FOO again

Started by Blueberry, May 26, 2018, 10:00:08 PM

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Blueberry

Not even sure what to call this. I seem to be taking ages breaking away from FOO. Probably I don't really want to know what FOO really thinks of me. I know some of you might say that that doesn't matter. But I haven't yet got to the place in healing where I can say: 'the * with FOO'. For one thing, as posted before, I'm still getting financial help, for another I have a small FOO godchild and none of this is her fault. I was going to try and write to her father, my B, stating what I want in order to be able to continue some sort of a relationship with her. My T says I shouldn't beg, I should state.

For me in FOO, stating is really hard (my T knows this for sure). The more I think about what to write, the more futile it seems. Somebody over at our sister website OOTF pointed out to me that it seems in my FOO as if I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. Whatever I say will be manipulated around to make the rest of FOO look good and me unreasonable, crazy, difficult.... So I can wrack my brains for months and I'll still probably lose all connection with my godchild. My FOO is certainly not a place where it would be useful or sensible to say "I feel hurt by..." because they already know I'm hurt, they don't care. They never really have. If I told them that, some of them like enF, would hotly deny it, others would shrug or find reasons to blame me for them not caring. "It's because you (Blueberry) are so-and-so." or "It's because you (Blueberry) didn't explain properly."

Well, the one good thing I do know is that I don't harangue myself about wasted time, like taking so long to remove myself completely from FOO. I accept that it's taking the time it's taking.

finallyfree

Hi Blueberry,
I am so sorry you are experiencing this. It sounds a lot to me like my own FOO. It took a great deal for me to finally go no contact. Everyone has to do what is in their own best interest, in their own time frame. I think you hope they will change, I know I did. I sadly came to the realization they really never cared at all about me and only used me. I too was damned no matter what I did. It is a very difficult thing to do though and against all of our basic instincts and what we are taught. That family is forever.............but that sadly it really depends on the family. I after having almost two years of distance from my FOO now am calmer, more relaxed, not as stressed and basically have no drama in my life. It is like I gave it all back to them when I walked away. They I am sure are still blaming and scapegoating me, but I now do not have to listen to or worry about it. I now look at them as a black hole I poured so much care, love, affection and attention and time into, none of it ever being reciprocated. They were a bad investment of my time and money. Now I invest my time and efforts into my friendships that I value as my family of choice. It is a powerful thing when you look at the situation like this. I understand you want to have a relationship with your godchild, but it might not be possible. Again everyone has to do what they feel is best for them in their own time. I wish you all the best in your journey and I encourage you to put yourself first in your own life, It is an amazing feeling when you commit to it.  :hug: Good luck to you!

Blueberry

Thanks so much finallyfree, there are some really powerful messages in what you wrote!

Kizzie

I echo so much of what finallyfree wrote. It just isn't easy or simple to disengage because it matters deeply that the people who traumatize us are our family.  At one point when we were children our very survival depended on them and the whole of our self knows this.

In my experience not giving the one FOO I am LC with (NPDM) much of anything she can dig into makes it possible to have a bit of a connection.  In your case that might mean not sharing anything personal, just what you must talk about to deal with finances and your godson; the arrangements rather than anything to do with how/what you feel or think about either. I think at OOTF this is referred to as not loading the drama gun and it worked and still works for me.  Basically don't give them anything to aim at and hopefully, eventually they will have to find someone else to smear and scapegoat.  You have some barriers to disengaging that I didn't have so it may take some time to deal with these.

I guess the other thing I can say from my own experience BB is that you may want to try and prepare yourself as best you can for losing financial support and/or access to your godson if you end up going NC. Sadly, the price to cut ties can be high.  That said, in my case it was not as high as staying and you may decide that's the case for you at some point.  Whatever happens be kind to yourself, it's a lot to deal with  :hug:

Blueberry

Thanks for adding your experience and thoughts Kizzie. I like the way you put "the whole of our self knows this", that helps explain all my visceral reactions around FOO and also how difficult it is to disengage.

I realised that going NC while still allowing FOO headspace won't be too useful rn, so staying VVVLC. That would be going NC in theory, sort of. Emotionally I'm still engaged with FOO on several levels and I really have to fight that when communicating with FOO so that I just write a 2-liner with no overt or covert mention of my feelings about their treatment of me, whether anger or hurt or sadness. Practice makes perfect - I am getting better at it. My T is attempting to coach me in this direction too, so help from all sides atm!

I am trying to prepare for losing financial support or at least never getting a proper answer on it, just being messed around, sometimes sent some, sometimes not. Which is not what enF promised at all. I have looked into other methods of funding that I don't want to instigate yet for various complicated red tape reasons in this country. I'm also trying to earn a little more money and reduce at least some costs.

Writing on here and also a post at OOTF to which a pretty experienced mbr replied and reading your responses as well as my last T session are all helping me move forward, mourning the lack of contact with my goddaughter and seeing how difficult my B and SIL are making the contact, and that this is almost certainly being done on purpose. So no point asking them to facilitate contact, that's giving them ammunition. No point reminding B what he said about family issues when my goddaughter was a baby and how he's acting now are totally contradictory. It won't change his mind. I didn'T cause it, I can't cure it and I have no control over how B and SIL act.

I did decide in the aftermath of Horrendous FOO Event about 2 years ago that I would prioritise my health over the whole of FOO including the relationship with my goddaughter. I just hadn't envisaged how B would act. I believed in his seemingly good parenting skills, that he'd enable contact between LO and me for her sake, but I guess not.  :'(

I'm trying to be kind to myself, I'm working on it.

Blueberry

Finallyfree, I sort of know on one level that FOO won't change. What I'm noticing increasingly is how messed up they are. Up till maybe 2-3 days ago I was still thinking I could ask B2 to facilitate contact between me and my goddaughter and explain what it would mean to me to receive photos of her. Among other things seeing photos helps me have a topic to mention to her when I send her a card. When I have next to no information on her, I can't allude to anything, but there's no point telling B2. He and SIL2 will be aware of that and happy with it. SIL2 will know exactly what she is doing, she is good at making people like me feel they're definitely not wanted.

So noticing how messed up they are (how many fleas they have, might be PDs) means I'm still noticing what all there is that won't change in them. Up until recently I thought B2 was a reasonable human being and I was still believing the family myth that I was still too unpractised in good communication and that's why B2 didn't understand. I believed if I honed my communication skills to where I wasn't JADEing etc and where I was stating instead of begging, I could maybe make an arrangement with B2 (the way healthy divorced parents make arrangements to allow the children contact with each parent instead of making the children suffer). But on Tuesday in therapy, my T helped me see that that wasn't quite what he'd meant.

So that's all I can write for now on my progress since I'm getting a bit fuddled, but your post is really helping me. I find your image here useful: "I now look at them as a black hole I poured so much care, love, affection and attention and time into, none of it ever being reciprocated. They were a bad investment of my time and money." It doesn't seem true for me yet - my nieces and nephews all reciprocated the way small children do last time I saw them - but the effort on my side to keep any communication and connection going since Horrendous Foo Event is pretty draining, emotionally. And when I don't see the children it's hard for reciprocation to come from them. I can't arrange to see them without their parents, they're thousands of miles away.

Kizzie

Sorry BB, I don't know where I came up with godson rather than granddaughter  :doh: 

Blueberry

Maybe because I've mentioned my godson before? But he's not a FOO child, whereas my goddaughter is  ;) No granddaughters for me, I don't have any children and never will have.
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Over the past couple of days I've been realising how mbrs of FOO are just not very nice people. I've been remembering how e.g. our family doctor told me when I was a college student and was telling her a bit about what was going on at home that my parents were really very rude people. That she'd run into them in a completely different situation and that especially enF - woah what rudeness. It was hard for me to hear then, but now I'm remembering. I think it's a sign that I'm beginning break away more. As well as see FOO more objectively, instead of looking up to them. Maybe I'll start looking at myself through more benevolent eyes and less through FOO eyes in the future.

Kizzie

Oh gah, I did it again  :doh:   Goddaughter!  I think I have it straight now  ;D

Through benevolent/kind eyes sounds a good strategy to me  :yes:

Sadie48

Blueberry,

Two thoughts come to mind:  You could write a letter to get your feelings out but not send it. That may seem like an obvious device, but I think it helps to get things out of your head.

The other thought I have is one I remember from DBT -- cut yourself some SLACK!  It's okay to not be sure, change your mind, take a lot of time figuring this out.  We people with cptsd are often hard on ourselves, expecting perfection. That was a coping strategy to avoid further trauma, but as adults, we can stop doing that to ourselves.  You're doing your best.

Blueberry

Thanks Sadie  :) I actually write Letters to Not Send quite often to FOO. Check the Recovery Letter section here, it's full of my stuff  :aaauuugh: You're right though it is a good idea. I used not to be able to do it at all, I'd just blank, so that's progress.

um, yes, cut myself some slack. Yes, well. Spot on!! I have a lot of trouble with that, but I'm working on it. Thanks for the reminder.  :hug:

finallyfree

Dear Blueberry,
I am so sorry it is so hurtful and difficult to have a relationship with children when the adults are who they are. I applaud you trying, at least you have a clear conscience if indeed you must break contact at some point. No matter what please do what is best for you, your health and well being. This is the most important thing. I wish you all the best and thank you for all of your kindness.
Finallyfree

finallyfree

Blueberry I am also so glad it sounds like your getting stronger. Distance helps put the FOO into perspective for sure. I had to learn to look at their actions and not their words. Their actions tell you who they really are. I was always confused by my FOO because they would say one thing and then their actions never matched the lies they always told me. This is extremely confusing because I always hoped and wished and wanted to believe what they were saying was true. I hope this makes sense to you and is in some way helpful. I had to take each of them individually and look at who they are, their actions and what role they were assigned in the family. If nothing else it takes the emotion out of how you look at them and helps you gain a clearer insight into who they really are and subsequently how you are able to deal with them. Again hope I am making sense. I wish you all the best moving forward.

Erebor

QuoteI believed if I honed my communication skills to where I wasn't JADEing etc and where I was stating instead of begging, I could maybe make an arrangement with B2 (the way healthy divorced parents make arrangements to allow the children contact with each parent instead of making the children suffer). But on Tuesday in therapy, my T helped me see that that wasn't quite what he'd meant.

So that's all I can write for now on my progress since I'm getting a bit fuddled, but your post is really helping me. I find your image here useful: "I now look at them as a black hole I poured so much care, love, affection and attention and time into, none of it ever being reciprocated. They were a bad investment of my time and money."

That sounds similar to my relationship with my sibling. I always thought I was to blame for all of the mess in our relationship, but even though I spent years trying to make things better and change my behavior, they were happy to stay the same. In the end I realised the only one who cared about the relationship was me. It's a saddening thing to realise, that love is one sided. finallyfree put it into words very well.

Like finallyfree said, please remember to take care of yourself. It sounds like you're in a situation with room for feeling a lot of stress.

Blueberry

Yes, it's very sad to realise how one-sided things are in FOO. With this sib I didn't even struggle for years, he never let on. He's GC. Or it's possible he's only been really struggling with me (behind my back  :aaauuugh: why didn't he say something if he's oh so healthy??) since his wife gave him her view of the family situation. She's in the medical profession though not psychiatry or anything like but idk her word goes, her interpretation is "correct" though actually she's just going along with the dysfunction which means not calling out the males in my FOO (it's not her FOO) and especially kowtowing to my other B and treating me as SG because she knows she'll get away with it.

Thanks for reminder on taking care of myself. I was a little better at that today, or well yesterday, since middle of night here. Yes, there's "room for feeling a lot of stress" though I could turn my back on that "room" I suppose.