunction, nor does he need the diuretic that he has been taking for the fluid that builds up due to his congestive heart failure (for over 10 years) that has lead to edema for as many years. Nor does my father need any pain medication because when the doctor asked him if he was in pain my father said no just uncomfortable. When I asked the doctor if he had looked at my father's legs and the gaping infected sores he said no but that he had looked at the bandages. THE BANDAGES.
There is so much I don't even have the time to write about. It has been such a crazy, crazy week, fighting the legal system and the medical system and now the psych ward. Last week we couldn't get him into the hospital because the doctors wouldn't see him to admit him becauuse he was so disruptive. His cardiologist refused to see him and had him escorted out of the building by security guards, that morning my father sat at the hospital entrance in his car blocking the drive waiting for the doctor to come to his car to admit him. He would not move but railed and ranted for 20 or 30 minutes. He was in a manic state. But the resident tonight said that he did not believe that my father was bi-polar. HOW IN THE HELL WOULD He KNOW?
And even though it is late, I have papers to pour over looking for evidence of previous diagnoses, which by the way the clerks at the probate court said would not hold because they were made in 2007 - as though mental illness is something like the flu that you simply get over. This is such a crazy, crazy system - crazy enough to make this patient look almost sane.
Never mind the fact that my father of course has nothing nice to say to me nor about me. Don't even ask why I am doing this. The few people who have don't seem hear me when I answer. They want to argue with what I have to say, as if they know what I need to do better than I do. I have simply quit talking to others. Tired of not being listening to. Tired of people thinking they know what I need to do better than I do. Tired of it all.
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I can relate to parts of this, GS - but only parts.
I can hear your distress about why there is no one HELPING, too. (I can relate to that one too)
And I can hear exhaustion and frustration; overwhelmingly.
I wonder, how old your father is? Do the folks who are currently treating him have his full medical records (including the psych)? Have you been able to connect to or talk to, any of the nurses? Sometimes they understand and are more forthcoming with helpful information than the doctors are.
I know the reality of multiple medications - and the cascade of dominos falling that happens when one thing goes out of balance, in an older person. In light of that, sometimes it's better to "start over" - to remove all the medication, establish a new baseline of need, and then slowly re-introduce things based on need and priority. Yes, you're absolutely right to be concerned about this approach - but I would guess that he's being as constantly monitored as his mental state will allow - by the folks who can act quickly, if needed.
I also know how the patient himself can sabotage, thwart, and prevent the people tasked with caring for him from delivering that care. My Dad was evil to his home health aides (we had to pay extra "battle pay" for the people who had to deal with him); he had to be restrained so that he wouldn't pull tubes out (which he did every chance he got). He even decked a nurse he didn't like. It seemed to be intentional, on his part. And if I'd been there, I already knew that there was nothing I could do, to influence him to be "good". I couldn't control him - through any logic, persuasion, or pleading. All I could do was take care of myself - and brace myself for the next episode.
I was impressed with the tone, in what you wrote. You're in "tiger" mode. And you seem absolutely clear on what you want; what outcome you want for your father. I sympathize with you on the idiocy of the bureaucracies and roadblocks and stalling that you're experiencing, in pursuit of that outcome. Are you in a legal position to implement and authorize care?
Having just gone through something that involved serious medical care for MIL - the questions we needed to answer were: does he have a Power of Attorney - and yes, there is a separate POA for health decisions. Does he have a living will and health directive? We
discovered that without these, there wasn't much information at all being provided to us - in fact, it was almost exclusively the other way around - we were asked to provide information, over & over again.
The hardest thing of all - which I know you know - is the long wait without any information from doctors about a.) what's going on and b.) what can they do, will they do. I think we all have unrealistic expectations about how fast the medical system can accurately diagnose and prescribe or treat people, in all cases. Multiple medications just makes that more difficult, because of potential interactions between the medications and individual pharmaceutical side effects.
So, the doctors & nurses tend to do nothing except stabilize a patient, until they are absolutely sure they know what to do - and that it won't just make things worse. And even that has a negative side effect - on those who care, like you GS...
... my advice? Make SURE you are taking care of yourself and your son. If there's nothing to, except to "be there" with your dad... then by all means, go home - make a cuppa tea - take a nap. Schedule daily visits if you want - but make sure you're also taking care of you. It sounds like it's going to take some time for the doctors to gather all the info they want, before they start to talk about what's going on, and where to go from there. And they are listening to you, GS... that's still important information to them - but they've got to confirm it, themselves.
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((((((((GS)))))))))
Total dittos about self care right now.
Nobody in authority will ever get it as completely as you do.
Taking him off all meds to assess what's causing what does sound like medical sense.
Your Dad is walking into his own mortality and karma and its ugliness is not your responsibility.
You can do the best you can to be helpful but you will be better off, imo, if you truly work at
releasing the outcome.
Despite your insights, this is so beyond your control.
Take care of yourself.
And I'm sorry your mother is broken too.
You are whole.
xo
Hops
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GS,
I want to share a few of my observations on mental mechanisms and how this might apply to your current situation. First, repressed childhod feelings especially from infancy are extremely intense and our defences are those ways we avoid their confrontation in the present. Depending on the person, awareness of the unconscious defense and what it protects us from is difficult to understand. Keep, in mind many if not most people have strong defences to one degree or another. For example.....your fathers Drs might avoid their own feelings of helplessness. They might ignore reality and do something "stupid" that doesnt make sense to avoid their deepest emotions. In this way they keep those feelings down and are in control again. Can become crazy making for others involved. When people deny their unconscious reality they can force others around them to feel their own helplessness which they are not necessarily aware of. In this way other people are triggered and may be forced to pay the price when ownership is denied. May apply in your case or not......just food for thought in making sense of what might really be going on (altered states of consciousness) Hope this helps and makes sense. I';ve found this undestanding comes in very handy.
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Thanks Gaining Strength for sharing so much of what is going on and bringing up the feelings of being dismissed.
It doesn't matter if people mean well if you feel you have been dismissed, especially when you need to be heard. This kind of well meaning dismissiveness, justifying the insensitivity of the dismisser, leaves one feeling that they should be able to cope better or have better self talk and not react to someone being dismissive.
It took a lot of courage to share your feelings and you explained them very clearly. You are right. There is a lot of dismissiveness that goes on. It does not matter if the people doing it don't realize what they are doing. It still hurts a lot.
I have thought about this too. I say," Oh well, you can't expect people to care and maybe my post is not compelling enough or I sound like I am feeling sorry for myself". My own voice has dwindled down to a trickle here.
Not everyone realizes that if someone posts then the posts requires that people actually respond to the post and don't start making it self referential. I mean that other people don't make it all about themselves. Or rationalize your feelings away and advise one to suck it up or feel something else.
It is tricky. There may be a powerful, heartfelt post and 194 people view it and 1 person responds. You cant see that person and the words count very heavily. There is a real down side to this posting business.
You have broken through the veil of denial here and it so needed to be done. I think that most people, including myself, feel a lot of pain and we need to be brought back to our feelings and sharing them as honestly as we can. I needed so much for you to say the things you said. I haven't even read all your posts on this subject. I wanted to respond to your first statements. I care how you feel and I hope I don't minimize your feelings or advise you to feel something else.
As for being caught up in the relentless gears of the medical and mental health bureaucracy ...... There is nothing worse. I am so sorry that this is happening to you. I can imagine you trying to make sense of this insane system and hitting a very hard brick wall. It is disgusting that the police are the ones left who are dealing with seriously mentally ill people and having to handle complex medical /mental health issues. I said that in a very sanitized way. Sorry. Your story paints the tragedy of your dad in a very heartbreaking and vivid way. Please keep posting. Get support. You sure got my attention and I hope I can listen and not minimize. Please let me know if I am. I want to be there for you through this. If I miss the mark and do something unconscious and thoughtless, like minimize what you are saying or feeling, or offer irrelevant and annoying advice, let me know.
Many blessings to you Gaining Strength
Sea storm
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Dear Gaining strength
You are caught up in something so huge and beyond your ability to fix. You can do what you can but take very good care of yourself. You are witnessing something really horrendous, unfair and dangerous to your father's health. This must feel overwhelming and painful. In these systems most people gave up listening long ago. They could never cope with the numbers of people and the extreme needs. If there is any way on earth that you can detach and not take their insanity personally I hope you can do it.
What you are going through sounds nearly impossibly difficult and painful. PLease keep posting.
Sea storm
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Hi GS,
Well you certainly must be very tired. You have many things on your plate. And then more...and then more....And you are handling it. Sometimes you don't want to.
Your a single parent and you don't have that *choice not to* ...Not your choice. Wasn't mine either but it does take it's toll on you. Raising a child, supporting a child,
being mom and dad, things that are going to go wrong (do go wrong). And trust me .....that is a biggie....I know it. Your worried about this and that and raising your child in the very best way you can...with money problems, things breaking, trying to keep it as normal as possible and things just (cutting it short)..like no heat, no money for heat, and a very scary time .....but you will get through it. Promise. Just *hell unleased* all at the same time\ including your own childhood healing...and awareness of being raise by (mentally ill parent/or parents) Now elderely mental ill parent. And it's just too much!!! It's overwhelming!!! And depressing. And you want to cry!!
And I want to cry for you because it hit's close to home for me. I know how you may be feeling. So I won't dismiss you. I can't help you other then knowing (how your in a rock and a hard place) and how deep it goes.
It will change...Swear...Honest Engine....It just can't come fast enough...but it will come.
And all you or I should say (I) wanted to scream is ....I'm Tired!!!! It's too much!!! Do you understand me?????? Without saying it.....and one time my sister turned to me and said....I don't think I could have done what you have done with what you have been through...You did good kid.
No discussion, no suggestions, out of the blue......
So from me to you...with no suggestions (because I really have none) just maybe understand how you feel a bit....
Your done good Kid.
Love to you....
Deb
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GS--
How is it going in the crisis?
Are you nurturing and loving yourself in the middle of it all, as best you can?
(No more advice, I promise. Just want to know how you're doing.)
Love to you,
Hops
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This may be the most comforting and healing dialogue I have experienced on this board. Thanks to all. Time is short - school almost out. Lost my computer for a few days. Have comments to share maybe later today.
Thanks again. Feel heard, supported and rarer still - understood. Am truly appreciative.
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There is no end to the misery and the "system" is contributing about 85%. It is NEXT to impossible to see the Dr. The staff refuses to sedate my father which is the only way to administer medication because he refuses it - spits it out, throws water on the attendant, screams profanities and on and on and on.
Unless he receives medication there will be no end to the cycle and at this point the medical team is unwilling or incapable of administering it. That will leave him out on the street for sure because no facility will have him regardless of how much he is willing to pay.
I have just learned that yesterday's MRI conclusively demonstrated that he has recently (last few weeks) had a stroke. But the doctor has only given the findings to him and he is in and out of lucidity. They do not allow visitors until 10am but the doctors have finished their rounds by then and left the floor. I have called the morning and asked for an appointment. Hope they call me back before she leaves again.
I am getting angrier and angrier at the insanity. Always know my rage is fueled by impotence.
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GS--
No need to answer any of these but this is what comes to mind:
I'm guessing your father would never have been so sensible...
but does he have: a Power of Attorney, and/or a Durable Medical Power of Attorney?
Sorry it's hard to get a doctor to talk with you...have you tried making an
appointment with a patient advocate at the hospital?
What is your greatest concern in all of it, if you had to boil it down? Is it that
your father may be discharged to an unsafe environment? Is it that you fear YOU
would have to step into the caregiving role if he were? How would you do or avoid
doing that, what form would it take?
Is your brother helping?
What's reasonably possible for aftercare for your father?
Is there an Alzheimer's unit somewhere, that he'd fit?
How can you protect yourself?
hang in there,
Hops
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Hello Hops - my father does not have Alzheimers so that is not an issue. The problem is purely this - the psychiatrist does not understand that he must be given some kind of a sedative in order to administer the psychotropic drugs so that te cycles of bipolar can be calmed and so that he can receive some relief from the profound anxiety that is driving his extraordinary OCD. Both of these issues are exacerbating his refusal to take medicine for his medical issues. Itis very complicated.
The psychiatrist simply believed that she could develop a relationship with him so that he would agree to take his medicine. She, like everyone else, is so certain that they know more than those of us who have lived it. Yet another example of dismissiveness.
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James - your post goes to such profound issues. I am reading only sentences at a time, processing on several levels very slowly. You have written a tome in your brief paragraph. I hear you and recognize mmense wisdom with much to plumb - so much that little can be said in response. Only hope I have the courage and ability to consider such a point of view. Not sure I am quite that courageous too look at my own actions in perspecttive of coming out of my own wounding. Not yet able to read your brief post fully and thoughtfullly. Points to those shadow selves that I have worked so hard to hide, even from myself, no, especially from myself.
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Sea and Debkor - still processing your sharings of yourselves. Want to respond thoughtfully and with heartfelt words. Just a little patience please.
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oh.... Strength....
why IS IT, that medical folk want to always start from ground-zero collecting information, assessing it, for themselves - and not accept what is in the records (what their colleagues have already diagnosed) - or what you've told them??? I so understand your frustration... but one explanation - for what it's worth - is that they want to confirm what someone else has decided about your dad... and eliminate the possibility that something was diagnosed or prescribed in error.
This is how Twiggy felt about not being believed... and my avoidance of the medical professionals out there... who never heard a word I had to say... and only what my mother told them about me.
I would be at the phase of frustration, by now, that I call "jumping up & down on someone's desk"... to make them HEAR me, if I were you. But then, I'm always willing to throw my dignity out the window - if I can finally get someone to hear me. (That isn't something I recommend; it has unpleasant consequences and I always feel like a jerk afterwards... but every once in while it works.)
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I can imagine your frustration, GS...
So many doctors react so self-protectively to thinking they're being "told what to do" by a non-MD.
And what so often gets lost in the mist is common sense.
I hope they will hear you soon.
xo
Hops
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'morning... I was just re-reading your latest posts again... I missed something REALLY important, in the midst of my own (unimportant) reaction and sympathy for you, about dealing with the medical profession...
You said they confirmed your dad had a stroke. Here are some questions to ask the neuro doctor, or anyone qualified to discuss his condition with you - assuming they've recognized that a.) you are his family and b.) you are also legally "qualified" to make healthcare decisions for him. Because you're family - the visitation rules should NOT apply to you in the hospital; might be different in the psych-care unit... and even without a POA they should be telling you what they know. They just may not know much yet...
How big a stroke was it? Was it a hemorrage or embolic stroke (embolism is a blood clot)...? (they'll know this much from a CT or MRI)
What area of the brain was it located in? Is it an area that can have an impact on his historical mental illness? (and then here you can fill in what kind of mental illness it's been...) (they'll know this from the tests, too... maybe not the total impact on the mental illness... or with any certainty...)
The neurologist needs to work WITH the psychiatrist... they need to tag-team your dad's condition... because of the possibility that the stroke was big enough and in an area of the brain related to his symptoms of mental illness... to be altering that mental illness or even causing new kinds of symptoms. It's because of the stroke... and needing more info about it... that's the reason they aren't giving him his other drugs, I believe. They need to do a post-stroke assessment of his brain function, before they start up his drugs again.
Could be it was just a small stroke - I watched my MIL recover almost completely from a pretty big one. My dad was another story. He did pretty well for awhile... then a bunch of emotional things snowballed with him... and he stopped trying; he gave up. Depression, rage, anger... and irrationality can all be post-stroke symptoms... and of course, it's complicated with your dad's pre-existing mental illness. One thing I didn't know about until it was too late, for MIL - was that certain kinds of strokes can predispose the patient - make them more vulnerable - to a silent type of seizure (no spasms)... which in turn, can increase the probablility of another, usually greater stroke. I SURE wish I'd known this sooner; not even her GP made the connection between the "spells" she had and seizures.
Still, I realize that knowing that might not have made any difference for her... except in being prescribed even MORE drugs... sigh. One of her problems near the end was, I'm convinced but can't prove, too many drugs... and too many people prescribing more drugs... until I know she felt like she was a chemistry experiment - a beaker full of all these substances affecting her body in sometimes conflicting ways. Doctors don't always know all the interactions that are possible between drugs.
There's way more I could tell you, based on my experience with my dad & MIL... but I don't want to overwhelm you with info right now. I know that getting him his drugs is one of your biggest frustrations right now with the "system"... and it dawned on me, that this might help - a real, rational reason for why they're not giving him drugs, just yet. The med folks take strokes extremely seriously - as they should. And I've come to learn that they really do know what they're doing... but...
SIGH... the one thing they don't do is communicate well. And what I've guessed is the reason for that, is that they don't want to be "wrong"... tell you something that with further testing, recovery, etc... turns out not to be the case. They absolutely will not speculate; they won't talk until they "know". It drives the concerned family members absolutely bonkers to just sit and wait... (and with histories like ours, pushes all those old buttons, too...).
Is your dad showing any physical effects of the stroke? Weakness or paralysis on one side of the body? his face? How's his speech? If he's not showing any real obvious physical symptoms, then it's possible that the stroke was very small; in a small, defined area of his brain.
Poor GS... you must be about worn out!! If there seems to be no change, maybe you could risk a "day off" to take care of yourself and spend time with your son? Maybe you can make an appointment to talk to his docs, together? And rest up a little before meeting with them?
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Insanity in this world only seems to be increasing - just in general - this world seems crazier and crazier by the day.
I am now in a vigil as my father lies dying. How long will it be? An hour? A day? Maybe even months. Hard to know. He is calm now. Talking frequently without venom. Some memories and comprehension remarkable clear. Next moment - confusion. No remorse. I cannot remember if I posted this here and too tired to review recent postings but the doctor told me on Friday that my father told her that he has used abusive methods to intimidate people around him to get his way his entire life. She did not say anything about who those people were but one of those people was a 3 year old girl, an 8 year old girl, a 13 year old girl and on and on. A girl who would have done anything to please, unaware that she was being abused, intimidated - at all - much less by a man who was supposed to care for, care about, provide for and train, teach, direct about life to come.
It has taken so long to get clear in my head what it means to have parents who want to make sure I fail at everything - career, socially, financially - all so that they will not look bad in comparison.
I have come to see that my mother has no interest in having empathy. She is utterly oblivious to what it is. I am understanding why her behavior makes me so angry - it is because being in her presence is synonymous with being fodder for N supply. All that I have known about Narcissism and N-supply has not penetrated my understanding until now.
One of the most fascinating is that my mother knows that my father has been in the hospital or on his way for two weeks. She has claimed her "undieing love" for him for years and years. She claims to love me. She claims to love my child. And yet - it has not even occurred to to ask how my father is - not a single time when I have dropped my son off while I go to the hospital, not when I pick my son up. Not when I arranged to get an alimony check for several months back alimony the other day. (Which she also did not bother acknowledging nor thanking me for - until I asked her if she had saw it on her front hall table and yes she did know I was making such arrangements because I called her to ask the amount so that my father's wife could write it - but not surprisingly she simply takes that all in N order.
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PR - he had an MRI on Thursday but that was to assess the damage of a stroke that happened a few weeks ago and it was two days before his last stroke. In truth we do not know when on Thursday or the early hours of Friday that this last stroke Occurred. In fact I know nothing other than that he is not the same person than before hand. He can no longer sit up. He seems to have lost his ability to use either of his hands. I am not sure he knows where he is though I suspect he does. He knows who the people around him are and his memory is clearly in tack. But Thursday he was sitting up and trying to walk and was very cognizant. Today it appears that he will never leave the bed again. I don't know how to label that stroke but it is definitely life changing.
When I went to visit this morning, a nurse told me that "they" wanted to transfer him to the neurological floor but that a family member said, "no." I asked who had said no and she had me speak with a different nurse. The different nurse said his wife. I knew that if that were the case that it was simply because his 81 year old wife who began treatment for a pinched nerve this week and who just began treatment for a bacterial infection and is just now beginning to recuperate from 4 months of living with bi-polar mania and severe medical issues in her husband that she may not be thinking clearly right now - so I called her. But no phones are available on the 7th floor so I have to leave and go to a locker where my purse is and call. She is all for the move. So I lock my possessions back up and go back to the 7th and get passed in and relay this to the nurse who says she must hear it 1st hand. So she calls my father's wife. Then, within 5 minutes, the nurse comes to tell me that the Dr. is on the phone for me. The Dr. tells me that the neurologist and he consulted yesterday and decided that there was no need to send him to neurology but that they would be sending him to palliative care. I asked him when and he said he did not know, it might be today or tomorrow or Tuesday. I mentioned to him that the nurse had just gotten off the phone with my father's wife getting her permission to transfer him to neurology and the Dr. said that there were some cracks in their system of communication. NO!!!
This afternoon I tried to find out what was being done about nutrition for my father who has been rendered incapable of swallowing even at times his own saliva. He has not eaten in over 48 hours. The nurses tell me that the doctors have not ordered anything but that they don't come in on Sunday and so what ever they do they will not do until sometime tomorrow but that the doctor is not likely to order any IV until after he is transferred to palliative care. By then it will have been 66 or more hours. But I wouldn't want anyone to have to think or make a decision or call in orders while they are on call at home on a Sunday.
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I'm understanding what I am doing in this period. I am deciphering some of the differences about how I react to each of my parents.
My father has instilled in my great anxiety - my entire life. Once he is out of my area the anxiety changes - not that it goes away because it resides in a voice whcih I have internalized and yet it is not ON.
But my mother is the one who thrives on N supply and I have just understood that today for the first time and when she does that she engenders a rage in me. She does that in her pitifulness and in her victimhood and in her passive/aggressiveness and I suspect in other ways as well. I have been asking myself why she stokes anger and a seething rage within me and after months and months, maybe even years, I got an anwer today.
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CB - thank you. That is so helpful, just the encouragement I needed. Trying to shift out of the powerless N child into assertive but not aggressive person. You cannot imagine how helpful your post is. Where he is is a 10am to 8pm visiting hours. They supposedly plan on a neurological workup and transfer before 10. I am going at 8am visiting hours or no. I will practise being assertive without slipping over into impotent anger. It will be a good experiment for me even if I happen to fall into old patterns on this attempt.
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With all my present "figuring out" here is something I still don't get.
Today as Sunday ( I know - you already knew that) and as usual, my child and I went to my mother's for dinner and a couple of TV shows. She actually bought groceries ( a little unusual) but I am far to worn out to cook. So when I walked in a little before 5 fI told her we would be ordering out tonight. She offered to pay (as I expected she would do.) I wanted to use the computer first. I wanted to post some things here. I was watching 60 minutes at 6pm and she stood up and said she was going to cook the steak she bought for my child. I asked her why she had a problem with my ordering out. She said she was hungry and needed to eat. I told her to go ahead but that I would be ordering out for my child.
Funny thing is - she does not eat steak and she does not ( I should say CAN not cook steak). So she starts to sit down and I told her to go on and cook her dinner but that I would be ordering out for my son.
She goes to the kitchen and comes back with a tray and announces that she has prepared "hors d'ouvres". On the tray is a bowl of cashews that she opened on Christmas Day and some ritz waffle crackers with cheese centers. She did not fix or eat the dinner that she was so hungry for that she could not wait until 6:30 for me to order take out.
What is that??????
Is it Nism? If so, HOW?
If not, WHAT?
She was not hungry and as far I know she did not eat dinner.
I hate her - not her behavior but her but I still want to understand this. I want to get past my raging at her and understanding is the way out for me.
(No questions please but if you have an idea that would be of interest. - thanks)
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I am fascinated and thankful to learn that my father knew - was conscious of and intentional about - that he was being abusive. Actually that never entered my thoughts. It tells me so much and I suspect I will be processing that for some time to come.
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My dear, dear friend...
I had decided I wasn't going to post today; letting some things sit & settle - but I'm making an exception for you.
This is very, very important now - and the hospital folk will be asking you or someone for this soon, unless they already have your dad's info on file - they are going to need a copy of any advance health directive he might have created and/or a health power of attorney, which designates a specific person to make decisions about his care.
I'm afraid I'm all too familiar with what you're going through; with the mystifying, exasperating behavior of the hospital staff that you're encountering. Palliative Care can be translated thusly: they will make him as comfortable as they can with pain medication, they may or may not feed him through an IV (based on the health directive), and if he is having trouble swallowing that will probably mean that they'll intubate him, to keep his airway open - to insure that he is breathing. If they do NOT have a health directive on file, they will start a nutrition IV as soon as he is moved while next steps are being decided on.
I see now, why his wife isn't there and you're on "duty" instead. Poor thing, does she have anyone to help her? Would she know if he has a health directive, etc? His lawyer or a trustee, perhaps? Have you gotten in touch with your brother? These are things you could "do" that would have a clear practical purpose and perhaps help clear the logjam or stone wall of silence that you're dealing with, with the medical folk. It won't clear up the cracks in the system... or the absolute insanity of some of the things you're experiencing with them. They will take another scan to assess the second stroke - if they haven't already. The question to ask now - about that stroke, after the results have been interpreted by the neuro docs - is how extensive was it? What area of the brain was affected? My wild uneducated guess is, that if they've decided to move him to Palliative Care instead of the Neuro unit - the stroke was pretty significant and even they are in a "wait & see" mode... looking for signs from your dad that will be indications of his level of functioning, now.
You will have to keep asking about the scan of the second stroke and to talk to a doctor. From the nurses, you might be able to gather some info about his vital signs... what they're giving him for pain, if they're feeding him IV... etc. But, they won't be able to speculate on what happened, what his chances for recovery are... they'll get in trouble with the docs, if they do.
Please understand that the next week or so is going to be terribly difficult and make extra efforts to care for yourself and son. Get plenty of rest, eat something regularly - even if it's only a cup of yogurt or a pack of crackers. It's OK to put your inner work "on hold" for the time being, if that feels right... to care for yourself & son; to take care of your normal business (bills & such); and to come here and process events; to vent or whatever expression seems right. I'll keep checking back to see how you're doing.
The only insight I can offer on your mom's behavior - is that she's facing a brand-new situation and one that she feels totally powerless in. You're obviously stronger than she believed you were, and a force to be reckoned with - you're in motion, clear about yourself and what needs to be done... and you're not asking anyone's permission - approval - or forgiveness either. GS is IN CHARGE... and doing pretty well in that position, too, from the sounds of it. You've probably scared your mom senseless, by being your real self, you know?
I really do wish we had an applause emoticon... you'd get a standing ovation from me.
That said, you're still going through an incredibly difficult time. I'll do my version of praying for you and make sure I'm checking back here for the "latest"; to be here for you.
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Gaining Strength,
You are showing such courage under fire. This is such a hard, hard time and so multi-levelled. Medical, Neurological, Mental Health,Palliative and all interfacing and creating more problems. You have strived to understand and be there for both your mom and dad inspite of their inability to show love and gratitude. I am amazed you are still standing under the weight of responsibility while dealing with the confusion on the care providers.
On top of all this, feelings and realizations are surfacing. Thank goodness you are sharing them. Hearing that your father KNEW he was controlling and abusive is mindboggling. He knew and he did not care as long as he got his own way....Yikes.
Through all the chaos that you are bound up in I hear the voice of a someone who is caring, intelligent and has so much drive to do the right and caring thing. What a good soul you are.Somehow this is miraculous because it was not modelled to you growing up. It springs from the pain maybe.
Thank you for sharing your story, feelings and thoughts. There is so much in them. Such humanity.
Blessings to you Gaining Strength
Sea storm
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You're behaving with honor and with the right intention, GS... Just being there and caring, even when you can't control it all, is what you'll keep. The helplessness and fury and all that too, but your witnessing and caring, that's the true vigil.
I can't imagine how much is being stirred to flames by all the "leaks" from your Dad's diminished boundaries...his pure id is really out there now, isn't it?
You don't have to prove anything. To anybody.
But you are showing who you are.
Be good to yourself, and to M too -- this must be so scary for him.
Love and steadiness, breaaaaaaaaaaaaaathe,
Hops
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PR - health directive - check - no feeding tubes, no recuss, but there is room for IV. He is conscious but only makes sense during the daylight hours. Very confused at night.
Today I had an appointment with an eldercare attorney that I made sometime ago to get advice on how to deal with my mother's out of control spending on nobody knows what. In preparation, I left the hospital and went by my mother's to get some information. I asked her about her home insurance - she has none. I got angry and she got angry back and said, "It's my house. I can do what I want to with it." "Where do you think you will go if it burns down??????"
I know her angry response is typical for her when she gets caught with her pants down. She was caught being utterly irresponsible and she goes on the attack. Last night when I was tired and wanted to "be served" dinner by ordering out - it made her angry. She very clearly did NOT want me to have what I wanted but she turns the whole damn thing around and acts like she was doing something for me. Today I recognized that she does that when I am down scraping the bottom of the barrel. She moves over the the aggressive side of the passive/aggressive scale.
Thanks for your kind words Sea. One of the mysteries to me is that my father does not evoke anger from me but my mother does. I have not yet solved that mystery. But I think the events that are taking place now are helping to unravel some of those threads. I really want to understand this.
I am breeeeeeeathing Hops. Thanks for that reminder.
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Your mom sounds like a real trip, GS.... I wonder - and this is just off the top of my head and probably not even close - but I wonder if your anger is 'coz she didn't defend you - protect you against the worst of dad's rage/anger? I don't know... sometimes it feels like those situations are just so complicated, twisted and always, always a litany of he said, she said... that it literally makes my head hurt to try to unravel it.
I can almost picture it tho... mom goes poking at the dad - blame-poke here, complain-poke there, martyr-victim poke again... and then she collapses into total victim-helplessness when dad finally has had enough & blows up. And all little GS wanted was someone to notice she was there - and care enough to act like adult parents. They are totally embarrassing when even a little kid knows they "don't have to act this way"... you know? When the parents are immersed and obsessed with their own power-war with each other... the kids end up being used - one way or another. I know I sometimes felt like my mom's pawn in her elaborate "game"... and I can almost make a case that I was used as a human shield; almost... it still seems like a stretch, because I started trying to make myself heard, at one point - before my mom started gaslighting.
The eldercare attorney sounds interesting - and like a positive step. I hope that went well. It seems your mom is more of a "problem" ... and I think it's a wise step for you to have this kind of help right now. I didn't know there was such a thing.
It's a good sign for eventual recovery, if your dad is conscious and making sense at all at any time of day. This is gonna sound goofy and crazy... but with MIL, I noticed that at night - it seemed as if all the "connecting" systems of her brain sort of expanded and spread out... loosening the connections... you could still find the different functions - like physical reactions to pain or emotional reactions or thoughts & ideas... but they didn't seem to fit together as tightly; they were isolated responses... the cog wheels didn't turn all together, synchronously.
Once she was awake - the brain-machine hummed right along just like normal. Over time, and especially her last few weeks with us, I did notice that it took way more time for her... to re-assemble those cogs... get them turning again.
After her first stroke, it took about a week for her to "put herself back together" enough to really start communicating again. I knew she was back - when she asked for her purse and tried to put lipstick on!
I really believe you WILL unravel the mysteries of the relationships you have with your parents, GS. It's all going to become crystal clear in some still moment, very soon... I really like the sound of refined, ringing steel I'm hearing from you... even though I know you have to be exhausted and on the very edge of losing your patience. How far is the hospital for you?
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So much is being sucked into the vortex.
It seems to be a vortex with opportunity to sort some of this lifelong stuff out.
Stuff sucked into the vortex from my father, my mother and bits and pieces from each of my brothers and one of my sisters in law.
Oddly, very, very oddly, my father has been calling for me since the wee hours. When I am here and when I am not. he is delirioius.
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I am toggling back and forth between figuring a way out of this wounded, altered perspective that renders me less than ideally functional and highlighting and identifying the absurdity and insanity of the behaviors of those individuals who make up my family of origin.
The younger of my two older brothers arrived in town yesterday in order to see our father. I called him on Sunday to let him know that our father had had another stroke and that his days may be numbered. My father's wife's daughter asked me on Monday if my brother was coming to town on Tuesday. I said I had no idea. She told me my brother had called her mother to say he was coming. I dialed his number - no answer. I dialed his wife's number - no answer. Then yesterday afternoon I received a text message from my brother, "nurse said he did well with physical therapy. He's sleeping now." No mention that he was in town or that he was visiting or hello or anything - just a message as though we were in a back and forth conversation about my father's condition. It all seems crazy to me. Non-crazy would be - Thanks for letting me know that our father is not well. I think I will try to come to town and will let you know about my arrangements. I'll go straight to the hospital. Will you be there?" Something like that would have made more sense to me. But I am beginning to wonder if I have any perspective on "sense" or "crazy".
This whole damn hospital system in so insane. I am now so frustrated and angry. I am so tired of dealing with on hand not knowing what the other hand is doing and being caught in the middle of it all. The social worker just came in. We met yesterday to discuss options for after my father is released. So she just walked in and asked if I had made arrangements. "No. I'm waiting to hear from the physician about when they are going to dismiss him." "They are looking at tomorrow or Monday." "Well I am waiting to hear from the physician."
I have met with physicians each and every day. As late as yesterday the physicians said they did not know when he would be released and just now the social worker asks if I have made the arrangements for where he will go. I am so sick of it all. THEN - his wife wants him to come home. He makes no sense, refuses medication, and on and on - i.o.w. he cannot go home. 30 minutes ago I got a call from my father's wife's son asking what was this about my father going home to his mother's house. He was very upset. It is quite reasonable. His mother has been worn down by caring for my father and though she wants to do it - it is simply too much. So I am right in the middle. I am definitely the one who needs to participate in these decisions. I am the only blood relative of my father who is involved and I am also crazy about his wife. She is the only one who has been an advocate for my little child. For 14 months she has taken his ice skating every single Saturday and has paid for all of his lessons. That is the sort of thing that many grandparents do but she is the only one who has ever done anything like that for my son.
Here is more crazy. My father is delirious. The physician used that term in a medical sense and she defined it for me. I explained that to my brother yesterday afternoon. My brother argued with me, telling me that our father seemed just as he always did. How do you argue with that. I simply said, "I'm telling you what the doctor said." This brother will disagree with what I say regardless of whom I am repeating. Had the orderly told him the same thing in broken english he would have accepted it but from me he will argue it. Is that crazy? It feels so crazy.
Damned if I do. Damned if I don't.
Not only do I not have a mother and a father or one or two brothers who support me, I have four who along with two sisters in law, will undermine and challenge me, throwing up barrier after barrier even if it is an act of cutting off their own nose to spite their face. It has taken me so long, so very long to fully understand this.
As I was walking down the long corridors to get here this morning I realized that across the years, I have been looking for, waiting for, hoping for opportunities to get my foot into the door for family life. And events across my life that I thought were those cracks but which resulted in a door slammed in my face yet again never diminished my hope. Now that is crazy, that is MY craziness - hope in the face of fact to the contrary.
A couple of years ago when after insane hospitalizations of by our parents simultaneously, my oldest brother said to me, "I haven't been very nice to you." He said that because I was doing everything I could to work with him in dealing with an utterly insane situation with my father's hospitalization and commitment. He said it because I was supporting him and standing by him as he took the lead in a very difficult and trying time over a period of several months. I thought that was a crack in the door and that I would find myself sitting inside the family room after that. Foolish. When our other brother married during that period of hospitalization of both parents and he married a seemingly decent person, who invited my little boy to visit them in their Florida home that X-mas, again, I foolishly thought that door to the family room had cracked open to allow me in. Foolish. and there are so many times.
FINALLY - I get it. Even if I get into the family room it will simply be more of the same. I will not be welcomed and cherished at the table. Even if I get into the room it will not be as anything more than a target of derision.
Insanity - I can tell even as I write this that I have not completely let go of that hope - even though I am seeing more clearly how that false hope has been working. that hope, that longing to belong is so damn hard wired, so difficult to excavate and extricate from oneself. I see how that longing and that absence have played a role in the formation of my personality. I see how the sense of injustice from early on to "favoritism" toward my brothers and then the kind of "favoritism" that others received from their own parents has taken a silent, unconscious toll on me as a child with unfortunate ramifications as an adult.
I do believe there is some sort of resolution for me now but I am not able to envision it.
I am so angry and so hurt - so two or four years old - and so lonely, so bitterly alone in it all.
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Not quite alone, GS... I hear you.
And I hear the "I WANT..." that you are saying. I wish I could promise you that "I want" would be fulfilled. But, I don't think I can promise that. (Having my own meltdown over that, myself.)
But here's an idea, for what it's worth... I think - I'm not sure, OK? - I think that the way out of the damned if you do - damned if you don't that you're faced with right now... is to not ask anyone's permission to do what you believe is best for your dad and his wife. Consult her, of course... but be firm, in that you don't want to put her in a position of care, that will undermine her own health and well-being. I think you foresee how difficult that would be for her; and what kinds of disastrous things could take place - accurately. Let her know how much you appreciate her willingness to try - but point out the practical issues. Can she lift him, for instance?
Then, release the outcome (and you know there will be outcome!) of other people's opinions and judgement about your decision, yadda-yada-yada... when they want to lob those kinds of stink-bombs at you... have a simple reply at the ready: you weren't there or you weren't involved... and I had to do this by myself. And stop there. People who aren't there to help don't get to criticize later, and you don't have to justify your choices to them either. Especially when you've already asked, you know? Because you KNOW what you're doing... and you know what you WANT... and it would appear that except for your step-mom... no one's been lined up offering to help.
What you are faced with is difficult enough. Don't take on anything else - for anyone else - that isn't yours. They're big people; they'll deal with it - or not. Protect yourself (that attorney might come in handy) - and don't worry about the ones who can't even let you know what their plans are and refuse to accept the reality of the situation, that you are communicating to them. The doctors will back you up, I think.
Hope there's something useful here for you. If not, why don't you come over and I'll brew a strong cup o' irish tea... yes, it's spiked!!
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Seeing all this through the prism of your yearning for family affection and approval makes it all make sense, ((((((((((GS))))))))).
I think what will release you, and it is very sad but has a good outcome in the long term, is to release all hope of that.
Release it all the way: My family is not going to be affectionate or approving. I think if you repeat it to yourself until it's drained of anguish and becomes a reality-fact, like "This is February" -- soon the bitterness and anger will follow it. Your being will release them too, because deep in your soul and cells, you want to release them. You are tired of these feelings. The anguish and anger are about attachment and expectation.
Then, not distracted by unrealistic hopes, you could evaluate each choice by asking yourself questions like:
Is this action or piece of information going to change the outcome?
If it is, how much of myself am I choosing to give in order to advocate for it?
What will be my signal to myself to stop that effort? Can I name that privately, and heed it?
What will I do to show myself that I have stopped going too far for my or my son's well-being?
Is there a verse I could hum or a quote I could pull from my pocket to re-read, that would reinforce my commitment to caring for my own and my son's well-being, no matter what is going on?
Is this action or piece of information not going to change the outcome?
If is it not, how can I be present and be at peace even though the outcome is not going to change?
What can I do in this moment that I will feel most peaceful about when I remember now?
Faith and steadiness to you, with love,
Hops
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Release it all the way: My family is not going to be affectionate or approving. I think if you repeat it to yourself until it's drained of anguish and becomes a reality-fact, like "This is February" -- soon the bitterness and anger will follow it.
This is an excellent piece of advice (thx Hops - I needed it too) for many things - but at the moment, it may help by reducing the number of "big things" you're juggling right now.
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In the past 3 days, I have had more offers from friends and acquaintences, even my former sister-in-law (who was never nice to me until the past year or two - go figure) to help me with child care and who have called to see how I am doing, offers of dinner and the like. I have had zero such phone calls from my mother, either of my brothers or either of my sisters-in-law. My in town brother and sister-in-law have chosen not to come by the hospital. I kept my two brothers informed until Tues. Now I am done. None are nice to me. My "duties" to them are over. I'm so slow getting this stuff. I know it but I still am "getting" it. The journey from brain to heart is a VERY S-L-O-W trip.
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CB - the fear of the adult children of my father's wife is that he would NOT die but continue his raging and demanding. In truth, their fear is not about him at all but that she will be worn down. In that regard, it is a legitimate fear.
You are 100% correct about the hospital staff - doctors, nurses, social worker etc. I have been able to navigate better thanks to your advice. I will give a few more details later (not TOO many) but that is excellent advice. My goal is to get him to "skilled nursing" at a home. He is being dismissed on Tues. Skilled nursing is paid for by medicare. If he goes home ALL expenses are out of pocket. I hope to talk his wife into agreeing to go into a nursing home as a sort of step in between hospital and home. I think she might agree to that (even though I don't think he will ever make it home.)
Funny enough, the past two days he has been mostly sleeping (due to a new bipolar drug) but when he is awake he is still astonishingly demanding - even in a semi-conscious delirium. Very interesting. (no dementia - he recognizes everyone.)
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Hops - good advice. Releasing it is not so difficult, recognizing that that longing still resides within is what has been difficult. It resides at such a deep and unconscious level. That is the problem.
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Well - my father died tonight - three hours shy of his 82nd birthday.
I was trying to figure out what I was going to do about notifying my brothers. I had decided that I was not going to call them. It is all such a no-win situation - damned if I do and damned if I don't. then it occurred to me that I would ask my mother to call them.
I had been at the hospital until 7:45. My son was at my mother's. I got something to eat and went over there and watched the end of the Super Bowl and my phone rang - 9:03 - the hospital room. I knew.
I called my child in to let him know He said in his child way - "now we have that in common." I have never lost a parent and he has never known life without such a loss.
My brother who lives in another state called my father's wife after my mother called him. None of them called me. But then again I didn't call them either. Decided on Tuesday that I was done dealing with all these unkind people who end every phone conversation (they are infrequent - about 4 per year) with, "I love you" even though it is beyond obvious that they are mere words with ZERO substance behind them. Each time they proffer them I ask myself, "Why are they saying that??????" And I stilll don't know!
When I got back to my mother's house after the funeral home came to take the body, her house was locked and all the lights were out. What a welcome. What in the world would I expect.
dismissiveness everywhere I turn.
I have so much more to write but I am getting tired and am praying for sleep. So much to do tomorrow.
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Well - my father died tonight - three hours shy of his 82nd birthday.
I was trying to figure out what I was going to do about notifying my brothers. I had decided that I was not going to call them. It is all such a no-win situation - damned if I do and damned if I don't. then it occurred to me that I would ask my mother to call them.
I had been at the hospital until 7:45. My son was at my mother's. I got something to eat and went over there and watched the end of the Super Bowl and my phone rang - 9:03 - the hospital room. I knew.
I called my child in to let him know He said in his child way - "now we have that in common." I have never lost a parent and he has never known life without such a loss.
My brother who lives in another state called my father's wife after my mother called him. None of them called me. But then again I didn't call them either. Decided on Tuesday that I was done dealing with all these unkind people who end every phone conversation (they are infrequent - about 4 per year) with, "I love you" even though it is beyond obvious that they are mere words with ZERO substance behind them. Each time they proffer them I ask myself, "Why are they saying that??????" And I stilll don't know!
When I got back to my mother's house after the funeral home came to take the body, her house was locked and all the lights were out. What a welcome. What in the world would I expect.
dismissiveness everywhere I turn.
I have so much more to write but I am getting tired and am praying for sleep. So much to do tomorrow.
(((((((((((((((((((((((((GS))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Bones
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Strength,
I am so sorry. I know that you have all kinds of conflicting feelings right now. I hope you slept last night a little bit. Be kind to yourself today.
Love
CB
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Oh, my dear, dear, dear friend....
I read your post & lost the focus in my eyes - and brain - and had to start over! I'm so, so sorry...
your son sounds like quite the perceptive young man! He was trying to connect with you, I think... and in his way, comfort you, too. What he told you was touching, to me... there is probably a lot of healing for both of you in that space.
Having just gone through this with MIL, the only thing I learned that I can offer you... that might help... is that often the outer representations of people and the way we perceive them when dealing with loss and death aren't always what they seem. That said - you will have an opportunity to strongly, directly, and positively connect with some people; they just won't be the people you'd expect to be able to do this with.
Please do breathe in, luxuriate in those positive connections. They'll help quite a bit.
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Gaining Strength,
I am so sorry for your loss. Please take gentle care of yourself.
Lollie.
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Dear ((((((((GS))))))))),
I am glad he is released from his misery.
I hope the great peace of the universe comforts you and M.
And your mother in her loss.
Gentle thoughts with you...
love to you,
Hops
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Hi there... I just wanted to pop in and say I'm thinking of you and sending you maw-maw energy.
Hot cocoa, wrapped in warmth, hugs until the tears stop and you "come up for air", talk when you want, or just comfortable silence - the silence of being together and not having to explain yourself; of being understood... when a simple touch can take your breath away with profound understanding - connection.
I know you're incredibly busy right now. And tired - exhausted to the depths - even emotionally.
So you don't have to reply unless you're ready. That day will come, as surely as this one did. In the meantime, just know I'm thinking of you and wishing you all that you need right now, right around you.
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Hi GS,
I'm sorry and I am thinking of you in these difficult times. We are here for you.
Love
Deb
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often the outer representations of people and the way we perceive them when dealing with loss and death aren't always what they seem.
Important reminder. Thank you PR.
Learned yesterday or day before that father wrote his children out of his will Nov. 15th because we "illegally had him committed in 2007." Up until that revision he had left us each $100,000 in order to keep us from contesting the will. I learned all of this from an affidavit that he never intended for me to see.
I have learned that he did a number of things telling one person one thing and another a different. He told me before he married his wife in Jan 2008 that he was leaving every thing to her but a day ago I read his post-nup in which he and she agreed that all they came into the marriage with would be left to their own children.
My father was a decorated war hero from Korean war. I made arrangements through the army to have his coffin draped with a flag and have an honor guard at the funeral with taps played. His widow gave that flag to her youngest grandson who was named after her late husband. Nice! Oh and had the gall to ask me the day after the funeral right in front of the 16 year old's parents if IIII would go to the funeral home and see about getting a wooden display box for "Johnny's" flag.
Honest to g*d, I will NEVER understand people. NEVER.
I went to the funeral home but I did not ask about the box.
But the funeral home came to her that day and she made arrangements for the box and then reported it to me when she first spoke to me later that day. Nice!
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Oh yes... my dad pulled a major fast one like that, too... and brother & I had to try to find a way - right then & there - to clean up the mess he made, legally.
But hey - how are YOU in all this? It sounds like something way huge has shifted for you... and while I expect that takes some time to really settle, before you'll be able to know what it all is... how are you doing? You sound....
well, more whole for one thing...
and really clear...
and really, really, really strong...
like you might be finding a non-aggressive way to "fight back" against the injustices... and stand up for yourself... and that it's easier now, to call it like it is... but it's no longer the weight it used to be, holding you back...
and maybe that's just what I'm hoping for you, wrapped up in what my imagination "heard" in what you wrote...
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I don't feel stronger or clearer.
I definitely feel more dismissed than ever.
I have a whole other topic of dismissiveness that I want to write about but feel too tired and worn down to do it.
Really hating this world right now - hating being stuck living in it and raising a child in it. Trying to figure out how to participate in a way that will pave things for him to find out how to live a decent life. Not sure how to do that. Good friends and strong family would be the simplest concept but I have never had luck with that and wouldn't have a clue as to how to direct him in that accord.
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Yes, I'm sure you are tired! Beyond tired even...
your topic will wait until you're rested. I well know that a space of days and maybe even weeks is needed to "adjust and recover" from what you've been through. Maybe you'll even want to start over, later...
I get this: Really hating this world right now - hating being stuck living in it and raising a child in it.
I think you're really entitled to this feeling, so I'm not gonna try to talk you out of it. You're looking beyond it, anyway, to what you really want. To me, that's coming across loud & clear... and strong.
Take care and let the changes settle in, sweetie.
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I am so sorry he wrote you out of his will, GS...that is brutal.
And does he not leave anything to your mother, or only to his new wife?
Oy, the flag. Unbelievable.
(But you know, if a flag is about honor, you are the person who displayed honor. Keep that with you, even though you may not have the piece of cloth.)
I wonder if you made a request to have another flag, for M (without telling M, in case the answer is no) -- might they provide you one? Or perhaps there will be some other totem he can have one day.
I imagine you are just exhausted. This is one of the hardest transitions there is, and for you, every step of the way has been triggering.
Much rest, and peace, and good care of your body and your soul...you WILL come through this, (((((((((((GS))))))))))).
There is another side. This is a chapter, not the book.
with love,
Hops
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GS............For me trying to understand other people never really worked. It often led to behaviors on my part that left me frustrated, helpless and not heard......more pain! Without being fully aware of it I was trying to give others what I really needed. I was "asking" in my actions/thoughts without saying a word. At first when I realized what I was doing I felt crushed and ashamed. Then very quickly these feelings gave way to profound sadness as I felt the emotional impact of what happened Then my sadness and anger gave way to forgiveness and empathy for myself. Who wouldnt have compassion and understanding for children growing up in emotional deprivation??? Point is I dont need to understand others I just need to understand myself..........the more I do it my ability to understand others comes naturally. Then its a whole lot easier to see whos doing what to whom and why. Make any sense to you?
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Hops - thanks for noticing about the flag. It's not actually about "the piece of cloth", it is the being utterly dismissed - yet - again. It is such a callous action - small but callous and it actually motivated my out of town SIL to pick up the phone and call. She was angry and hurt for her husband - just finding the whole thing a symbol of a bigger picture. In this case the symbolism of the flag is far beyond what it appears.
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For me trying to understand other people never really worked.
OMG James - once again you nail a very complex issue and insight in such concision (is that a word.) Your facility is extraordinary. Irritating in a jealous sort of way.
Of course you are correct - painfully so.
Without being fully aware of it I was trying to give others what I really needed.
You got it. I am aware of it but I'm in that place where awareness doesn't release it. I suspect if I keep it in focus that the shift will come but I hate this place where I don't have and cannot create an "action plan" for getting to that next phase where it moves from my "comprehension" into my being.
Then my sadness and anger gave way to forgiveness and empathy for myself.
This is where you are light years beyond me. I have no clue how to transition from where I am to where you are on this - NO clue.
Make any sense to you?
completely.
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GS...................I've struggled to write you for two days. Nothing was making sense and I was feeling a lot of confusion. I asked myself how can I help you. Everytime I started to write everything seemed wrong. The confusion was this. Without being aware of it. I was looking for myself in you. Your approval of me and with that in mind of course I have no control over that. Most importantly I will never be able to find myself in you or any other person. Ive been doing this all my life and I see it everywhere. This explains so much of my curosity about other people. I am drawn to help..........yes, I do want to give. Now I know whats been going on. I won't burden you with what I needed. Sharing this with you is what I have to offer. It really is a part of the bigger picture of the human condition that lies below human awareness. Make any sense?
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Well James it is NO burden. I am appreciative and thankful for your kind offerings from your keen understanding. Your posts are helpful. But they would be appreciated even if they do not contain lightbulb concepts. I find the push and pull of dialogue helps me tremendously in getting at my own stuff whether or not the push and pull on this board is about my stuff. Actually, I probably learn more about myself when the subject is someone else because the emotion and does not cloud the discovery or the surgical exploration.
I expect that I and others might learn something of value about ourselves from anything you might share, including about what it is that you needed.
My life and my struggles seem to get more complicated and convoluted daily. Honest to pete I don't think anyone here would even believe it. Hoping to have time to write more very soon. I may just do that tonight off line and then paste it in tomorrow or later.
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Hey GS...
writing offline & then pasting is something I do, from time to time, when I'm not real sure what I'm trying to say - or that it makes any sense (even to me) or I just have an iffy connection. I think sometimes it helps me get "clearer" about what I'm trying to say... or if I even have anything to say.
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Post mortem is the pits.
Learning about some of the nasty things my father said about me to lots of people.
some of it made up and some of it simply expressing his dislike for me - something he never had the balls to convey in person.
Did I tell you that the psychiatrist in the hospital said that he told her that he had a life-long successful strategy of getting his way by intimidating those around him?
It looks like his wife of 3 years has been systematically working a system to get him to leave his $Ms to her. Found a 2008 post-nup in which each of them agrees that what they brought in to the marriage will go to their children.
found another document in which my father's accountant's wife requests a copy of his 1999 will be sent to him.
Then I found a Nov. 15, 2010 affidavit in which someone at the law firm which rewrote his will explains that he leaves us out b/c we "illegally committed" him to the psych ward. In that affidavit the woman who is writing it says that the new will drops the $100,000 to each child b/c that was only included as a disincentive of contesting the will.
The Nov 2010 will leaves everything to his wife and then gives the remainder away to a church (that he didn't go to but his father did) and a local college that his father supported (his father died in 1982) but which he has never paid any attention to.
So he entered the marriage planning to leave his money to his children and then suddenly in July of this past year he changes that to $100,000 and then drops that in Nov.
There is so much more that I don't feel like detailing. So this "nice" "Christian - fundamentalist, woman" has been conspiring to make sure that my brothers and I and our sons get NADA.
I get a call from her last night - "Just calling to say I love you and your little boy."
Next call - "There is a waiver in your mail box for you to sign and mail."
The waiver is a document by which I would waive my rights to contest the will.
There is no will attached to the waiver so that I would know exactly what I am waiving my rights to.
What a nice world.
She spent three long years planning this step by step.
Very interesting.
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GS,
My condolences to you.
Did I tell you that the psychiatrist in the hospital said that he told her that he had a life-long successful strategy of getting his way by intimidating those around him?
Did you feel validated when the psychiatrist told you this?
Seems there are some issues regarding the will, like: did your father have mental "capacity" on 11-15-2010? &/or was he under his wife's "undue influence" when he cut you & your siblings out of the will? I wonder about the person who accepted your dad's 11-15-2010 affidavit; did she have no idea of his mental illness?
Please don't sign any waivers until you speak to a lawyer who specializes in Trusts & Estates. IMO, you need to be represented by a Trusts & Estates lawyer in this thing.
I wonder if your step M set her sights on a mentally unstable, wealthy man & manipulated him into leaving everything to her.
Wishing you all the best GS, hoping you feel a sense of freedom & validation.
ann
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How do your sibs feel about this, GS? For what it might/might not be worth - how does your mother feel about her children being disinherited?
Fling aside as much of the insult to injury (I hear it) as you can... and deep down, how do YOU feel about this? the bare facts?
Before you sign anything... it might also be interesting to know what rights you might have under the circumstances. So that you have the most information you can have to make a decision with... to weigh the pros and cons... about any action open to you (including signing the waiver) before you act. Because right now, wifey needs something from you... and she seems to believe that you'll just oblige her, without thinking of yourself or your son.
UH... 'scuse me? I am of the amateur opinion that you might want to stand up for yourself and son in this odd window of time. This is a one-time opportunity. But, with eyes wide open... with good professional information backing you up... because a.) if your father wasn't of sound mind when all these changes took place... then b.) said changes might be questionable, legally. I might also be wrong, unfortunately. But I think you might want to ask someone more expert than me...
you know?
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I agree with Amber.
This is a HUGE red flag:
"I get a call from her last night - "Just calling to say I love you and your little boy."
Next call - "There is a waiver in your mail box for you to sign and mail."
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Couldn't agree more strongly with Anne's:
Please don't sign any waivers until you speak to a lawyer who specializes in Trusts & Estates. IMO, you need to be represented by a Trusts & Estates lawyer in this thing.
GS, this would be very hard for me to take in, in the circumstances and fresh emotions you are in the middle of...but I wish somehow I had been able to receive this message when the estate conflict began here. So for what it could possibly be worth:
You really do not have to assess what your stepmother or any other relative's motives are right now. You only have to remain calm -- put on whatever mature detachment you can muster -- and very, very methodically, seek counsel.
From my experience which may or may not be relevant, it was my raw emotion that slowed and hampered my ability to advocate for myself.
For example I always got DISTRACTED by others' apparent needs. Even when they were essentially pressing for something that would damage my hopes! In the first legal meeting with my brother and his attorney, when they kept pressing me to state that my mother was incapable of reviewing any legal matters, I did not have the presence of THOUGHT to hesitate in my "fairness" (just emotion, desire to connect, be loved and accepted...) With the emotional urge to placate and be reasonable, I agreed with them on the spot. And that permanently blocked any later consideration I might have had about contesting the new "surprise" will -- which both I and my attorney concluded was likely a result of manipulation and pressure from my brother.) It may have not been challenge-able, after all. (She did go to the appointment voluntarily.) But still, I blocked opportunities with my emotion-over-detachment thing, in that moment.
Only reason I'm saying all this to you is that I worry that in your turmoil of hurt (and the leak of yearning, yearning, yearning) ... you may NOT advocate for yourself in a clear-minded way. And that's why I strongly echo Anne's advice.
with love,
Hops
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GS.............Yes, hard to believe. If I had any advice it might be to set your emotions aside as best you can and seek legal advice ASAP. Far away from any of the tentacles your father may have had in the legal world. Thinking of you.....Jim
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You said you met with an elder-care attorney in the hospital. He/she might be a good place to start - at least for a reference to someone impartial (not already involved in your father's affairs) - for a legal "second opinion".
Which is your RIGHT, no matter what anyone says or wants you to sign. That waiver can wait until you've had an expert - who is looking out for YOUR interests - review the whole messy details.
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Ann - thanks for your post. The doctor's comment did put some things in perspective though I wouldn't say validation exactly. It never occurred to me that my father did these things with malice, especially in my childhood years. But I had been consulting with an attorney from day one and I am not even touching the waiver much less signing it.
There is so much detail involved in such a convoluted situation that I am only giving portions but the affidavit was not my father's but some person on staff at the law firm that was handling the will. Without question my brother is looking for the best and the brightest in the attorney department.
PR - our disinheritance doesn't even register for my mother. She doesn't care one way or another. That is a whole other story. She doesn't even seem to register that she will no longer be getting her alimony which I asked her for YEARS to talk to her attorney about getting a life insurance policy on. Now I have NO sympathy for her. She has more than enough to get through her last years but she is beyond irresponsible and that is a whole other conversation.
Her financial adviser contacted me in late November very, very, concerned about her spending. In this regard I set up an appointment with an elder care attorney. Then arranged a meeting with my mother, her attorney and her financial adviser. In preparation for those meetings I learned that my mother had NO home owners insurance. She owns her home outright but has zero insurance. When I confronted her with this she yelled at me and declared that it was her house and she would do with it what she wanted to. By the time the meeting with the financial adviser and attorney came about she told them both right in front of me that she had made arrangements but that the insurance salesman had not gotten back with her with the paper work.
Long story short the financial adviser made phone calls and ascertained that she had NO insurance still. I also let them know that she continued to rack up credit card debt and paid only the interest charges. She has done this in the past and spent as much as $15K on interest alone. One of the maxed out cards is one she agreed to pay off 2 years ago. She added another one since and maxed it out.
When the financial adviser told her that she needed to pay them off out of her checking account she became enraged - not yelling but visibly shaking with anger. I went by her house later that day to pick up the payments which she had sealed in an envelope. Surprise, surprise - partial payments on both with stubs dated Jan 9th.
Then yesterday, I saw her at a funeral, she asked me why I was mad at her. I told her I was at the end of my rope with her lying. "I don't know what you are talking about! What lie did I tell!" As though Monday never happened. Clearly there is no capacity to have an honest dialogue - it simply doesn't exist.
This is true insanity.
What really gets me is one of my brothers is astounded by the manipulative capacity of my father's widow to connive to keep everything for herself and be "devoid of emotion". When I mentioned that our mother was much like that he said he didn't see that at all. I wish to heavens I could be as blind as they are. It would reduce my frustration and loneliness immensely.
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For example I always got DISTRACTED by others' apparent needs.
isn't that the way of the child of Ns Hops.
I'm angry but I don't think my emotions are in my way. I have learned not to trust anyone again. I had learned most of that already. Now I have learned it fully. But I was getting caught up in others' needs. That comes from that longing - no - need to belong, to connect. Oh well = that appears to be available for the many but not all.
There is a bizarre legacy of children of Ns that is so far outside the realm of justice in most world religions. I can't fully articulate it but it is something like this - the hurt a young child of an N experiences is so acute but society expects happy faces so if a child or adult is not putting on the happy face after experiencing such extreme emotional pain then the people around that person participate funther in the banishment. Happy faces only need show up! For some a mask would come out but not for all. Not good in either case - "who I am - hurt and all" is not welcomed in this world.
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Oh hon.... you're right; she's truly insane. Makes my mom look like an amateur...
You so need to have to some PEACEFUL refreshing downtime... a get rejuvenated "time out"... following a plain old bitch, vent, dump out all the crap session. Some of us are willing to listen to your tale of woe - you don't need to show us a happy face until it's there for a real reason. And for those that do have that expectation?
You don't owe them a thing, now do you?
I made up my mind a long time ago, that I wouldn't satisfy that "why can't can't you just be pleasant and sociable" expectation, when I really wasn't feeling that way. "How are you?" was - and sometimes still is - answered with: "Oh, I'm OK" or "I've been better" or "Surviving, under the circumstances". Why lie when I really wasn't "fine"?? I figured, if they cared they might at least ask "what's going on?" you know? But, they'd better have some time to spend listening, too!
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GS..............The miscommunication and lack of understanding that we find in all humanity has it's roots in the denial of human feeling right from the get go. Underneath this is genetic foundation driving individual survival, then the greater.... meaning species. I am also beginning to sense that it goes much much deeper to the survival of life itself in all its forms. Moving to the core so to speak. With deeper understanding.... insanity becomes logical and then meaningful communication is possible. The holder of the notion that something is insane is fooling himself. It is he who is trying to settle his own deeper fears by the separation of self from another. Denial is powerful and only when we surrender our defences can we see the truth. As you said earlier it's the push and pull in dialogue or or observation that serves your exploration. Intellectual observations help but when we embrace by feeling our emotions huge understanding emerges. It is a walk through fire and all the pain it brings but on the other side is a sort of genuine SATORI. It is here that life gives up its secrets. Life is feeling not the intellectual. You will feel it in your body not your brain. The brain can be burned, cut it feels nothing unlike the body. In this way fear and pain are are dissvolving in my own life. Side note..........When I said "I was looking for your approval and will not burden you with is". This was the childs words and knowlege.....My need for love.........in a small world... me and mom.... where the reality she denied in her feelings.......was that she felt like I was a burden. If she had acknowledged it she would not have projected her feelings on me and left me what she thought was wrong to acknowledge...the truth. I carried this reality when I was around women. wanting approval feeling like I was a burden. Even here intellectual understand is not enough the pain must be felt in order to feel. Hope youre doing OK. Jim
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GS,
"who I am - hurt and all" is not welcomed in this world.
I think you nailed it!
tt
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It's sad isn't it TT.
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but when we embrace by feeling our emotions huge understanding emerges.
and this is so much more difficult than it sounds. For me - connecting to those pains - is still overwhelming. And moreover, I haven't a clue of what to do with those feelings. I'm sitting here wondering what "thing", what "action" what anything is the reason my brother and sister-in-law quit speaking to me. I can think of a dozen actions/lack of actions on their part during my father's hopitalizations that would explain why I might be angry with them but honest to pete I'm missing what on this green earth I did that gave them both the mind to quit speaking to me. I am certain that what ever it is, in their mind is more than obvious. But this is but one of many primal pains that I live with in the here and now. Don't even know how to let them all in and what to do with them when I experience them.
What I have noticed is that when people have called to ask how I am and I share one teeny, weeny pain or struggle the reaction is an explanation of why I shouldn't feel the pain or frustration. Usually the immediate response it, "Just let it go."
Life is feeling not the intellectual.
I know you are right but how do you get into and through it. How in the world do you get to another side without self-destructing?
When I said "I was looking for your approval and will not burden you with is". This was the childs words and knowlege.....My need for love.........in a small world... me and mom.... where the reality she denied in her feelings.......was that she felt like I was a burden. If she had acknowledged it she would not have projected her feelings on me and left me what she thought was wrong to acknowledge...the truth. I carried this reality when I was around women. wanting approval feeling like I was a burden. Even here intellectual understand is not enough the pain must be felt in order to feel.
I completely get this. I completely get how my two year old self lives on in my body today and needs two year old things from even strangers on the street. I even see that when we meet people who actually might give us what we need in that regard we spurn them b/c we are looking for that need from someone who has the same dismissive attitude that "mother" or "father" held as though the only action of value is getting what is needed from someone similarly wounded as "mother" or "father" and that is part of the reason we continue to repeat and repeat that very same wounding through out life. But you are describing a healing and I am trying to hear what you are saying. Not quite getting it - believing you but not yet understanding how.
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Hi GS,
I'm gonna jump in here:
"How in the world do you get to another side without self-destructing?"
How are you defining "self-destructing?" In view of what you've been thru, it's OK to fall apart for a while. Maybe when your son is in school, you can take the time to scream, hit a pillow with a baseball bat, cry for an hour or 2, veg out in front of the TV, what ever you feel like doing or not doing. Just feel what you feel & don't think about what you feel. Don't question what you're feeling, just feel. In a few months, you can look back & say "ah ha! that's what I was feeling!"
"And moreover, I haven't a clue of what to do with those feelings."
Just feel the feelings & don't worry about what to do with them. Just feel, just be; just be a human being, not a human doing.
Post mortem is a really, really difficult time, esply in view of how the chips have fallen. After my NM died, I avoided speaking to people because many don't know what to say & it irked me to hear their Hallmark Card b*llshit. I felt the most safe in therapy sessions. Other than that, I felt like crap. And it takes time to adjust to the new reality.
A therapist friend of mine told me that when an N parent dies, the adult child has a "complicated grief" full of regret, anger, guilt & sadness. That describes how I felt.
Is there one activity you can find that brings you moments of inner peace? Taking warm bubble baths was my salvation.
Hope that helps a bit.
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Yep... I'm with Ann on just feeling the feelings. Sometimes remembering brings the feelings on...
and my current theory on feelings (you knew I had one, right? LOL...) is that IF we just feel them and "let them be what they are"... they only last so long. The more practice I got at just feeling... the shorter duration and less overwhelming the more toxic feelings were.
And then, like a snippet of paper set on fire - the feeling just burnt itself out - it was gone. For me, that's "letting go"...
letting myself go into the feelings until it dissapates. Afterward, you feel empty - like a detox treatment - empty, but CLEAN and freshly ironed... like spring.
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Me too, GS:
I completely get how my two year old self lives on in my body today and needs two year old things from even strangers on the street. I even see that when we meet people who actually might give us what we need in that regard we spurn them b/c we are looking for that need from someone who has the same dismissive attitude
lives on in my body today and wants two year old things from even strangers on the street.
Wanting is the two-year-old, the defining what is need vs. want is the woman GS.
I know you're able to sort out the difference. Maybe in a way, now that one object of your yearning is forever out of reach, your choice will be to comfort your own inner two-year-old. Comfort doesn't mean only letting her sob until she breaks in two and believes anguish is the only truth in the world...it means gentle touches, little acts of love and reassurance, picking up her space, feeding her fresh whole nourishing things, taking her for a walk in between bouts of tears. There may even be something to dig up, soon, for a planter...
Kindness. For you and for M.
Forsythia's budding up here. I'm going to cut some and bring it indoors to force it the rest of the way.
I have faith in you.
love,
Hops
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Hey sweetie... how's it going?
I've been thinking about ya and I'm hoping that the clarity and breakthroughs and progress you were making are still all right around you; still accessible to you even with the the additional crap you have to deal with now. I think it's important to guard all that progress even in the midst of new difficulty... and it's also important to recognize, that we're just ordinary humans...
we feel defeated sometimes
we feel like the deck is stacked against us and ask "why me, god?"
But it's good to remember that those feelings are temporary... and also how to give them the space and time they need, to be able to move on to other feelings.
Sending you a big hug...
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Hi GS............At times I feel overwhelmed too. "you're wondering what "thing", what "action" what anything is the reason my brother and sister-in-law quit speaking to me. It sounds like you are trying to say you FEEL hurt/rejected?
When you try to share some of your pain you are met with "just let it go"..........are you trying to say it hurts when people do not hear me?
"how in the world do you get to the other side without self destructing"..............are you trying to say you are afraid?
It helps me to identify what I'm feeling and then let myself feel it. It helps a lot.. My agony seems to come from not being allowed to feel what I am really feeling.
Jim
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:: waving ::
HI! I was wondering how it's going with you...
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PR
I made up my mind a long time ago, that I wouldn't satisfy that "why can't can't you just be pleasant and sociable" expectation,
How did you do that? What did it look like? Can you remember an example? I would like to do this but I don't really know how???
James
You will feel it in your body not your brain. The brain can be burned, cut it feels nothing unlike the body. In this way fear and pain are are dissvolving in my own life. Side note..........When I said "I was looking for your approval and will not burden you with is". This was the childs words and knowlege.....My need for love.........in a small world... me and mom.... where the reality she denied in her feelings.......was that she felt like I was a burden. If she had acknowledged it she would not have projected her feelings on me and left me what she thought was wrong to acknowledge...the truth. I carried this reality when I was around women. wanting approval feeling like I was a burden. Even here intellectual understand is not enough the pain must be felt in order to feel.
I have read writings that describe what you describe here. it makes sense to me. I believe you but I have no idea how to get there myself. About your writing above concerning the child's words about need for love - I completely understand that and am often aware of how that plays out in my life. Being aware and becoming aware more frequently is necessary and very helpful. I completely get how "intellectual" doesn't do what "feeling" does.
Ann3
Post mortem is a really, really difficult time, esply in view of how the chips have fallen. After my NM died, I avoided speaking to people because many don't know what to say & it irked me to hear their Hallmark Card b*llshit. I felt the most safe in therapy sessions. Other than that, I felt like crap. And it takes time to adjust to the new reality.
I am laughing with recognition, especially over "Hallmark Card b*llshit." Thank you. that really connected.
A therapist friend of mine told me that when an N parent dies, the adult child has a "complicated grief" full of regret, anger, guilt & sadness.
Thank you. Very helpful. What I don't feel is "loss." and that feels weird, sort of like something is wrong with me. Not because anyone says so, not because I don't know better and yet to not feel loss when my father dies is ... so many things - so many empty, "different", marginalized things.
PR
and my current theory on feelings (you knew I had one, right? LOL...)
Ha, ha, ha, ha - yeah - I did and thank goodness you do!!!!!
is that IF we just feel them and "let them be what they are"... they only last so long. The more practice I got at just feeling... the shorter duration and less overwhelming the more toxic feelings were.
I'm getting it. James was saying the same thing, and Ann3 and you. Hearing it in different ways, even though it is not new, is helping it to begin to break through.
Here is the rub. Often when I am feeling these things either I am not alone or being out in public something happens to provoke or trigger them and the emotions I (with emphasis) feel are ones that society frowns upon and so it starts this repetition of feeling, acting, consequences that always results in me being marginalized or not experienced favorably. So I usually just stuff it and get irritated, aggrevated, impatient, frustrated, dah da dah da dah and so on.
Hops
Forsythia's budding up here. I'm going to cut some and bring it indoors to force it the rest of the way.
Here too and jonquils and other flowering trees. Good idea. Monday I hired a woman off the street to help me and my son clean his room. Tuesday 4 women came to help me clean one area of my house. They are coming again next Tues. Embarrassing? yes A blessing? yes.
PR
we feel like the deck is stacked against us
I really do PR. I do feel like the deck is stacked.
I would only admit that here.
It is one of the questions on some psychological evaluation that prove you've got some psychological disorder.
But isn't that deck stacked against children of Ns. It looks that way to me. Not that all such children come out damaged in the same way. My brothers and I each fared very differently. but I do feel that the deck is stacked - not impossible but stacked none the less.
But it's good to remember that those feelings are temporary... and also how to give them the space and time they need, to be able to move on to other feelings.
Good advice, very good.
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It's like one thing starts it all and then there is an avalanche.
Late last week a tooth ache started. Made a dental appointment. Thursday afternoon - in severe pain, went to bed. Same thing most of Friday. saturday - OK - took child to a cub scout campout/competition. That night the pain was excruciating - had to drive myself 1/2 hour into town to ER. Back by 6:30 am when everyone getting up. Learned later that day the the 3 other boys in the den all slept in the same tent - every other child except my child. when I mentioned it to the den leader he just blew it off. I feel like I am fighting the world to get my child accepted. So clear I will never be. Got to dentist yesterday. the afflicting tooth was one of my wisdom teeth - she pulled it - much better now - but very tired and hungry - hadn't eaten since I went to the hospital. Then I had a bizarre experience last night that takes far too much writing to explain but what I got out of it was that the people I was dealing with were looking at the situation from one perspective (not mine) and I was approaching it from another on top of feeling very, very beaten up and marginalized and a-l-o-n-e. Recognizing this perspective thing is helpful in understanding but it was not helpful in getting through the experience. I am so worn down that I don't have much cushion. I really need some cushion because my nerves are raw and feeling very exposed.
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Oh, GS.
I'm so sorry about the tooth.
I really know what you mean about the avalanche-cascade-streamcreekriverocean of hard things...
These times are really, really HARD.
I am sending you a lot of love and strength.
It's ox-mode time. Just stepping.
love to you and NO you're not weird that you don't feel grief for your crazy abusive unstable unpredictable and witholding father, imo...
And I'm totally with you about enduring the embarrassment to get HELP with your house. So delighted to hear you've made that choice.
xxoo
Hops
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Hi GS...
How did I avoid the social expectations and empty forms of pleasantries?
Creativity in my responses to "How are you"? Accepting that other people had no obligation to care how I am... and releasing them from that expectation from me. If I wasn't fine - I said I was "OK". I wasn't "fine" for a real long time. Or give a short description or sometimes just the name of the emotion will do. That gave me a moment's gratification for expressing my genuine emotion - but didn't dump it all out over an unsuspecting bystander...
I had a "wake up" moment when I realized that people weren't sitting around waiting for me to say or do something, just so they could judge me - in fact, no one was paying attention at all. (That was a HUGE relief!!) That reduced a lot of the anxiety I had about saying, doing, being the "right" thing... in truth, there is no "right" way and the old social conventions actually get in the way of real connecting with others. My quirk of responding unexpectedly to the "how are you" question actually brought smiles from a lot of people, opened the door to real communication and connection sometimes. It also put a lot of people off - so it goes both ways. For me, this was a good way to separate the people who were really listening to me vs the ones who were only going through the motions. You'd be amazed how many never caught some of my wilder responses...
Establishing and nurturing a few relationships where I could express myself and emotions genuinely and directly also helps... where I could say anything and it was understood the reason I was saying it was to get it outside of where I was feeling it - so I might be able to see it from a different angle. Like we do here. One doesn't need hordes of friends like this - but not having anyone to do this with, kind of nurtures a form of desperate personal energy... like a wavelength of neediness or something... and it's hard to exist or breathe in that kind of desperation no matter which side of it you're on.
Of course - we can do that here and this is the great value of the board.
Back in the Twiggy-era, when I was really hurting... is when I came up with that way of responding to how are you. It was a way of being authentic (and not "caught" being truthful about my emotions - that wasn't allowed). It was also a way to weed out the fakey-fakey people who didn't even HEAR what I said - because they just didn't care. Children of abuse have some real issues with words meaning what they're supposed to mean. So often the parents said one thing and did the complete opposite, you know? This was my way to turning the tables on that crap...
Does that help you understand what I mean?
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Hi there... wondering how you are and how things are going.
Did I totally lose you on my "theory" of social expectations? It wasn't overly clear... and maybe my other post says more about my own dysfunction than provides a useful structure for thinking about this... you know?
The thing is: a lot of the normal interactions of people going about their day simply don't have a designated space for the kinds of intense emotions that come up for me - or maybe you or ? - while in the process of working through to "blue sky"... and while we know that it's necessary to honor those emotions - they do stand out to others, who will do their best to avoid the emotions and look away... or in some cases, chastise the emotional one. That more intense level of emotion, I suspect, is too personal - too much information - for people who aren't intimately acquainted and in a close relationship with the person experiencing the emotion.
There were times, when even my hubs would try to get me to lower the intensity of what I was feeling. He was uncomfortable with how uncomfortable I was - and literally didn't know what to do or say that would help. This has gotten better, since I've begun to learn how to talk about my feelings... instead of becoming a giant ball of feeling, spinning so fast in the center of that feeling that bits and pieces of it flew off and splattered everyone and everything around me. I was the feeling, you know?
My feelings can still be extremely intense... but instead of becoming the feeling and letting myself be consumed by it... I simply give it a name and say: I'm feeling __________. And it still shows pretty clearly on my face what I'm feeling - but the simple act of saying what feeling I'm feeling... is just enough involvement of the rest of my brain... to contain it... and let it be controlled... and held... until dissapated enough that I start to work it the rest of the way out. And it's enough to say what I'm feeling - to people I don't know that well - without explaining why or what the story that goes with the feeling is...
... and I find that this is more "accepted" socially and even helps establish a connection. People can relate to the "name" of an emotion better than they can respond to the embodied expression of the emotion. There are no guarantees, however, nor any "accepted protocols" about emotions in social etiquette either, that I can think of... except that raw intense emotions are reserved for intimate relationships. And that's more of a personal observation than anything I've read in Miss Manners...
You know how we tell kids to "use their words" instead of act out their emotions? I think it's sort of the same thing and not something, I for one, was taught as a child. If it weren't for the board, where I know and trust - that my strong emotions will not scare off other people (adding that additional feeling of being "bad" and "dismissed" or like I just let off a loud fart in the middle of church) and that I will be heard out... I would have to work through to lowering the intensity all by myself, with the exception of a handful of people in 3-D that I know I can say anything to... to get the feeling out where I can look at it and it's not so toxic... and they are willing and able to help me with it. It takes a lot longer by myself, sometimes... I can be too immersed in the feeling - too close to it - to see it clearly. And it's still a new skill for me... I'm still learning how to do this.
I hope your tooth is better and that things are starting to return to "normal" a little now.
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Just sitting down beside you on the porch swing
(or the porch swing I've mentally put on your house)...
...some company, a hug and a tissue.
Let's watch stuff turn green a while.
The earth thawing, your world coming back to life.
(That sparrow will be glad to see you at the cafe...)
love,
Hops
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Hi Hon! How're you doing? Has this been a better week, for you? Any bright spots?
I 'spect you've been busy, with all the projects you listed last time... I'm off now, researching a brand NEW theory based on some random thing that fell out of my mouth a while ago... and once I think it makes SOME sense... I'll put it out here...
but I'm sure it's not an original thought... just some "connections" of ideas that I'm re-arranging different ways.
How 'bout an update when you get some breathing space?
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very interested in reading about your research results.
have things to write about, have been reading some threads but there are so many thoughts and threads of thoughts right now and even though they are not a jumble to me, the effort and length that it would take to convey them is a little too much.
Hoping to distill them down.
recognizing why I get so frustrated, learning to shift while in that place, also learning that there is a strong resistance to shifting.
Thinking about the anger I feel at being dismissed and understanding why but also the unfortunate coincidence that society in general prefers to minimize others discomfort and that minimizations comes across or is usually interpreted as a kindness (I don't believe it is EVER a kindness) but most are more tolerant than I. I process it as being dismissed; not heard at minimum.
Bumped into a friend Friday and we were trading brief "war" (mother) snippets and merging into family snippets when I listed one of the insanity things I am currently straightening out post father's death, having to do with a certificate he removed from myhome after my husband died but never mentioned to me. When she asked why would he do that and I replied "because for him females don't exist unless married" and she said "no, but why would he do that" and I gave another example of how my assessment was correct and she continued to reject my point even though she had actually been a "victim" of his interminal obsessive demands to have/see a copy of the deed of her home which his grandfather had sold to her husband's grandfather (these calls and demands went on week after week for months and months and months on end) and yet what I explained to her simpy was rejected.
No doubt it is crazy but still ....
Beyond frustrating for me to have my reality questioned, rejected, ignored - marginalized over and over and over again. Part of it is simply because people do not want to believe that humans behave the way Ns really behave (especially Ns with other mental illnesses) and part of it is societies bizarre need to normalize the truly bizarre. (But still not sure why then I become the non-"normalized" in their mind - why is it that people do such incredible mental gymnastics to normalize the mentally ill N but not the victim of the N??????
What is clear is the only way to get along in society is to function as though none of the N or mental illness stuff ever effected me. Just not sure if I can do that and very aware that a large part of me doesn't want to do that but wants my "due" for having paid such a HUGE price for it all. "Just acknowledge the disadvantages and the missing parts!!!!!!"
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I hear ya - you know I freak out when someone doesn't believe me (and this is probably going to continue life-long, I'm guessing; I'm sort of resigning myself to being touchy about that). I'm just struck with the fact that your friend experienced your Dad's madness first-hand and still doesn't recognize how you feel about dealing it. I'm puzzled about her response... it's as if she has a blind spot or something. Or as if she's covering up for him... so I guess I'm just really confused by that whole interaction, even though I understand your feelings, having been in your shoes enough times. I can't explain it to myself, so that it makes any sense.
On another note - my new theory is about physical body work in conjunction with psychological/emotional work. I've seen body-work as a useful compliment for some time... but now I'm seeing where the relationship might be different than I'd assumed previously. Plainly - I think there might be some merit to thinking about bringing ourselves to a physical balance first to stimulate (not just accelerate) progress in balancing mind, emotion and spirit. That in some cases, physical imbalance is an invisible, intangible obstacle to breaking out through some kinds of emotional plateaus... MAYBE. It's still just a nebulous theory right now... and I have tons of research & experimenting to do.
Over on my healthy ego thread... one of the things that got added to the design list was "trust in yourself". I've always understood this as trusting my consciousness, soul, true Self, whatever... but then I started remembering a bit about sexual abuse responses where one doesn't trust one's own body (and the whole host of weird things that arise from that)... and I began to wonder if "trust in myself" (in my own personal situation) included trusting my body... and asking if perhaps I've had an adversarial relationship with my body... and that it was trying to "tell me something" - that I denied, ignored, and dismissed as "unimportant".
Again, I dunno yet. But it "feels" like there is some good "treasure" in the swirly, nebulous ideas I'm working with as a result of the theory. Then again, maybe I'm just working on becoming a bonafide eccentric! LOL....
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I'm puzzled about her response... it's as if she has a blind spot or something. Or as if she's covering up for him...
I do think it is about her. I have experienced this with her a number of times and realized a few years ago that it was something that I would have to learn to overlook but on Friday I got caughlt off guard and stepped in it and got stuck for a brief period. All of that is ultimately my responsibility - the triggering reaction. That is where I am in my daily dealings - learning to even WANT to do something about it. In some way I don't fully yet understand part of me sort of luxuriates in the yuckiness of it all. The best I can understand it is that 2 year old me (or younger or older) is replaying and replaying waiting for the rescue, the loving, the "making it all right" to come along and snatch me out and put me down in a safer place where all is understood and right.
This is a frustrating place to be because I do recognize my role in this and yet am not yet able to move out of it. Yet past experience tells me that this is part of the process - awareness, then after a period (sometimes long, sometimes short) a shift. Waiting on the shift.
PR - re the physical work - without even getting there from where ever you got there - something in that rings true to me and I have been saying something along those lines to myself for some months and yet I am slipping down a slope on that account. Very interested in this concept.
eccentric e (ex) out from centric the center
out from the center honestly - there is no other place I would rather be - in spite of the price of marginalization. Out from the center saves me from being part of that which I do not admire - the ostrich life of 90 +% of humanity.
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I believe in your shift, GS...
you are honest and bold in looking at yourself and how you work.
How can you not find yourself moving toward a new position? I know it must feel like tectonic change sometimes. But that doesn't make it any less wonderful. You have changed so much, just since you were first here, imo.
I admire your steady gaze and your insights into yourself. I don't think you're just ruminating.
xo
Hops
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Hops - thank you. your words touched me. Aren't they exactly what I have longed to hear? How so very kind and meaningful. thank you.
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Now this just isn't fair. I wrote a lengthy reply this morning and posted it - I SAW it posted... and now it's gone; evaporated into the cyber-ether. My connection must've blipped again... or I'm losing my mind completely... which is a possibility! I felt bad, even, about going off into my new theory... hogging space on your thread... apparently the cyber-gods agreed with me and intervened. OH WELL... maybe it was half-baked at this stage, anyway!
About all I remember, at this point in my day:
Your 2 yr old needs a great big hug, a cookie, and sent out to the swings to play in the sunshine. That will help her refocus on something that feels better than all the yuck. These are all physical things... and even simple things like this demonstrate how our physical state can "create" feelings... change feelings... etc.
I'll try again to explain tomorrow, when I'm back in expressive-reflective mode in the morning.
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That happened so regularly to me for a while that I began writing offline and copying into the spaces here. Then I forgot for a while.
so FRUSTRATING!!!! grrr.
think I might eat that 2 year olds cookie before she can :D
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Well, you know - I get so enthralled with the process of writing - being able to reach right down inside of "me" and pull up something for "show and tell"... and when I have an audience, to boot??? OH..... I'm simply transported! I think that's why I liked being in front of a class teaching, you know? Those people paid tuition to pay attention to me and what I had to say. I filled 'em up till they overflowed! I didn't have the same reflex "I don't matter; no one's going to listen to me" self-conscious feelings, in that role. Go figure.
But I also lose part of myself in the process... and it's quite possible that after writing all that I was getting up to take a break and instead of clicking post - I clicked cancel instead. There is a shift in the balance of power between left-right brain me, lately and some of my old dyslexic stuff is coming back up and "brain-freezes" when I'm inundated with too many numbers or complex situations. I know what it is - this rebalancing of "me" states - and it's actually a good thing. It's also a result of my struggle with my physical condition... that whole topic of my relationship with my bones, flesh and how I look.
I think I'm probably just going to start a separate thread for my new "theory" GS. I'll be long-winded again, I know! So it's just as well that my first "draft" blew up yesterday. In a nutshell, I'm finding my physical body has a much more important impact on my emotional state - on whether I'm able to let something go, for instance - than I previously understood. And my relationship with my body - the way I neglect it in particular - is all intertwined with those levels of self-acceptance, self-worth, formation of "self" and expression thereof. I'm pretty convinced right now, that this will come back to attachment style. Toxic shame plays a role, too... but not in a straightforward way and I felt like I didn't completely understand what I was trying to say about it yesterday. You might feel like keeping some distance from that topic right now, with everything ELSE that's going on...
... so maybe the universe did us BOTH a favor when yesterday's babbling disappeared!
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so looking forward to your new thread
recognizing (again) that distraction is an avoidance.
Internet for me is a distraction
time to go through all the yuck - allow myself to go through it.
So when you do that - sit with or whatever - allow that wretchedness to be felt - how long do you allow it and how do you get out of it when the time is up????? this is as unpleasant an anticipation as taking some dread medication with promised side-effects.
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Now, I have the option of allowing it to take as long as it takes... but I don't, because there are other things I want to do.
When I was working a job, or if it's a particularly painful kind of yuck - I would limit the amount of time to an hour. Amazing how quickly one can process and the amount that can be processed in a whole hour! Typically I only spent a week or two on a particular topic - even though I did revisit things again and again.
The other advantage to this paced idea is that over time - as something became familiar to me in it's every gory detail - my perspective on it changed... from the initial horror and grief and rage and abandonment... to more of an OK - now what do I do? approach. Revisiting topics allowed me to observe how my feelings about X changed over time, too. I became less engaged emotionally or had more control of and choice about how emotionally engaged I would be - less affected and upset - and therefore, according to my definition - freer of the original incident.
Tapping would work too, you know... I think it's the same kind of thing... and there is a physical component - in that you can release physically held emotions from those locations (like my shoulder and ribs, for instance and the old body memory of my injuries).
But the thing about limitation of time, is to not overwhelm a person...not re-traumatize... not turn it into a form of self-abuse or obsessive, forced naval gazing - bring up an event or repeated kind of event - let the emotion shine through all the details of the memory - and hold and honor that emotion... then physically open your hands and lift them up and out... and release it. Releasing it means only that you're choosing not to hang on to the emotion physically, mentally or emotionally... and then have something specific OTHER to turn your attention to.
The emotion will linger - like it's not sure it's really "free to go". Remind that part of yourself that what happened was a long time ago and NOW things are different... and after your session, do something that completely engages your mind and emotions and body. The yuck fades over time... changes (compost creates rich fertile soil)... so don't expect immediate "magic" results. After all - you've held on to it for dear life all these years.
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So helpful PR.
I have to read it in bits. Take in a bite, digest it and then have another.
Today, had a something, an experience, an insight, not either though bits of both, in which I "saw" that a healing hand on my heart allows me to "feel" the extraordinary pain but receive healing out of some kind of compassion that defies comprehension.
Confirmation, affirmation seems necessary in order to move into the healing place. Getting "vision" of how to move forward. Less worn out. Less frestrated. Less hopeless.
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Dear, dear GS...
I'm not a very religious person - that said, I've had what can only be described as intensely spiritual experiences.
I'm SOOO glad you've found the wavelength of comfort and peace that always co-exists with the pain, grief, loss and yuck of this life. It's far greater than any of the "bad" you've experienced via your parents & FOO experiences, or so it seemed to me when I had those moments. What's still a mystery to me - and that's just fine, I don't need it explained - is why and how those validating and confirming experiences remain available in their full-strength version to me... all these years later. Unlike garden-variety, everyday "happiness" that can be wrecked by the next uncomfortable or irritating situation - this kind of comfort sticks around and has some mysterious auto-start mechanism for me. It kicked in the night we drove home in the wee hours of the morning, knowing MIL was making her final earthly jouney.
From those kinds of experience - a sort of "mother mary comfort me" moment - I've learned that love is the most powerful emotion in the universe and that it makes possible the ability to grieve and mourn in a healthy way... a letting go with love. And it exists beyond any one person's ability to control it, give it or receive it. It belongs to God or the Universe... not to people - yet it's always there, ready to be tapped - or auto-starting by itself - when we need it most.
((((((((GS)))))))))
You can TRUST this comfort and peace and healing, completely.
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I am enjoying my pudgy, lathargic, laxy self this morning, having a hard time motivating to tackle the brush fires burning around me.
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OK PR - I completely connect with your description of spending an hour per day for a limited period and then revisiting. That makes sense and is definitely manageable. Thank you for sharing. That is so practicle - real advice that I can actually put to work. I get it.
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Thanks PR, I am feeling stronger. This has been one of the longest "struggle" periods without that plateau sort of place where the incessant attacks do indeed retreat. So glad to get he for a time. Needed a break.
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I am so grateful to hear about that moment when a loving hand rested over your heart.
((((((((((((GS)))))))))))))))
You deserve that. And one reason it happened is you let it in.
love,
Hops
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YAY! Do rest, take care of yourself (emotionally and otherwise)... and just give yourself time to soak in the good, peaceful place... but just like my advice on how to tackle the yuck - do this in doses... pace yourself... the "magic" is in balancing all of the different things you're juggling right now and that takes time to learn.
So a little of this now... a little of that tomorrow... a little of ________ on Monday.... repeat as needed! :D
I've not been forced into a "schedule" for almost 2 years now. Lots of people expect that I"m climbing the walls from boredom. Not so. What I have found is that I'm much more attuned to my own rhythms & energy now. I know when I'm out of energy to do another housework task and that I need to let it go for another day... I know when I need to work 8 hours outside... I know when it's time to play or when I need to say yes when asked for time/energy from someone else or when I need to seek someone out. I really needed a chance to learn this - I couldn't have told anyone what it was and didn't know myself what was the "right" balance of all this for me. And I'm still learning and refining and yes, struggling against the "shoulds" and resistance to "wants" vs needs... I think this is absolutely a fundamental "attunement" that I was denied by the circumstances I grew up in and then later on, reacted to.
Once one gets a "taste" - I think one wonders "what took so long", you know?
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Hiya - how are you today? Did you get all your helpers organized and accomplish all the tasks you wanted done? That sounded like a great plan. I'm thinking I probably ought to seriously consider the same! (feeling a bit overwhelmed as it's already houseguest season - end of the week - and I'm way behind even on normal housework again.)
I'm waffling - and procrastinating - and telling myself that my ideas just haven't gelled yet - on the new theory of how the physical side of ourselves can be involved and also get in the way of - healing. There is a tiny element of truth in all that - but there's also a ton of avoidance, rationalization... and even conditional thinking involved. I've deliberately even added some tasks to my to-do list, that will disrupt my thought process and interfere with writing one long essay that gets me to an a-ha moment (my old friend resistance returns).
Today's rationalization is that I prefer to collaborate with other people - bounce ideas off of others, get their feedback - rather than work in isolation and an intellectual vacumn. On the other hand, I have gotten a couple of house maintenance things off the list by trying to avoid this instead! :D