lost for words

truth and lies

2010-11-17T15:14:00.000-08:00

Where can you find truth, certainly not in words spoken even when those speaking it think they are telling the truth. When people say one thing, the act in a completly different way, are the speaking the truth, maybe it was their intention originally when they spoke the words, but when it comes around to the actions then the words get left behind. Guess this is why people say actions speak louder than words.
This I suppose is akin to the old saying that the road to hell is paved by good intentions. I have heard people speak of intentions for years, but there is always something stopping the intentions being transferred into action, perhaps this is seen most often in alcoholics who have every intention of stopping and mean it and say it with deep emotion and sorrow, but when it comes to actions, the words become wisps of smoke.
What lies behind this falsehood: -
I have yet to discover it. I question is there a deep unconscious feeling that they dont really want to change or want what they say they want, just feel that its the right thing to say at the time, but really they just want something different. Perhaps is a conflict of knowing that their words are correct and probably the way things should be, but inside their subconscious is screaming no no no, I just want out.
Guess when re-reading all this, one has to be also introspective and wonder what Freud defensive strategy may be operating either. . Its like suicide, no matter how obvious it appears, no one really knows the true mind and intentions of the deceased and nobody will ever be able to find out, but equally true, perhaps the deceased themselves didn't know the real reasons behind their actions but because of some mixed up crazy emotion that controlled the mind at a particular place and time, this was their blind spot and they could not see further than that.
In last few days, a mother went to work, leaving father and 2 young kids at home. When Father was found dead after crashing car the police went to tell family and found the two young children killed at home. How can it ever be known how this all happened. sure many will give explanations, some will condemn some will seem to understand, some may be driven crazy over it, but noone will ever know the real truth.
Now I am lost and dont know where to go from here

death and sadness

2010-06-09T13:05:00.000-07:00

I have just been to a funeral home, where prayers were being said for a young man just 31 years old who died in a car crash. I dont know that man, other than he is a brother of a work collogue's wife. Yet it has brought a sadness over me and has made me reflect on my life, past and family. I actually have two families. One I spent 30 years with, 4 kids, the youngest of whom I nearly lost at 1 year old, he is now in his 20s and his birthday is this month. My second family also celebrated a birthday this month, N, my girl was 8 years old, she had a party, and we bought a blow up swimming pool for her, and her friends had a ball playing in it, she also got an mp4 player and was going around like a proper teen with it in her ears. She is a real beauty, and boy will we have a hard time keeping the boys away from her when she is a teen. But over the weekend i felt guilty, i could not remember my son's birthday date, and I was afraid I had missed it. Come to think of it, a lot of his birthday's never got celebrated properly, because his birthday was on the 30th of the month, and invariably the kids were finished school before that date and we were always going somewhere on holidays during his birthday and ended up just having a family birthday party for him with a cake.
I know, its more than a lot got.
Now, since I seperated from his mother, we do not talk, sure each birthday for last 5 years I sent him cards and presents, but never get a reply or a thank you. Well not totally true, his mother sometimes rings me up and thanks me. She is one of the best mothers ever, in a way I am glad my children sided with her during our breakup, because she needed the support more than I. It doesn't mean that many days go by without me thinking of the family i have lost and I deeply regret the loss even though at the same time I know I have become more fulfilled as a person and it has enabled me to be a freeier person. But no life goes without its troubles, so I stick to the philosophy that I have to carry on, and try not to make the same mistakes I made before. Yet I know I do make them. not sure if its my stuborness or my pride, but sometimes I think I am just plain stupid. Anyway, enough ramais for now. bye

2010-03-01T11:21:00.001-08:00

None of my Business!!! Or is it???

My partner’s sister was getting out of a mental hospital where she had been confined as a danger to herself and while there had involved herself in self-harm and attempted suicide?

We were both delighted when she said she wanted to come visit us in Ireland on her release to try and sort her head out and give herself some time before integrating herself back into the Swedish society she comes from. We wanted to help, we wanted to understand and we had hopes for a good future between both our little families. Although I personally had only gotten to know them as an ‘outsider’ she certainly appeared to have a kind husband and good kids. In my one short visit to their home I must say I was treated very well and very tolerantly by her husband. And before we left we had a long long chat with his wife where I felt we had reached into what was ‘real’. Neither myself or my partner were playing any games and spoke with truth and hope in our hearts. We felt even better when after that chat she confirmed she was going to come to our home on her own as soon as she got released from hospital.

As it happened, she did come, but brought with her one of her beautiful daughters and her husband. All were made welcome and we did all we could to show this to them for the whole period of their trip here that lasted over two weeks.
Unfortunately, my partner’s sister attempted to sour relationships almost from the start. A day or two after she arrived I happened to be alone with her in our TV room and asked her how she was feeling and tried to get her to open up. She appeared to talk to me and have some conversation, but as soon as she walked out of the room, she went to my partner and started to give out to her about me asking her questions about her childhood and how she got on with her sister. (my partner) She told my partner that I was too good a psychologist and that I had wanted to ‘steal her trust’ and that she could never trust any psychologist. She told my partner to tell me not to talk to her again about the past. As you can imagine this didn’t help any relationships and put a strain around their visit for both myself and my partner.
A day or so afterwards I happened to be talking with her husband alone again in the tv room while she was down talking with her sister. I asked him how he was coping having to stay away from work on sick leave and also mind his two daughters. We were talking about these difficulties and although we did not know it, she had stood outside the door of the room listening in to our conversation. Absolutely nothing in the conversation that was said was in any way derogatory about her but she called her husband out and berated him in Swedish about talking behind her back. My partner heard all of this as she was very loud and vehement about it and openly admitted to ease dropping on our conversation. At this stage I had already agreed to go with him into town the next day to show him some motor-bike shops but before she would ‘let’ him go, he had to promise her that he would not talk about her or their relationship or her health at all. She even went so far as to make him agree to be cross-questioned about any conversation we might have when she was not around.
She has tried to keep a level of control over me, my partner and her husband that is above and beyond anything that would be considered normal. In fact she went so far as to ring her parents in front of my partner giving out about me talking with her and asking questions. On another occasion while my partner was driving her around with her husband, she again rang home and gave out once again very loudly this time about her husband and her sister as if neither of them were present in the car.
This level of childish control is wrong, almost as wrong as the idea that she has that she knows everything, she knows what is right and what is wrong, and who her husband can talk to or what he can talk about.
Another major event that occurred when she was here, was that she talked about the long conversation we had when we were in Sweden. This conversation was deeply emotional and included my partner letting her know how much she cared for, loved and worried about her only sibling. Yet when she visited here, she brought up this conversation and said that it was a terrible conversation, a waste of time and totally inappropriate.
The sad part of the whole thing is, that the deluded girl thinks she is right, thinks she knows more than everyone else, and runs down those that care about her in a very abusive and rude manner. The extent of this delusion can be measured by the fact that when she went back to Sweden, her husband isn’t allowed talk with her parents, she also decided that she should not take the medicines that were prescribed for her. Her sister got one text to say they landed safely in Sweden, and since hen absolutely nothing from her, no thank you, nothing. When my partner rang her about something some weeks later all she got was a cold shoulder.
A person that is so deluded to think that they are better than everyone else, that they can and should control others and not be willing to listen to anyone but their own deluded inner voices will have great difficulties surviving. Because always there will be those greater and lesser than ourselves and everyone has a story and often we all have lessons to learn from the story of others.
The proof of the pudding, is that despite her belief that she knows better than anyone else she is now back confined to the hospital for fear of self-injury. Where is her care, her heart, her understanding of the pain she is putting her partner through, her parents through, her children through and her sister through? She just dismisses all of this and goes on to think she is above it all.
I know both my partner and myself would still do anything we could to help her, but the truth is, she needs to group up first, to learn she is not the be all and end all of the world, and she doesn’t have all the answers. In truth no one has, we all have to learn in this life and throughout the whole of this life. If I was a believer in prayer, then my prayer would be that someone somewhere in hospital or elsewhere can get through to her to enable her to see within herself the folly of her ways. She is an intelligent enough person, but living in a totally selfish manner and also I believe totally jealous manner of her own sister.
My hope is that I could reach out to her husband and let him know that he has a friend in me if he wants one, and also that someday, his wife will realise how lucky she is to have people that care for her.

Safety

2009-12-30T03:28:00.001-08:00

Partner's sister, husband and child gone back home. Got up at 5:45am to get them a good breakfast and then drive them to bus to get them to airport. It was -3 degrees and freezing roads which made the driving very difficult. Any way, got to bus safe and back home. That was Christmas Eve, and since then my partner got a phone text message to say they landed in Sweden safely.Now they were with us nearly 2 weeks and we did our best for them. But even that wasn't good enough to stop her sister from giving out to my partner. After her husband telling her child that there was no Santa it was said to our daughter too, ( who is a firm believer in Santa) but he didn't attempt in any way to convince our daughter, yet when my daughter told me and I assured her Santa would be calling Christmas Eve, the sister put her down and told her you will know the truth when you get older you poor child. When she then found out that my partner was unhappy with that she threw a complete tantrum and gave out to my partner for telling our child lies about the existence of Santa. I am not repeating this to put her down, I know the poor woman was disturbed, but this incident wasn't alone. I had tried to talk and help her on one occasion and she talked to me, but later went to my partner and told her I had no right to talk to her and even went so far as to ring her mother and tell her mother I was trying to put her parents down. This was just untrue. On another occasion I was talking to her husband about how he was getting on and how the whole situation was worrying her but she had stood outside the door listening. She then called him out and berated him in Swedish. This treatment of her husband was total control that became obvious later when he was first not let to be alone with me and then when it was not possible she gave him strict instructions not to talk about anything to do with her and made him agree that she could cross-examine him on everything he had said to me. On another occassion, she was in the car with her husband and my partner and rang her parents and started to give out to her mother about my partner and her husband as if they were not even in the car with her.My thoughts now relate to the fact that although no doubt she does care for our daughter and wants her daughter to visit her on her own, I am not sure if that is a good thing for our daughter. To witness this total control she is trying to keep over every part of her life would not be good for our daughter to witness. And the fact that despite all we did for her and her family for the couple of weeks before Christmas and even before that when she was in hospital when my partner went over on her own to look after her two kids, there is absolutly no sense that she is in any way grateful or thankful, in fact, one of the last thing she said to her sister before leaving was she didn't know her sister at all and probably never would.This makes me very sad, but it also worries me that our daughter might be exposed to her world and her world seems to control all around her. My partner has not heard from her parents either since her sister went back and I know in the past when my partner's parents did phone her and come to visit, this sister got very upset that her parents actually visited my partner and were talking with her on the phone. (of course I was working away from home at the time of their visit) All this control can be totally disturbing..... I know my partner did come from a very controlling type of existence within a religion that is in itself tightly controlled and its only since she left her home country and religion that she has experienced freedom and a lot of happiness. Is it right for me to agree to our daughter go back into such a controlling world?

Friendship

2009-12-17T00:22:00.000-08:00

I have offered my partner's sister friendship and honesty. Yet she is making excuses not to accept it, in fact she is running away from it and I am not sure why.
She talks with almost fondness of a time when my partner was living with a lot of stress and felt she wasn't a good mother and even talked about possibly handing over her daughter to her sister and her husband. It didn't happen and it seems to anger my partner's sister. She even accuses my partner of being a drama queen, which I feel is very unfair as I was probably the only one that knew of the stress and abuse my partner was going through at that time.
However, now, after spending 3 months in hospital on her wishes she has come to our home and at her wishes too her husband and daughter also came with her. To me for the same of my partner and because I care, I was happy. But she wants to reject my friendship and accuses my partner of being a drama queen and not knowing her own sister at all. And any attempt by me to try and talk and help are rejected by telling my partner that I am pushing myself where I am not welcome.
Then, when it came out that her family doesn't believe in Santa's existence my daughter asked me and I assured her Santa would be visiting her and would have presents for her, she dismissed my daughter by saying to her something like 'poor thing you will find out when you grow up that there is no Santa. Naturally this upset me and I felt it was a rude thing to do to our daughter in our home. I didn't say anything but it was obvious to her that both myself and my partner were upset. She insisted on my partner saying why and when she did, she stormed out of the house first, then came back in shaking with rage and upset giving out that we were telling lies to our child about Santa's existence. Yes I am guilty of such lies. And as long as Nadya gets such happiness out of Santa's coming, I will continue lying about this, she will be long enough an adult with adult worries.
Yet still, I am not angry at her, I understand where she is coming from, she is totally mixed up blaming my partner her younger sister, her parents and seems quite often to be mad at her husband. Why can she not see that, everyone else out there cant all be wrong and open her mind to the possibility that not all people are the same and many find their own level of happiness not necessarily believing in the rules of her religion.
I wonder is there a lot of jealousy of my partner's happiness and our daughter's happiness when she herself is obviously deeply disturbed. But as long as she is constantly looking outside to leave the blame on others, without listening to those who care she can not hope to find happiness.
I am still willing to be honest with her and to be a friend if she wants one, but I fear she is more afraid of that than anything else, she knows her anger doesn't bother me but she is so afraid of the fact that anyone who is not in her religion can actually help or even want to help.
I dont know, but am not giving up.

Santa

2009-12-16T11:37:00.000-08:00

My daughter who is 7 just came up to me and said that her uncle told her Santa doesn't exist. Her heart her hopes are all about Santa at this time of the year, she is being good trying hard and yet feeling her nose out of joint because her aunt and uncle are visiting and they have her younger cousin with them. There is a bit of jealousy involved as Nadya is an only daughter and now the limelight has to be shared.
But leaving that aside, I know her uncle and aunt are Jehova Witnesses and they dont celebrate or believe in Christmas, yet they are in our house and they have no right to tell my daughter such things. When I tried to reassure her that Santa would come on Christmas Eve her aunt added in you will see what is true when you grow up. Sure when she is grown up she will be able to take in grown up things, but right now she is a child enjoying this season and looking forward to school holidays and Santa coming. Time enought to deal with grown up things and problems later. Her mother was also a Jehova Witness but has put that aside and now wants her child to experience the joys of fairies, santa, unicorns all things she was deprived of as a child.

Her sister and family were invited here as our guests and I feel insulted that they would try and dissillusion our daughter and take some of her childhood away from her.

I dont know why they would do such a thing, perhaps its in reprisal of me trying to talk and help her aunt.

Invisible

2009-12-09T10:35:00.000-08:00

My partner's sister is in trouble, and it turned out that she turned to my partner for help and whether or not she was going to be released by the court from the psychiatrict hospital she was in, she was determined to come visit her sister. We both worried about that and what might happen, would she be returned by the police, yet we were both happy that she wanted to get free of a lot of troubles that she felt she couldn't handle when she left the hospital after spending 3 months there.

Well she was released by the Court, and she dispenced with the secrecy that she imposed on my partner not to tell her parents or her husband.

So then she decided she was going to tell her husband as she had broached the subject with her and he was in favour of her taking this break and trying to get her life back into perspective. But she still imposed on my partner not to tell her parents.

Today I learned, that despite imposing on my partner, she did in fact tell her parents herself, she had to go to them to get 'tickets for the plane' printed out as she didn't have a printer!!!!

No, matter she was still coming, except now the amazing plan is that she is bringing her husband and daughter too, and in fact she had bought the tickets without even saying a word to my partner, never mind to me.

Its true, I did make a point of telling her, that if she wanted to, after a couple of weeks here, she could ask her husband or her husband and child to join her, if she felt up to it and decided thats what she wants.

Now, dont get me wrong, I dont mind them coming, I like her husband, he is a decent honest guy and her daughter is a kid, and my daughters gets on great with her, so am happy at that level, but where I have my doubts lie in whether or not it is really what she wants. You see, I wonder if her religion has anything to do with it. Its a very imposing religion, and has already led to my partner being extremely hurt and abandoned by her parents when she decided she didn't want to keep her religion up. What I fear is that her parents, may have pressurised her not to go to see her sister alone, in case it might be a bad influence on her. So now she is coming with her husband and child. I am afraid it might just turn out as a holiday ( which they are welcome to come on in any event ) but it might not be what she needs, as in time away from all the pressures of family and friends to be in a place where she can reflect on her life without pressure to decide the direction she wants to go in.

I worry about whether or not my partner or I can talk to her, or if all talking will in fact be to her and following from being to her, to also be to her husband and her parents. I am afraid that the religion involved wants or needs to keep a tight grip on her head, conscience and heart and this new plan is designed to ensure that 'freedom' to think at least about religious attitudes is not going to be available for her.

I guess another fear is that, there may be some silly hope that she and her husband may in some way be able to influence my partner to rejoin the religion and thus be accepted back into the bosum of her family of birth! Who knows what the thinking is.

My only conclusion can be that I will have to try and remain totally honest at the same time as being respectful, but fear that such honesty may not be enough, and if it comes to me disagreeing with anything to do with religion, or expressing my honest opinions, I might upset my partner's sister and her husband. ITs a real fear

Sleep

2009-12-07T23:19:00.000-08:00

Another sleepless night, memories flood back, also flowing in is the fact that yesterday was my daughter's birthday she is 24 but no word from her.
Some of the sleepless nights go back to when I lived with my wife, I have not the slightest doubt in the world that she loved me as I did her, but we had started to go our own seperate ways, and our interest diverged without any sharing. This led to differences of opinion and seperation of minds that in turn led to lots of arguements and sleepless nights with head destroying effects. I know now that when I said I had enough, my head was not in a straight place, it was pulled in all directions.
My decision to leave cost me so much, not alone did I loose contact with a woman that I love and admire but also my 4 children totally backed her up (as I would have wanted for her support) but they excluded me completly. I think they did this by agreement between themselves. Now 5 years later they are wedded to this agreement. :( It hurts a lot.

Yet now, I am living a totally different life, perhaps a more real one, where I can be myself and have gotten rid of some 'airs and graces' that I realise I had. E.g. whether at weekend or during the week, I would always wear a shirt and tie, and more often than not a suit and had the opinion that I had a 'place' in society. It was in fact a stupid sense of pride. Am not saying I was a bad person, but just not the real person I should be.

I think I will write another time about family and history, but right now, I just feel lonely, I dont hold grudges, yet others around me do. The people who I care for, that dont now talk to me, make me sad. A dear friend who I care for but for circumstances beyone my control is seperated from me somewhat, again I dont understand the why. Why do people hold grudges and lack forgiveness. Why do people hurt others knowingly..... I am at a loss

Fear

2009-11-16T23:12:00.000-08:00

There is no problem with being frightened, its an emotion that is normal.
The difficulty is in how you handle the fear.
Knowing you have fear and admitting it is not sufficient. Sure acknowledgement of fear is necessary, but its the actions that follow that is important.
There sure are lots of books on fear such as 'feel the fear and do it anyway'
The negative ways of handling fear include:
'Doing nothing and staying in a relationship, which doesn't support you, heightens the old demons by heightening the fear that previously existed by adding to it current fears of being alone.
The traditional belief by all psychology is that fear brings on a 'fight or flight' syndrome, but sometimes neither option is taken and instead a 'deer in headlight syndrome' occurs, where there is complete paralysis where neither fight or flight occurs. This happens in for example where a victim of past sexual abuse is again under attack and freezes allowing the attack rather than taking an opportunity to say No, Run, or Fight, this can further build on older 'guilt' feelings.
Another option is dissassociate, where you can act but refuse to allow your personal emotions to be involved. You end up living inside your own head and expect others to know whats going on. Sometimes such living in your head expects others to know whats going on, and when the reactions of others isn't supportive to 'god knows what in your head' then the fear can formate into anger that can go all over the place rather than at the situation that your running from (figurativly in your head at least). All sort of people can get hurt here and expecting them to understand and forget simply because a word 'sorry' is used in an unemotional state isn't sufficient. First you need to contact your emotions to your brain, then express the emotions correctly and relevantly including apologies. The biggest danger here is that you may have good intentions and may even express them, but you do it in such an automative way that its hard to believe and the person receiving the message, sees the disconnection and sees the body language in opposition to the words and thus naturally doesn't believe. If you want your real feeligns to be advised to anyone you need to have body soul and mind speak and act in unision.
Even worse than that, is the case of those who because of large fear at young ages often end up not only disconnecting, but inventing alternate egos who become real persons that take over. These alters have their own personallities whose sole purpose is to deal best with whatever outside influence is in play and the 'real person' is hidden deep within the psychic.
Fear is shit at times, but can only be beaten when you face it. Sorry for ending here, as time says I need to stop.
bfn

Being a father

2009-11-08T12:19:00.000-08:00

No speaches today, just a reflection on the last few days in the company of 2 friends who got married on Saturday.
Self and partner invited to the wedding as we were friends, but lol we live in a small village and by the time the wedding came about, most of the village also got verbal invites often when met in a local pub so the wedding of the year, became a big village party in ways.
Firstly about the wedding itself, its November 7..... cold and windy and wet, so where was the reception, in a large tent put up by groom myself and other friends in the groom's front garden, they also used his father-in-laws (to-be at the time) back yard, where we also put up Gazabos food stalls etc. It was totally wonderful collabrative event, with contributions from all over all giving with a willing heart as the couple involved are tremendous people.
IT happened, it all went well on the night, and I have spent a lot of the day recovering, after of course having a big lunch time party back in the tent dealing with all the food that was left over lol.
But what struck me most about the wedding, was the attendence of the Grooms children from an earlier marriage. Each of them had a job to do, doing readings in the church, signing the registry as a witness etc. The first thing that stirred my heart, was when the youngest started to read a bible passage, she just started to break down, and before anyone in the church really distinguished between whether she was breaking down or just stuttering and a bit shy, her father was over with his arm around her helping her to read the piece. It brought tears to the eyes of most of the congregation, certainly brought tears to my eyes anyway, not sure whether This to me was the essence of the man, and not alone of the man, but of his new wife also, throughout the night I saw on numerous occassions how they interacted with the kids, took time to ensure they were involved, and even find them when they were missing. The words of the bride spoken from the church alter was so inclusive of all and especially welcoming to the three girls. Even today at the 'lunch afters' to see the girls saying goodbye, hugging the bride whose parting words to them I happened to hear --' go give your dad a big hug before you go' again, I cant help the tears.
It is not as if the couple were the real 'emotional type' at least on the outside, always the brave face, the joke, the sharing, yet this glimpse at their inner self surely showed to me the value of having such people as friends.

Anyway onto more detailed personal aspects, as I said our little family was also involved not alone in the helping to set up things but in the wedding itself. The couple are about 'shy' around kids and the wedding itself was strictly no kids wedding. Although lots of friends and relations were invited with their children to the lunch the next day. But, our little 7 year old girl saw them give us the wedding invitation and as soon as she copped what was happening, in front of them she started to get all excited and started talking about getting a new dress for the wedding and new shoes with high heels. She was informed by ourselves and the couple that the wedding was for adults only but she determinely told them she was coming anyway. OVer the next few weeks every time she saw the couple on the street or in our local pub she was all over them with kindness and giving them hugs, shouting across the street at them etc. Am not sure if it was her persistance or what that got to them, in the end they asked us could she be a 'flower girl' or 'ring carrier'. To say she was delighted was an understatement of biblical proportions, and her happiness of when she went with the bride to be and mom to the shops where the bride bought her a 'flower girl' dress was a highlight of her life, then on the morning of the wedding again her mom brought her off to the hairdresser where the bride was getting her own hair done and had made an appointment for our girl as well. Even in the wedding practise the evening before she was so good, learned to walk slowly with the two rings on a cushion all the way up the aisle of the church was amazing, she had to sit with the bridesmaids and the grooms children beside the alter on her own after walking up the aisle and was well behaved, I was so proud of her.
The other side of the alter was her mother who was also privileged to be asked to play solo Bach's AIR on the flute as the Bride walked up the chapel. My partner did herself proud on the flute, and received compliaments throughout the wedding celebrations afterwards.,
Meanwhile, where was I, luckly I was on my own up in the gallery of the church with tripods and cameras trying to take pictures of the cermoney. This isn't because I was an excellent photographer, no rather it was because my partner is the photographer but as she was sitting at the alter playing the flute I had to be a poor stand in for the 'official photographer'. I worked on the basis that if I took hundreds of photographs, then some few of them would come out good enough for my partner to work on and fix up with photoshop. (at this stage this remains to be seen) All in all, despite being offwork for 3 days before hand with a swollen face from an ear infection, it was a great weekend and I feel blessed to have my little family and good friends. Wish I could be half as good a dad as the groom.

Why is it better to remember than forget

2009-11-03T10:44:00.001-08:00

Why would I ask 'what happened to the child' or 'who done it' are thosequestions necessary, or is it just a case of 'you're an adult now get on withliving as one' 'you now have a voice, you can write, why would you need toknow'It's about forgiveness and its about understanding.Why would a child who cant read or write hold a sharp knife to her stomachwith the thoughts of suicide so that she wouldn't hurt her mother more??Answer 1 = An evil child with a dirty mind that wants to be touched sexually,a child who if her mother knew what she did with X would die from the pain ofit.Such a simple answer that so many are led to believe.... Yes I said LED tobelieve, because, can you see an alibi or a guilt transfer that couldpossibly be better at keeping that child silent, muzzled, guilt ridden, fearridden. What's the benefit of having a child like that.... Its not to helpthe parents to have a 'child who is seen and not heard' no the most commonreason for such guilt transference is to stop the child revealing not whatthe 'child did' but rather what was done to her and by whom.... Add to thisdeliberate lie, the 'love and the attention' the abuser gives to this'special' child, who without this love and attention is merely a child whomay be getting in the way of parents too preoccupied with their own lives toconsider the 'thoughts, feelings, little hurts that every child livesthrough'.To even bury deeper the memories, the guilt the shame, the abuser can besomeone that the parents admire, speak about, look up to.... Like a priest, aminister, an elder. Imagine for a small child who sees the power thatindividual may have over her 'all powerful parents'. How much more powerfulmust that individual have over the little child who is so 'low down' in thehierarchy of some lives?Answer 2 therefore comes from the amplification of answer 1.The child is innocent, the child is hurting, the child is fearful, the childis full of guilt and possible shame... That shame that is inculcated by theabuser, 'OMG it would kill your mother if she knew what your like' or 'Ifyour parents found out they would have to tell the 'church' the 'police' the'welfare system' and you would have to be taken away from such good parentsand put with all the bold children all alone and unloved.If the adult knows what happened, who did it, then the surroundingcircumstances can be discerned, the innocence of the child can be known andforgiven. The reasons can be understood for the child's actions (or ratherre-actions) and thus forgiveness for the 'child inside' can be given.There is another very important reason also. That is that such manipulators,such abusers of the mind as well as the body, generally speaking do not stop,generally speaking they try get into positions of authority, where their'morality, goodness, godliness, can not be questioned. While at the sametime, they are put into positions of trust over the innocents in order tocontinue their corruption.When I say corruption, however, its not true corruption in the normal senseof the word, it is more of a temporary blindness an hypnotic following of apath laid out by a person with the power to ensure and demand such a path beled. And the deeper the abusers leads into that path, the more secure theabuser feels as the 'guilt and shame' increase to ensure the quietness thesilencing as well as the other manipulation of for example the parents. Whereperhaps quiet words may be given when the parents notice inappropriateactions of the child. Here the abuser may push for punitive punishments forthe child, quietly among adult talk of course' this further ostracises thechild from the parents and teaches the child negative self-worth.Next stage: Child grows up, child sees the right and wrong of past actions and with theat this stage inbedded feelings of negative self worth, tends to self-hateand possibly self-harm, thus again protecting the abuser who can now pointout see I aways said there was a 'madness/badness' there.But for the child, the self-hate and the shame and guilt of the past becomessomething so loathsome that it has to be pushed to the back of the memories.The desire to be normal and good comes out and with this comes the deeperself-loathing of the things done in the past, the 'inner child' becomes the'hated child' and the desire to not remember becomes so great that thoughtsof suicide are strong, or another way is to totally or partially suppress thememories. But suppressing memories is not an easy thing, it normally comes throughtrauma, but the imagination of the past is trauma with a capital T. Butsuppressing memories also involves a lot of brain energy being used up, andif the brain has only a certain capacity for energy, then with the amountbeing used up for such suppression may not leave enough left for normalliving, resulting in depression etc. (another story)So Zan this is why I ask the hard questions that require painful work notalone for your own benefit, but if as I was contemplating about abusers notstopping at just one victim, perhaps answers may also be helpful for yoursister.Life is difficult, I wish it wasn't, but for all that, it is good, it isworth living for, its worth having and passing on and its also why I am proudof the fact that our little one can run to me and tell me that 'mammy shoutedat me'. LOL, even if I too would have shouted at her, had she been in mycompany and ran in front of a car. Hugs

2009-10-31T04:29:00.000-07:00

Just some thoughts I had recently relating to a path a friend is walking

The core issue relates to what sort of a person can you be if you look at a person’s life, see the blemishes of the past and ‘hate’ that part of the person. Would you do that, or would you seek to find the ‘causes of behaviour’ and understand that the ‘blame’ for innocence corrupted falls on the corruptor and not on the innocent. Then take a step further and see the corrupted innocent, struggle with guilt shame and possible self harm and through little help and lots of barriers become a loving caring warm-hearted individual. That my friend is a real struggle, that is a person to be proud of…. BUT….. the sad thing is, often this hero still feels the guilt and shame and corruption that invades the self, sure they say that was the old dirty ‘child’ but they know the ‘child’ was them and fail miserably to see that child was the innocent and is innocent despite ‘trained behaviour’ of the corruptor.
The road to forgiving the behaviour (that was never a fault of the innocent in the first place) can be long and difficult path and I wonder too, if that difficulty is inversely proportioned to the goodness of the person. E.G. the better the person, the harder they are on themselves for the behaviour of the past, thus having higher guilt, shame feelings than normal?
How is the difficult path walked? Well sometimes there is more than one path to walk, sometimes the ‘learned bad behaviour’ has to be walked to bring forth the good caring sharing person, this path in itself is difficult especially in the absence of good role models and knowledge of how a caring sharing person behaves. Often here good role models are found outside the home, they may be local teachers, care workers, foster parents or just popular idols like Angelina Jolie J Either way, it is the mind and spirit of the hero that seeks the path and struggles to become.

The most difficult path however is not in becoming a good caring sharing person, but is becoming a caring sharing person who can love and see themselves in the light and through the eyes and truths of others. The road to self forgiveness is by far the most difficult path to walk. Often a guide is needed because the harm done to the innocent is insidious it hides and lurks deep in the recesses of the mind and the path is often walked with two steps forward and one step back. The work of the corruptor has misshapen the innocent mind, mostly for the sake of self-preservation. The evil lies in the ‘self-blame’ that is constantly beaten into the innocent. The beaten in of this ‘lie’ can be in a physical violent way, or an insidious way of ‘God says’ or ‘this is your doing desire’ or ‘see look at what your doing, you’re the one that is wrong and shameful’ or ‘you will be the cause of the break-up of the family if you don’t hide this’ or ‘see your physical reaction, your desire, your pleasure, to have those you must be bad’. ALL to hide, to shame, to twist the innocent mind. Often the most vulnerable innocents are those that are thought not to question, to accept adults are always right, to be quiet, to hold your tongue as children in the presence of adults should be seen and not heard, to do what your told without question. The corrupter uses these trained ways of being by parents and church to ensure the innocent keeps quiet. They then turns the screws by adding further guilt through blaming the innocent for being the cause of the corruptors behaviour and thus twists the mind of the innocent
This is why this road is so difficult and also why a guide is so necessary to unravel the twisted alleyways of the mind to show a path of truth. To see the changing pathways emerge and understand how ‘wrong turns’ of the past occurred, also takes some intelligence together with a lot of conviction and determination.
The path is difficult and many at times find it too much to take and set backs occur when a ‘guide’ changes or has not sufficient capacity for the needs of the innocent. But, once the path starts, generally speaking, despite going one step back for each two forward, progress is made. It is possible during times of hardship and particular strain, to take a break, to pause, to take time to recuperate and re-energise before going back to the path again. Despair is unnecessary so long as the drive and determination is there for recovery, when the direction is right, no matter the time factor, a destination will be reached no matter what resting places have to be taken along the way.

On secrets

2009-10-28T12:55:00.000-07:00

Secrets and lies are brothers and sisters. They are receipes for disaster especially among families. I tell you a secret, but your not to tell your brother/sister whatever, and then the brother/sister tells you something else and again 'dont tell mother/father' and then the secrets get out, the repercussions start, the distrust heightens.
But distrust is always at the heart of secrets, sure you may make excuses, and say that he/she is not strong enough to share in this. How can anyone ever get 'strong enough' if they are always kept out of some loop, into another and then they start their own loop. How can anyone expect trust and honesty to build up with such mind games constantly going.
Then there is the 'family secrets' we have to keep that in the family..... Sometimes in the worst scenario its got to do with child abuse, and the training has to be 'dont trust outsiders, especially not cops or social workers, they will take you away from your home.... Some cults have the same building up of 'distrust' in order to cage the members in, think of Waco, brainwashed all the members on the 'its us against them' theme, to such an extent that whatever happens internally, from murder, rape suicide, the last thing anyone would do is to tell outsiders.....
Damn it I hate secrets.
Secrets and distrust built into the very young, has further effects, it blocks memories.... Now anyone who knows the working of the brain can tell you that you memories dont dissappear, but if your scared so much about letting secrets out you can 'block them'. Its called repressing memories and it takes energy to constantly keep such barriers to memories built up. So if you have only a certain amount of mental energy, and a lot of it is used in blocking repressed memories, whats left for normal living, is there even such a thing as normal living with so much energy lost in repressions.... And without such needed energy for normal day to day stuff how easy it is to just go down,,, depression.. Grrrrrr

The truth will set you free

2009-10-26T05:35:00.000-07:00

Short blog just to say, I hate lies, I hate miscommunications, I hate misleading statements. I honestly think if people just spoke the truth life would be much easier. I know sometimes the truth can be misinterpreted but that can always be clarified afterwords because behind it is all the evidence of the truth.

2009-05-06T12:06:00.001-07:00

Woke up at 3 am with a nightmare the other night. The trouble is, the nightmare was very much based in reality.
Its about a family that preach about love and God yet to me seem to act totally different. It is a small family with only two children close in age. Both children lead different lives, one adopts the path laid down by the parents and becomes the 'good' child, the other forges their own path, making mistakes, recovering from them and eventually settling into a life that feels happy and worthwhile to the person. Yet that child is now ostrasized by the parents, treated as a parahia, screamed at, as being selfish because the child strayed from the 'parent's path' and found their own path in life. I cant understand parents doing that to any child, making fish of one and flesh of the other as the old proverb goes. But it goes even more bizzare when reality is looked at from the outside. The parent that screams at the child has suffered depression most of their adult life, the child who follows the path dug for them by the parents is also suffering deep depression and the other parent stands by, letting it all happen as if asleep to the world, or filled with so much pride in their position within the world that their path has carved for them, that they allow it all to happen.
The child that carved and is carving their own path in the world, made mistakes, got into abusive relationship and this relationship was accepted by the parents because the child was brought back into the path of the parents. The child got out of that abusive relationship and is now in a healthy one where stability and personal growth is accepted and encouraged yet this new relationship is totally opposed by the same parents and the sibling, even derided because it doesn't fit into the parent's or the siblings carved in stone 'ideal'. Nevermind that the child is happy, growing and healthy with a safe steady environment, the child is still ostrastised, cut out, derided for not being the 'copy cat'. Its as if, to open their mind to the child's happiness is to admit error, and to even think of them making an error, is just not conceivable.
My big fear for all concerned is if one child is lost, what chaos will that bring, what blaming will it bring along with all the heartache? Already the 'bad' child is being blamed for the 'good' child's illness, because always the defence is look for something outside to blame, dont reflect, do not even allow yourself to think for a minute that a fault, mistake can be yours and that the carved path made by parents could possibly not be either the only path worth following, or the only path.
It hurts to think that such paths can force the natural love and affection that should exist within a family to become opressive.

Lost Friend

2008-05-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

Hey you,
Wonder why I didn't get a pineapple last Christmas, hmmm you can still make me cry.
As usual am a bit dyslexic and computer phobic, but eventually managed to open blog here. Now the big challenge is to see if I can open friend's blog and respond to comments. will give it a try, but would be a lot easier if friend didn't chang phone numbers.