HI Damaskrose,
There is a smile on my face because of the advise you nice son gave you considering the othr son... He is so right !!!! My youngest son is like that, so I know how it feels!!!!
it akes me think of an exercise I sometimes do with people I help;
Do you know how to dance????
If you are the dancing position and your partner steps backward, you have to go foreward!!! This is simmilar with relationships... If one is making up the rules..or seems to make them..it is up to you to follow them... So going back to the dance that means that the dance can go on as long as you two keep dancing together....But what if you step backwards.... ot of the times you will se the othe rprsonwill follow..... or not..and if not than obviously he/she disided on their own not to dace anymore..( have a nice relationship...
So in a really nice dance ( relationship) sometimes one is going to lead and other times the other person is going to lead...Their is always one who leads and one who follows, to be in balans it will shift.... This is not so in the relation with children and their parents..That is depending on age also ...But you as a parent are always in charge as long as the child is in your home..So take the lead again!!! You can do it you seem wise enough to do so...
You willlearn to trust your own feelings of intuition again , they are there and they are there for a purpose... nd you just have to get to interper them in the right way ..without finding excuses for everybody.. I fnecessary people can come up with their own, you can save you energy for your own love and children, no need to bother with others I think at least for the mean time...
You are a brave woman to be wanting and willing to see what lives lessons have for you... Indeed we teach our children and they teach us.. and not all we have to learn is very nice..( ahummmm)
I have to get some sleep now but will write to you soon.
Love Segaya

Segaya that is a nice visualisation of it being like a dance. I will use it. It hurts of course but am concentrating on the children who need me and this will change as their needs change I guess. I do not like game playing and so I guess this is my weak spot as others use it to upset me. Sometimes we spend so much energy on those others who are upsetting us we forget to focus on the ones who are not! Love is not always demanding attention I guess it is also quiet and constant and patient. It is raining so much today and now i have to go out and cycle up my daughters school again as she has forgotten her swim kit! Byee damask

Hello Damaskrose

You seem to be having a period of self crticism and turmoil. You don't need to be so hard on yourself for doing what you felt was right at the time. If you loved your mother then that feeling existed whether you told her or not. Love is a feeling and doesn't have to be spoken, only felt. Is is just guilt that makes you feel so bad about this and not regret that your really missed the opportunity to tell her your true feelings for her? What a dilemma feeling you have to tell someone you love them when maybe they haven't earned it, I have never believed love is unconditional apart from maybe a mother/father and baby.

I wonder why you feel you have to be available for these people who do not treat you with the respect you deserve. I wouldn't call them friends, a friend is someone who wants the best for you and contributes to the relationship. When you are suffering from depression it is even harder to to look after your own wellbeing but you are right to put yourself first.

Your move to the countryside will be a perfect opportunity for a fresh start and leave these people behind. Take time to decide whether you want to be freinds with next people you meet, I really hope you meet some decent,caring people who will give you genuine friendship. I feel quite excited for you thinking about how you can make the life you choose when you are aomewhere new, what a chance for change?

Regards
Jan

Segaya and Jan Thank you for the kind words. It means a lot to me to have advice that is neutral and heartfelt. I am on a voyage of discovery due to counselling which brings other stuff up!
As is the case in life many things happen at once or one after another leading one to feel a bit threatened and esp with people in my life not being open and honest it then leads me to question how so much can go wrong for me! But I have learned that I am thin skinned and I do seem to attract others who try to manipulate me. I have learned so much this last year however and am not overly worried about having friends at this moment in time. I realise that there is my own part in this of telling too much too soon about myself and being too accepting of those who it is best to steer away from as they have their own stuff going on. I am letting go of guilt I promise!!!!
My second oldest son is at the selfish stage and that is fine. I can love him and let him grow and mature learning his own lessons. My fear was he was going to reject me as my daughter did but as my other son told me he is very different and I must not over react to normal teen angst. He gave same advice to stand back and wait. Sure enough who comes round to dinner yesterday- second son and HE is talking a bit more! Remember how we felt at 19... so invincible and frustrated and in a rush to achieve. Our mothers were just like on the periphery of our vision and life was all about us.
I read a quote in a book...At a certain age you earn the right to ruin your own life..... so am thinking whilst we wish to protect and guide we have to learn when to step aside and let them fly.
Having had one disturbed child in family I tend to stress that I can see problems with the others. But funnily enough that will also help as if I see issues coming on I will not hesitate to ask for help and get them into counseling etc.




I find this zen passage useful in trying to let go....'Two monks were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was falling. Coming around the bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.

"Come on, girl," said the first monk. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.

The second monk did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he said. "It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"

"I left the girl there," the first monk said. "Are you still carrying her?"'

Segaya, Sapphira, and Jan...

Hi. Here I am. I don't even know what to write, but I guess I should just write extemporaneously. I've missed you all so much, but I was unable to write or even read the board. Some very strange things have been happening. I've thought of you constantly and drew strength from knowing you were out there for me. Did I say how much I missed you?

I'm still not at the point where it is easy to write, but I'll try. I'm very hesitant to do it. Did you ever start to say something or realize something very important, and that'sthe thing that flies out of your head? I'm afraid if I start, that will happen, so I'm getting my apologies out of the way first.

I don't even know where to start. Back in May I went into a deep deep depression, combined with the pressure to self-damage. It got very bad, to the point of being dangerous. I basically had to disappear, because some things were changing inside me. I knew it was important and I had to disappear to let it happen, because it had to run its course and it wasn't safe to interrupt it or influence it. It was so hard and painful to stay here in these three rooms, day after day, with no distractions or hope or anything positive, feeling this happening. Lord Crown hasn't been well either, so that is an additional torment.

We were doing spring cleaning on the holiday weekend and it suddenly came back to me all the lonely isolated times I've spent on weekends, special events, and holidays. The memories were powerful and infuriating and raw. Then when I was cleaning out the attic, I thought about getting rid of some things I don't use or wear. I saw some things that I've been hanging onto for years, because "I should" or so-and-so gave it to me, etc. But there were bad memories attached to those things. I wanted to smash them. I came down and told Lord Crown and he said, "just get rid of them". So I started. After the first run, I went back and saw more things in the same way. So they went too. (He cleverly said "just handle them once", popped them into boxes and they were gone within hours.) This just kept spreading out until I had gone through practically everything I own. After they were gone, I felt an enormous relief that I would never have to see those things again. I felt like I had cleaned out part of my sad life, although the damage and memories remain.

This next part is hard to explain. The anger over the memories of neglect made me want to "be in the picture", to exist, to matter. And I realized that I had no feelings of that at all. I never felt it, didn't even know it was missing. So every decision I have made since then has been geared that I am in the picture. That it does something for me. Even when we did the finances, I felt it, and I found that I was thinking of different decisions to make that would have a positive and helpful effect for me. The strange part is that suddenly choices are occurring to me that would never have occurred to me without that feeling. I had never even considered things that would have helped me, because I never felt that. The automatic "I can't do that" is being broken up. This is breaking up the tortured rigid thinking that never allowed anything for me to be in consideration. Plus, when I had a glitch in the plan, instead of running right back to the old habit, I made sure that the correction I made benefited me. Unheard of! It's feeling for the first time that somewhere it has to matter what happens to me.

By making the "get-rid-of" decision, I put myself in the picture and it has spread out to other areas. The unthinkable became possible, and that opened up other choices that I would not have had. It enabled me to matter instead of going blindly on not doing anything for myself. And I'm not talking about shopping or vacations...I'm talking about food and shelter and care.

As to my family, they are still selfish and uncaring and indifferent. But after the above, a strange thing happened. I am "uninvited" to an event I want to go to with Mom because I can't drive her. I re-injured the ankle I broke a year ago and am back in a cast and unable to drive. I found out that she and my Psychopath brother were going to let me try to drive the car and never told me that they had already decided he was taking her and I wasn't going. The first strange thing is that I knew. I knew if she didn't need me to drive, I wouldn't be invited. And I knew I shouldn't even try to drive. So I didn't bother. When I went over and told her I couldn't drive her, she told me Psychopath was already taking her and I was uninvited. They never bothered to tell me, so that I wouldn't test the driving and risk further injury or wreck the car. While she was talking, I sat there and watched her, and I felt no pain, no rejection, no confusion that I had done something wrong, no hurt. I just felt anger and contempt. Lord Crown was there, watching silently, and was concerned that I was being hurt and rejected again, and letting me handle it.

Here's the second strange thing, but most important. They were hurting and rejecting me again, and taking away my right to exist, to be considered, to matter. And while I sat there listening to her, I thought, "I'm going to equalize everything you take away from me." For the first time in my life, I felt a sense of power for regaining balance, restoring the equilibrium, putting back what they attempt to suck away. I've been sucked dry and empty my whole life, and there was never anything given back to me to help. It's an acknowledgment of feeling what I need...food, clothing, shelter...and should have to exist. I've never felt a sense of power before in my life. So now when I make a decision, whether it's driving or savings or anything, especially anything to do with them, it's going to be based on what I need to be stable and whole. I understand that most people are taught to feel that way, but I was deliberately taught the other...to sacrifice and go without and not demand or even expect to have feelings about myself. No wonder I've made the decisions I have...I never even existed. I am horrified to realize all the actions and decisions I made where there was no feeling about myself at all. No wonder I'm the way I am, no wonder I think the way I do. The worst part is knowing now that it never even occurred to me. I quite simply had no such feeling of being. I thank God again, as I do every day, for Lord Crown. Even without having always been in love with him since we met, look at what he has had to try to work against, to teach me, to protect me, to have me feel. He's very proud of me for this, and is so happy that I am actually feeling it.

I have to end this now, as writing it has exhausted me, plus my ankle is killing me and the ice is melting. My pinky friends, do forgive me for having disappeared. I wanted to connect with you but I couldn't even read the board. I'm still very shaky and tired, as these changes are taking a lot out of me, and everything is a huge effort, but I feel I'm on the right track. I'm sorry I haven't been able to check in on you, and know what's going on. Now that I've done this, hopefully I can come back later and read back the posts and see how you all are. Know that I've thought of you and "leaned' on you, and am hoping you are all doing well.

With great pinky love,

Lady Crown

Dear dear dear pinky girlfriend!!!!
My heart jumped when I saw your name again on the forumlist. I can't begin to express what a joy that gave me.
I am so sorry you ha dsuch a hard time and I want to sit on it for a while before really say anything about it.. I wondered why you dind't return and thought maybe that your computer has crashed..I think to keep me from being too worried
The things you are telling are so very hard and I am agian so very happy you have Lord Crown to support you in all of this. No matter what went wrong..This is choosing him to be your partner you did so very well!!!
I didn't stop thinking of you and am glad that one way or another we ment something for you during this ordeal you are going through.
I just want to say for now; Welcome back, I love to hear more from you and I will come back to your postings after I had a good thought about it. For your message surprised me a bit..it was unexpected I mean!!!
I wish you could see in my heart....
Pinky hugs and love Segaya

Hello Lady Crown

I'm so pleased to hear from you and so are all the others. We have been thinking about you and including you in our discussions so you can catch up at your leisure. I want to read your post again before I get back to you as I rushed through it in my eagerness to hear what you have been doing. I just wanted to let you know I'm glad you are back.

Till tomorrow.
Regards
Jan

Hello Lady Crown

I do understand how difficult it is to write sometimes, I find there are times when I just don't want to put things into words because it makes things exist whereas before they were just thoughts and feelings.
Please don’t feel you don’t have to write anything if you are not ready, as you can see from the reaction to your post everyone was pleased and relieved to hear from you whether they replied or not.

Did you get any medication for the depression, that is severe depression and not something you can control? It must have been terrible to suffer like that and feel you had to retreat to go through it. I do feel so sorry that there was nothing that could be done to help you. You must have felt so alone.

I hope Lord Crown is better, when you are suffering it’s hard to give others the attention they need. He is a wonderful support and so wise, he must know you so well to be able to tell you what you need to hear. Clearing out the attic was very symbolic and I wish I could do that, every time I try I put things back to deal with them another day but I don’t know when that will be.
Phoenix from the ashes….the trauma you are going through sounds like going through a painful birth process or more a rebirth into a completely new life. You can now see the old one for what it was and you have done the physical throwing away of things that tie you to that life. The new life can be what you make it, a whole new way of doing things…your way, you get to make the choices and you have LC to validate your expectations.

When you say you felt nothing when you were with your family, that is such a positive reaction. Hate or anger mean you are still tied into these people but now you are an objective observer.

I feel you have turned a corner and I will look forward to hearing your progress.
Please don’t apolgise for not keeping in touch on the forum, we all knew that you would come back when you were ready. We were concerned about you and we were all wishing you well.

Sorry to hear you have an injury but maybe that will give you a legitimate excuse to take some time out for yourself.

Look after yourself and know we will always be here for you.

Regards
Jan

Dear lady Crown,
here I am.. thought about your posting...Like Jan I was so happy to see your name here again that I rushed through the things you wrote to see as quickly as possible how you are doing.
there are so many things you write again that are so very familiar to me.....Ithink the same thing or something very similar happend to me when I was around 23 or 24... I went to visit mymother..entered...stayed about 15 minutes and was crying in the car afterwards...I cried for weeks because of being afraid what this visit would do to me..Again going through all those feelings made me real scared...At the time of that last visit I didn't see her for I think around 3 or 4 years, as an attempt not to give her a change to hurt me again....And now I did it anyway..I went and i was so very afraid of what would happen...
And nothing did!!
After 2 months (??!!!!) I realized that nothing wrong was coming from that visit... Then, oww how we are played in the past!!, I felt guilty of not feeling anything at all..Thought of myself as a very coldhearted person not to give anything about who she was or if she would be happy or healthy and so on....Nothing... And that was even scarier to me.... nothing...what is nothing...
Later I understood the smae thing jan is saying to you..no feling si good...Not distant or cold, warm,love, guilt...nothing..The strings that bound you are gone..You are free...
Looking back on that time I know for me that was the turning point in my life...Now I could start dicovering who I am and what I think about things with no concern about her and the family... just free and me....What did I want , what did I want my future to be....All thse questions ..and also very scary...
I remember that nothing felt real, I didn't know the first things to existing. Had to re- discover everything and thank god I had a friend who I could ask every stupid and silly question I could come up with. What would I have become when she wouldn't be there at that time in my live.

So Lord Crown...; Thank you for being there for my dear friend. Thank you for being patient and thinking in the right direction to help and guide, Thank you for knowing who your wife is and giving her what she needs....

It is such a great relieve knowing that you are not alone dear Lady Crown for the feeling of being alone must be there.

Take time for this partis hard and it will be a struggle, but I can asure you again.. it will pass and the time spent on it is very well spent and the benefit you will have in the rest of your live will be great... But this is not easy at all...

I didn't do though, what you did so very bravely...I just thrown it all away without even looking at it... What was left was burned when my house burned down years later. It has to be so hard but also part of the process to let it all go through your hands again and really remember every bad moment that is attached to them...
Starting to realize also that you are indeed a person, and that you as a person can make your own choices...strainge isn't it...and so hard to do at first..But again you will see; in some time to come in the very near future there will be teh situation that you will have a smile on your face and see others make 'their' choice and know it isn't theirs at all...The way you will learn to make choices now is so unique.... Everybody else makes choices automatically ,but not us!!! We will always know exactly why and how the choices are made and will do it in concieusness throughout. And take it fromme ... all around you will benefit from that, but mostly you yourself and Lord Crown!!

Please don't appologize for being thatbuzy whit straighten up your live. We all are thinking of you all the time and knew you had a good reason not to post. I made myself think that your computer was crashed for reasuring myself but in my heart I knew that wasn't what was going on....
Posting or not, we are thinking of you and even did write to you and include you in discussions on the forum..
I had a very hard time a coplle of weeks ago and you all were there with me..eventhough you weren't posting at the time.. The same goes for you and I hope you know that... We are just here and wait till you are ready on your time and terms...

I do hope you come back to us soon, but will understand if you can't,so dear lady crown take time.. and confidence ...
Love and hugs,all in very pinky colors!!
Segaya

Dear Lady Crown,

It is wonderful to hear from you, and to learn of all you have achieved. Yes, it all makes sense. Such sense. And it truly is a tremendous accomplishment to get yourself in your own picture as you have. As I read through your post I had inside a very big smile, a long way inside. Because that's where your words meet recognition in me. Right 'en el fondo' as we say. In the heart. Of course there was recogition but I wasn't sure how to respond, so I have taken my time, and in re-reading your post several times I found, in your last words, the way.

You mentioned ice melting. I used to have a recurring dream, that came in two forms. In one there was a house, a big house, three big rooms, one on each level. And filling up this entire house was a huge rock. It had broken through all three stories and was pressed hard up against the sides and roof and floor of the building. This was my house. My self. There was nothing in it except this huge rock taking up all my space. In the other version of the recurring dream there was a room, my room, filled in exacty the same way, wall to wall, roof to floor, with a gigantic piece of ice. A rock of ice. Again, it consumed all my space. It filled up all I thought I was.

These two dreams came to me repeatedy over the years. At first it was very shocking. My house my self, filled with cold hard rock and ice. What am I? It didn't bode well. Over time I found myself in another version of it, actually picking away at the rock in the house with a very small object, I can't recall what. But totally overwhelmed by a seemingly impossible task. And with the ice, I'd obviously wished it woud melt and give me some space and in one dream it did in fact start melting. Thing was, this was my room/my life and I had no way to get out and was near drowning in it all.

These dreams were extremely disturbing to me. First because they truly reflected the cold, hard reality of my life, and lack of a sense of myself. Secondly, because getting out of the house/room/space I was in seemed a virtual impossibility. And third, I didn't really understand what these imgaes were fundamentally reflecting. I thought the ice rock and stone rock were me, because I did realise that these dreams were certainly about 'me'.

Now I understand and have come to peace with these dreams. For me they were about what it means to have been born into a psychopathic family. We are born with our parents' cold, hard narcissim inside ourselves, where only we are supposed to be. Right from day one they were inside our spaces. Anyone who comes from a non-psychopathic family and has a normal self possession will really notice if someone comes along and tries to implant themselves in their space - if someone tries to narcissistically swamp who they are. They will fight and resist because they know this is not how things are meant to be. But because we have never known any different we take the stones within us as being who we are, not realising for a very long time that actually the hard core of someone else's self is not meant to be in our space. We are invaded and taken over before we even have a chance to know what is what. These people don't have a house to store their rocks, and they take over ours. So how, please tell me, just how is she who has never known any better, to realise the stone ought not be there, how is she to survive the panic of realising she in in such a state, and then how is she to finally get rid of it? Without giong insane with terror or beserk with understandable rage? What a monumental task to ask of her. What an outstanding achievement to accomplish first the recognition, then to maintain the self possession and not flee mentally, and then the capacity and endurance to eject the imposter. And then, then, there is the whole reconceptualisation of who she is, after she has removed the stone. Sure it had to go, but it was all she ever knew. First she thought she was this stone/house. Then she separates some and realises no the stone is not her, the house is. But what is she now - a hole? A shell? She is still in shock. A house needs filling. But she isn't up to choosing furniture and making curtains and getting ready to live. After a life of never knowing what it means to make a choice for herself, suddenly there are too many to make. That's another journey completely. It's taken her half her life to simply reclaim what she was entitled to from the day she was born - but did not have. The right to her own Self.

So when I hear of you throwing out all the old and painful, I cheer to myself, and I am deeply moved for you, because this is about fundamental issues. Of course you feel it is critical, and you know you need to carefully guard this work. Because it is critical. How can you have a sense of your own 'house' when it's filled to the brim with the effects, the ice stones, the clutter of other people's hurtfulness? You are making space for you! You are making space for you. You are pushing against the ice and saying 'make way'. I won't be pushed aside by other people's agendas and desires. You are demanding space for yourself in your own life. It is a true revolution. Families like ours prefer to keep us blindfolded. Lord Crown has helped you see that this is your right.It only takes seeing once to know. And then guarding that vision from those who would try to have us doubt it. So of course, it is a risk to say just what is going on. You are a survivor and you know the strategies required and are acting with grace in and for your own life.

Lady Crown, you are shining!

Love

Sapphira