By Ox Drover
One of the first things I learned in nursing school was to correctly diagnose the problem before trying to fix it. I wish I had applied this lesson to my own personal life as well as I applied it to my professional life.
We were taught that when there was a perceived need, for example, when the patient was feeling short of breath, to assess why the patient might be feeling short of breath. Was the airway obstructed? If the airway was clear, then what was another likely cause of the problem? Sometimes a patient who is very anxious will feel very short of breath when they are actually getting plenty of oxygen, (as measured by a “pulse ox—”a little gismo that you clip on the patient’s finger and it tells you how much oxygen is in the patient’s blood). Or they will say “I can’t breathe!” when they really mean, “My nose is stopped up.” (If they are talking, they are breathing!)
So I was trained to look at and evaluate the situation, and only then to start to evaluate a plan. Once I had a plan, I was trained to carry that plan out, and to reassess if the plan was helping or not. Just good common sense.
Sometimes victims feel a perceived need; they feel that something is wrong with them. They are “hurting” and unhappy, but they aren’t sure what the problem is, or what is causing the pain and unhappiness. I have been in that same situation; I was hurting from my relationship with the disordered personalities around me. I had a need for love, I had a need for caring from those whom I cared about, but my need was not being met, therefore I felt “short of breath” but didn’t know what was causing my feeling of “suffocating.”
In my pain, in my lack of “oxygen,” I tried everything I could think of, almost at random, and nothing seemed to make me feel any better. I kept suffocating and like a person drowning, I flailed my arms at anything that floated by that might give me support.
I begged my abusers to help me, told them how I was suffering and suffocating, but though they told me they loved me, and I wanted to believe they loved me, their attempts to explain my pain as my own fault didn’t help me. I tried the things they suggested, but nothing worked. No matter how I tried to please them, I always failed.
The punishments they inflicted on me for my failures didn’t make me feel any better either, and I continued to spiral downward until I was critically ill. Still they didn’t seem to perceive how I suffered, or lend me any support.
One day, when I was critically ill, totally beaten down, with barely an emotional “pulse” and in more pain than I had ever imagined was possible, I realized I had not been using “common sense” to stop my downward spiral. I realized the only way I could stop the pain, stop the progression of my life’s downward spiral, was to use the good sense to diagnose the real problem before I started to fix it.
If a patient had come to me and said, “My foot hurts,” I would have looked at the foot and if I saw a thorn, I would not have said “well, let’s give you a pain killer to help your pain.” I would have removed the thorn, the obvious cause of the problem, before doing anything else. If the problem had not been so obvious, if perhaps the foot was tender, red and swollen, I might have taken a blood test to see if there was an infection. I would have asked if the patient had a thorn in there a few days ago, or if they had fallen, or dropped something on it. I would have worked my way down a list of questions that would have helped me get to the real cause of the problem. I would not have just thrown medication at them without knowing what the real problem was.
Why did I try to fix my own pain without finding out what the root cause was? How did I think the “shot gun” approach of just “shooting off in some direction” was going to help me to feel better, to get my life back on track?
Once I backed off and looked at specifics, looked at what the pain was, and what was causing the pain, and realized that as long as I did not take care of the root cause, did not remove the “thorn” from my foot, all the antibiotics in the world would not cure the problem, all the pain killers in the world would not stop the pain. The problem would continue to get worse if I did not take care of the cause of the problem and remove from my life the things (and people) who were inflicting the pain upon me, the infection that was killing me by inches.
Sometimes, the “cure” for our pain involves very extensive “surgery” to remove toxic and malignant “tumors” from ourselves, it might even involve “amputating” someone who is so dear to us we can’t imagine going through life without that person. I had to “amputate” my psychopathic son, and my enabling mother, both of which were traumatic operations for me, and for a while made me feel as if I had no legs, and couldn’t walk ever again. I have found though, like the Bible says, “If thy hand offend then, cut it off” is pretty radical but good advice, and sometimes cutting off a member of our emotional “bodies” is the only way to survive.
Surgery and medical treatment is sometimes painful, and we may want to delay “treatment” because of that potential pain, but I am here to “testify” that life without the malignant people is much, much better!
You are all so very right on!
THANKS!
That’s what I have wrestled with…..the ‘family’ part…..
It’s unnatural…..but so is the way they treat me…
Limited contact isn’t working for ME….and what makes me angry is is seems to work for them…..they are the ones happy with just having any contact withme…..but NOT being the parents I expected/wanted/needed….
So…..why am I continuing limited contact if I’m not reaping anything but continued reminders of WHO they are, pain and frustration..?
I’m at NC Point now!
I won’t do this anymore…..I can’t!
Thanks for the love guys……it’s very comforting to know there is somewhere to come to express the good the bad and the ugly!!!
XXOO
EB
Dear EB,
I was raised that “family is EVERYTHING” and that protecing the public image of the family is EVERYTHING and that we had to do whatever it took to protect that image no matter what. That family could crap on you, and you could not even resent it or get angry without risking “GOING TO HELL!” That this angry god who knew all your thoughts would ZAP ya if you even THOUGHT anything different. You had to NOT QUESTION this—OR ELSE.
There were times when I was SOOOO angry withh my egg donor that I would refuse to speak to her for months or years, like when she let my P son come to live at her house to “give him another chance” because (supposedly) I wasn’t a good parent and SHE was wiser. She took over my child against my will and let him do things I thought were BAD.
I didn’t talk to her for a long time, but then…..well, I got sucked back into her and his web when the cops got on to him up close to her house and were about to arrest him for stealing, so he decided he needed to “come back home”—well, that peace didn’t last long, and she and I were both then in the same “camp” trying to save him when he got in trouble with the law in Florida, she even came down there to try to talk some sense into him. NO AVAIL.
BUT it NEVER EVEN CROSSED MY MIND that I didn’t have to have any contact with her, that I could DIVORCE HER!
I look back now and I see lots of times I had plenty of “justification” to divorce her, just like a cheating husband that did it over and over and over—same with P-son, and each time I would “forgive and forget” and go on playing “let’s pretend we are a nice normal family” and keeping the FAMILY SECRETS from everyone outside the family. Up to 15 years after P-son committed murder when WE were preparijng to help him get out on parole and come “home” we had to admit it to a few closer friends to get them to write letters to the parole board “vouching” for the fact we were a “NICE NORMAL FAMILY” who would give him the support he needed to live a God-fearing, law-abiding life on parole. Even some of egg donor’s “closest” friends though (like the Minister I talked to later to no avail) were NOT told that P-son was a murderer, or even that he had been in prison for 15 years (this time)
Keep that “dirty linen” hidden, pretend everything is lovely! I can’t believe I bought into that crap.
Your parents, in my humble, or not-so-humble, opinion, are just pretending that THEY ARE “Loving parents” to you, a troublesome child. It is all about their DELUSIONS that THEY are GOOD PARENTS. Not that you deserve loving parents, because they are NOT loving parents. It is all a pretense on THEIR part, and if you have contact with them, they can DELUDE themselves. YOU are the problem, not them, of course in THEIR view.
If they were not good parents to you, what makes you think for one minute that they are good grandparents to your children?
That’s the hard thing to grasp! It is against everything we have been told or taught about “loyalty” and “blood” and all that crap! All those FALSE assumptions we go on and can’t figure out why it doesn’t work. Well, we HAVE finally figured out that it is NOT us, and we cannot change THEM, so something has to give. We either have to go on accepting villification or choking down what we know is the truth and pretending it isn’t the truth, and continue to feel bad. I vote we kick’em all to the curb. If it isn’t a GOOD healthy relationship why on God’s green earth do we NEED it? I vote we don’t need it. Just MHO. ((((Hugs)))) and God bless.
hi erin,
read your above posts about your son and your parents.
your son is young. he doesn’t know some things yet. check in when he is your age and see if he thinks family is so disposable and vapor locking so easy. k? he’s young.
as we get older – as i get older, deal with more illness and difficulty, i mourn more the bs family i have.
i was walking home today and a car went past – thought it was my folks – i turned my head to see if it was – and it was like a stop frame movie….daughter on the side of the road, parents a million miles away in another universe, driving past. it was odd. but i was okay. they is toxic and i don’t need it.
i kicked my sister last fall too. nc with her since july or august. dad since november. i don’t really want to be nc with mom – she is ill, she can’t help her toxicity, but i can’t communicate with his holiness at all, and would have to to talk to her.
i am sorry your family were not there for you – in any way. it is so obvious when we are sick. when i was staying with my folks and taking care of my mom i hemorrhaged. ended up in hospital having a transfusion – my father was packing to go away for the winter – could leave anytime – i called a friend to come get me and take me to the hospital. and dad didn’t even inquire if i needed his help in any way. i was sitting there all bundled up waiting for my friend and he sat there complaining about my poor demented mom not packing quick enough. fucking N. this is a tiny example…nothing like the sort of drawn out experience you had with c, but i felt the searing and severing of it.
and now your folks have the audacity to complain about your A&U. fuuuuuck.
eb – i know it will hurt like hell to let that hope and desire for family fall to dust. but you are strong and letting them out of your life will make your heart safer, oh warrior queen.
i wonder what is in store for us, when we let these things go that we want so much, that are only shells, shadows of what we really deserve. what comes to us then? who do we become, we parentless women? real? do we become real by getting real? if we are not using our energy to hold up a shell, fill it for them and us…..if we let these things go, what will we be?
love one step
I need to let that weight just fall……BOOM….
What made me sad about my sons comments was just how ‘normal’ and ‘everyday’ he views this…..
I didn’t want my kids to be abandoned by ANYONE let alone family and take it so cavelier…..but this is all they have known really…..S has always disposed of people….
I got a very interesting call today…..
From S’s uncle…..he basically raised the S…..they used to be very close until uncle met wife…..kids…yada….no longer the cool single uncle…..and pulled away into his new life….S resented him….his wife, his kids…
S always resented his ‘change’ in growing up…..they are about 13 years apart….
Uncle has always had respect for me….I’ve never done anything but been there for them….and his parents….(S’s G. parents.) We have had unlimited business minded conversations….deep, intelectual, power meeting type conversations…..brain storming etc…. the S is an idiot with no vocabulary and no sense…..so all he could talk about was skunk bud etc….His family respected my intelect….
Would call me to bounce off ideas….the S hated this….IT”S MY FAMILY!
So…he was calling to get our address….Grama passed away last week and left a little something for the G. kids….
Funny thing was…..my kids are her great g. kids…..and they get their fathers ‘share’…..he get’s nothing! He always considered himself their favorite g. son….he gloated about this….
HA!
Uncle asks how we are and I said GREAT….In my happiest,smiley mentrual voice! 🙂
He says ….how’s the kids….(remember, the kids NONE of S’s family has anything to do with these days)….I said….it’s been a struggle for them…..
They want nothing to do with their father…and haven’t spoken to him in 2 years….and dont plan on it….he’s out of their lives…
He asks…..EB….WHAT HAPPENED?????…..
I gave him the simple version……S’s whole life has been a lie and I needed to protect my kids….as their parent. He’s NOT the person he’s portrayed to ALL of us! He’s NONE of that person. I had to protect my kids.
He goes on to say…..S is an angry person…..
I guess he’s mad at me now, why I’m not sure….
but he’s not speaking to me…..
He’s got real problems.
I simply said……count your blessings!
I said the real problems lie within him…..but he is not cabable of taking responsibility….he will push blame and deflect onto others….
I loved that man and you know, I gave him my best, I tried to build a family…..but HE”S GOT DEMONS!!!
I said, he continues the cycle of his mother/your sister….with his kids…..yet with abuse!
Each generation adds their own signiture to their abandonment.
I’m trying to give my kids a healthy environment…..
I said it was a shame that none of them are in contact with the kids…..me aside….what about the kids?
It was an interesting coversation, he asked , he listened….it was very simple…..but I hung up feeling like ‘he knew’…….
I felt a validation….and certainly a little snicker for the kids…..getting the s’s share of the ship he spent his life waiting for to come in to HIS harbor…..
It was a ‘nice way’ to start the day!!!
Thanks guys….your really angels!!!
EB, I am so glad you felt validated, finally, by someone in S’s family!!!! Great that you were able to at least give the simple version to the uncle. I have a big snicker for your kids! This is so coooooooooool !!!! HAHA to the S.
Oh, last night when I read what your son said “poof… vapor locked!” my very first thought about this was: somebody’s been playing video games!! Typical kid!! Wouldn’t that be great if we could go through life and just zap assclowns off the face of the earth?!! Yeah!
I told the kids tonight that Uncle X had called…..various reactions….all negative….
I said….whoa…hold your thoughts kiddo’s….
One said….oh, what, they said sorry, they love us and your sucked back in and we have to go visit……helllooooo Mom….
I said NO…..but I did get a chance to speak a bit of my peace…
AND…..he asked!
I said….he had a reason for his call……
they wouldn’t shut up……each making a negative comment…..
so I just sat there…..finally, one said….okay…..tell us….why he called?
I said…..Your grandmother left you some money……
Oh…ya oughta see the reaction then…..
They said….but do we have to go down and pick it up? I said,No….he’s mailing it……
One said…..I don’t care…..hmmmmm but I do need a car…..it seems sad that I care if it’s money…….can i turn it down….
I said NO….your Grandmother wanted you guys to have it….it was her wishes……
VAPOR LOCK MoNEY…..are you nuts!!!!
They said…….so does this mean S get’s money too……I said…..well actually, YOU ALL GET HIS SHARE!!!!
Oh, the looks on that…It was priceless!!!!
Laughter erupted! THey know when he finds out he’s gonna be pissed his snot nose brats are getting something he feels entitled to……
Yeah…..with the Uncle…..I never went into the Sociopathic speal……I knew I’d lose him…..I had to take it ‘gentle’ as to be heard and didn’t want to come off as bitter, more indifferent about the S and concentrated on the kids…….if I ever see him down the road……that’ll be a conversation for later……I’ll let him read my book!
Timing is everything!!!
Oh…….the reason the Uncle called ME was because he knew I would handle the money in a responsible fashion as the G. parents wanted for the kids……
Shit…..they are his kids and it’s HIS family……why wouldn’t he have been the contact???
BECAUSE THEY KNEW/KNOW!!!!!
No……they contact the ex wife!!! MOI!
Oh……don’t think it won’t be ‘fed’ throughout the family, brother will tell him, because the S’s roll was mudslinger….they would all go to him and complain about each other and he would go and ‘stand up’ for whoever dujour sent him……..and his dickwad/whipped/brainwashed brother…..who tried to proxy alienate me from MIL……fuck him……he’s gonna have to be a bigger babysitter than he knows of…..and don’t think he won’t be on the wrath end of S’s attack mode again….one day…….
Oh, this is classssiiiic!
HA!
Dear Erin,
Well, I’m glad that your kids were given some inheritence from the g-grandmother. Apparently, the old lady “got” something or she would have left it to her grandson the kids’ sperm donor. So you might consider that too.
Glad that Uncle X did sort of get it too. Yea, that family will LIVE in turmoil forever, just like your bio-family will. So there’s no need for us to heap vengence upon their heads, they are their own worst enemies.
Congratulations! To both you and your kids.
Ms Erin:
Loved the story. What I love most about it is how the g-grandmother gave the S a lovely parting gift of “fuck you.” How beautifully she executed it. What’s S gonna do? Go yell at her gravestone?
Been absolutely crazed as I get ready for my move and new job. Painted my place top to bottom in one week. I finally reazlized I was so crazed that I may hold off listing it for a bit, just until I’m sure I’m on steady ground in my new locale. What is it they say the biggest stressors in life are? Job change? Moving? All I know is I”m going through all of them at once.
My friends have been wonderful. Everybody has been taking me out for drinks, lunch and dinner. I am having a hard time with the concept of moving from my home of 24 years – NYC. But, it is a great job. Anyhow, back to filling out the 10 thousand forms my new employer wants me to fill out before Monday.
Matt – all best wishes!!!
I like to think of him as a Dark Angel.
The results will ultimately be very good for me even if achieving them came under a less thatn pretty stimulus.
He did grant me the favor of it at the expense of my fantasy.
We didn’t get to the part where he was being mean and I didn’t know about all the snealy crap or discover the lies until after he was taken.
All in all I am lucky and I can find some gratefulness for what will come of it for me.
I hope that it buys him some grace somewhere down the line because I can’t fix things for him and I can’t go back.
I can let go with love and let go so that I can go on.
He came into my life for a reason. And his work is done now.
Its time for me to let go.
I’ve been through stuff in the last two years that should have killed me stress wise.
But you know what they say: He who is born to hang will never drown.
Good to be in the pond with all of you!