The journey begins ... or continues ... articulating the rollercoaster that is my life

[mumstheword]

My oldest daughter texted me today. :-) She's "desperate" to move out of her Dad's and wanted my advice on how and where to go to.

I love how most of my children come to me for help now, again. I was the "hands on" parent back in the relationship. Trouble was, I was deep in codependency, c-ptsd symptoms-untreated, being treated appallingly by their Dad and physically in pain all the time. Now, I am much healthier, have a loving supportive partner, and have waaay more resources to draw on. :-)

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

:hug: (((@mumstheword ))) :hug:
I am HAPPY to be able to "watch and listen" to you as your life moves forward into healiing! One by one your children are coming to you for loving advice because they know they are safe and supported by you. That speaks so highly of the way you have gently allowed them to make up their own minds about their father.

You could have done what so many mothers have done and take every opportunity to point out the ugliness and stupidity (that's putting it MILDLY in your case) of their father. By allowing them to watch and listen to him they are ALL coming to the same and CORRECT conclusion, that he is a horrid man and that you were right to leave! We will all be here doing the HAPPY DANCE for you!:singing::hug:

Yes, you are fighting many a battle as you walk this journey of healing, but you have the perfect friend, confidant, and lover walking beside you, and together you will win the WAR! You will walk in freedom one day and you'll look back at these days with wonder and amazement of what you made it through!

I think it is REALLY AWESOME that you guys love, honor, and respect each other enough to give each other the space and safety to feel and "be" EXACTLY who you are! You are sharing what you are learning which is helping him heal as well.

Everything you are reading and working on in therapy will help him, too. Even your hospitalization will benefit him, so it's all kind of getting two healings for the "price" of one. That is just SO wonderful!!!:hug:

I do keep you in my thoughts and prayers, and I know that journey is being blessed and guided. Loving you and holding you up in prayer is an honor and privilege!!! Thank you for sharing your journey with us!
:hug::hug::hug: For you and your man. I hope you have a LOVELY time at the beach!

 

[mumstheword]

Thank you :-) @AngelkeeperJ/AKJ !
It seems the beach trip is cancelled for now. My big daughters best friend came back from Spain and there are bands on they want to see. All good. My daughter will be very happy to have her bestie back. They have been besties since they were 8 years old. Lawdy, her besties family practically raised her from then, as I was deeply struggling and it was the best option for her, at the time. Not all the time, because they travelled a lot, but they even took her to Indonesia, when she was 15.

I cried when.It started, felt like I was giving away my little girl, but in my heart I knew they could give her more than I could. There was only one of me and 6 of my children and I was very ill and struggling hard. I was so skinny and emaciated back then, hardly ate, hardly could eat and their dad was not good to me.

On top of that, a couple of my male friends in our/my musical circles killed themselves and I was hit very hard by that. I felt myself falling into a very deep, dark pic of despair and it was only getting pregnant with my youngest son that brought me out a bit.

I dreamed I was visited by a Golden Dragon, who was also a golden child (yes I had recently seen that Eddy Murphy film) and it was so vivid, when I found out I was pregnant, I knew it was my boy's Spirit.

He is a very beautiful, tall, handsome, highly intelligent 12 year old now. He has a warrior spirit but a intellectual's inquiring mind; Starting high school this year. He is already 5"8.

I have had him with me most of the time, since I split with his Dad, as he was only 4.5 when I left and Dad neglected him badly whenever he stayed there, still does.

 

[mumstheword]

pic

Pit

 

[mumstheword]

So tired of this extended freeze response! I feel excessively exhausted all the time. Trapped in my own hormonal/brain prison. I want to escape !

 

[mumstheword]

:hug: (((@mumstheword ))) :hug:
I am HAPPY to be able to "watch and listen"...

It has been hard, keeping my mouth shut about their Dad and really having to watch what I say about him and how I react to his behaviour.
He is one of those npd types that can do no wrong, according to themselves. He used to try to convince me that he was some kind of enlightened spiritual master, who "never got angry" which of course is entirely false, he is always covertly angry but can never admit it (around me at least, but no more, I took myself out of that codependency). When he abused me badly, screaming at me for many hours at a time sometimes, through the night ecen, and I questioned him about it, he would just say "you pissed me off" but could not ever own his own behaviour.

 

[mumstheword]

Dissecting this state with the cognitive tools given to me by Pete Walker, I see it more clearly for what it is; an emotional flashback involving learned helplessness, despair, abandonment depression, overwhelm and frozen terror brought on by the triggering behaviour of our neighbor combined with the hoarding of my partner (my mother is also a hoarder), the miscarriages and trappedness of being stuck in this town where years of gaslighting, betrayal, emotional abandonment, oppression and my fawny servitude took place. This year I finally stopped the extended flight response and sunk into despondent collapse-freeze mode after my miscarriages and constant subjugation to the other factors.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

I SO know how it is to be with someone who knows it all. They don't see or feel anyone other than themselves, and they ALWAYS want to be ON TOP in every situation. They have "superiority complexes."

My husbands were never at the horrific level of your ex. You have survived a living hell!!! I am BEYOND amazed at how much you have had to overcome in your young life! I think you will feel younger and younger as you lay down the mental and emotional "boulders" that you have been carrying your entire life! :hug: :hug:

My children's father is a Greek immigrant who thought he didn't have to obey our laws. Ha! He found out differently by the time we were done. He found out that he can't make "terroristic threats"...he threatened to come to my parent's, where the kids and I were living, to "kill us, and then himself." I told him to leave us out of it and shoot himself. He kept threatening to take our son to Greece and I would never see him again, so the judge ruled that if he did take him out of the country, he would have to post a 10,000 bond first. My son even used an American name for a couple years.

I kept him away from his dad until he asked to see him. I knew that the parent who keeps a child from a parent almost always loses in the long run. A year after our daughter died, our son went to live with him and he found out for himself what a jerk his dad could be. (Thankfully it was only across town so I could see him when I wanted) He was 13 then.

I did allow our son to accompany his Greek grandfather, who was dying of cancer, back to Greece when he was 12. I knew that it was important for him to go while he was fairly young so that he would learn about his heritage, and to become fluent in the Greek language. I just made sure that he KNEW that if anyone tried to keep him, he should go to the American Embassy, and NOT the Greek police. All went well, except that his uncle got him DRUNK on Ouzo! It's a HARD liquor! Mamá was NOT a happy camper WHEN I found out...SEVERAL years later! I wanted to KNOCK HEADS!!!

Sadly, my ex proved again last July that he is a worse jerk than he was almost 30 years ago. He will "pay" for his betrayal...Not with money, but with the consequences of his actions. He has lost his son's heart and trust. When my son, his wife, and their 3 children came home from the Philippines, he had stripped their home of EVERYTHING except a bed because they stayed longer than he wanted them to. They were shocked and SO WAS I!!!

They had a 5 year old, 3 year old, a 16 month old, and she was pregnant with the 4th baby. They were homeless! The house was in his name but they were buying it, making the payments as well as paying for upgrades. (Oh, HE DID have a place for them to live. In a small duplex where they would be RENTING...from him!) So they bought a small RV to live in for awhile, but they have NOTHING that is in his father's name.

I am SO sorry this ended up so long! I didn't mean to hijack your diary! That is the short version...:hug::hug::hug:

WOW! That post kept getting longer and longer! Now I guess you know that I am familiar with jerk husbands. (I was married FOUR times, I quit)

My point is that YOU WILL HAVE have your children's LOVE, TRUST and DEVOTION, for the rest of your life! AND you will have accomplished MORE HEALING than you EVER knew was possible!:hug::hug:

I know that feeling emotionally "flat" is super hard to deal with, but it will pass! Thankfully, emotions are a lot like the weather, seasons change.:tup:

Love, hugs, and blessings to you, your honey, and your kids! :hug: :hug:
AKJ

 

[mumstheword]

I SO know how it is to be with someone who knows it all. They don't see or feel anyone other th...

Wow your ex is messed up too!
They are harrowing and disappointing are they not? I hurt for the children the most, my own inner children and my children. But then the damage done to myself - mother and woman, is considerable, too.
I'm sorry it has taken a huge toll on you too.
And your son and family.

 

[mumstheword]

Shame, shame, shame. I'm immersed in it.

Being in a stuck cycle of frizenness is chipping away at my self esteem that I've painstakingly built over many years of accomplishment and care.

Not saying it was great by a long shot but what I'd achieved seems to be of no consequence while I'm stuck here.

Ugh!!!!!

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

((( :hug: @mumstheword :hug: )))

Not saying it was great by a long shot

Wellll, I'M saying it was great, and I am saying it IS STILL great, and YOU are great, just because you are HERE!!! Even if you never accomplish one more thing, you can look at your children, look at your man who loves you...and is loved by you, and you can FEEL your pulse as it pumps away in your wrist. You STAYED! You haven't given up! You are on a mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical VACATION! Maybe you DO need to allow yourself to just shut down and say that it's ok to stop, rewind, give in, let yourself FEEL what you FEEL and not judge it to be right or wrong?

May I speak some truth to you, over you, and around you? NOTHING that happened to you was YOUR fault! You were not given even a teenie, tiny chance to be who you would have been, could have been, and SHOULD have been!!! Your "parents" did a s**t job of raising you to be a happy, healthy woman! Not only did they not GIVE you tools, they CHIPPED AWAY at the heart of the defenseless little girl, who just wanted to love AND BE loved, to HOLD, and BE HELD, and to be NOTICED for being the GIFT to the world that you ARE!!! They HAMMERED AWAY at the BEAUTIFUL soul of an artistic, talented, and lovely little girl! Inside you, she is STILL that MOST SPECIAL soul, who will RISE UP again!!!:hug::hug::hug:

I'm not negating how stuck you feel right now. AT ALL! Feeling stuck, SUCKS!!! Truly, I know! I am stuck as well, and have been for a LONG time! My rooms look like crap, clothes that need to be put away are slung everywhere, there are dishes that need to be put away, and the list goes on and on. The floor needs to be swept, and everything needs to be dusted. But, I just close my eyes and roll up in my blankets and sleep or surf the 'net.

I just want you to know that you are NOT alone and that you are loved NO MATTER WHAT!!! I don't know you in person, but I DO know that I LOVE the one who writes SO beautifully, so openly, and in a way that conveys EXACTLY how you feel. THAT is a GIFT, and YOU are GIFTED!!! Nothing that your parents DID, or DIDN'T do is going to hold you down, or hold you back! THIS I KNOW!!!:hug::tup::hug:

SO, here are some :hug::hug::hug::hug::hug: to let you know that I am sitting with you...and if you need to roll one and pass it on...I am there, too!
MUCH LOVE, PRAYERS, AND TONS OF HUGS!!!
AKJ

 

[mumstheword]

Hugs back @AngelkeeperJ/AKJ :-) Well you knew exactly the right words to say to me. :-)

I felt like I was sliding into worse depression when I woke up, just now and then I got a text from my oldest daughter (she's not exactly big, she's tiny, my youngest daughter is taller than both of us and I am taller than T, my oldest DD) saying they are going to the beach after all.

And then I read your message. I'm feeling better. It's like I've run out of energy to keep myself going at the moment, I need to be propped up by others. I, like many C-ptsd sufferers, I guess, used to pride myself on my "self-sufficency", Well not anymore. I'm not carrying myself well at all well.

Mind you I've done a lot of caring for others during my life and neglecting and negation of myself so maybe that's why I've run out of self- motivation. I guess I still do more than I give myself credit for though. Just experiencing a significant speed bump at the moment.
I'm excited to be hanging out with my kids :-) will tell you all about it when I get back.

Yeah, my place gets me down too, but the neighbor left again! So that's good.:-)