A Little Bit of Clarification

I was thinking about my last post, Decisions........... and the fact I lumped most of my family within the scope of that post. Thinking about it now, I think I show do some clarifying about what I said.

The title of the post, Decisions, might make it sound like I made more than one decision at this time. That is not, however, what I did. I actually made the same decision to include my daughter and her family in the list of those family members that I keep my distance from. The rest of those on that list, I decided about many years ago. This newest decision was the most difficult because it involves one of my own children and my grandchildren.

I did not come by this decision lightly and I didn't actually push anyone away. The distance had already been imposed by my daughter who has not really spoken to me since she hung up on me sometime last summer.

I have posted about the issues that I thought were developing between my daughter and me. One of them, Betrayal was just at the beginning of me really realizing the differences between my daughter's values and mine. While I didn't have answers when I did that post, all I had was my feelings about an evolving situation, I probably "should" have realized where things were heading.

It was only as I began to learn of my daughter's involvement with "those people" around my recent lawsuit, that I began to see what I should have seen much earlier. There really has been no healing on the part of my daughter from things long since past. Her patterns of blaming me for her problems is still very much at play in how she navigates the world.

I thought the two of us were getting closer over the past few years. From the point I began teaching my granddaughter to ride, I thought our relationship over horses was healing our personal relationship. It turns out that I was wrong. It is obvious there has been no healing on her part. She is still very much set on punishing me for things that do not go her way.

From her days as a teenager whacked out on drugs to now, the only thing that seems to have changed in her behaviors is she is no longer doing drugs. She is still a victim and living by the rules of victimization. Her personal power is constantly manipulated to make it look like she is powerless. Life is something that is done to her, not something she lives. AND I am the source of her pain, IT is my fault.

Playing the victim all the time seems to work for her. It is a skill she has honed to a fine art and unfortunately she has passed it on to her children. The way the truth has been manipulated to support their behavior has not only shocked me but broken my heart in a way I'm sure my posts these last months has reflected.

It has been a difficult dark time, this realization that our relationship was based on a lie. My daughter has not healed nor forgiven despite years of counseling. Every thing she has done has been for a reason, to obtain a desired result, to manipulate, to gain my trust where it wasn't really deserved.

I was not ready nor prepared for the discovery that nothing had changed in our relationship over all these years. Nor was I prepared for the fact that my grandchildren were actively involved in helping to paint that picture of me as someone who I am not. I DO NOT NOW or have I ever hated my daughter or my grandchildren, nor am I the ogre she tries to make me. Them saying I am, will never make it so.

I am not going to go into all of the facts that have come to light that have made it clear how manipulative and dishonest my daughter actually is but I am going to say I have learned enough to know that the best place for me is at the distance my daughter has delegated me to, both from her and from her children.

I have no expectations that my daughter or her children will ever seek a real relationship with me. Should the day ever come that any of them are willing to step up and take responsibility for themselves and their lives, I will be there ready to help. I will not, however, open myself up again to having my heart stomped on. My expectations will not change until I have learned they have truly changed. In the meantime I will continue to protect my heart in whatever ways necessary.

Decisions...........

Laying in bed as I wait to fall asleep the things I want to post here easily come into my head. It's only when I get here in front of the computer that I can't remember a single thing. Last night there were more things rolling around in my brain than I can count. Now I wondering what in the heck they were.

I do, however, remember the premise. It's the same thing over and over for me lately. On one hand there is the family I wish I had and on the other there is the family that is real. There's quite a conflict between those two images. Resolving that conflict has been the trial for me this holiday season.

I think that's what has made holidays so hard for me the last few years. I love all those sappy holiday movies about family and love and things working out. However, we all know that isn't reality. Hopefully, we know too just wanting something doesn't make it happen.

I wish I had a wonderful relationship with all my children and my brothers and sister for that matter. The fact is that my values have changed immensely since I did therapy. I no longer function under the scope of those destructive old family rules that governed me when I was a child and dictated how I dealt with people and raised my children until I learned otherwise in therapy. Unfortunately much of my family still function under those old family rules.

Those opposing beliefs, of course, are a source of conflict. That pretty much means interacting with those family members who still follow those old family rules can be pretty stressful and even quite hurtful at time.

Since I cannot control their behavior, nor would I want to, that means I have the choice of either dealing with the conflict all the time or keeping my distance. Because there is such heartache involved I have chosen the later. It has been sad to make such a decision but in the long run it makes my life much more peaceful.

I cannot live up to a standard that is unrealistic and I will no longer try. I am not responsible for their unhappiness. That is their issue and since there is nothing I can do or say that will help there's really no point in continuing to try to make relationships work that are at such opposing odds.

This does not mean that I don't love these people. I love them with all my heart. It does mean that I am letting go of any expectations that we will be the type of family I long for. I know that just is not possible when blaming, lying, manipulating and protecting offenders is at the root of their behaviors and self awareness, responsibility for one's own actions and taking charge of one's own destiny are the last things they want.

I hope they will find true happiness some day. However, the road they are willing to travel to get there is just not one I will ever travel again. I know what works for me and those old ways aren't it. I will never go back to being a victim again, not even for those I love.

My Brother

I spoke with my brother this evening. I have been meaning to call him since before Thanksgiving but somehow every time I thought about that call it was either too late or it was when I figured he'd be at school so I didn't make the call waiting for the right time.

Guess we know how that goes, waiting for the right time leaves lots of things undone.......certainly in my life anyway. I felt bad when I did connect with him today that I had not done so sooner. I miss him sometimes.

Now, I know that basically I have said here that I don't keep in touch with my siblings from my family of origin. The one exception to that has been my youngest brother. I posted a little about his history in Is Multiple Personality Disorder or DID Genetic?

From the beginning this brother has been the only one that has believed me and supported me. He doesn't think I'm crazy or that I've lied. He believes they are the liars and I'm the only one he can trust.

My brother did go to therapy at the same place that I did. I think that from his brief time there, the therapists believe that he is a multiple too. However, he didn't stay in therapy long enough to resolve anything. It was too painful and he ran.

While it saddened me that he didn't work through his issues, I can certainly understand it. The pain of therapy was overwhelming. I doubt that I would have pursued it had it not been for the fear I had that I was unprepared to protect my children if I didn't heal. That motivation is what kept me going.

My brother didn't really have much to hang onto at the time. As angry as he was at our family of origin he was still equally frightened at the prospect of being abandoned by them. He couldn't cope with that thought so he quit but he never did give up on me.

I guess that explains why he's so important to me. He is the one person in the family who acknowledges our home life to be the same as I remember. That kind of support has been important. I could have made it without it but I definitely have valued that gift......if that makes any sense.

Over the years there have been lots of problems in my relationship with my brother. We rescued him for a while. He lived with us up until we told him he had to leave. It was a hurtful time, at least for me, but if it was hurtful to him, I'll probably never know. The fact that we couldn't afford to support him and our four children may have been enough for him to "excuse" us from what otherwise may have been a transgression in his eyes. I just don't know.

Later down the road, he rented a unit in a duplex from my daughter. I tried to discourage this knowing where it would lead but my daughter couldn't bring herself to say "no."

When it was all said and done, it didn't end well. My daughter ended up evicting my brother and for a while I think he lived on the street. I am not sure.......all I know is for several years I had no idea where he was. I was worried about him but I still supported my daughter needing to evict my brother. She couldn't afford to pay his way anymore than we could years before.

Still I felt (and still feel) caught in the middle between the two of them. I love them both and I don't want to chose. Yet, whenever I have a family get together and don't invite my brother because my daughter and her husband will be angry, that's exactly what I'm doing.

For me, I don't hold the past against him. I still love him, he's my brother. He hasn't done anything that is hurtful to me in a very long time..........the one he has hurt is himself. Even in that time when he was renting from my daughter, it might have been inconvenient for her but mostly he was hurting himself. The time it went on was because she didn't want to stand up for herself. That part is on her.........although she doesn't see it that way, I am sure.

The biggest part of the problems have to do with my brother lying. He insists he hasn't........she insists he has..........me I wonder about that early diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder. If he is broken up into parts, he may not know what the truth is. He may be telling the truth as he understands it to be when there really is another truth as well.

Recently I have suggested this possibility to my daughter. She did acknowledge it might be one explanation of the problem. However, I'm not sure she is ready or willing to accept it. For me.........it doesn't matter. What matters to me is what's in my brother's heart.

I will be posting about my brother along the way. I don't want to let him go and I would like to be there for him as he has for me. I know there are risks along the way but I'm willing to take those.

I'll be thinking over what I see as the complexities of this and letting you all know what's going on along the way. For now I'll leave you with this thought, I do protect myself from my brother and the explanation of that will probably be where I start.


PS. If you are wondering.I am working on a post to answer a question from JIP's comments. I hope it will be done tomorrow but who knows.........it's a tough subject. I'll get it posted when I've managed to express myself clearly.