Working through the detrius

[SilverLining]

And those people who are our parents: they only know the illusion that they've mangled up in their brains about who we are (like a form of alzheimers)... and it doesn't even occur to them that we might grow, change, or be any different than that image. Because of course, "they" haven't changed at all since their brain was set in that pattern.

Hi Phoenix.  These lines really say a lot.  It seems the images they hold of us in their weird little brains might have been formed before we even appeared on the scene.   We are bent and twisted to fit something they need.  I've wondered if I have been made to pay the price for abuses my father suffered at the hands of HIS father.  He couldn't get away with talking back to his father, but he could force me to listen to his monologues and contradict everything I say.  I  have played the role of father, friend, whatever in reference to what my father needs.  But I didn't get to play the role of myself.    

      

[Hopalong]

Silver,
I think this is extremely perceptive:

I do believe (or have chosen to believe) that he tries his best with the cards he was dealt.  But because he is simply unable to perceive others as equally intelligent people with valid thought processes of their own, he comes across as arrogant, insulting, disrespectful.

And even compassionate.

I admire you.

Hops

[sKePTiKal]

Maybe SL... maybe. But I do think you might be on to something about their images of us - even before we're born. It's like they've already written the part we're to play... and gee, if I'm not gifted in math like the role calls for... well, it's awkward as best, isn't it?

But then - that is one of the functional delusions - that people can make other people BE what they want them to be, without any regard to who/what they are, in reality. It's as if they've never looked into a newborn's eyes with curiosity about who the new "kid on the block" might be! Because babies are already becoming "their own person" even at that age. Maybe they think a child is like a doll - and use the fantasy-play-pretend parts of their brains to relate to children... but OOOOYUCK!!!! I just creeped myself out!

That's too freaky to think about...

[Gaining Strength]

It is cold here - really cold. My heater is broken (gas turned off really.) And I can feel the depression starting to creep in.
Slightly overwhelmed with the mess of life that has been waiting patiently to be dealt with.  I wish the collision of circumstances occured in the warmth of summer.

My little boy turned 10 today. 
He is so happy and I am so happy for him

and yet

the full impact of the memories of all the horrors that happened those first few years of his life are hitting without any warning - as though I am watching it all on a screen in a darkened theatre, replaying in time-lapsed, jerky motion.  It is all too much emotionally.  I feel the loneliness, the aloneness as though I am trapped under the weight of a boulder out in the wilderness with noone who would care even if I could summon them.

I know why I am feeling all of this but I had not foreseen any of this AT ALL, not an inkling, not last night nor even first thing this morning but now it is hitting hard and I am alone and lonely.

[CB123]

Hi Strength,

Get out of the house today.  Now.

Go somewhere warm, that feels welcoming, cozy.  The public library might be a good choice.  Spend the day somewhere warm so you can tackle the problem at home tonight.

Are you safe at home with the heat off?  I havent turned my heat on yet and we are having to wrap up, but I am not in the North where cold would be life threatening at this time of year.  If it wasnt so sunny here, I would take my own advice because the lack of heat and the dark day would be very depressing to me as well. 

Do you have a fireplace?  A space heater?  A way to make yourself more comfortable tonight? 

I know you are struggling right now...I wish I could fix it....you feel so far away and out of reach.  Do you have anything planned for your little one's birthday?  Maybe one of the silly movies that are out at the theater right now?  Maybe the dollar movies? 

Keep in touch and let us know how you are doing to day.

CB

[Hopalong]

(((((((((((GS)))))))))))))

Sending warmth and a blast of sunlight. And a hug. To you and to your boy.

I so wish you had a job, any job.

Much as I loathe mine at times, the work keeps my mind off things (unless Nboss has done a fresh slicing, but that's not every day).

Is there a utilities-assistance program in your community?

Or are the accounts in your parents' names?

love to you, I'm so sorry you're having this kind of day--

Hops

[sKePTiKal]

Hot tea or chocolate
Read selected sections of a favorite book - revisit an "old friend"
Throw a blanket over top as you curl up in a big chair or sofa

This is one of my favorite "ways to be" when it's cold and gloomy.

[SilverLining]

And I can feel the depression starting to creep in.

Hi GS.  It creeps in for me too about this time of the year.  It's a tough time.  The days keep getting shorter and colder.  It seems the sun is just barely up before it starts going down again.  The change in the time kicks off a phase of insomnia.   I try to keep in mind there is a springtime, and it's not too far away.  It's one more test, and we come out better for it in the end.  Getting some outdoor air and sun everyday is a great help for me.

 

[Gaining Strength]

I have been so angry with my mother today.
Really - absurdly angry about things she has done all of my life.
I hope this is somehow a part of the healing process - like some kind of chopper, grinder that is getting all wound up about "normal" stuff as a prelude to dealing with it in a healing way.

I had some stuff to pick up at her house today, little, adorable Curious George boots that once belonged to my little boy.  I am sending them to a little 4 year old whom we adopted from an angel tree at church.  I was trying to get everything in order: the X-mas gifts and the hand-me-downs.  I had to get it all stright and delivered in time to get to school to pick up my boy.  She folllowed me around on her walker from room to room (the hallway is not far from the kitchen but connected by a narrow space which is completely clogged by her walker).  I felt myself getting angrier and angrier crossing over into rage.  She was asking inane questions like "What are you going to do at the church?"  Why are you going to the church?  What is that?  Was it X's?  That is dirty.  and on and on and on. 

I snapped at her, "You have an uncanny ability to sniff out stress and plop yourself in the middle to make certain that you impede progress and then cry foul when your interference is not met with adoration."  She indignantly responds, "well I'm sorr-ee. I was just asking!"

I move from the kitchen back to the hallway and so does she.  "PLEASE let me move away from you and get done."  "I'm just trying to  be nice and I'm coming in here (the hallway) because I'm leaving."

Tonight she quizzed me about what my son and I were doing for dinner.  I told here we were having dinner with my father.  "And her too? (My parents were divorced 22 years ago.  He married for the third time a couple of years ago.  Noone in their right mind would want to be married to my father and yet my mother cannot bear for anyone else to be married to him.  WHY????

Dinner with my father took forever because he was almost 2 hours late.  My mother asked me what took so long.  What's it to her?  I am feeling hatred of both of them.  I haven't felt such fierce feelings for a long time.  I do so hope that this rage being stirred up is some preliminary to yet another layer of healing.  Heavens knows I cannot afford to go back into the yuck I've lived in for so long.

Oh if only I could trade them in and how I hope that my little one does not feel that way when he is my age.  If he doesn't then I will count my life successful.

[Gaining Strength]

Thank you all for your support and encouragement.

Shortly after I posted a friend called and asked me to meet her at a knit shop and we followed that up at Starbucks.  It was just the jumpstart I needed.

I have a great fireplace and tomorrow will have to area heaters that will make it all great.  I did splurge on two electric blankets from target a month ago but those things are basically worthless.  The hardly heat.  I need to take them back and try for a different brand.

CB, last night I had some cousins and a God-father over for dinner (my mother paid for the food).  It was great fun.  Tonight my father and his wife took us out for dinner.  So we have had fun celebrating.

Hops, I am working on the job thing.  No doubt work makes a difference on so many levels.  I don't know what or how but I know it won't be too long now.  Thanks for the encouragement.

[Hopalong]

Plenty more where that came from ((((((((((((GS)))))))))))))

xo
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Bad day - really bad day.  Definitely hitting low, low, low. 
Tolerance dropping precipitously.
Provocations multiplying.
Triggers increasing in occurrence.



My father - NPD - is also diagnosed with a myriad other mental health issues including Bi-polar and OCD.  As his OCD flairs up, he becomes incapable of taking medication for his physical ailments, as they increase his mental health issues plummet.

He has moved into a significant raging, untreated mania and I have become front and center in his sites.  His triggering obsession is the cemetery.  This time of year he puts 3 live wreathes on the graves of his parents and grandparents and each year he obsesses about it.  He called me over 9 times about picking up his wreathes on Wednesday.  I did and delivered them to his home, offering all along to put them up at the cemetery. 

His physical health is deteriorating.  (honestly I have no clue how in the world he is still living.  His is well into his tenth year with significant congestive heart failure.  OCD precludes his taking the important diuretics, consequently his legs weep profusely with adema and he is unable to walk and on and on and on.)  I set aside the hours of 11-1 on Friday to go with him to take the wreaths to the cemetery.  (Being perfectionistic, he would not dane for me to do it for him.)  He was not well enough to go on Friday.  So I set aside time from noon until 2pm today.  He did not make it.  He called me at 1pm and said he had spoken to people in the cemetery office and needed me to go with him right that minute to meet with them and discuss the plots available to me and my now 10 year old son. 

I told him that I would like to but would not be able to do so today.  He raged, "Not today, not yesterday and not the day before.  You NEVER take the time."  "I set aside 2 hours yesterday and 2 hours today but I have appointments this afternoon."  "YOU NEED TO CANCEL THEM!!!!! THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!!!"  "My activities were planned months in advance and cannot be altered.  I'll be glad to go on Monday."  "YOU NEED TO GO NOW"  "I'm not able to. My son has a piano lesson at 2 and "  "YOUR SON SHOULD BE PLAYING OUTSIDE NOT PLAYING THE G** D*** SISSY PIANO!!!!!!  Blam!

OK.  I know this is bi-polar mania.  I know his OCD is flaring and I know that that man has NPD.  Rationally this should be just a tick off of life with a father with these disorders. - check - But it is such a low blow - even though I know what it all is.  WHY is it a low blow.  why has it knocked me over.  I know part of it is the trigger of what happened all my life when i had no clue it was a disordered brain and mind and believed that I had something to do with it because I was not somehow good enough.  I know better now but that does not seem to mitigate the horrendous pain, the raging agony, the torment, the aloneness the ............ and the ............ and the........... and all that other sh*t that I have no words for.

I could fall one way off of the razor's edge and smash cars and windshields and store front windows - urban riots of 1 or I could fall another direction into an anhilistic nadir.

I AM SO ANGRY!!!!!
and I am sooooooooooooo depressed
and I am so l-o-n-e-l-y and a-l-o-n-e with this all.
I cannot take it and I know not why - as though the work done here and reflected here has been for naught or has been folly or imaginary.

AGONY and RAGE

[Hopalong]

I'm sorry, GS.

It must be really hard to separate his illness from his personhood. Being raged at is awful, especially when it's someone whose approval you've yearned for.

I hope this anguish is just a spell, a wave...that recedes faster than it used to.

Soon--clean sweet air after a storm.

Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Thanks for responding Hops - thanks for hearing me and for listening.  That is so healing, it is a gift that means so much.

The voicelessness of it is exactly, precisely what invokes the rage.
It makes me remember that when I found this place what I was focused on was narcissism.  It actually took me a couple of years to even notice that the name of this place was VOICELESSNESS and then it took a few months for me to understand the connection between narcissitic victim and voicelessness.  THAT alone was an opening to a new universe - that the narcissistic parents and my FOO kept me voiceless for decades.  It helped explained why ALL of my nightmares were explicitily about voicelessness - screaming to people who won't listen, talking about an imminent disaster that can be prevented but which  I'm the only one who can see and noone will listen to me and on and on.

It is voicelessness but there is so much more.  I hope to find the time tomorrow to write about what  I have figured out.

My heart is unfeignly thankful for your friendship across these years.

[Hopalong]

And mine for yours, ((((GS)))).

Thank you.

Crisis brings change (my favorite I-Ching quote) -- don't despair, don't get stuck there.

The season, like it or not, lights candles everywhere, and in Nfamilies, a lot of them are rockets.

Find your peace, your own small light of hope in the lovely darkness, hear some sacred music, see your babe.

It will pass, hon, and you and he will be all right.  Soon -- a new year will be here.

love
Hops