Re: Update was--Re: OT Merc sick....email problems.....etc. (virii!)

I really think the act of writing/telling is the therapeutic part, Sooz.

Yee gads, mine too. Now I tell her I suffer from panic attacks and anxiety that will possibly hospitalize me. She has eased up a little bit, LOL. I had to lie, she was driving me bonkers with that one.

Stephanie

Yes. I always consider these things for as long as possible. They're huge, and once uttered cannot be taken back.

I'm going the Avoid Route right now. "Taking A Break From Mom." (Whew, the break will last as long as it NEEDS to.) There's been a complication, too:

My dad told me yesterday that the transplant docs at Stanford, who did her kidney, are putting her on Zoloft. They did it once before, and Dad says it created an enormous change in her demeanor (I don't doubt that!). (Had to go off it due to other Rx things too intricate to go into here.)

I don't even know how this affects how I feel about all this! Or what I will do. I am waiting. What do I do (rhetorical question for now) if all those mood swings disappear? How do I feel in her presence if the single Mom personality becomes consistent? (She has, as far as I can tell, 4 personalities: Violent/Nasty, Mom, Void Ignorer, Perky Sorority Girl.)

Sheesh. So I'm totally continuing my vacation-from-family. :-P Bleh ~~ Sooz

Dead on. ~~ Sooz

After an all night loving and meds she is much better. I was worried for a while but I think the crap my in-laws gave her upset her stomach.

Thank you so much, Becki. Good to read some of this post, awful to read some of it (i.e., what happened to you). {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Becki}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Yeah, having one's life flash before one's eyes like I have for the last week is exhausting. Jeez. And re-ordering one's present self in the light of the new info.....sheez! KLUNK

~~ Sooz

Cheri, that's disgusting. And I wish she'd stop calling you twice a day, I know that has to be hurting, not helping, your illness. I'm so sorry she's doing that. (What's her number? I'll call her and tell her to cut it out.)

~~~~~~snipped~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you. {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Cheri}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

~~ Sooz

The past month or so really has been. I'm sort of reeling, but I've managed to stick the landing so far (can you tell what I've been watching on TV?).

I'm sucking it up!!!!!!

I promise. ~~ Sooz

I'm so glad that's all it seems to be! Poor little queasy Trinkett. :-( ~~ Sooz

Stephanie! I've done this sort of thing (lying about health matters to hold mom at arm's length) all my life. OMG! ~~ Sooz

Diana, I didn't tell my mother when I cut part of our ties. Mostly because she "knows what I really mean", and wouldn't hear me. A variation of Sooz's mother's selective hearing.

I think for most people, by the time they're ready to take the loss, they've already tried repeatedly to tell your poison person why.

Tina

It also clarifies things in your mind to write things down. When I have to explain myself, I organize my thoughts, as if writing an essay. This is the situation, based on these things. A paragraph for each reason. A restatement, with possible resolutions (eg, no further contact).

Take it out a few days later and take out any inflammatory s*it, restate anything that assumes the addressee has intimate knowledge, etc. After you take that stuff out, put it away for a while, and see if it's still a reflection of your feelings.

It's surprising how much we know, when we do a question and answer to ourselves.

Tina

On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 2:44:57 -0400, BeckiBead wrote (in message ):

Oh boy, can I relate to that. Eventually, I realized that I don't need to feel bad about feeling good. I don't feel guilty any longer.

Soozala, please try to do this. Any relationship which drains you to the point of illness is poisonous - you need not feel guilty for refusing to take poison. Just the opposite. You owe it to a lot of people to not take that poison - Kevin, all your friends, Merc, but mostly, you owe it to Sooz.

You don't deserve a rotten relationship with your mother - you didn't deserve it as a child, you don't deserve it now. You deserved to have two parents who cared about you and treasured you as parents are supposed to do. I'm so sorry you didn't get that, and I understand why you don't want to have anything to do with the person who didn't live up to their end of the relationship.

I can't say I don't feel a little pang now and again, especially around holidays and birthdays. Still, I feel great relief the rest of the time. Those few moments of guilt are well worth the peace of mind I have the rest of the time.

Interestingly, although I was the first to cut contact, I was not the only one. My brother cut contact until he was able to work out an amicable agreement and enforce it. For some reason, my brother commands respect that my sister and I do not. Probably because he's

My sister has cut almost all contact as well, for the same reasons I have. She's now working through the "guilty for feeling relief" stage. I suspect she'll end up where I am now - not angry, not sad, just nothing. It's not a bad place to be.

Kathy N-V

You done good, Cheri!

Tina

"Cheri2Star" wrote...

I'm starting a separate journal for this period in my life.

~~ Sooz

Sooz, my two cents on this is to write your mom a letter (so she can't manipulate and turn things around on you like she could if you told her in person) that talks about your feelings and why you can't talk to her for a while. Talk about yourself, and how you're working through things from your childhood. Don't talk too much about the ways she hurt you, since the issue *right now* is just getting away from her. Confronting her will probably come later.

-Kalera

LOL! Yeah, I wish she would stop doing it too. Every day that I go to work (which is only 5 out of 10 at best) she panicks because she can't find me. Plus, she wants me to sit on a sofa and be an invalid. I'm not sure how or why this fits in to her program, but I'm not buying it. The more active I am, the more I live my life as before, the healthier I feel. So as usual, I ignore what I don't want to hear.

She also got into this speech on a regular basis about how I was still her little girl and her baby. I finally had to tell her to stop. I am no one's baby and no one's little girl. I am a 55 year old grandmother fer cryin' out loud. When I told my girls about it, they said they would not have been offended to hear that from me. So then I figured out that being her little girl wasn't anything I wanted to go back to and that's why I was gagging on it. Or as DH put it, "You should have told her if you were her still her little girl she'd still be slapping you around." Anyway, mostly she has stopped that crap.

Cheri (Bubbee to Emily and Nathan)

Right on.

Tina

Oh man. And your first paragraph -- Oh MAN. I'm so sorry.

I know. Mourning is correct. I told Kevin I was sorry I'd been so weird all week, and of course he told me there was no need for apologies. And he said I acted like someone I loved had died. (He's been GREAT.) It is like a death, with grief and everything else. ~~ Sooz