Does any of this make sense?

[Hopalong]

Izz, that first verse is a stitch!
And I hear you, maybe I was feeling FOR you, but who knows, maybe there isn't a one-size-fits-all, eh? Maybe in some grand way it's just fine for you to live with less emotion than others do, and just find out if you can feel HAPPY.

xo

Lighter,
I've been neglecting Betty too, but love the show. Has she found love? Been promoted? No sparks w/Daniel?

Hops

[Ami]

I had a thought hit me about Peace's post and Lupita's posts. The unhealed memories make us attracted to certain  people as a 'way" to heal the old memories of abuse and get closure on the original situation.
   I have read about this before in books, but I am really understanding how it  comes together .. If I was looking for a guy,I would use this information to try  (God Help me) find a good one .Just a thought about how the recent posts are hitting me                            Love  Ami

[finding peace]

Hi Izzy,

I get it – you are surprised that it never occurred to you (even had you not been able to get it from your parents) that you could ask for different treatment.

I think that the generation we were raised in has a lot to do with this – and is one of the reasons I can’t get through to my mother (not a reflection on your relationship with your daughter at all – a very different kettle of fish, IMO).

When I was a kid, we had 1 small black and white tv that had 5 channels and bunny ears; a telephone that had a cord, that dialed that did not take pictures or have call waiting; the word computer was not invented; and we lived in a small house in a small community, and went to church every weekend (with a minister who loved to preach hellfire and brimstone, which my parents loved to routinely threaten me with).  I had no outside contact with anyone except for one friend who lived on the same street (who my parents hated) until I went to kindergarten at 5.  My knowledge of the world was limited to what my parents taught me.  I didn’t start to question the treatment I received until high school – and that was at a time when child abuse became a household term.  In fact, I thought that everyone was raised the way I was.

It makes me wonder where the youth of today will be in 30 years – will the knowledge at their fingertips make for a better life for all? 

I am also shocked today at what kids are learning in school at such an early age.  My D is in 3rd grade, and she is learning the beginnings of “real” geometry (not the ....this is a triangle kind... ).

In any case, it doesn’t surprise me that you didn’t question.  From the information you have posted, your childhood was more isolated than mine. 

The other thing I wanted to say, please don’t feel badly that you and your siblings did not protect one another.  I think it is a direct reflection that you did not know any better at the time because of that isolation – how could you know?  I think the important thing to realize is that now you would not put up with that kind of behavior from anyone.

It breaks my heart to hear of a 9 month old child being beaten for crying, and it breaks my heart to hear of everything you endured as a child. 

Much love to you,
Peace

[isittoolate]

Dear CB,
Thank you for thinking of me

He is grieving now--for all the times he said he didnt care when he really did.  He says that he thinks he has done that a lot--to the point that he isnt sure now what he cares about

Very on! Like not knowing we have a choice and the freedom to choose. I never knew that either. As with your son, I never knew what I cared about, what would turn into a passion for me, what my goals were. ....or that I could care, and would have a passion and might have a goal. I was just not informed.

and that he is wrestling with all this at 18 instead of 68.

This is good and he will be all right, I am sure. with a mother like you to understand. The sad thing for me is that so many things were not available to me to learn, so I coped. I am learning now at 68, but 'is it too late'? My coping mechanisms were to get out of that mess and move on, generally to another mess and cope with getting out of that and so on through life. This Board is the first place I have let loose so many of my 'ignorances'. I think because I was coping my way, not knowing if THAT was right or wrong, made me grow into an independent person and a strong one and the biggie, one that no one ever seemed to understand

I am happy my posts have helped and I just wondered for the first time if it is becasue I am coming from the generation older than you, and most posters, whose parents might have lived my life.   --in ignorance of the tools available to make for a good life.

because that's what I did as well.  If I couldnt change it, I decided it didnt matter to me.  It was a way of coping with the hopelessness of the situation.  I really didnt cry about it very much.  It just was the way it was.

 
Because I say so!!
Well, that is often (still) used by parents, but an explanation would be more educational. Yes. I was like one of the herd, just following along and not knowing what the hell I was doing, but not knowing either WHY I was wondering what the hell I was doing.

I never knew the answers because I never knew the questions..... so 'that (insert everything here)' was not in my life. Can you imagine your son, 50 years from now just beginning to question himself, the whys and wherefores, and try to make sense of life then?

It seems more people think I feel more than I think I do. I could be holding back in order to not be hurt.......... whatever reason, but I know I know these feelings in my head but that is as far as it goes. (Maybe I disowned my body after the car crash and there is no place else for them to go)

Thank you CB
Love Izzy

[isittoolate]

Dear Hope,

I am so glad that you "get it". I think what I just posted to CB covers the same idea of never knowing it was there.

Like the Rock of Gibralter....I would never have known it was there and available if someone hadn't told me. ....not a good comparison, well maybe okay, since I suppose my head was filled with only rocks.

Isolation would have a  lot to do with it, with no other kids around except dysfunctional siblings.

Now I am 'isolated' in a different way, but I have the brains and the Internet to try to piece together many things.

Thanks for understanding.

Oh A TV was in our house for the first time, when I was 16.

Love
Izzy

[Hopalong]

Me too, Izzz. First TV when I was 14.
Thank heaven...

In terms of "too late", I think time isn't linear, but elastic.

So whether you spend 10 months or 10 years with new awareness and a deeper sense of who you are, those months or years are still yours...and the more aware, the more meaningful, IMO.

I can understand how you'd almost like to stop the process because it carries such a sense of loss, and having been cheated of so much time (and so much else). My Rx is:

Consider yourself Our Izzy Mandela, play lots of Shaka Zulu CDs loudly, and carry on!

love,
Hops

[isittoolate]

Hi Hops,
You are always here for me . Thank you. I have your picture on my hard drive. Did you want it?

I have no idea of the music you propose, since I grew up on country and never ventured further afield but for classical.

I sense that whoever I am now is a more knowledgable person than the one who first joined. I am content in my position and hope to keep the status quo, while mulling over all sorts of things, still learning, but no big surprises.

Now a real negative is to say, "Oh yeah. All bent outta shape, at 68, in a chair with a broken leg and soup for brains", but it is a positive for me in that no one will expect me to come up with the theory that all MCs are square, or to invent a new way to slice bread. I can be taken as I am, with no opportunity to deal with the Peter Principle.

I have reached a point whereby everyone with whom I am in contact, treats me fairly, is friendly, respectful and I am without confrontations. I am also prepared to be assertive if necessary, but I have built a rather small world. I have no regrets about that yet. I needed it to get this far.

I think time isn't linear, but elastic. Very Good Thought!

Love
Izzy

[teartracks]

Hi Iz,

I just reread your original post this thread.  Makes me feel like I need a really good  brain flossing.  Now, I'm going to read what others have to say and see whether I need regular mint flavored floss or barbed wire! 

tt

[teartracks]

Hi Iz,

I'm curious, did you and your sister get to talk about this when she and your brother visited a few months ago?  There's a name for what she experienced.  It's one of those trans words.  It just won't come to mind.  Where should I look for it?  In the 5% or the 95%?    Anyway, I was just curious about how your sister came to tell you about her experience.

The age factor is one that I think we were all hit/beaten early on and maybe all of us hid it. My eldest sister. up to 1994. used to have feelings of floating on the ceiling, looking down at our old parlour, hearing a baby crying and Mom saying, "That's enough." The story behind that came out -----she was only 9 months old, and it was the day of Dad's brother's funeral. When she  learned the truth, she stopped the floating. she was dressed and ready for the funeral, fell over on the chesterfield and began to cry so Dad was beating her.

Bella, this is really funny!  In response to the `using 5% of your brain', well I only use 1% of my brain, and for the rest I just use google (and sometimes my partner as backup). And oddly I'm regarded as smart, lol.

Some days I just sits, then some days I just sits and thinks.  Some days I just google! 

I think time isn't linear, but elastic. Hops, I'm going to put this tidbit into my 5% (on second thought, it's probably more like Bella's 1%). 

tt

[isittoolate]

Hi tt

Glad you enjoyed the thread.

It was my eldest sister, not the one who came here, who had the floating experience. (transcendental? transportation? levitation? flashbacks? bbwwhhaaaaaaaaaaa) As well she had a choking feeling when bathing her first born child around the neck area. The floating and choking were together.

So it was the next oldest sister, not the one who came here, to whom the eldest told this. I never knew until 1994 when Mom was dying. So Sis #2 (I believe to be an N) went to Mom in the hospital and mentioned the other Sis floating and choking, and that is when Mom recalled the funeral day, the beating and the fact that the baby's throat was being pressured from lying on her tummy over Dad's knee while he wailed the tar out of her, and Mom remembered sayong, "Joelie. That's enough".

I google all the time!

My cast is quite the conversation piece. The guy next door, Bob, and I arrived at our apartment doors at the same time from different directions, said, "Hi" (and that normally would be it) then he spotted my cast and we talked over 15 minutes. I told I would have to wonder what to break next for attention. (I get his grown sons to come help me at times---like hang a shower curtain,,,like help my cleaner lift the china cabinet hutch... a slip them a little something as I feel better that way.)

I received plenty  of attention on my downtown trip today, but won't likely see the strangers again.

Toodle-do for now!
Izzy

[Hopalong]

Anybody who likes country music will get this immediately I think, Izz.
The sense of harmony and story.
And the sound...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladysmith_Black_Mambazo

Somehow I think it'll appeal to you, let me know...

xo
Hops

[isittoolate]

Hiya Hops,

It took me a long time to find a page with musivc on it

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=36227899 (for anyone else)

and I did like them very much. I had never heard of them

thank You

Love
Izzy

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[Hopalong]

Ahh...I love that song, Beautiful Rain.
If you ever treat yourself to a whole CD, Izz, Shaka Zulu of theirs is wonderful.

xo
Hops