Jaque and Lee on Terry meeting my parents: you know, that is quite amusing to think about. But my parents are so delusional and have been so for so long that it would be quite a challenge.
My mother especially believes that she sacrificed everything for her daughter. Indeed, she might have sacrificed everything, except her own fear of changing the situation. Of contemplating the awfully many steps of getting us out of a bad situation where I was terrified and hurt, in multiple ways, every single day. I remember a policeman offered to help us, give us protection while she assembled divorce papers and filed---but she turned him down and instead brought me home to face my father's wrath.
Not a terribly good day. I believe I was twelve, but it's hard to get a fix on age during those days.
J, that is quite a good quote.
P J Evans, thank you for the advice about Rootsweb, though I'm unsure how it works for refugees. They never became citizens.
I'd like to thank abi for providing another Dysfunctional Families day thread, and for everyone who commented or read.
J,
That's a good summary of part of the whole mess. "I can't live without you" has unfortunate overtones in such a situation.
I actually never seek information about my parents in any way, shape, or form. There are too many ways that can backfire---like obsession, getting my original identity hacked in the process, triggering flashbacks, and more or less wiping out closure.
*waves shyly to Jacque*
*offers flamethrower?*
Teresa,
I usually don't mention my past, thus the question of actual intent to kill doesn't hit the table.
Actually, the one time that topic did arise in spontaneous conversation outside of Making Light, I neglected to insist that my parents really did want to kill me, thus resulting in a misunderstanding that led to a friend deciding that it was safe to give my parents my first name change. And my new phone number. And my new research office location. And summaries of all conversations he'd had with me after I'd cut ties with my parents and was a mess, crying on his shoulder, etc. Because then he could reunite the broken family.
Something to do with being born-again.
I think sometimes the only reason I'm still alive after that (and much less naive about identity) is that he felt he should give me a warning, just before my parents started calling my phone number.
Lee,
My mother never pressed charges against my father for anything, including the times he raped her and that time he punched her head through the wall, literally, much less the times he hurt me. This is a huge stumbling block for any prosecuting attorney.
The University never pressed charges against my parents. My parents didn't actually hurt the dorm clerk, after all; and I had not, at the time, been living in one of the closed circuit TV dorms. The University had no case that would hold up against a mediocre defense lawyer.
One might ask why I didn't press charges against my parents after 20 years of hell. That was because I knew my mother would testify that there had never been abuse. I had no legal counsel, either, and nor could the University provide me with one.
One might proceed to wonder why I didn't get a restraining order. The thing is that restraining orders are useless against crazy stalkers, and often precipitate their final actions in the matter, which generally involve guns. My parents fall into that category.
I did try, though. Getting a restraining order is an arduous process that involves five attempts spread out over months to make your stalkers/abusers show up in court. After the third attempt, I had no drive and no nerves (and no money...) left.
The only way my parents could have been put away is if I let them hurt me. Thing is, if I ever did let them get close enough to hurt me, no one would be fast enough to keep my father from killing me right there.
So my parents remain at large, up until they do something, or they die.
My life. It's a joke from the gods.
A book recommendation for those who haven't read it yet: Toxic Parents, by Susan Forward. It's still in print, actually, though there are lots of used copies in circulation as well, and I wouldn't be surprised if some have ended up in libraries.
One of the many helpful things she discusses in the book, and which helped me get closer to closure, is what she calls a "script".
What I did was to write down what I wanted to say to my abusive parents, completely so that I could read it verbatim. Every grievance that sticks out in my memory, I wrote it down.
This is not a nice script, this is not a reconciliation script---this is a game-ender.
Yes, this is a flamethrower.
Then I called up my parents from a friend's place and read the script to them. Any of their objections, and believe me, they made them---I read over them forcefully and kept going until the end. And then hung up and disconnected the phone.
My friends took me immediately away to another county, and my parents really did come down to the University to hurt or kill me afterwards (they even threatened a dorm clerk and tried to get friends and colleagues to open doors to them, police got involved, oh it was fun times), but everything was done. No more obligations to hold myself beholden to them.
Now, I did spend several months trying to set sane boundaries. "I don't have to call you every day, just the weekends. I don't have to eat dinner with you every weekend, just once a month. I opened my own bank account, sorry. I got a job of my own so I'm not dependent on your money, sorry. I got a car of my own so I'm not dependent on you, sorry."
That kind of independence was too much for them. If they had reacted in some way other than screaming at me to quit my job this instant or to get rid of my car and use theirs this instant or to put their names on my bank account this instant or else dad would hurt mom, or mom would starve herself to death, or dad would hurt me, or mom would kill herself, etc etc etc... I might have tried for a little bit longer.
But they were insane and compromise was not in the works for them.
So after two months of this living hell, which was at least different, chop.
The death threats afterwards were kind of expected.
It was hella hard to do, and if I didn't have friends and the University/campus/local police, I couldn't have done it without getting seriously injured or dead. But even without the life-threatening bits, it would have been hard to do.
That all was traumatic indeed, but it was worth it, and it was still closure on a part of my life that would have left me trapped, stunted, and eventually dead.
It was a powerful experience for me in more ways than one. Reminders, however subtle, of events from that day still trigger my PTSD like whoa, but it's still worth it.
So. So worth it.
Mind you, that's me and my situation---as Xopher said last year, I didn't, and still don't, have many options. Not everybody wants the flamethrower. But for some, the flamethrower is what's necessary.
Actually, in some instances, you can modify the script to be more like an acetylene torch if your parents are dead. Reading the script over their graves---or over their memorials---or over their pictures---also can bring closure, without all the, ah, immediate excitement that can occur after a live script read.
Anyways. This is definitely when anger is useful. Closure as a result of fire.
Then afterwards one can concentrate a bit more on living, even if living is "run run run run run".
Nope, not me:
What David says at #249 is what I think about the matter, more or less.
It's a unique path for everybody; perhaps it doesn't exist for some, but I like to think that it's a path that always exists, even if you have to go through brambles to get there.
For some of us, the mainstream version of "closure" is not a valid path (indeed, it can probably never be the path for me, 'cause PTSD is not something under one's control). There is nothing wrong with this.
In any case, closure is a paradigm shift. There isn't an easy way to get there, and it depends on the situation, and it involves a lot of individual soul searching and development and discoveries. Even mainstream closure requires mental shifting of one to acceptance---only that type of acceptance is not always valid, or healthy, or even right, for an individual situation.
Closure exists in other ways. Don't limit yourself to what society thinks it is. It's an individual thing.
Nope, not me #213:
Maybe you have to have closure to have closure. It's much harder if they Just Won't Listen. And they can never listen once they're dead.
For me, they were never going to listen or apologize anyways. (Or the entire Earth would need to suffer from random sudden existence failure first.) I think this is true for at least some others.
In that case, one can't tie closure to them giving one closure. That gives them too much power they never deserved. One must find closure in other ways.
I will, with any luck, never see the graves of my parents, because if I do, that means someone has dragged me over there to "reunite me" with them.
Does that rob me of closure?
Nah. Closure isn't about them giving me anything. Closure is about me closing a chapter of my life---or closing my mind on them. They may still try to kill me, they may still be trying to stalk me, but apart from wanting to stay alive, I don't give a damn about them.
That's closure. I've had it for years. Still have the PTSD, because that isn't a choice for me whether to have it or not, but them as a part of my heart's life? Yesteryear's news.
Maybe your parents did try to rob you of closure. Don't let them. Closure is, I think, something that one controls. Or that one should control.
On the other hand, I've got a very odd view on things.
*hugs Miss D. Grace O'Ghu*
Your experience sounds a lot like my experience in many ways, except I never found anybody. I second David Harmon at #182. I don't think that was sexual abuse. I feel like, last year, I was at where you are at (you can still find my comments, which went, um, on and on and on, in last year's thread, and I also made mention of flame-throwers in about the same context).
Last year's thread helped me a lot. I hope this year's thread helps you a lot. Saying these things in a forum like this, supportive and intelligent and sharing and all that, somehow it helps.
Re: coherence. I stopped looking for coherence some time ago. People are complicated, make decisions that are complicated, and someone else's personal reasons are not something we will ever know for sure. And sometimes people also simply don't make sense.
Mostly I try to focus on being here in the now, so to speak---not that I always have a say in this, because PTSD is not a choice.
Bruce Cohen, re closure:
I don't know if it's necessary to reconnect to parents to have closure. I hope not, because my parents would try to kill me, and that would trigger me in even worse ways than anything I've had now, and I would be mentally foobarred and not have anything near closure.
What was closure for me was, after a time of attempting to establish sane boundaries, cutting them off with a long recital of their abuses and suchlike, and then hanging up. Yes, there was the stalking and the death threats and the constant running and hiding afterwards and the losing of identities and such.... but that point was the moment I could get away from them, view them as not my obligation anymore.
I don't think closure means you get to have peace, necessarily, although it would be good if that were the case.
I've thought about the various definitions of forgiveness (for you are right, LDR, people see different things in this word/concept).
Maybe I have a different view on things, as I'm out of the soup right now, although gods know if it will stay that way---I changed identities multiple times (all legally), but crazy people are crazy...
Anyways, my view on forgiveness is this: it is about not caring about the people who hurt you. In any way. Whether you expect repayment or you expect apologies or you expect retribution... if it's safe for you to not care, and you don't care, that is a "forgiveness"... although that is more "forgetting", while remembering that nothing they did was ever, ever justified.
To me, the danger of many definitions of "forgiving" is to think that what happened wasn't "as bad" or "as undeserved" or whatever, or to believe that bridges that have been burned can be mended. Forgiveness has embedded in it the concept of reconciliation, which, in some or even many circumstances, one should not do.
@LDR #154:
Forgiveness can only come after healing (if at all.) It's not a cure, I don't think, but a sign that you're cured.
Perhaps one of possible signs. For from his poems throughout his life I'm pretty sure that Siegfried Sassoon never, ever forgave those who sent off men to die in World War I; but his chronic PTSD still eventually let up.
I doubt forgiveness is a real sign of being cured. I know people who still have PTSD who have forgiven the events that gave it to them---what can you do about natural disasters---yet they are not healed.
PTSD and trauma are complicated, and "did you forgive?" seems to not be a sign of anything, perhaps for some.
I notice there are a lot of people here with parents who had narcissistic personality disorder, or seem like they did if they were never diagnosed properly (not surprisingly, perhaps, nearly all, if not all, people with this disorder do not seek diagnosis).
Here is a site where I've turned to before to deal with people with this (nobody related, my parents had other problems; my father was likely psychotic, according to two psychologists and my psychiatrist that I've gone to):
http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/
Narcissistic parents: you don't want them. They seem almost certainly to end up abusing their children through neglect and even worse, as various stories here attest to.
I was here last year, though earlier; I feel a little sad for being late. Spent a long time reading the thread.
No; we really can't say what is best for someone, even whether "forgiveness" is a good thing. I don't feel like repeating from last year, but my first memory is being five and trying to shield my mother---gods know why---from my father's rage. A punishment wasn't a belt; it was boiling soup poured over your hands, or a door scraped repeatedly over toes; being pinned to the ground with a knife at your throat; shoved against a wall with a flaming match next to your face as your father threatens to burn down the house with you in it.
And all over the slightest infractions. A salad not properly prepared could, on a good day, earn you ceramc plates thrown at you. On bad days, boiling water.
It was like that every day. A war zone is a bit of an understatement.
I have PTSD from all that. Over 20 years of abuse and no one looked twice, even teachers. It took years to get diagnosed.
In a way, because of the PTSD, the debt is never cleared, no matter how much I want to clear the ledger. The moments and in particular the feelings remain. I hate explaining to people that I'm not "just doing" this to myself on a whim.
Triggers... let's just say that I discovered this year how your brain can start to tie even the most remote experiences back to horrible, defining moments (like the death threats towards the end; like the night my father strangled me; and other experiences still worse).
I think my father---and my mother towards the end---cannot and should not be forgiven for what they did to me. Because that means it was reasonable in some fashion for my father to have smashed my mother's head through a wall, or for my mother to crush my hand when I didn't want to dine with my father in college.
And much as I wish it, forgiving doesn't ease the PTSD either. Who knows what the hell is wrong with me, that I can't make it stop.
The scars remain, and in more ways than one.
I blog a bit about my childhood and such on my site. (It's when I roll below 5 on the random topic d20.)
I am somewhat optimistic, because healthcare is such a limiting factor amongst just about everyone I know. Everyone is scared of losing their jobs because that means they lose even mediocre insurance for their family and themselves, and private insurance companies are like sharks.
You often can't afford private coverage that's very good if you've just lost your job---and in this economy, are unlikely to get a new one anytime soon that actually has benefits. Often what you can afford privately is that which doesn't, for instance, cover emergency room visits or hospital stays, and especially doesn't cover over 75% of the costs for having a baby.
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the rich would just prefer everybody else to die. So on that part I'm less optimistic.
Bruce @120 -
If it's the case that the Big Three have no cause to be concerned about circulation reduction and thus have no need to search about for avenues that may lead them out of the whole, then sure, they can keep doing things their way.
Actually, they can keep doing things their way whether or not they're sinking.
There is, however, a growing body of evidence that a lot of people are starting to feel better about not bothering to do things their way, and still get paid better to boot.
As for notoriety, while the Big Three are still supplying a little less than half of the nominees for the Hugo awards re: short story, novelette, and novella, it seems to me that they're starting to lose their ground here as well---what ever happened to the majority lead they had on the Hugo nominees? Or even the "over half"?
Either this year and the recent previous years were flukes, or it's a disturbing (for them) trend. (Not so disturbing for others.)
At any rate, "I refuse to use a computer for this purpose" even though there are a lot of people who do the same kinds of things much, much more efficiently, and who have had the experience of doing things via paper versus doing things electronically, is kind of silly. There's been lots of testimony from writers, anthology compilers, and other magazine editors who are clearly on the side of electronica.
I've seen only a few of them on the other side, and for whatever reason, many of their arguments aren't nearly as pragmatic. Romantic, yes; "you should be prepared to DO this, you lazy ingrates", occasionally yes; pragmatic, less so.
In an age where people are using computers for medical records instead of "good old fashioned paper" and where this has made a difference in the quality of health care for entire countries, I think explicitly excluding a computer for the possible use in any place is a little short-sighted.
I think at this point the situation has gone way beyond voting fraud and who did/didn't win. I'm surprised that the Iranian government is acting so... dumb. Powerful, violent, bullying, successful at destroying and killing, but dumb.
This entire situation keeps reminding me of Little Brother....
Thinking of the future...
When looking for anti-spam, consider something that uses Javascript and cookie checks over something that analyzes email addresses and comment content.
The multiple links thing is still a good catch, but anything further on smart analysis requires a lot of upkeep and sometimes result in strange things like false positives and auto-banning entire IP blocks from Ireland.
A Javascript/cookie check works extremely well, however, with far less maintenance. Only drawback is that users without Javascript or cookie support can't post.
... which I don't know how much of a drawback that is these days. Even older browsers support Javascript and cookies. Ancient is another question, but I doubt anyone is browsing ML with lynx 0.5 or Netscape 1.0 (or Mosaic...).
Sympathies for your loss.
And joy for Aggie Maggie, who will be much loved, despite her bloodthirstiness.
(Although probably you shouldn't give her a switchblade.)
@novalis #68 -
It's a SWAG at best.
Nobody is sure where this is all headed yet. It'll take a couple of weeks for more of the numbers to be compiled and possibly for extended effects of the flu to hit.
It may even fizzle out now and then hit us in August with more deadly vigor (and that does have a precedent).
We just dunno yet.
I'm with Beth and Josh. SARS really was the Cuban Missile Crisis of pandemics.
(And I know in my generation a lot of people would go, "What's a Cuban Missile Crisis?" Bless.)
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