To those of you still figuring out what is best for you, something true and funny....

2014 Had Almost No Space Rented by The Donors in My Head

This will only be the third post in this blog this year!   That is quite an accomplishment for me, and a sign that I am well into the healing process from my toxic family relations.

Be well and keep on exploring your feelings until you get through to the healing side.   No my life is not perfect, in fact we had a super stressful year.  I thought land developers only came after you in movies, but that is just not so.   We are winning, but we got involved in a fight for our lively hood and property this year, due to unethical practices of land developer who knows the system well.

So 2014 is being kicked to the curb this year, but NOT because my toxic family had any part at all in it:)   So at least I did not have that adding to my stress level.

Could have done without the land developer too, but that is life.

Found this very appropriate

Damage that can happen in your subconscious although consciously you never thought it would.

First of all, things have been great as far as the "no contact".   Not a peep either directly, indirectly, or via the internet.  No weird strangers contacting me (who know absolutely nothing about me) asking me to comment on something my donors have said.   No pleas from "family members" via third parties to put myself out there and make myself vulnerable so their buddies (my donor(s)) feel good (it's never any concern about me).

Then I was thinking of the poems I used to write my pets when they died.   I thought about this, because it linked to the more recent posts to "family members" dying, and that made me think of other grief.   Then I thought why didn't I write poems for Mustache, Leon, Jackie, Stormy, and Jazz.   And this made me immediately think of something my NM blogged about how I apparently like to write sappy poems.

I did not even realize this was subconsciously affecting me.   Granted I am no artist with words, I know that.   This is not why I wrote these memorials to my pets (and a couple of love poems to my husband).   It was to somehow represent something that I was feeling inside in that moment.   Because NM could not accept that I was no longer her victim, she needed to take a mean spirited shot at me.   And I knew that, but thought at the time this would never affect me.

Now I wonder where those poems are and if they have been saved.   It's like that day that side of me just shut down for someone I had decided some time ago was not worth my while.   Certainly not worth these examples of emotional abuse that was her side of our relationship!

Others have said it's not that ONE thing.   It's the constant barrage of things.   I for one am so glad that barrage has stopped, so I can continue to get my feet under me and reclaim myself.   I love the way those goofy poems make me feel now, remembering how I felt then.   So now I will be working on memorials to my other lost pets.

Try not to let people diminish those parts of you.   It's hard because sometimes you do not know it happened until much much later, as it happens subconsciously.

Or, someone can realize the person in front of them is not someone they care to know

"Someone can be a good person and still believe untruths. This is what inspired me to write about Being Wrong. Because I believe that many good people believe bad things about other good people who don't deserve being so maligned. After all, it is said that you have to demonize someone before you can hate them. It's a lot harder to dislike and hate someone who really is a nice enough person. So, to estrange them successfully, it helps to demonize, demonize, demonize!!"

No, for me, it was a very painful look at the reality of the situation.  My NM is not a monster or a demon.   She is just someone I don't want in my life.   So many examples of why including her blog and postings about me on other sites that were "not meant for my eyes", as an explanation.

That's fine, but there is no reason to again point the finger of blame at me, and continue to not recognize my valid reasons for estrangement that have been laid out for her (and certainly not denied by her).   It's statements like these that have me shaking my head.

Bizzaro World

One of my cousins on eggy's side sent me this picture recently.   My Grand Uncle Ernie had forwarded it to her.  This picture brought out a lot of conflicting thoughts.   My cousin on spermy's side said "what a great picture of the trio".   This was not the foremost of my thoughts when seeing this picture.

The first thing that struck me is that I did not first think the yellow short woman was eggy.   She actually seems to look more like my Aunt Sojna (no blood relation to eggy).   Or maybe my cousin Debbie who was roughly her age, I think.

I think there are a couple of reasons I have trouble recognizing her.   One being, is that woman has almost no similarity in my mind to what I know of her now.   Even her interests...she used to play softball, we used to hike in the mountains, and I did feel loved at this age by both eggy and spermy.   I am probably six in this photo, maybe even five.   The physical exercise stuff she pretty much hates now, and may have even hated then.   It is hard to fit the perception of her by my six year old self, to my perception of her as my 40 year old self.  I can pick out things that hinted at what I understand her to be now, but taken as a one time thing could have just been anyone having a bad day or making a bad choice.   Looking back on days like this (I don't remember the exact one, but I remember days like this in the Cape) I see two people that I have not seen since (in spermy's case) age 9 and (in my mother's case) around age 16 or 17.   Though I would say I knew something was not right around Junior High, but the real realizations started to trickle in around 16 to my 20s.  

It strikes me how captive young children can be into their parents "situation".   There is nothing a daughter can do if their father dislikes women.   You can not keep yourself, for instance, from becoming a woman instead of a cute toddler girl who thinks her father is right in everything before learning to think for herself.   In third grade, I loved my teacher Mr Sullivan.   Not in a romantic kind  of way, he was just fun, interesting, and into teaching his students.   He made everyone in his class feel special.   One day I came home enthusiastic about a lesson or idea that Mr Sullivan had taught us that day.   I was met with a lot of hostility from Spermy.   I look back on that day as the day the guy in the picture above became deceased as far as my perception of him.   It was not that little incident understand, it is every incident that snowballed after that.  I never felt loved or cherished by spermy pretty much since that day.   I did not understand why.   I did not even really understand what was happening.   It was not until reflecting the course of our relationship later on, that I could pick out what seems to be a pivotal moment when perhaps both of our opinions about each other changed drastically.

It is clear now that spermy was threatened by my interest in my teacher vs my compliance in agreeing with him instead of forming my own opinions.   I was brought up correctly so to believe racism and sexism is bad.   However, I found later, that these were not the ideals of my donors inner most thoughts, and sometimes public verbal thoughts.   I know that eggy thought she was a feminist, and that she was independent.   However, much of what she writes is about the dependence she has on people viewing her a certain way.   Part of that is narcissist but part of that is also not understanding that you need to take the reigns of your own destiny.   And that is not representative of a strong or independent woman.

When those things start to diverge for me, I realized that my donors were pretty much strangers.   Through other events and things that happened, they ended up being strangers that I did not like at all.

It's so weird to see a photo like this for this reason.   It's like looking into an alternate universe.  A bizzaro world where these people grew together, were close, and lived happily ever after as the loving family they appear to be. 

I guess it troubles me that I had no control, and have no control of how the story of that family turns out.