Countrymouse Posted November 2018
On My Mind
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Replacing the much lamented 'On My Mind' profile option, this thread is for musings, jottings, whimsies, preoccupations and the rest of the thesaurus for anyone to jot down anything they please.
I can't remember what the maximum character count was before, can anyone else? But anyway it wasn't very many so let's keep to that.
just sending courage, hugs & wisdom to all!
I just don't know.
Glad - I am always sad hearing about your dad's suicide. That must have been very hard for you. Re your neighbour, people are different in personality culture etc. That could affect her grieving. I guess it would not be good for you to be sucked into that. We all have different ways of coping. I think I became very cynical at a young age due to family dysfunction.
I totally agree with what you’re saying. Grief is such a personal thing. Everyone experiences it in their own ways.
I’m so sorry that you lost your dad at such a young age.
Pam,
Said a prayer for you.
I know what you are saying about your neighbor. I know someone who has a similar personality type and I have had to distance myself from her.
Like your neighbor, she also has a ‘victim’ personality and narcissistic traits.
The other thing that she does is, ‘one up’ everything that anyone else says to her. There is no comforting anyone like this. They are stuck in one position and don’t seem to want to get help.
The person that I know is still grieving horribly for her husband that died in 2009! She behaves like he just died yesterday.
I know that we will always miss people that we loved dearly, no matter how long it has been, BUT, her grief isn’t normal.
She wants to speak about her husband, morning, noon and night, day after day, week after week and year after year. She isn’t ever able to talk about anything else.
I gently told her to see a therapist and she responded by saying that they can’t help her. At that point, I was at a loss how to handle her situation.
I think when people have had trauma and/or abuse at a young age it makes how they see things different from other people. It can make a person hard too. Hard times made me hard. I too see many people as having a "poor me" or "victim" mentality. Which is not to say that I don't care or that I lack empathy for others. People like us usually had to be adults and put away childish things a lot sooner than we should have had to. So we're not as indulgent of other people's nonsense.
@Need
You know there are people out there like your neighbor who actually enjoy grief. They really do. These people go to every funeral even when it's someone they barely knew because they enjoy it.
Your neighbor keeps her grief alive because she likes and craves the attention from others that someone who is grieving will get. If she let herself put down the constant grief she risks losing that attention. My grandmother was like that. She hated her husband to her very core. A pre-arranged marriage made back in the old country. He was an abusive drunk old enough to be her father who regularly to beat her and the kids. My father especially. When he died she wore head-to-toe black for the rest of her life. Some people enjoy grief. I think your neighbor is such a person.
Oh gosh, can you ever imagine going through with an arranged marriage? It’s hit or miss!
I feel the same, living through trauma indeed changes a person’s perspective on things.
Some people do thrive on sadness or misery. It’s terribly depressing to be around people like that.
I care about others but if I find that all of my energy is being drained. I will back off in order to protect myself.
When my brother died at a fairly young age I suddenly recognized the feeling and realized that was a feeling I'd been having all my life. I never understood this kind of pervasive sadness that always crept up all my life, but when he died it was like this lightbulb moment where I thought "oh, now I get it"
So not to say I have grieved all my life but maybe losing someone so young gives you this idea of the inevitability of death and sadness somehow.
That is a very young age to become responsible for another person.
Did anyone tell you to take care of Mom?
Sorry you went thru so much loss of those closest to you.
Sometimes all we can do is get through the toughest days.
Hope you feel supported and encouraged that you made it!
Obviously I knew later on she wouldn't die if I didn't but it just became my way of life and I never thought to stop.
I don't regret all the love I gave her though. It wasn't really a burden, just a labor of love.
With a many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where
Who knows where
… But I'm strong
Strong enough to carry him
He ain't heavy, he's my brother
… So on we go
His welfare is of my concern
No burden is he to bear
We'll get there
… For I know
He would not encumber me
He ain't heavy, he's my brother
… If I'm laden at all
I'm laden with sadness
That everyone's heart
Isn't filled with the gladness
Of love for one another
… It's a long, long road
From which there is no return
While we're on the way to there
Why not share
… And the load
Doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy, he's my brother
… He's my brother
She's your mother!
song by the Hollies
My folks had been going through a very ugly divorce that took 4-5 years. It had been final for just a few weeks when my dad passed. At that point I started to see things in my mom that I never really had before. Or I was older and better understood. My mom was a whack-a-doodle! I wonder if she was bipolar. I remember her fits of rage, more so after my dad was gone. And the bad mouthing she did of my dad! Nothing children should ever have to go through!
My mom went back to work and started working on her Master's degree, in guidance and counseling, of all things! She would get home from work, go to her room and study and work on papers, nap and whatever. I often would have to get dinner put together for mom and twisteds and me. I am the oldest after all.... Once dad had taken me and twisteds to dinner, got home, and mom was in the garage with the car running.
There are others that have had terrible childhoods. How we live through it I never will understand.
I agree. It robs us of our childhood when we are exposed to situations that we aren’t old enough to understand. This happened in my family too, mainly due to my brother being an addict.
Honestly, I understand that my parents didn’t know how to handle these things. There wasn’t any support for families back then. It was a ‘hush hush’ era. Support groups weren’t around.
I spent a good deal of my childhood being confused.
Also, it wasn't just me in the picture either. I had six siblings. One of which had schizophrenia, which was another burden on my mom and the family as he could be violent at times.
I think I took on the responsibility of my mom cause I was so afraid I'd lose her too. She was recovering from breast cancer at the same time as my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer so it was a valid fear although at the young age of four I doubt I really comprehended it all. But my subconscious must have taken it all in somehow and that is most likely why I was so protective of my mom.
I in no way blame my mom for any of it. She had so many burdens of her own bringing up seven kids, one of whom had a serious mental disease.
It will be good for me to get out of here for a few days!
I have not been able to get into my Profile for weeks now. I sent an email from within this site last week: no response.
I called the (239) 594-3222 number listed at the Contact Us page and got a message saying only, "Extension 3125 is not available. Please leave a message after the tone."
I tried 4 times to post a help request in Discussions and 1 time in Questions but it just keeps automatically logging me out without posting, that's why I'm putting this within a thread. I even switched to Chrome from Safari to see if it makes a difference. Nope.
Thanks for any help!
glad- happy for you that you are having a break thanks to your son. It sounds great. I miss the breaks I used to take pre covid and now it doesn't make much sense to go south with the move looming.
Made it through another winter here! Happy March 1 though still snowy and somewhat cold. Better days are ahead.
I hope your issue is resolved soon.