Around The Bend

[Powder]

So much has happened. Don't know what to write first.

Today: I was nervous to go to my youngest's parent-teacher conference for pre-school because my H. and I were a bit angry with the teacher for her philosophy of not letting a four-year-old play in the new area based on yesterday's discipline issue. She uses the Green-Yellow-Red cards system. The thing is, relationships rely on a clean slate. Things shouldn't be dragged from one day to the next, especially negatives.

Anyway, I am proud that when she said "no" to my child's request to play in the area, I made direct eye contact with her and very seriously said that she had been looking forward to doing that today. I didn't tell her how to do her job, even though I felt like yelling it that she's too authoritarian and negative. I do know that being consistent is even more important than which style, so that kids can know what to predict and how to work with this authority figure consistently over time. I get that my style is more positive and permissive than the teachers. So I communicated with body language and clear expectation that something was expected of her. She backed down a little and said that if the day went well, she could go in that area during the afternoon, which did happen.

But I was not looking forward to the meeting because I was expecting negative. I refrained from medicating and just decided to chew gum instead. It seems to help lately to distract from my emotions that seem to get the best of me during PMS. That worked. And the meeting went pretty well.

The issue was that as the teacher talked about my child's learning to draw lines from one side to match the other side, I was getting memories of doing that. There were about three times when the thing my child is doing brought up a school memory for me. I felt myself dissociate (I think) a little to protect myself from that time period. I felt this feeling of overwhelm and "pushing it away" such that I found it hard to listen and concentrate. I thought "Oh no, I need to hear these recommendations for my daughter's summer learning at home, but now I'm dissociating and I won't remember any of it!" I felt ashamed because I feel it happening and don't know what to do to stop it.

To connect with the recommends, teacher said she needs:

1. me to point to random letters and prompt her for the sound or the letter name, not in order. She's working on "O"
2. to use playdoh and popcycle sticks, etc, to make letters and numbers to retain the memory (helps remember better than just writing, sounding out, and reading alone.
3. a kinderg. level workbook with a rainbow logo from Office Depot
4. Bob books from Costco, set 1 then purple "word recognition" set, which are hard to get as they sell quick at Coscto
5. Sing alphabet songs
6. domino math adding,
7. writing small size letters and numbers, some reversals
8. whole word recognition
9. shapes: diamonds and triangles are hard for her to draw

Okay, so I do remember some. Maybe writing it will help me hold onto it. See I love my child, and I hate that my own bad childhood trauma makes me dissociate when she needs me to remain alert.

 

[Powder]

As soon as I left the meeting, my stomach problem that I woke up with got really bad. I started to feel I just wanted to go home and curl up and veg out. My tummy is still not good. I also noticed it was 79 in my house, and I feel very cold and got a hot chocolate to drink. Everyone else is feeling warm, and I am feeling so cold.

These are two symptoms I have of being triggered at low levels; it goes into somatic stuff. Then, I feel spacey all day, and moments of profound fatigue kill my ability to have energy or feel motivate to do the laundry or grade papers.

I was in therapy to address this stuff, but I had to stop due to losing a contract when my employer rehired someone who decided to come back.

I am still waiting to hear anything from a good job I applied for near my therapist, so that we could move and I could go back into therapy.

After three years, my only sister finally contacted me and said she was wrong to push me away when I confronted our father with abuse. My parents shut me out and told my siblings in a way that implied they needed to close ranks, which they did. I have not had a word or email or anything from my brother since my mother phoned him three years ago. :(

My sister got a set of readings done and based on that, decided to admit that I'm probably telling the truth, or think that I am, but I guess she still is blocking the pain of it being our own daddy who did it. She thinks, based on the reading, that it was an uncle figure. She didn't ask for the name or identity of the abuser. I believe it's because she "knows" and doesn't want to face it yet or can't face it yet, is more accurate/fair.

Basically, I feel that she's edging closer to the edge and peering over into her own past. She's starting to lose her dependency on her abusers, slowly.

I am uncomfortable in this. This isn't in my comfort zone for several reasons, avoidance and boundaries included. I feel I'm being asked by my own conscience to be present and supportive as she may/may not go through the process I just went through three years ago. My sister is 20 months younger than I am.

It's hard to, in words, explain the set of thoughts and emotions related to her. I wanted to set the boundary that she had to remember...then, and only then, would I talk with her or accept her attempts to reach out because her agenda is to pull me back into the Stokholm zone with her, desperately. Now, she is probably doing that, but while slowly stepping away from her denial.

I don't know what is "right" but I feel like a jerk, conflicted between protecting myself from feeling and vulnerability and also wanting to be there for her but feeling under-qualified to handle her with care. I can be too pushy and so "right I am wrong." I'm not patient with my sister, but I'm trying to learn what that feels like. I'm trying to let go of what I want and to focus on what she needs. This is also something I am working on with my Husband and family. I realize that my trauma, development in a dysfunctional family of addicts with likely other disorders, and academic career of avoidance of daily living with structural dissociation and numbing, I am not well equipped to navigate the territory. All I have is what I just went through and the forum and some skills I've picked up to guide me.

I don't know what she will remember, how I will perceive it (as inaccurate or distorted, as she views my memory of trauma) and if she will attempt to further invalidate me. I don't trust people, her included, enough or myself to not make things worse for her or myself (much). I have learned to exercise restraint and not dump on people. (I think.)

I know that she needs someone to listen and validate. Because we share an abusive set of parents, it seems that we should recognize that and support each other. But instead, we seem to feel so invalidated by the other sisters' different perspective, she more than I. She corrects every detail of my memories, telling me I'm wrong, over irrelevant details.

 

[Powder]

My emotions are right on the surface and I'm having to dig deep and connect with my soul Inner Self Helper more often to do what is right, even though my ego is hurting because my sister still thinks I have the wrong perpetrator. She still "needs" the parents, the dream parents. I am in my heart aware of that anyway. I sense it. It is a false ego need. An adult does not need parents, and an adult who remember the abuse certainly realizes that those "parents" never existed as such.

I found some interesting articles. One that deals in the issue of NDE or the sense of having Died during the trauma: Link Removed

And this one about the Inner Self Helper in MPD: http://www.dissociation.com/index/Manuals/RXWISH.TXT

I am researching that, and now I wonder if the "ghost kids" are hallucinations of my child alters. They come to me in emotional pain, and they hide from me as well, they want my attention. :( Yup, I know who they are now.)

 

[Powder]

I am more aware of my need to interact with and work with my child parts who were traumatized to integrate and to release their terror out of me and replace that with divine love and strength.

Now I understand why I didn't go looking for the traumatized parts, I went looking for my "missing baby" who is my Birth Personality, who was melded with my soul. My soul "wanted her back" now. It was time to start integrating and preparing for my soul and birth personality to reunite.

I had dreamed that I put my birth personality into a "doll" (a baby doll, a porceline doll) that I stored for safe keeping. I stored it SO LONG that I forgot about it and wasn't aware of it or that I even wanted it.

My soul knew it was time to want 'me' back. I began to long for her back and every night, I went looking for myself in my dreams. I found my two or three year old part, but she was a fragment, and not what I was longing for. I found her "zipped" into an armrest in the old Blue Bronco back seat inside a warehouse/garage.

My baby belonged to the old wise woman/me who knew she was going to die and wanted her "real baby" that she "turned into a doll" and gave to "me" to hide for safekeeping. The old woman spoke to the friend and the friend asked me/host to go looking for the real baby/doll.

I also dreamed that I met my Inner Self Helper, a man, and he gave me a cradle for the doll as the most therapeutic gift he could give me. I was, as an adult and with my husband, to save the cradle, to find my missing baby, to put it in this new cradle and rock it. I put it in the trunk of our car so that when I found my missing baby, I would have a place to care for it.

 

[Powder]

My sister came to my birthday dinner and brought my niece, Tess! I was so happy to finally get to hug my little sister and her beautiful baby girl who is almost 2.

The next day, we had a long talk. She really held back a lot of the stuff she used to throw in my face, and controlled her emotions out of respect for my PTSD. She said that she was afraid of triggering me and making it worse. She also cried and said that she has spent loads of time anxious that I might suicide, which is ironic because I have been doing the same thing about her. She actually was hospitalized for an attempt, while I have not attempted.

I have always gotten help or reached out.

I am glad that this happened and hopeful that we can help and love each other more actively again.

We both feel spiritually very close to one another.

 

[Powder]

The other issue that has resurfaced is the question of my paternity. Something my sister said is that the Akashic reading she had done said I was abused by my uncle a brother figure.

In the past, I have wondered if my uncle is my bio father because of several small reasons. My blood type doesn't fit, and would appear to rule out my dad as my dad. Then, there is some other information that could be related and fill in the backstory of events before my birth. And then the reading said that the man I was raised believing to be my dad, and the man who abused me, is, my uncle. That leaves only his brother as my father, his only brother.

This is a big deal to me and I need to rationalize this rather than just dismiss it or freak out.

1. I am 0+ (mom is A or B (can't remember) and my dad is AB) So just according to blood type, he cannot possibly be my father short of a genetic mutation.

2. My dad's mom, my grandma, told me about the time my uncle nearly left my aunt/cousin for "a red-headed woman" but didn't because my grandfather threatened to kick my uncle out of the family if he did. My gma doesn't know the full conversation because my grandpa never wanted to burden her with all of it, but that's all she knew. I was born almost 9 months later. My parents were married.

3. My mom was reluctant to divulge the separation of age between myself and my cousin, which I found very odd and have always wondered why.

4. My mother always called me ungrateful for "what she did for me" etc, which was never explained.

5. My mother told me that if I told people what she and my dad fought about, I would be taken away. I know wonder if she means that (in the 70's, Dad's had a right to their biological child?) I still don't know what that threat was, or if it was just a general vague mentally abusive threat with nothing behind it. There was drugs, there was the fact my sister and I were being sexually abused by our dad, so there is plenty that she could have been fighting with him about, paternity would be one more option.

6. My dad's always expressed bitterness toward his older brother for taking everything he liked, stealing his girlfriends, his car, etc.

7. My mom's jealousy. Neurotic jealously is when someone is jealous for no reason other than they, themselves, have cheated and expect it to happen to them.

8. My cousin and I are very alike physically, emotionally, mentally, and in every possible way. She has OCD, and I have PTSD.

I am just trying to get down my thoughts and get this off my chest "so that I don't have to have it all in my head."

Would it be possible to ask my cousin for her blood type or her families? My H. thinks all I need is my grandparents, to eliminate and find out my uncle's.

I want to know more, but I don't want to rock the boat any more than I already have with the family. I don't want to alienate myself further. I just got my sister back. Babysteps.

Any thoughts are welcome. I don't need just advice, because really what can I do? But this is all foreign and I don't really know why I have all kinds of emotions. I was crying and angry and everything, just on the suspicion. I don't even know anything for sure. I just keep thinking about this, and I do realize that paranoia and obsessive worry are part of PTSD.

 

[The Albatross]

Very tired and my brain is stuck Muse. I'll put my thinking cap on and see if I can put together some thoughts in the morning before I go to work.

I can see that you're puzzling over things, trying to put it together. Very hard to do because it seems that the significant piece is still missing.

I guess the only thing right off about it, is that if you are able to discern the truth, about paternity, what would change for you in a more beneficial way? No snark intended at all, I'm just suggesting that perhaps, I would spend some time deducing, how this information would best serve me moving forward.

There are some mysteries and secrets in my father's side of the family. For me all roads lead almost nowhere but what I did learn didn't do much of anything except upset me or make me angry. I decided after my father died and things came out, that I was not best served and stopped digging. But that was just me. Plain and simple, which wolf did I want to feed and if the information was going to drive the upset, I backed off. I accepted that I may never know the truth about some things, and I decided I was okay with it.

But you can choose and determine that for yourself, in any way that you wish provided it can move you forward and improve your present?

 

[Powder]

Thank you, Albatross. :) I have thought that through and think that all roads lead to the same place, too. It's more about knowing where I come from and solving a mystery about my parentage. I don't feel much anger. I felt some, but it passed quickly. I felt that there were reasons, if this happened, and I gave my mother the benefit of the doubt.

I don't feel this is intolerable, but I also feel that it's just life.

If my cousin is really my half-sister, I know she would want to know. She would be mixed in emotion, but mostly, she is unhappy being an only child. We are pretty close, and she's constantly wanting to visit and inviting me to visit. It would be something to me as well. But our friendship has its complexity. She has OCD and usually invites a friend, which always makes me feel "I'm not enough" even though I suspect it is due to anxiety and fear of intimacy.

If I even could get my mother to admit to an affair or "accident" while under the influence with him, I could decide that it would be best not to tell everyone about it out of concern for the family? I don't know enough. If I could have the "talk" with my mom at a counselor's and get some honest from her, it could lead, down the road to some kind of understanding or a basis for a more honest relationship. She would have to want that, too. I do not put my hopes into that, but also feel that it can sometimes work to give some people an opportunity to make things better if not right.

But as you mentioned, what could it gain me. Not a lot. It could rock the boat so bad that it makes things worse for more than just me. I don't want that either. I care about the people involved. I'm not a selfish person, but I have too many secrets and abuse growing up to need some clarity about "who I am" in terms of how to proceed from where I really came from. I'm pretty sure from your message that you get what I mean. I am glad you posted, and I don't feel as alone.

Thank you for sharing this with me. It means so much coming from you, someone I respect on this forum.

Hugs, Muse

 

[Powder]

Now, based on the fact that my lil sis is getting what appear to be very accurate "readings" from a friend, I'm afraid that too much info about me will come out, be a shock to her, and result in another family drama that I didn't cause but which will end up harming me.

I know that I need to go with life, and stop fearing everything. I need to trust and let go. I do have faith in divine guidance, to a point. I mean, I've been traumatized so deeply, how can I ever see a protective element to life? I have never known safety or trust, until now, and it seems fleeting.

If my sis finds out more from her reader that would cause her to to take the information of my dad not being my bio dad, I am afraid of being further alienated from those I still have contact with, namely my first cousin, possible half-sister and my uncle's family/possible bio father.

Now I'm worried of being totally cut out of all of it. I've never "fit in" in my family. I felt like the "outsider" and that I never belonged. I often felt I belonged with my uncle and cousin. I never suspected I was "his daughter" though!!! I just feel similar to them in attitude and personality, taste, and way of communicating and seeing the world.

I know that even if I am genetically more related than I thought, it won't bring me any closer and would simply rock the boat. I am never going to get anything that makes up for the past, and only my choices, attitudes, changes, and actions will create a better life for me and my own family now. I have to move forward, but I also have a responsibility to myself to deal with the issues I carry in me from the past. My soul knows I have work to do. I also need to remember to "live my life" and move forward with my goals.

Does anyone get what it feels like to have been kept so many secrets and so many lies about your life?

 

[Powder]

Probably, getting back into counseling or therapy soon would be a smart move on my part.

I'm struggling to integrate information that is not fully confirmed. The universe has been sending me big hints. But I am struggling to process the emotions in the vacuum created by the loss of relationship with my mother. Additionally, I feel strongly that my life needs to be bold and lived in the present. I cannot allow the messed up parenting I got, no matter how confusing, to prevent me from living a fulfilled life.

As a survivor, "I'm still here" is my motto. Although sometimes I feel like a ghost, dissociated, feeling like I'm floating out of my life, still reeling from the past. I'm still here, and I will fight for my life, not to merely survive, but to live. I have always felt this way. There is a strength that I find...Is is spiritual or biological? I don't care because I need it to keep from giving up.

When I am willing to fight, I can accomplish my goals. I used this feeling and fed it, like throwing huge steaks at a lion, to face my fears and do things I was unlikely to do.

Yesterday, I did it again.

Despite my supreme Avoidance of my abusive parents, I made myself drive to their home. I just drove there and looked at it; I knew they were out of town. Even though my palms were sweaty, I observed my thoughts, talked myself through the drive, and congratulated myself for doing it on the way back to work.

I am proud that I could do it. I want to keep my bravery in shape for other, more important things.

 

[Powder]

Oh, something happened that has left my heart racing and my adrenaline coursing through me.
I've had to go full dose on my night med to get any sleep. Not good.

I've been ruminating and analyzing the conversations I've had with mom and grandma regarding my uncle (possible biologic father). In so doing, I realized that my gma. had chosen to juxtapose the story in such a way as to indicate that it might explain the discord in both her son's families. Now, this is an interpretation of her choices as a communicator, so I thought, it seemed obvious that she may assume this in her subtle way of explaining "what happened." She obviously is not "done with the past" in that something occured that has cost her sons both a happy married life, and she feels that all her grandchildren have suffered from the issues.

She also said Grandpa never finished the story and never fully told her about the pivital conversation with my uncle about who he was going to leave his wife and infant for and why.

But now I KNOW she suspects and possible KNOWS that my uncle is my bio father. Why? Because I know her. I remembered that she brought me a framed picture and nervously put it into my hand saying I had been deprived of family pictures that I had a right to. Then she quickly changed the subject.

I thought it odd that she used the plural "pictures" when she offered me what appeared to be a small frame with one photo of my Grandpa and brother. Why not my Grandpa and Me???

Since she seemed a bit ruffled about the photos, I quickly put the frame aside and later transferred it to a shelf in my bedroom, where it sat for about three years.

Okay....I decided after reviewing the "story" Grandma told me 20!!! years ago about my uncle's fateful conversation with my Grandpa that made my uncle decide NOT to leave his wife for the other woman, I decided IF she suspected or believed or knew that the other woman was my mom, who had just become pregnant, and if the other baby was ME, then she'd have put a hint or message that I could find in that frame behind the photo.

I walked into my room two nights ago, on June 10th, at 10:20 pm, and privately opened the frame, wondering if she'd penciled something against the back. Nothing, just some lines, Oh wait a minute... Out fell a small photograph cut into an oval of my uncle when he was in his early 20s, way back then, when this all happened. His image fell into the palm of my left hand and stared up at me, as if expecting me to see something I never could see before.

I thought, maybe this is a trick. Maybe this picture was just stuck to the back of the other and she didn't know, but it wasn't stuck and slide out easily into my hand. She was greatly agitated when she had given me the frame. She'd given me photos of just Grandpa before, without any nervousness, and a great sense of love and peace. Why now? Why this?

Grandma is getting old and keeps saying her time's running out. She doesn't want to die and leave me in the dark?

I am preparing myself to talk with her about this, partly to allow her to unburden something she has carried alone so long. And partly to know more about the situation so that I can face my mother with it in the best way possible.

 

[Powder]

So I sucked up my fears, took my meds, and drove out to my Grandma to settle things. My hubby offered to just call her first to ensure she was up for a visit and to let her know it would be for emotional reasons (to be fair so she would not feel ambushed). My husband did a great job helping negotiate the situation to help calm me down so that I could do the heavy lifting and drive out there, and have to sit and look out on my parents house, hoping one of them wouldn't show up suddenly. It was nerve-wracking, but I did it.

I cried on the way, turned into a wounded child. I composed and got back to being mostly an adult before I arrived and called her in the driveway to ensure she was alone before I felt safe to get out of my car.

I brought the picture frame and came in and brought her a gift that she liked. I asked about her trip and found out she didn't fall over there like I was told by my sister. She said she fell before she left for the trip. So that was one thing I had wrong.

Then I asked her if she thought her other son could have possibly been my biol. father due to the timing and phone call break up. She said no.

She said she didn't think my uncle even met my Mom until after both couples were married. She also thought that my uncle was stationed in Germany for five years and then Texas, so that my Mom wouldn't have been around him before I was born that she could recall.

Also, she said she has AB blood and thought he might too. So she suggested I test my blood and see if it's still O. If so, then she suggested I ask my mom what is up and for blood work papers on them, because she agreed that would be a problem. She also thought if my uncle was my dad, despite his gruffness, he would never have not wanted to visit and help raise me. No way, she said. He'd of been involved. (That was a relief to hear) but all the air in my fantasy balloon was let out. I felt defeated in my attempt to create a scenario in which I wasn't raped by my dad. If only he were my biological uncle only or a different man altogether.

I am going to face reality and get my blood tested. Then, if it's O, I will go straight to my mother and ask her who my dad is.

If it's not O, then I will fully admit that all the coincidences and hints from the universe have been fueled by my burning desire to mitigate the pain of the betrayal and the shame of who my father is. I hate that he is my father even more than I hate having PTSD. I am just wanting a different father, a different perspective of myself.

I can have that without a biological father, so i need to get my butt into therapy.