My life

[Nana]

Creme:

I liked your post.  It is so very true.  Can  get water from the rocks.  When we chose who to love and compromise with, we must have known what results we could probably have.    But as they say, love is blind....perhaps that is the reason we cannot get it.  Why did he do this to me...?  How could he?    It was in his nature.   We get to choose many things in our life....we also get to choose how we want others to treat us?   That is why I do not tolerate, regardless of the cost, sons, daughters, dils or whoever to have power over me because I wanto or need their  love.   And the reason of this....is that attitudes, disrespect, selfishness, humiliation......breaks me down as a human being and makes me worthless to my eyes.    I have tolerance and patience.....but I know when enough is enough for my well-being. 
God bless you

[luise.volta]

Good for you for knowing where to draw the line when it comes to self-preservation.

Boy, that is tricky for me...knowing when enough is enough. I usually only realize it in hindsight...like, "Oh, I see, right there, that was the turning point and from then on it was all down hill for me." When I see that enough is enough it is old news. Then others say..."Well, you never said anything!" 

[Nana]

Louise

Yes it is hard to draw the line.  But I think that enough is enough when you cannot function anymore, when it is too much painful and when you feel you are not now even the shadow of what you were.  Enough is enough when we start to lose our dignity and without dignity we are nothing but a stepping stone to those who hurt us.   I have noticed that the least we respect ourselves, the least others do.   


The good news is that we women are very strong and can eventually get up on our feet we a fresh start.  Thank goodness.

Louise you are wonderful....always here for everyone.   May God Bless You!

[cremebrulee]

Hi Nana,
all my life, and I suppose, it's b/c first my mother was unusually naive...and hated confrontation, so much so, that discipline was not her cup of tea, so to speak...so, I remember as a child, since she was my foster mom, not ever wanting to be like my real mother, and prayed to God as a child so hard, for God to never allow me to be nasty or like her...therefore, I attached myself to my foster mother's hip and vowed to be like her...now realizing, in the real world, (which my foster mother, wasn't in, meaning, she didn't work, she stayed in this protective plastic bubble, and her life was very small....she never traveled, but, she was so fantastically kind and good to people...and she had so many friends...neighbors, family, friends of all us kids, they're families...our neighbors were like family back then)  What I'm saying Nan is, I wish I could have been more like you...I allowed people to take advantage of that goodness I inherited from my foster mother, and it scarred me for life...

I remember I was so naive to the world, that it shocked me if and when I found out someone I knew was running around, to the point of tears...I took it so personal?  It hurt so much?  I'm actually ashamed to admit that...I'd say I was in my 20's.  And I know now, there were times, when people were mocking me, and I laughed right along with them, not realizing, or even believing that someone would hurt me?  So, each hurt, that someone inflicted, lasted for a long time...if you can understand that...?  I'm glad my foster mom, never saw that part of people...she was blessed...her sister used to tell me, that it really gave her concern that my foster mom's world was so small....she always feared people taking advantage of her, and some did, however, we kids did step in when we thought enough was enough, and she even then would not admit that, that particular person who was using her, was doing so...my mom, was that unaware....she never worked, or went anywhere in her entire life....she feared new things....and feared change.  So, I know why I was the way I was, and why I can take more then some...

yes, we were made strong, however, as well as the strength is life saving at times...it makes me sad to know, that people out there hurt others changing they're lives forever, without ever caring?  Isn't that sad?  To live they're lives like that?  I mean think about it....to be so oblivious to the feelings of others, your own husband's feelings and needs....to not realize, that all those around you have needs and desires and dreams, and they've given up they're lives to cater to someone who doesn't get it?  Not to mention, they change lives forever...scarring the very fabric of they're souls...to where innocence is gone...trust is hanging by a thread...and life as we knew it, will never be the same....

so, while it being a life lesson for us...I'm so blessed to know someone like you who is able to say enough...Happy is like you...me, sheesh, someone can hurt me, and I go back again and again...and I hate that part about me...? 

to tell you the truth, my enough has been a life for the past 14 years alone...I will never get close to people or allow them to close...I'm so scarred to do that for many reasons...

1.  Enjoy my independence
2.  have realized I cannot live up to the expectations of others
3.  Hate it when people insist I have to do things there way....
4.  Fear people who are controlling
5.  So enjoy the peace and quiet of it all...

so, what I'm saying is, I wish, Nana, I would have been able to be more like you...and yet realize, thru my own choices, I am where I'm at on my own personal journey...and am probably now, more like you....at 61 years of age....

We know how to get by in life, only with the tools our parents give us...so, when I hear stories of how mean people are to others...Nana, I thank God, that I am not like them...and count the many blessings I do have...and realize, how good life has been to me...even though, I'm not like you and wanted so much to be...I'm content with who I am now...where I've been, what I've experienced...however, I do realize, if I had been more like you, the learning process wouldn't have been so hard...maybe?  you've heard the old saying, "if only I  knew then, what I know now".  It's good to stand up for yourself...and not be a door mat...


does that make sense?  What I'm saying is, people like you, always carry an air of dignity and respect...it shows...it's confident and projects a knowing that your a person of your word, however, don't step on me, b/c if you do, it will be the last time...and surprisingly, all my friends are like that...most of them, not all...but it's something I really admire in a person,

[keepnsane]

you really are grieving   I don't have any answers but at least this is a place to come & speak about our losses
My 18 year old is moving out in anger this week.  I've cried so many tears already, and it is nothing like what you have experienced.

[Nana]

Creme:

We are what we are.   You are just right the way you are.  We are all different and probably because of circumstances in our lives we have different toleration levels.   Being emotional and being able to say ""enough" have caused me also pain.  There is a saying which I use a lot in my life "If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got".   So there is where I take action.  My friends say that people dont change and I always tell them "People dont change when they dont need to change because everythings works out fine for them".  This is applicable to bad attitudes.  When we say Ïm rude....its the way I am.  No No, we have to change because we will lose people on the way. 

I agree that the essence of who you will not change.  Creme, you are very sweet and I also envy the say you are.  You can take more than me because you are this way.  I cant because I do not function when I lose my self-esteem.  I feel nothing.  I used to talk to my husband about my dil (when we had problems) and say to him "She pull the string so hard that it broke".  It is like when you stretch a rubber band to the maximum.  She was not intelligent enough to know where to stop.  Creme.....everyday with her was something new.  I guess she thought that we would take anything for the sake of being near to our grandchild (it was one them, now there are two). 

You will soon get what your heart desires.  You are indeed a lucky person with lots of blessings.   The sense of peace we have when we know we try our best is priceless.  I also enjoy my time alone.  I like to socialize with my friends and do things together but I also enjoy my family time and why not...me alone.

I  am lucky to meet people like you in this site.  It has been a blessing.  Love you 

[kathleen]

Creme,

You are right that the pain of fractured relationships will never go away.  What is that phrase, "stronger at the broken places?"  That's what I am aiming for now.  I feel your pain and hope it will be a source of strength for you at some point soon.  I hope that writing has helped you; it really defines the issues, doesn't it?

You are also so right that there's so much lingering sadness connected with lost children and grandchildren and people damaging each other.  Yesterday I went to the city and thought about two stories of friends in my life who have gone through this, with different outcomes:

The first was a very close friend, an extremely accomplished man, who was the dean of a department at a university.  In his youth he had been a wildly ambitious man and eventually he spent a lot of time away from his family, in foreign countries, going to conferences, teaching special sessions, etc.  But back in the 70's his talented, bright young 20-year-old son, accompanied by his brother,  went hiking in Alaska and fell off a mountain and died.  They were in such a remote location that the second son had to stay with the body for 10 days before a helicopter could get them both out.  I am not telling anything here that is confidential, as eventually all this would be documented in a published book.

My friend was somewhere else in the world when this happened and when he got the news, in an airport, he didn't even know where in the remote part of Alaska the boys were!  The guilt that set in that day soon spread like spilled black paint across a floor, leaving an ever widening circle.  The marriage, already in a contentious state for decades because of his long absences and her resentments, worsened; she blamed him for their son's death---SOMEHOW---although she was the one who helped the boys plan the trip, she bought the equipment and bought the airline tickets, and drove them to the plane that took them to Alaska.  Eventually they separated for a year.  During this time it began to be apparent that the second son had developed serious psychological problems from feeling that HE was responsible for the death.  That son never recovered and today, decades later, lives in a room supported financially by his family---he had had great promise.

A big explosion in the marriage, long simmering even before the death, came when the wife demanded they see a whacked-out married couple serving as "counselors."  My friend was told their opinion was his son committed suicide on that mountain.  He was furious and devastated all over again and refused to pay them.  Wife never forgave him for that, insisting the counselors had greatly helped her.  (Has anyone else experienced extreme cruelty from a counselor?  Does it get any worse than telling a heavily grieving man his son killed himself?   A ridiculous premise, since I can't think why the boy would fly all the way to Alaska to take his own life, but one that left a poisonous doubt in my friend's mind, much as he consciously didn't believe it.
There were no signs that this boy was depressed.)

My friend did not cope with this pain.  He never became stronger.  He carried out his career---the only escape---retired at his wife's demand, then got sick and died.  It was too much, I think, to be with his wife all day with neither coping with the loss; they had gotten back together after the separation and kept it together trying to support their two remaining, functioning children, but she was still throwing that black paint of guilt at him and the circle was widening on the floor.  Just at the point when we as four friends all could have spent a lot more time together in retirement, my friend was gone.  I am still grieving this loss today, four years later.  Two people died on that mountain, it simply took longer for my friend, the father, to depart this earth.  I hate it so much that he is gone and every time I pass a restaurant or place we used to gather, or remember how much he liked my carrot cake, I feel hurt all over again.  It doesn't go away.  At our age you don't meet people often to whom you become close.  It's left a big hole in our lives.  I actively tried to tell him many times how much his friendship had meant to us, but I don't think he believed it.  Deep down, he was broken and could not be repaired.

He did try very hard, and valiantly, to work through his grief in his wonderfully sensitive account in his book. My copy is one of my most treasured books, because it documents the struggle of a brave man to come to grips with the worst loss of his life.  She stayed stuck in her anger, never budging an inch.  I think the anger was her rock.  She clung to it like her son must have tried to cling to the side of that mountain as he fell, only she was successful and lived.  She's still alive.  The anger gets her through and she has yet no thoughts of how she knifed him with it until he couldn't cope any longer.  As long as she finds fault and lays blame on her husband, she doesn't have to face her own responsibility for the loss. 

A second friend, a widower, lost his only son to the means we document in this forum.  His son married a socially ambitious woman and although my friend had done very well financially in life, it was not enough for his DIL.  She put him down and elbowed him out because he had originated from a very poor family.  His son went along with it, with our well-known results.  My friend also was devastated and filled with grief.

But this friend chose to respond differently.  His son was nearly as dead to him as the son of the first friend I've talked about, but he went on with his life.  He's 86, quite a bit older than us but doesn't seem or look it, and Sunday will see another play with my husband, one of many they have attended together.  He travels the world and yes, has many girlfriends!  (Although he is a kind and decent man.)  He never had the opportunity to have much of a high school education and studied business during the hard years of putting himself through college, so now he reads constantly, novels and classics.  He attends concerts regularly.  Of course, he wasn't living with a wife telling him the loss was his fault.

Recently his daughter-in-law invited him to a major family event, the bar mitzvah of his grandson.  After much thought he decided not to go.  He had not seen the boy in years; the one time he did,  the grandson was so uncomfortable that my friend felt sorry for him.  (GS also has probably been told the monster-grandfather tales.)  His daughter-in-law wanted our friend there so as not to be embarrassed in front of her friends, that her father-in-law was absent from something so major.  But this was not a reason my friend didn't go; although he is extremely sad and always will be, he is not bitter; it's just, he told me, the relationship ended.   It is painful and he certainly has grieved, but unlike my first friend, he did not allow it to destroy him.  He has been a great support to my husband, having gone through the loss through cutoff of his only son, and coping with it.  A great role model.

I am sometimes angry at my dead friend.  It was such a waste.  So terrible to see his wife stabbing him again and again with blame over the worst loss of his life, knowing that the pain was overwhelming for him. (Should we have stopped her or said something when she started in on him in front of us, and that look of deep pain washed over his face? We put up with her to be able to see him, and I'm sure once we said something to her she never would have seen us again.  As it was, she was controlling, isolating, and limited his time with friends as much as she could.) And yet, I know, the whole thing was just too much for him.  STAY ALIVE, I used to think, knowing that maybe he just couldn't.  It was a travesty and a waste of three bright lives.  Yes, he should have paid more attention to where his son was; yes, he should have tried to keep his son from a terribly dangerous mission.  But if you have a beautiful crystal glass and it breaks, do you smash the rest of the set?  No, you save what you have and keep it safer. 

This is getting too long, but I wanted to share my thoughts as they are developing.  We had dinner with my youngest son last night and I told him I was working hard on stopping all the bad thoughts and angry reactions about my own DIL and he brightened like the moment you light your Christmas tree.  He said he will not be the messenger ever, tho DIL, for some reason, has tried twice to contact him on Facebook.  We had so much fun talking about everything else. 

Creme, you seem to me to be coping so well but I know it still hurts.  I feel for you.  Know you are in my thoughts.

All for now,

Kathleen

[luise.volta]

What a wonderful, heartbreaking, thought-provoking post, Kathleen. So much there about our own choices when things happen to us that was have no choice over. Thank you so much. Sending love...

[cremebrulee]

Creme:

We are what we are.   You are just right the way you are.  We are all different and probably because of circumstances in our lives we have different toleration levels.   Being emotional and being able to say ""enough" have caused me also pain.  There is a saying which I use a lot in my life "If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got".   So there is where I take action.  My friends say that people dont change and I always tell them "People dont change when they dont need to change because everythings works out fine for them".  This is applicable to bad attitudes.  When we say Ïm rude....its the way I am.  No No, we have to change because we will lose people on the way. 

I agree that the essence of who you will not change.  Creme, you are very sweet and I also envy the say you are.  You can take more than me because you are this way.  I cant because I do not function when I lose my self-esteem.  I feel nothing.  I used to talk to my husband about my dil (when we had problems) and say to him "She pull the string so hard that it broke".  It is like when you stretch a rubber band to the maximum.  She was not intelligent enough to know where to stop.  Creme.....everyday with her was something new.  I guess she thought that we would take anything for the sake of being near to our grandchild (it was one them, now there are two). 

You will soon get what your heart desires.  You are indeed a lucky person with lots of blessings.   The sense of peace we have when we know we try our best is priceless.  I also enjoy my time alone.  I like to socialize with my friends and do things together but I also enjoy my family time and why not...me alone.

I  am lucky to meet people like you in this site.  It has been a blessing.  Love you

Hi Nana, thank you for such a beatiful complement...it's nice to know you as well as a blessing, and I appreciate your feedback and thoughts...thank you....

I'm so sorry you and so many here have to deal with this kind of saddness...it's heartbreaking to know that this DIL of your's pulls your strings, b/c she knows she can...I ponder what she would do and how she would handle it if the shoe were on the other foot? 

Ya have to wonder what people are thinking to be so unthinking, yanno?

Big hugs
Creme

[cremebrulee]

Kathleen,
what tragic stories...and it goes to show you, how the thoughts and actions of one person can effect so many other lives in a negative way...thank y ou for taking the time to share those stories, and by the way, your a tremendous writer...Kathleen, her anger has been and always will be misdirected...she cannot subconsciously accept that her son is gone, let alone, she knows that she promoted the trip...to be angry with herself, would maybe be fatal...perhaps that is all her mind is able to consume for now? And maybe it will forever be that way for her...sadly...she can't deal with any other thought...and perhaps it's her way of forgetting that she initiated the trip?  I dunno?

Kathleen, what did you mean when you said I seemed to be coping well?  Coping with what?  Sorry, I am a little tinsy slow at times....

I wish and hope in the end, all will work out for you and your family...and your right not to allow it to devour you...

it is difficult for me to read these stories and not harbor anger and even worse for these women who act like this?  What in the world does it get them?  Tell you what...I don't care if I'd never have another man in my life or if I'd never have money...I would never ever want to be them...not for one second...and in that, we are all blessed my friend....all of us....

Thank you for sharing those stories...it is amazing how one person can effect the journey of another in one split second...

I've written this many times, I heard a minister say once, "you can kill a person with words, just as if you took a gun, held it to they're head and pulled the trigger"  and that is so true...

anyone who changes the couse of anyone's life in a negative way like this...well, I believe that is the hell that we hear described...when you hurt someone, you hurt yourself two fold...and it will be for a very long time....

Hug to you girl....and thank you

[Pooh]

This has been a great thread with some tremendous writings.  Since I saw several of you post some of your favorite sayings, I thought I would share mine.  Now keep in mind, I have a tremendous sense of humor so this is right up my alley but very fitting for most situations.....

"No one can get your goat, if you don't bring your goat with you."

[luise.volta]

 

[Pen]

I love it! I must remember to leave my goat at home

[luise.volta]

The one I learned (from studying under Vernon Howard) was: This guy comes to your front door and on a leash he has snarling, growing wolf. He says, ": I brought you your wolf." And you say, "You are mistaken...it's not my wolf" and you close the door.

I have no idea how many times I have said to myself (both silently and out loud)..."It's not my wolf."

[kathleen]

Creme,

What I meant when I said you are "coping well" is that you obviously have had a great deal of loss in your life, but you haven't chosen to become bitter or destroy others over it.  Your five edicts by which you live are very enlightening.  You've become someone who can give good advice to others; I always read your posts and get something out of them.  You are wise and you help others with your wisdom.

It doesn't seem to matter much that your foster mother stayed so close to home.  She seems to have been as wise as any great traveler of the world.  That's because she knew how to love and to be a model for you, I think.  I had a "second mother" like that, the mother of a close friend when I first moved away from home.  She, too, never traveled, but her world was of her making and it was gorgeous, filled with her paintings and hand-made curtains and quilts, and every Saturday her home-made cinnamon buns. She was highly intelligent, warm, and loving.

You have good insight.  It wasn't lost on you that the wife of my dead friend was the one who encouraged her boys to hike.  She was one of these new age mothers who thought she'd be a buddy to her kids.  You know the kind---they have their kids call them by their first names instead of Mom and Dad.  She would go off on hikes with them, they would sleep in caves and smoke pot together.  (Then of course when their son died on the mountain and she blamed him and he became a heavy drinker to deal with the pain, she castigated him for drinking, even tho she taught her boys to smoke pot illegally.)  She thought it was so cool that her boys were into serious mountain hiking.  She'd proudly tell her friends.  The area of high Alaska mountains they went into had NEVER BEEN HIKED BEFORE.  They were dropped off by the plane with supplies and a useless guide who was supposed to keep them safe.  Did this highly educated mother not realize there was danger?  I realize fully---mother of three boys---that if they are determined to do something you are not likely to stop their youthful dangerous behaviors.  But in this case, she could have said, "I'm not buying equipment and plane tickets for such a dangerous thing."  They had no money for such an expensive trip themselves.  I could figure out why she blamed him, but I never could get it why he accepted it.

Next, you said she hangs onto her anger for fear of not coping without it and as you said without it it might be "fatal.".  Right again; more insight.  But how sad that these two people couldn't find some more positive way to deal with their grief than her blaming him, literally, to death, and he accepting it. 

All for now, thanking you for your great posts & looking forward to more,

Kathleen