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Wavy Soul
USA
779 Posts |
 Posted - 10/21/2011 : 11:37:00
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In the last year, my sister and stepmother have died, and I went through a bout with cancer. About 5 years ago my dad died, and my mother went into Alzheimers and is still alive at 92 (and why?).
I was lying on the floor wondering why I continually feel like crying. At least it was a bit of progress from wondering why I feel tired, why my body hurts, and so on (and the various things I still do to try and fix all that).
I've been presuming that it is all rage. My sister hated me and died in a belligerent way that caused me tremendous stress. She poisoned my stepmother against me in the last year of her life, and influenced her to NOT leave my dad's estate all to me, the remaining child, but to a f*g cancer charity. And I am recovering from cancer, have been struggling with $$, etc. So... enough reasons for a little reservoir-of-rage overflow, no?
But just now I realized as I was trying to let myself cry that the feelings of sadness and grief are almost deeper. I haven't given much truck to grief - I wasn't on good terms with either of the recently dead ones. However, I'm in grief for the family I DIDN'T have, the love and care I WANTED from my dad.
The thing in my family was to shame me for having feelings, and I notice that, despite being a therapist who helps people through feelings every day, I still have a certain internalized voice that tells me I'm "just making a fuss." (Can you detect the Englishness of that - the whole country is in a TMS cycle!).
I'm writing this here as part of validating my feelings so that they can move on. Oh yes, and... I'm contesting the Will! Completely out of my normal behavior, but feels empowering.
I welcome your supportive comments.
Love is the answer, whatever the question |
Edited by - Wavy Soul on 10/21/2011 11:38:43 |
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aran451
USA
18 Posts |
Posted - 10/21/2011 : 12:06:45
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Wavy,
I totally agree that grief can be a very strong emotion and can cause physical pain just like rage, shame, or fear. I think there is a lot of focus on rage but I think we all have to find the emotions that WE are burying, not the ones that the books tell us we are burying. The books are the starting point. So you go and cry, girl!!! |
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Bugbear
United Kingdom
152 Posts |
Posted - 10/21/2011 : 13:13:15
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Hi Wavy, your post touched more than a few nerves. My dad also died although many years ago. I was physically and emotionally abused as a child. My belligerent sister is still alive and there is an incredibly selfish, immature brother thrown in the mix. They are much older than me and told me I was lying about the abuse as my parents denied it or at most said I was a bad girl and I got what I deserved. My mother is nearing 90 and we have had a turbulent relationship from my earliest memory. There will be issues with her estate eventually. My sister has told me that she deserves my share which will ultimately go to her children. My children, because of me, should get nothing. I just want to be free of all of them and all that pain they represent for me. I don't forsee any contesting of wills.
And I know what you mean by the Englishness of not making a fuss. "Mustn't grumble!" |
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Wavy Soul
USA
779 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2011 : 11:22:56
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Thanks for these responses.
"Mustn't grumble!" Grrrrrrrrrrrr! I'm GRRRRUMBLING!
Fortunately now, enough of them are gone that my lawsuit is not against any living person - just a cancer charity that I don't believe in anyway (drug companies provide plenty of funds for developing "cures").
When my dad died, I flew to his bedside and wept and wept. Later my sister said "Typical of you, to make it all about yourself." "What do you mean?" I asked. "You had to cry and ruin everything for everyone."
This was so insane that I had no response - and yet I still felt kind of bummed and low for a few days. It's kind of like Bush with his lies about WOMD - the lies went on so long and were so outrageous that people lost their outrage and became accustomed to being lied to. Or like Wall Street. Now people are demonstrating to represent that we are going to Occupy Within instead of having our reality dictated by narcissistic people.
I feel I have walked away and turned the other cheek for my whole life, because conflict seems pretty insane to me when people just end up hurting each other more. Now I am at least partially taking back my insides, to at least say that I didn't deserve that treatment and that I have rights. If it gets weird, I can always walk away.
It is SO nuanced - when to hold em, when to fold em, when to walk away.
"To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones,
and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8"
Love is the answer, whatever the question |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2011 : 11:41:53
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| I hate to say it Wavy, but your sister sounds like a real bitch...... |
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Wavy Soul
USA
779 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2011 : 23:03:11
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Yes, but a DEAD bitch! (She died of cancer last year).
Yeah, I hate to say it, too, or do I?
Love is the answer, whatever the question |
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Wodg
Australia
89 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2011 : 00:01:12
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Can't believe how horrible some people are to their family. I can only think that finding a good partner and making your own family as a solution.
There are some family members (not immediate) who I would gladly never see again... |
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Wodg
Australia
89 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2011 : 00:05:22
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| I can't stand cancer charities and 'cover everything in pink breast cancer days' They are hell bent on transferring our money to the wealthy elite. |
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balto
839 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2011 : 08:37:38
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In a previous post we have talk about forgiveness and you have said it doesn't work for you. But I still suggest forgiveness. Forgive and forget. You do it for your own good, for your health. Hatred is one of the most destructive feeling to our health. Especially hatred toward people who's already dead. Forgiveness is a give to yourself, not to those dead people. They don't hear you at all. So why punish yourself for hating them?
One time I saw on the news. There was a lady who came to prison and said to the man who kill her daughter that she is forgiving him. She later explain she did it for her own good, to regain the peace she have lost because of the hatred and revenge thought she had toward him all those years. She finally were able to move on with her life and find peace.
Forgiveness is one of the hardest thing to do in life but it is one of the most powerful antidote to stress symptoms. |
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Erata
63 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2011 : 10:00:54
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Boy-oh-boy can I relate to this thread—thank you Wavy!—and the power of family members, as toxic as they may be. After 3 decades—30 years!--I still mourn my father, who was an abusive, narcissistic and all around dangerous man, so grieving may seem a stretch to some, but love is love and I can’t judge that. Both my parents were narcissists who used their children: as bait by my father for other pedophiles like himself, and by my mother as social networking tools; she befriended our friends and partners, along with their parents, and even my employers. Both my parents were predators with no boundaries, and they surrounded themselves with others to mirror themselves.
My father’s life long attraction to danger got him murdered and he left his money,including insurance with double-indemnity,to my mother, who spent it mostly on herself and fostering my younger brother’s life-long dependency on her. She's now in a nursing home battling dementia and my brother is homeless.
My brothers and I are lucky to have survived my parents, though we’ve all suffered life long physical and mental health issues. Unfortunately we’re estranged, and that compounds the grief, but I guess that’s not uncommon. Luckily, I’m close to my children and hope I’ve provided them with a better version of what family love and support can mean.
No doubt, grief, rage, fear and anxiety all feed each other and the TMS loop.
(FWIW, Forgiveness is something deeply personal—there’s no one-size-fits-all. I don’t believe it should be proselytized or forced, ever, nor think that the lack of forgiveness is synonymous with hatred.)
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Edited by - Erata on 10/24/2011 15:37:17 |
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golden_girl
United Kingdom
128 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2011 : 16:23:18
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I ain't an expert, but perhaps re-framing the idea of 'forgiveness' as 'acceptance' is an easier pill to swallow? I've always thought that forgiveness sounds like you're actually giving something to the other person, but acceptance is simply acknowledging it happened and (hopefully) moving on?
Just my 2p!
"F.E.A.R.
Forgive Everyone And Remember
For Everything A Reason"
Ian Brown |
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Wavy Soul
USA
779 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2011 : 22:05:39
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The whole topic of forgiveness is very interesting in the context of TMS. After all, the whole point here is to uncover and own up to the unconscious reservoir or rage we hold. And expressing it in a safe context is actually part of the forgiveness process. Otherwise forgiveness just becomes dangerous suppression, and an extension of goodism, the personality trait Sarno considers to be behind TMS - and really, really bad for health and likely to cause all kinds of TMS-type symptoms.
I knew a woman who had been sexually abused by her father for years and had only remembered it a few years earlier. She had spent several months in some kind of Forgiveness Camp, and the pressure to "forgive" before she had even processed the truth of what happened to her caused her to suddenly start having seizures and become anorexic.
If I'm expressing my (usually) taboo feelings here, it's certainly not hate. There is no thought loop going on here. I'm not dumping on anyone, and it isn't lingering, toxic resentment, it's appropriate anger. Real stuff has happened quite recently. By really feeling the feelings in my body, the thoughts subside, and sometimes it helps to be mirrored, as in a forum or in therapy. The whole wound was that my feelings weren't validated in the environment I grew up in, so getting validation is good, now.
I totally get that everyone I feel hurt by was also wounded, and I am in fact empathic to a fault. And that very trait has caused me to NOT validate how badly I have been treated, and instead suppress the feelings and try to "love" everyone. Works fine except for the TMS.
One more thing about forgiveness and my own process: I worked very hard to "forgive" my abusive sister when she was dying at the end of last year. I struggled to take the high road and show up lovinglyw her at the end even while she continued to attack me, and speak well at her funeral, handle details, blah blah blah. And when all that subsided, I found that I had VERY early-stage cancer - just a few schizophrenic uterine cells, in fact. The doc said it had probably only just started.
Love is the answer, whatever the question |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2011 : 05:55:43
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quote:
Originally posted by Wavy Soul
...the whole point here is to uncover and own up to the unconscious reservoir or rage we hold. And expressing it in a safe context is actually part of the forgiveness process. Otherwise forgiveness just becomes dangerous suppression, and an extension of goodism, the personality trait Sarno considers to be behind TMS - and really, really bad for health and likely to cause all kinds of TMS-type symptoms.
...If I'm expressing my (usually) taboo feelings here, it's certainly not hate. There is no thought loop going on here. I'm not dumping on anyone, and it isn't lingering, toxic resentment, it's appropriate anger. Real stuff has happened quite recently. By really feeling the feelings in my body, the thoughts subside, and sometimes it helps to be mirrored, as in a forum or in therapy. The whole wound was that my feelings weren't validated in the environment I grew up in, so getting validation is good, now.
...I totally get that everyone I feel hurt by was also wounded, and I am in fact empathic to a fault. And that very trait has caused me to NOT validate how badly I have been treated, and instead suppress the feelings and try to "love" everyone. Works fine except for the TMS.
Great Points Katie!
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DR. SARNO'S 12 DAILY REMINDERS:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0dKBFwGR0g
TAKE THE HOLMES-RAHE STRESS TEST
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_and_Rahe_stress_scale
Some of my favorite excerpts from _THE DIVIDED MIND_ :
http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2605
==================================================
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Jiddu Krishnamurti
"Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional." Author Unknown
"Happy People Are Happy Putters." Frank Nobilo, Golf Analyst
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art
1903 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2011 : 08:19:28
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"FWIW, Forgiveness is something deeply personal—there’s no one-size-fits-all. I don’t believe it should be proselytized or forced, ever, nor think that the lack of forgiveness is synonymous with hatred."
Amen brother. Or is it sister? Anyway, no matter. I recommend a pragmatic approach, which is to say whatever works best for a person, that's the course to pursue.
In the end, I can't stay mad at anyone. I always wind up feeling sorry for people. That's not to say I don't get angry. And I've never been hurt in the way some others have, so I don't know if I'd be saying the same thing were I sexually abused or some such equally horrendous thing.
I've always embraced the "best revenge is living well" philosophy. There's no better way to make your enemies squirm than by being manifestly happy. If that involves forgiveness, that's fine too.
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Grief!
