Being a living ghost as I bump into my old life still catches me off guard.
I am restrained by inner feelings and emotions; the easy flow of contact is no longer possible.
Even a Hi is loaded down with years of silence, confusion and pain. The old days and estrangement are at odds.
So, I walked by and she never looked up.
The death of our old relationship stands and a new re-birth hasn't been born…
I, a ghost of yesterday, my old life, the co-dependency and dysfunction. She still very much alive there…happy.
We both know it and feel it. We are more comfortable apart than together, for we no longer match, our ideas, our thoughts and our actions no longer fitting in that old comfortable 'family' way.
Sisters of estrangement.
Old familiars now awkward encounters…
I see my old self and barely recognize her…she sees the new me and I am now a stranger.
Tag: family
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I am now a stranger…
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Stories of Fiction.
What they don’t tell you is that while you are finding out who you are, you will isolate your self from your old life; you will become a stranger there, while becoming your own best friend.
My five sisters are gathering together this week, and not a whisper to invite me, I am too odd, and too weird, too nuts or insane, a myriad of labels, but a sister to be included I am not.
There is a part of me that grieves for the loss of being included and my little girl self feels sooo misunderstood and so misclassified.
It seems my truth seeking spun me into this evil creature that they don’t want no part of.
The deeper I delved, the more I explored, the more distance I put between us all, my healing keeps pushing me further away.
It is like I am set out to sea while they are on the beach having a party.
I know intellectually, that my spirit and soul would have no peace with them, that I have lived too deep now to go back to be a surface dweller…yet I grieve.
I grieve for what is, for what was.
I feel being isolated for all the wrong reasons or so it seems.
I didn’t sexually abuse them…my father did; yet I am out for talking about it.
I didn’t neglect them like my mother did; yet I am out for pointing it out.
It is odd for my little girl to reconcile to make a nice neat understandable folder to put them all in.
The girls I used to take care of, no longer care for me.
By doing what is right I am wronged.
I get it and I don’t.
It amazes me that they can’t see the bad in my father and then see only bad in me.
My son, when he was a baby, always said when he did something I thought was wrong…”what did my do?” With a face of innocence…he wondered.
And that is what rings hollow through me, “What did my do?” What hurts the most is that I did nothing wrong.
All I did was walk hand in hand with the wounded girls, the girls who were all hurt by him, I never left my line…I never wavered, never veered off course, although there are times like these I wobbled.
I wobble, shed a few tears, and feel the separation and the unjustness of it all, but I forge ahead.
I forge ahead with the truth and bear the consequences.
They say, “what doesn’t break you makes you stronger.”
I am being forged in grief it seems at times.
How can my mind comprehend me being worse then they who hurt them, again, what did my do?
It seems they have their story of me and a story of my father, both are stories of fiction…
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Wearing a Tag, “Family”.
My daughter waved her hand above her head in a crazy type way in explanation to who I am… Nuts.
Yep, nuts…over zealous about abuse, that I will give up family for it, that I will sever relationships for it. I am WAAAY out there…
Yep, that’s me.
I felt she had me pegged completely; there was no argument there.
While perhaps I would not categorize myself as insane, when it comes to dealing ‘rationally’ with abuse, I guess I am nuts.
I will not tolerate it at all. No matter from whom and especially when it comes to my kids. I am overboard certifiably nuts.
I tried to explain to her my viewpoint, but it is near impossible to explain, it is the old adage, you had to be there.
While I do believe we had a reasonable conversation, I felt she tried to come over to my side… it was impossible for her, and I am grateful.
In order to see abuse like I see abuse, you would have to have been abused like me…she never tasted abuse like I have…her abuse was delivered to her by me.
I told her the only abuse she has ever had came from me.
I was irrational, unreasonable, and way more nuts when they were young compared to how I am today.
She said I am okay now, unless it comes to abuse, then I go nuts. So, I have changed.
In the past I was okay with abuse and went Nuts in the normal day-to-day living. I love this.
Do you get it? I am seen as being nuts for going insane about abuse, by talking of it, warning others of it, writing my way free of it, seeing it when it appears, I am focused and relentless when it comes to abuse.
She said, you go way out there and am unreasonable about abuse, and I smiled and said, “yes that is me, I do do that!”
I tried to explain to her that her grandmother was ‘reasonable’ with abuse. She didn’t want to lose her family so she was kind and ‘rational’ with abuse.
That I am okay being nuts when it comes to abuse.
I truly don’t mind the name calling and the finger pointing, the shunning and anger that is directed toward me as I staunchly remain unreasonable with abuse.
I told her it matters not how they see me. What matters the most is that my children see a mother who will not sit down and be friendly with abuse. I want them to see how to treat abuse by watching me.
Abuse is not my friend.
I will lose relationships to step away from abuse. I will not put ‘family’ above it.
Meaning that just because my father was family, I should over look his abuse. Just because my mother is family, I should overlook the years she overlooked abuse. Just because my brother is family, I should overlook his supporting abuse.
To see family first …is what abuse is relying on.
For if you see the family first, abuse slips by unnoticed.
I am nuts about this, I refuse to let abuse slip by even wearing a tag “Family”.
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Save your soul.
The biggest hurdle in stopping abuse is stopping being a part of the family it is within. How easy to report abuse in another family but where it actually counts is when you see it and respond in kind within your own.
To stop treating a father as a dad and see his actions of being a pedophile and putting him away and out of reach of other little girls. My family failed at this big time.
The authorities brought him to court, but the family set him free.
I wish this was an anomaly but sadly, most will defend the father and not even let it get as far as ours did.
There is this thing called, “Unconditional Love” that keeps this from happening, and another thing called, “Forgiveness of Sins” that does as well.
We all think that the biggest thing we can do is report pedophiles to the authorities, but that is only a small portion of the job.
The biggest deal is to take a family and rip it apart seeing who really does what, what are they doing, bringing and being, to bring in consciousness where before blindness lived.
The key components a pedophile needs the most is your undying faith in them, your unconditional love and your willingness to continue to bless away his bad behaviors…for you to be relentless in this and NEVER changing.
What most fail to realize it aren’t the authorities that are to blame but the families of these perpetrators. Well, I believe the law of the land needs a big wake up call and to see that they are allowing dysfunctional families to call the shots…
For as it stands now they are asking blind people to see and act clearly.
Most often, and in my case it is true, that I wasn’t the first one abused, but rather just one of a long line of generations worth.
This was normal behavior. A mother who was unable to discern abuse for she herself never healed from her own abuse. Her abused self worth and image attracted a man who operated at the same level.
I am finding out that my brother and I are very much changelings within our family’s heritage, that every now and then one comes along and switches the family traditions, but in order to do so, you leave the family.
What most want is to stop abuse, but what few will do is stop being part of a family.
You will have to go against generations of folks, relatives in order to stop abuse.
It isn’t a simple task, for 99% of the abuse is from someone you know and trust and of the 99%, 50% is from someone who is your blood relative.
It is like turning against your own self…and is.
You will have to take all you have ever known and begin yet again.
I get so incensed with folks who tell me…I would never or I don’t stand with abuse, while they are still having relationships with people who abuse.
It is insanity. You are being just as abusive to the child by having a relationship with the person who hurts little children. The child sees who you are aligned with and KNOWS you are not a safe person or one to help them.
This matter is far more complex than it appears.
Abuse is an infection that has spread through generations of families and will continue on unless you walk away.
You have to leave the infection called abuse… IT will not leave you.
It will not one day change from hurtful abuse to wonderful love, stop pretending time will heal and change things.
You have to leave it in order to be free of it…and then you have separated your self or isolated the infection to just you and then the real work starts.
You have to see it in all your thoughts and beliefs and have to start working on each one to right it.
To change your old definition of unconditional love to love that is free of abusive effects.
You have to change your mind about a million things.
You have to be willing to not know your self or those you ‘loved’.
You have to be willing to walk a walk against family and ‘loved’ ones.
I walked this walk…and while it was extremely tough, it is well worth the effort.
You will not walk alone; you will have the guidance of the Universe if you are a seeker of the truth.
You will be changing your very DNA and the legacy you were born into.
I will help anyone who has been chosen to walk this walk.
So, go ahead and report, but mostly start the dialogue in how far would you go to stop abuse, would you go the whole way, would you forsake the world to save your soul?
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And Me
Today my husband and I leave for a few days, just him and I and the 1983 Chevy truck.
While it may not seem like a big thing, what kind of car you drive, we do however have a few vehicles that bring out the date in you, and the Big Blue Truck is one.
It doesn’t see the open road much, it rarely has plates on it and surely not insurance. It is used mainly for plowing snow and is kept in the barn on hay…well actually beach sand, but I kid him.
He bought it brand new in 1982, the fall he and I began dating. He has had it painted, a new engine, running boards and running lights, chrome wheels, loud mufflers etc. It is a well-loved truck…a truck of young boys dream.
Before taking it out on the open road, he had a few things to fix, rear breaks, led to new break lines, led to wheel bearings, and to things called spider gears (well we may let that go and pray for the best), but he won’t back out of our driveway until he is assured it is good running shape…. I have no idea what these things look like, but his concern for the truck equals his care for the things he loves.
Overall, it is his care that has kept the truck going, our love going, our family going. He is a man who pays attention to the details. He catches things before they are way far-gone, he hears little sounds the truck makes telling him which part needs his attention, just as he notices when any of us are just a hair off.
If he had his way, we would all be kept on hay in a barn, safe, sound and out of harms way…only to be taken out for joy rides.
I am so thrilled to be going on a joy ride with a man who loves, who cares and who shows it.
He has taught me how to care, how to love…we have traveled far and are very lucky that we can dip back into our earlier years and enjoy dating.
Today is his birthday…and he will be like a young kid again driving along in his big blue truck…28 years since he bought it he still loving it, and me!
My husband just came back from the parts store, the part we were waiting on did not come in. He was able to get a part for my Mail Jeep…a wheel bearing that too has been making noises. So, we will continue on…leaving the Chevy for dates near home.
This is our first time taking the Jeep on vacation…it will be a good cool ride. Air.
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I Run, Because you can’t.
“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way and not starting.”
BuddhaI felt the loneliness today of my Aunt who ran away. A woman I never met, yet I feel we are one.
I felt her sadness of being misunderstood and unknown, how her choice to save herself, sentenced her to a life alone outside of her family.
Ostracized for escaping, for saving ourselves, for walking free of abuse, we are not cheered, no clapping instead we are jeered with sarcasm.
I never ever thought my harshest critics would be from my own family, they are forever punching the already weakened psyche.
The Little girl within feels so sad, empty of words to make them see.
Today I wondered about my Aunt and her life, how she survived without contact from her family, yet like me the family she missed is the same one that brings her pain.
The intellectual part of me understands that the energy they bring me isn’t healthy, but my heart yearns for acceptance, for understanding and even empathy.
Like missing the stick that is poking you in the eye.
I have more empathy for folks who are set aside because of who they are, parts of themselves they cannot change.
Maybe because my Aunt disappeared and no one spoke her name that I want there to be words about me.
Perhaps this blog is a way that I too will not just simply disappear without a trace. (www.imperfectlady.typepad.com)
In the first few days of my father being accused of criminal sexual conduct, I wrote.
I wrote in disbelief, I wrote the words to anchor myself somewhere, to hold me in the sea of grief.
Writing is evidence of my journey.
I have kept all written communications from my family as evidence. I know that is an odd word to use.
It was the evidence I needed to sort out which one of us was in reality and which one wasn’t.
My mental mind fought a long hard battle up against reality and in reality there are written words from a family who is not cheering me.
In as much as I want them to be cheering, what I needed more were their words of mental ness to shine the way out.
Maybe in the end their shouts of sarcasm are cheering me forward.
They are showing me there is nothing for me back there.
They were showing me how not to be.
Showing me how far I have come.I feel the energy of my runaway aunt; she joins me in spirit as I run along, lending me her courage and strength. I feel the spirit of many little girls whose time ran out, who were too empty to begin, I run for you.
I run towards wholeness with truth at my side.
I feel you with me as I run.The refrain “you are the wind beneath my wings” came to mind.
I am so grateful I was able to run away.
I am so not alone.
All little girls everywhere who suffered like I, I run for you.
I run, because you can’t.
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Kept this Pattern Going.
Being a mother in the middle and having a generation before me and a generation below me puts me in a great place to witness the intricacies of how relationships are formed and how the legacy is passed on.
Being aware of the legacy you are in while you are in it is near impossible…it takes stepping out to get a clear view.
I leaped out of my childhood legacy when my mother’s moral tower displayed her husband of 49 years as a pedophile, it was then I knew the generation before me, and sadly I could also see the generation beneath me and how one man had touched two generations while my mother loved him.
I saw him in his truth, her in her truth, and then me in mine.
I saw the river that flowed beneath all of us and the only way to escape that river is to see what you are swimming in.
Within me lay all the layers of teaching and years of treatment and formation, in horror I saw her in me…
Within a few days I was able to see the structure of our family and how it all was flimsily held together and how each insane idea supported another insane concept, the maze was intricately held together by unquestioning authority.
To see the shocking truth of a pedophile father and the undying “love” of his wife towards him, shatters the scaffolding that I had built called me.
I saw my own insanity.
I then saw how insanely I had treated my children based upon the morals and values of a woman who ‘loved and supported’ a pedophile.
Stuck in the middle with an insane woman above me, mistreated children below me and me aware, I then had to unhitch myself from her teachings and long held beliefs while continuing to raise children but change everything.
In the middle, I knew I couldn’t change my mother, but I had a chance at redoing me and then I had the hope that if I could, my children would then repattern themselves after the new me.
What a tight spot to be in, yet with great freedom.
I knew intuitively that they felt my every move.
Where in the past I had blindly trampled upon their lives, I now knew that I could inflict pain or raise their soul.
It has been my intentions, while not always successful, to see the children.
To be very conscious of how my choices in life impacted theirs.
For we are all strung on the same string, the string called family legacy.
You simply can’t escape the line of your parents, but you can change the dance steps, the outcome, and the way you live your life.
It takes great strength and courage to see the insanity of an abusive family and to see the traces poking out in you, to own your insane madness and to feel the rage of injustice, and the unknowingness of being a child and following along, with love, trust and faith.
I found myself pretty much empty of good value, and had to start from scratch building my own tower of morals and values, and I started with the foundation of truth.
I began building a whole new structure using the pieces of insanity, for its denial is what has kept this pattern going.
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Our Own Mother Lode.
In Alice Miller’s book, Banished Knowledge, the chapter, called ‘the wicked child’ is the following.
“In Thou Shalt Not be Aware, I have demonstrated how precisely Freud’s “drive” theory and Melanie Klein’s theory of the cruel infant coincide with the traditional pedagogic view of the child. That which Martin Luther postulated four hundred years ago is still accepted today; thus, for instance, the psychoanalyst Edward Glover writes:
“Expressing these technical discoveries in social terms we can say that the perfectly normal infant is almost completely egocentric, greedy, dirty, violent in temper, destructive in habit, profoundly sexual in purpose, aggrandizing in attitude, devoid of all but the most primitive reality sense, without conscience or moral feeling, whose attitude to society (as represented by the family) is opportunist, inconsiderate, domineering and sadistic. And when we come to consider the criminal type labeled psychopathic it will be apparent that many of these characteristics can under certain circumstances persist into adult life. In fact, judged by adult social standards the normal baby is for all practical purposes a born criminal.”
“When I opposed this thesis of the cruel child, the alleged sexuality of the child is often pointed out to me. Without the moral attitude of ‘poisonous pedagogy,” which I describe in “For Your Own Good”, such a line of reasoning would be unthinkable for it assumes that sexuality is something bad and culpable. So far, psychoanalysis has not seemed to free itself from such evaluations. Although the assertion of infantile sexuality was declared the principal dogma of psychoanalysis, it is not clear what definition of sexuality this assertion is based on. The literature of psychoanalysis contains examples of very heterogeneous phenomena, such as childish curiosity and sensuality and the desire for physical closeness, for stimulation by stroking, for caressing and soothing, for gentle touching, for the physical warmth of another person, and for numerous pleasure experiences in the child’s own body, including the genitals. Yet all this doesn’t amount to sexuality, even though adults who were once raised with coldness and physical deprivation may like to call it that. In Sigmund Freud’s day, childish autoeroticism was punished with extreme severity, and the touching of the genitals was countered with threats of castration because the adults projected feelings of their own ‘impurity” onto the child and punished him for their own forbidden fantasies. However, this is not nearly the reason enough to equate childish autoeroticism, sexuality, and curiosity with sexuality.
“Sexuality is the copulative urge of human beings, who do not receive their hormonal directive until puberty. Proceeding from this biological definition, it is logical that I do not find this sexuality in children. It goes without saying that sexual abuse of children leaves its mark on its victims. Thus an abused child can simulate “sexual” behavior so as not to lose the regard of the adult. The result is a distorted picture. I have long been preoccupied with the question of why the plight of sexually abused children and their behavior are constantly being cited, in courtrooms as well as in psychoanalytic practice, as proof of their guilt. One reason is that the adults unload their ‘impure’ sexuality by ascribing it to the child through projection.”
“Even if the copulation urge were already active in newborn infants – which, of course, is utter nonsense – why should that be regarded as culpable? Sexuality is a natural urge that can’t be held responsible if some people resort to it to impair and destroy the lives of others. Such people become culpable, not because they succumb to the copulation urge but because in their history this urge was coupled with other factors such as cruelty, humiliation, and the exercise of power and because, on the basis of this history, they act destructively. When they include sexuality in their destructive acts, sexuality cannot be blamed for those acts. Taking the example of Jurgen Bartsch, I demonstrated in “For Your Own Good” how a person who was tormented in childhood becomes culpable and how misleading it is to hold his sexuality and alleged “uncontrolled drives” responsible. A small child cannot be cruel for the simple reason that he is defenseless and unable as yet to take revenge on others for the torments he has suffered – except perhaps on small animals. The child has not yet the power to destroy human lives, even though, of course, he can – and must- harbor murderous thoughts and vengeful desires in his imagination.”
“ A young pediatric analyst, who practices according to Melanie Klein’s method, once told me; “You obviously have no children of your own. Otherwise you would know that children are not, as you describe them, innocent, but have cruel imaginations. This can be observed even in the way an infant smacks its mother.” I didn’t immediately tell this young analyst that I am the mother of two children; instead I asked her what she meant by “smack.” She described a child who in a frenzy hit his mother’s face with his hands – with his fists even, she said. Although she herself had no children, she had observed such behavior on several occasions; moreover, mothers of children who were her patients had reported the same behavior to her. I tried to query her certainty: This smacking, I argued, might also be a harmless game; it depends on how the mother sees it. It is only if the mother feels humiliated and beaten, if she confuses the child with her own parents and resorts to pedagogic measures, that what began as playful behavior on the part of the child can turn into frustration and assume destructive traits. The child then feels misunderstood, and the only way he can express his frustrations is by hitting his mother with his fists. If I describe such a situation to someone who hasn’t been trained for ten years in the Kleinian theory, I am immediately understood. But this analyst looked at me with suspicion as she said, “Melanie Klein spent all her life working with children and her theories were based on her observations.”
“That is precisely the point: What kind of eyes are doing the observing? A mother sees her frenzied, screaming child and is firmly convinced that the children must be disciplined. After all, that is what she learned from her mother, and those early lessons are extremely affective. Melanie Klein observed her child and the other children from her practice against the background of her own upbringing and apparently did not see beyond what she had learned in her own youth from her mother. Since time immemorial, gynecologists, nurses, and parents have observed screaming infants and have likewise remained blind to the fact that those screams are the expression of psychic distress and are altogether avoidable.”
“My assertion that the infant is innocent has nothing to do with romantic idealization, nor is it derived from this or that philosophical evaluation. It stems rather from the reality of the child’s situation: A baby is defenseless and as yet bears no responsibility for others; as yet, he owes nobody anything. But this fact does not contradict the frequently observation that children can behave very cruelly, just as cruelly as they have been treated by others. Erin Pizzey, the founder of shelters for battered women and children reports that there are even some three-year olds who cannot tussle playfully but fight each other as if to kill. In their behavior these children reflect in every detail the brutality they experienced at home and reveal unmistakably where they learned their destructive behavior.”
“I am often asked by worried parents whether children are learning cruelty from television. In my view a child
who harbors no pent up rage will show no interest in brutal and sadistic TV programs. However, brutal programs are avidly absorbed by children who have never been allowed to defend themselves against overt or subtle tormenting at home or who, for example, to spare a threatened parent. So they satisfy their secret longings for revenge by identifying with what they see on TV. These children already carry within them the seeds of future destructiveness. Whether or not this destructiveness will erupt depends largely upon whether life offers them more than violence: in other words, whether witnesses willing to rescue them cross their path. What is important to understand is that the child learns cruelty not by watching TV but always by suffering and repressing.”“The school of cruelty is often coupled with sexual abuse. When, for instance, a twenty-year-old man masturbates a five-year-old boy, the destructive components of gratification of desire are imposed upon the child by the adult. The child will never free himself from this type of gratification and, as an adult, will be subject to the unconscious compulsion to avenge another child, in some form or other, the rape he once experienced. Thus destructiveness, with all its attendant rationalizations, is taught, learned and disguised.”
“It is only from adults that an unloved child learns to hate or torment and to disguise these feelings with lies and hypocrisy. That is why, when the child grows up, he or she will say that children require norms and disciplining; this lie provides access to adult society, a lie that permeates all pedagogy and, to this day, psychoanalysis. The young child knows no lies, is prepared to take at their face value such words as truth, love and mercy as heard in religious instruction in school. Only on finding out that his naiveté is cause for ridicule does the child learn to dissemble. The child’s upbringing teaches him the patterns of destructive behavior that will late be interpreted by experts as the result of innate destructive drive. Anyone daring to question this assertion will be smiled at as being naïve, as if that person had never come in contact with children who didn’t know “how they can get on your nerves.” For at least since the days of Sigmund Freud, it has been known in ‘progressive’ circles that children come into this world with a death drive and might kill us all if we didn’t ward off “the first indications.” Alice Miller
When we stop seeing innocent parents we will start seeing innocent children…Especially adult children need to look at their parents in reality and stop glamorizing their childrearing ways as without faults and failures.
And in order for the adult child who still suffers the affects from abuse, we need to rage against the proper person, the one who hurt us, and let it out, changing our ideas of who our parent really is compared to the version with our repression of rage.
When you see someone who has injured you and your repress your rage, you are then building up the steam if you will of repression and if you don’t direct it to the right source, you then get a distorted view of reality and any annoyance or disturbance that springs up, your unexpressed rage falls upon the innocent.
In my experience, my rage for my father and mother was poured upon my children, the moment they did one small thing wrong.
And I knew I was way out of control and that I was way overreacting to a minor infraction, but I couldn’t control it.
Once I was able to see and feel who my father really was, and not my repressed memory and rage, I was able to pour out of me my rage towards him, and it left my children out of the picture.
They just happened to be innocent bystanders in a long-standing abusive relationship.
I had to change my perception of who my parents were.
We do have this all backwards, for each person who makes it to adulthood, and who has a child, they can be rest assured that the rage within will spill upon the child, Unless it has been delivered to the abusive person who began this dance.
Children always arrive innocent. Always.
Adults are the only ones who can turn them into evil destructive people…people who will hurt themselves or others.
If each of us would just mine our own rage and vent it to the proper places, our whole planet would change. We are responsible for our own mother lode.
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Save yourself.
While thinking back upon my journey out of sexual abuse/incest, I wondered what was the one thing that made a difference, what one major item was my cure?
Cancer has drug treatments and therapies and it seems the body has lots of help to eradicate the diseased cells and again, I wondered about how abuse is similar but completely different.
It is like we the abused child are the cancerous cells, and we have to leave the tumor.
There is no treatment for us; it is up to us to save ourselves.
What other diseases are healed by the sick cell?
It seem preposterous to know that we are the ones we are counting on and in order to be healed of incest, you must leave the family where it originated, your family of origin.
So, in order to heal you must go against and away from your family and most often friends.
We leave the ones who others use to help in times of sickness, they are no available to use, for it is from them that our healing lies.
I just found this very odd that we the dysfunctional, the broken down and confused are the ones to lead the charge, the ones put in control of our wellness.
And we have to go against family and friends to achieve this task, the ones who have used and abused us are now there to holler and insult as we make our way away.
Heading into an unknown land hoping for a new start a new self, a place where we can undo the dysfunction and make us function.
We need to function to handle our dysfunction.
Incredible…this self healing healing stuff!
Which is why the rate of success is so very small. I wish I had the numbers, but I don’t. In my family of 16, including me, two of us so far have managed to stay away from the tumor.
Two of us are seen as outcasts…and we are, we had to cast ourselves out of the disease, no one but your self can save your self. It is as if you are on fire and you are the fireman.
This just boggles my mind and I am in complete awe that one as upside down and twisted was able to get myself free.
I do recall in the beginning how the pull was to go back, to make the tumor benign to make the family whole so that I could be with them….but it soon shown me I was all I could save, each cell is on its own.
No one is coming to save you, you have to save yourself.
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A Lady with Borders
I listened to Dr. Laura Berman speak about “Borderline Personality Disorder”. It sounded so similar to where I came from, where the lines between what is your life and what is my life are blended, and how you can flip between like and hate in relationships, blaming the other for your actions. She was speaking to a woman whose husband had this and the husband blamed the wife for his cheating.
Dr. Laura’s advice to the woman was that even if you are the only one that is sane and all are calling you insane, you are still sane. That for her to grab a hold of reality and not let go for it seems we can get sucked into their twisted reality and get very confused. And usually these types of individuals are married to or in a relationship with co-dependents who live to make you happy.
I was glad to hear of this Borderline Personality Disorder, and I feel that it mirrors own life in how I used to blame my poor behavior as a mother on misbehaving children and how I also have lived on the other side of the coin, being a good daughter to make a good mother.
This was an interesting view of my family and how they still are using each other to behave.
I will get a good sister IF I be a good sister.
I will get a good mother if I be a good daughter.This conjoined way of living is very weird to me now, and the insanity that ensues mind blowing, for they literally believe that they can control another’s behavior by their behavior.
I am stunned to know that finding reality and separating bodies is what is needed, to stop bleeding into others lives or having their lives bleed into yours, that we need to find a way to stay completely in your own power.
I also listened to Mark Nepo who wrote “The Book of Awakening,” and he spoke of a time when he lost his job and found out he had cancer, and at the moment when his life seemed to all fall apart at once, he found his soul, a part of him that remained untouched by the chaos.
I get that.
I felt that at the time my whole world fell apart that inside of me my soul awoke or I awoke to my soul. It was the only thing dysfunction hadn’t touched.
I can’t be certain what my overall mental status was for 46 years or what conditions all in my family have, but this Borderline Personality Disorder seems to explain the sense of guilt I had when I wasn’t able to make them better, or the shame I felt for my father’s deeds, like we were all one big ameba.
I woke up as a woman without borders!
The past six years have been constructing fences, separating my flesh from theirs, my emotions and feelings being shanghaied by their lives, and learning how to be a lady with borders.
I M Perfect lady 