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Help request: venting out, comfort in

labelleizzy: (dealing with demons)
Saturday, August 22nd, 2020 02:44 pm
My sister-in-law is in a pretty strapped situation right now. She's got a month old brand new baby. The father of the baby has turned out to be a pretty s***** person: untrustworthy and abusive enough that the cops actually put a Stay Away order on him. Her 18-year-old has moved out, and is now sending her abusive messages. She has depression and other issues that have put her on disability. And she's overwhelmed. Because of course her landlord wants to sell the house she's been living in, now in this covid-drenched pandemic hellscape.

*Measured breathing*

I want to help and don't know really sure how to. I know what I would do in her shoes. I actually DID a lot of the things I would recommend to her, when I was her age.

Our life experience is really similar on multiple axes, main difference being I didn't have kids (thank goodness, and no offense to anyone with kids or who wanted kids) Life is easier without having to wrangle, raise and educate kids... And my body being what it is, I'm even more glad that I didn't.

Okay.

Here's where I say the things I can't say elsewhere, and especially not to her.
I feel like she's been bullied all her life. By her birth family, by men she hoped to build a life with. Her mom was bullied by HER birth family. Her mom is COWED. Her dad is an *asshole*, to put it bluntly. (Yes it's personal. No I'm not getting into it, except to say that he fucked up, so it's on him to fix it, it's emphatically Not My Job.)

I wanna help. But I just fuckin' feel sorry for her (and for her mom) and wanna wave my magic wand and Fix It All. But I know she has to build it herself.

My focus is to A) hold my own boundaries. B) encourage her to make conscious choices. C) encourage her to discover healthy boundaries and healthy relationships and seek them out.

I haven't priested like this in a long time. I'm out of the habit (haha) and I'm going to need to practice balancing my own needs and not overextending myself, with offering the kinds of help I can afford to offer.

Not sure what I'm asking for, except maybe support and validation of any of y'all have worked before with women struggling in an abusive situation who feel overwhelmed and trapped.

At least she's not living with the current asshole. But she was still trying to propitiate him with her baby name choice, so ... *Throws hands up in the air*
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hard to read but really fucking worth it

labelleizzy: (dealing with demons)
Thursday, January 29th, 2015 03:14 pm
"But if being abused is a curse, it is not an unbreakable one. Yes, the path of least resistance is to recapitulate the abuse one learned as a child, but that is not the only path."

THESE are passages from a post by [livejournal.com profile] siderea that I really recommend anyone read who had a difficult, abusive, or neglectful childhood, or who loves someone who falls into that category.

Another passage:

"This is what the work of breaking the cycle of abuse entails: re-examining the past with the full cognitive capacities of an adult so that you can re-evaluate and replace the understanding you have of the abuse you experienced, and seeking out, identifying, and remedying the holes in one's interpersonal (and other) functioning skills. The former is generally pretty painful in the short term, but leads to radically less suffering and increased peace of mind medium-term and long-term; the latter is an ongoing hassle but pays steady and compounding dividends of improved relations and social/business success.

But the first step, in general, is realizing that there's something to be done. By the adult who was abused as a child. On one hand, it does seem terribly unfair that the victim is the person who gets stuck with doing all this work if they want to be restored to their full powers, or at least as much of their full powers as may be available to them. Would that you could sue your abuser into giving you back the childhood they owed you!

But on the other hand, this is good news: the power to recover what was yours is in your own hands. You don't need anyone's permission. You don't need your abuser's permission or assistance. They don't have the power to withhold this from you. Yes, it sucks that you are the one that has to do the work, but what a relief that you get to be the one to do the work. Because the alternative is being dependent for your very psychological well-being on the good will of people who have demonstrated not much good will to you. So the realization that there is something you can do is liberating."


please see also my post in a similar vein, Metaphor for Fear.

I have yet another post on this that I want to share if I can find it, the one about having to deal with the fact that you have to shovel your own shit, no matter how you acquired it.
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I'm scared.

labelleizzy: (Default)
Monday, November 19th, 2007 10:59 pm
An old friend of mine who I've just found again on Myspace, posted the following video interview with Naomi Campbell, author of The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot.

Seriously. The radio interview here (sorry I don't know how to embed) is enough that I am heading to check out the website she cites as supporting the necessary actions to:

Restore the Rule of Law
Hold the Criminals Accountable
Restore Habeus Corpus
Forbid Warantless Wiretapping
Remove Torture from "this is what we do in America"...

what the fuck happened, and how have I been so asleep as to not realize how grave the situation has become?

I'm adding SF, BBC, and Canadian newsfeeds to my blogroll.

The website is http://www.americanfreedomcampaign.org.

( text of their message is here: )

Take a minute. This is not the nation I used to pledge allegiance to when I was not in grade school.
This is not Mr. Reagan's "City on the Hill", a shining beacon of democracy.
This is not a country I am proud to be a part of.

Go read, and decide for yourself.

Please.
  • Current Mood: cold
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LEARN, FORGET, RELEARN

labelleizzy: (Default)
Thursday, July 24th, 2003 09:53 am
LEARN, FORGET, RELEARN!

This is the Pattern! Until you really internalize it, make the knowledge a real part of you!

My struggles to learn about my relationship patterns mirror a time in high school when I struggled to learn the meaning of the word EPIPHANY. I had to look that word up in the dictionary every time I ran across it - must have been 5 or 6 times, had a little A-HA moment each time. At some point, I actually GOT it.
Ironic, huh?
It's also like a few minutes ago, when I tried to stretch my tight hamstring which was kinking up my lower back (again). By working the muscle isometrically (holding the leg static while tensing the muscle strongly and repeatedly) the pain and stiffness goes away. This worked better than a long walk, much better than a static stretch. And I know I've done this before, probably done it many times.

I had a habit of falling into manipulative and somewhat abusive relationships (not all of my relationships were like this, just about half) because they were familiar and comfortable as long as I refused to think about what was really going on, or what I really needed and wanted...

Perhaps, as they say, you cannot unlearn what has been learned.
But, you can sometimes, (I seem to have done so repeatedly) forget that you knew a thing, for months or even years at a time.

Reviewing records and career files yesterday: I knew in 1992 (wrote an essay) that I wanted, needed to be in an environment with supportive, positive coworkers, lots of people contact, working for an organization whose mission I can really get behind with all my heart.

So then, during my most recent two jobhunts (last late-summer and fall, and now) I've spent HOW much time, taking tests, and journalling, to find out the same exact results.
AGAIN.

AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!

"Already knowing" something is no use at all, if you can't pull it out of storage, activate it, and make it useful.

But now I've seen the pattern and I can try to keep aware.
  • Current Mood: Gnosis
  • Current Music: the sound of silence
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