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Post by James on Aug 22, 2014 19:16:21 GMT 10
Valuing illness
Marion says she’s moving to fully value illness, she’s currently suffering stabbing pains down the side of her chest every time she moves, with sneezes being agonising. She doesn’t want to see a doctor, nor take any drugs, she just wants to accept that it’s all part of herself, the pain there for a reason, all of which will slowly come to light. And all of which is helping to create the experiences she currently needs, so in no way is she going to do anything to try and stop herself from feeling such pain. And she’s quite happy to die tomorrow should the pain and whatever is wrong with her move that way. And ‘whatever is wrong with her’ is all how she was treated by her parents, so it’s right she feels as bad as she does. So even though she is feel very bad, she’s also feeling much better about herself feeling bad. And understanding that there is no right or wrong in it, feeling bad is not ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’, it’s just what it is, just as feeling good is not ‘good’ or ‘right’, it is just what it is.
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Post by wesley on Aug 23, 2014 7:50:27 GMT 10
And glorious is it going to be on the other side of her pain. I can feel it. Not stopping it with false temporary healing . Real methods with bravery and courage and happiness. More than I could handle just hoping one day to touch the heal of her road. I feel the pain now but to put it in sync like Marion is HEALING and inspirational.
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Post by desire2bme on Aug 25, 2014 12:29:52 GMT 10
Hi James...can you ask Marion a question(s) for me? How were family members treated when taken ill? As a child, how was she treated when she got sick? Did she desire to be comforted or ever seek comfort from another when she felt ill? Was it okay to reach out? Thanks so much for sharing if or when you want.
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Post by James on Aug 25, 2014 15:48:22 GMT 10
Desire, I wrote the reply from what Marion said to me after I'd read your questions to her.
Marion is the eldest of 3 girls, the middle child was born with a rare life-threatening illness so was greatly attended to all the time on the physical as she could die easily, but Marion and her youngest were treated with complete disregard as far as illness went, in fact it caused anger and annoyance if they became ill. And basically her mum ignored it as long as she could until they were too sick and had to go to the doctor or hospital. She says: No, definitely no reaching out for comfort as there was no such thing in our house, we could cry all day long and no one would comfort us. Mum and dad were both stoic and didn’t believe in that sort of stuff. Our illness was well attended to on a medical level to help us get better but no comforting - we were weak or a sook if we cried.
Marion has felt unloved and unwanted all her life, so never looks for comfort, wishes she could have it but doesn’t know about how to get it. And was always very envious of other children who had kind and comforting parents.
Marion was sick a lot with chest problems all through her childhood, including going to hospital a couple of times - bronchitis, pleurisy, pneumonia and asthma (mostly bronchitis) on a regular basis.
And although she has wanted to be comforted since adulthood and leaving her family, if anyone has tried, she’s not been able to accept it. If anyone does come close to comfort her, such as putting a hand on her, she feels like she’s going to suffocate from extreme fear and wants to run away.
And there was no one else in her life she could go to, it was only her with her sisters and her parents.
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Post by desire2bme on Aug 26, 2014 1:44:49 GMT 10
When Sarah, my cat was in her last years of going through some physical things that made her more vulnerable, I gave her all of my attention while my other cat (Sasha) who didn't come around much for any attention, was left to herself. As I watched this dynamic go on, as much as I felt bad that I didn't care for Sasha as I felt she deserved, I also felt angry toward her for not being able to get along with Sarah. I know that Sasha picked up on this big time with me, feeling second class and forgotten and knew that I was not happy with her and blamed her for the two cats not getting along better. My husband would bring up that it wasn't Sasha's fault alone and Sarah was just as much not interested in getting along with Sasha and would swat at her when she'd walk by when Sasha had done nothing to deserve it. As I watched this go on I knew it had to do with my own unfinished pain that went on with brothers and sisters competing for attention that was slim to none from our parents.
The greatest "illness" in my family was the one my father had with alcoholism, so all of my mother's attention went to him trying to make him want to stop. In the mean time, if there was anything I needed, even if I voiced it, it was like words came out but no one could hear them. I was in 5th grade before I got my first pair of eye glasses because even though I could not see well from 1st grade onward, I was not visible to my mother in this way for her to see me, hear me and help me. To this day my vision is very very poor and without the help of my contact lenses, I am no good to do anything. I have a eye disease called keratoconus, ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratoconus) that I have probably had since my teens but did not discover was the problem of so much of my vision problems until I was in my 30's. I went through great pains with one eye doctor who had no clue about this disease and was trying to fit me with one set of contact lenses after another after another until I finally had to decide that I needed to find someone else to help me. It took me a while to not keep on trying and believing this doctor knew what he was doing and the anger inside of myself had to ramp up to a great level before I would listen to it and tend to it by looking for another to help me. I had so much mistrust in anyone ever being able to help me because of the neglect from my mother in being unable to tend to my personal needs.
I'd like to say that I am better today at listening to what my body is crying out for when it needs physical attention, but realize I am still very affected by what I learned as a child. "I don't need anyone's help, I'll get by. To ask and receive another's attention and help will cause me more problems than if I just take care of things on my own. I'd rather just die than move toward what could possibly help me if I have to put myself in another's hands who I fear I can not trust, who might do me more harm than good. I don't expect much more for me to happen this side of the veil anyway, so if I die, so be it." Instead of taking up my rightful place in the family (on the earth) I'd rather keep a safe distance from being touched not wanting to endure anymore chaos, quarreling or confusion than what I already have to deal with. Stay the fuck away from me and leave me alone...yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Learning to branch out and trust and allow myself to have my reactions to what ever happens "out there" without guilt defining my own space and distance from others I feel comfortable with, learning to trust my own ability to maneuver through what comes as I open the door to what is asking to be done to receive the help I need...it's an ongoing evolution for me.
As I read about the life threatening illness of Marion's sister, I wondered about how it was for Marion to watch her living close to death, having to watch her sister suffer and not being able to get away from it...no way from getting away from it. For me, I felt my life was being put on hold and that I would not be able to carve out my own life until the family chaos stopped. I lost my own desire to live while I lived WAITING. Feeling I'd be better off dead is one feeling I know well. As much as I tell myself I don't care if I die, I feel right behind that statement lives the fear of change for the better, should I live. And I know that is crazy, but to fear a less chaotic more of an opening up to trusting life is what I am finding behind my saying I don't care if I die.
James has written about expectations and allowing ourselves to allow the worst case scenario to be allowed in our minds and felt instead of setting ourselves up to want or need certain outcomes from people and situations. Today, I wonder if I can just as easily allow in my mind and feel the best case scenarios as well and see how that makes me feel...it is very very unfamiliar territory indeed for me. But I am hearing whispers of this given me as I do my Yuk work, to open up to instead of barring off what good waits for me if I am willing to walk toward options I could consider that bring up my childhood fears.
As a child, having my own personal fire smothered by others and what was going on with the family members around me ultimately has taught me to continue to smother myself. And whatever needs be felt for me to get back to adding fuel to my own fire is what I want now.
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Post by James on Aug 26, 2014 10:46:31 GMT 10
My sister didn’t suffer, it was a blood disease which if she bled at all she could haemorrhage to death but it didn’t give her any pain. And I hated my sister because she didn’t suffer anything at all; I was treated like shit whilst she was treated like the queen, waited on hand and foot, and she used that to have power over me and my other sister, so I hated her just as much as I hated my mother. And she suffered no pain - ever. One day she was bleeding from her eyes ears nose and was laughing. She was only inconvenienced by going to hospital yet there too she was treated like she was the most special person in the world. I never wished her any harm, I only wished I would die as I felt so bad.
(And by the way, as my sister has got older her illness troubles her less and less, until now her only risk comes from an operation that might cause her to bleed, so she lives a normal life no problem whatsoever.)
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Post by desire2bme on Aug 26, 2014 13:14:50 GMT 10
So, from what you say, Marion...your sister with the blood disease showed no fear to you even to the extent of laughing while she was in the position of possibly hemorrhaging to death. That to me shows to what lengths she along with you was cut off from her feelings. Sounds to me as you describe her role in the family play from hell that she also had little room to escape away from being constantly tended to. Though it sounds she got some cheap thrills from flaunting being treated as queen, I wonder if she hated your mother as well, but had to play along since mum needed to invest all of her energy into her. Did your mother use your sister as her spouse...confiding in her? Any obligation still going on between them..."for all I did for you, now you owe me"...type of thing?
"I hated my sister because she didn’t suffer anything at all" "I never wished her any harm, I only wished I would die as I felt so bad."
So you lived feeling that instead of wishing someone harm when I hate them, I choose to harm myself (wishing myself to die). It is amazing to me Marion that you are still alive having a death wish instead of wanting to dish out punishment and revenge on them. I do understand the child's logic and it makes sense...when we feel hated, we vow not to be like those who are so mean...we want to not sink to their level, rising above them and instead wishing our own lives would just be over. That seems "better", more sacrificial. What a terrible choice for a child to believe either I have to wish they would die, or wish I would die...those are my only choices because I have no one to help me to feel my way through this. That really really really really sucks!!!
I'm curious about your youngest sister and what role she played as this went on. How did you two get on? Did she look to you for mothering at all being your mother was at your sister's bidding or was she controlled into becoming a slave as well to her ill sister? And father...where is he in all this? Does he look to you for more than being his daughter to take care of him in any way?
One last thing that pops into my mind is this blood disease of your sisters...it's like it opened the door for her to over dramatize, being it was a possible life threat, yet not. What a set up for a kid to try to figure out "What do I do now that I am handed this illness where I am sick, but not sick?" Getting more help than she actually needed and placed within a family dynamic of being labeled as ill. Did your mother NEED her to be ill, more ill than she actually was? As a kid, you believe you are how your parents treat you so if mum says I need special treatment, even if I don't want it or feel like I need it, I have to live the drama the way mum needs it to be.
All just random stuff I am putting out here wanting to know more about how it was for you, Marion. Time for me to hit the pillow, while you soon will see the sun. Night night.
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Post by James on Aug 26, 2014 20:00:51 GMT 10
Desire Marion says she’s sorry but she seems to have given you the wrong impression of her situation, it’s nothing like anything you’ve suggested. But unfortunately she’s not wanting to talk to anyone about her childhood, but thanks you for your concern and is sorry she can’t answer anymore questions.
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Post by desire2bme on Aug 27, 2014 0:26:50 GMT 10
James, This conversation helped bring up some more stuff for me. Even as I was writing my questions to Marion in the previous email I was dealing with this foreboding feeling like, "You better knock it off, she's gonna get mad. This is none of your business. Leave her alone, can't you see she's not feeling good! Look...why are you asking this, why are you asking that, you are making tons of assumptions here. Stop, stop, stop, don't you get it? Don't you care about her? She has no room to breath as you shoot out all of these questions!" And as I heard all of this, I felt my fear that I lived with as a child. Here I am breaking the rules of never asking questions, especially ones that may bring misunderstanding and discomfort. Where I felt the greatest fear was when I asked questions following how my own thoughts wanted to put things together. I believe as a child, I was trying to put puzzle pieces together of what was really going on, when someone would say one thing and I would feel another thing and then feel crazy. And as I was asking Marion the questions and wondering whether any of what I was putting together in my own head is valid this came: "To EVER ask a question assuming ANYTHING that you come up with is WRONG and BAD. Don't you recall all of the times when another made assumptions about your life and then went about branding them upon you like a tattoo as if there could be no question about if what they think is valid? Huh? Well don't you!!!" And I was wanting to delete it all because this made me more afraid. " What if she thinks I am trying to brand her with my assumptions instead of seeing if by using the way I put it together (even if it's a complete deviation of what happened in her family) it may bring out something she's never felt or thought of before? What if she misunderstands your line of questioning and just gets frustrated with you and tells you to get away from her?" This all was bringing me to be able to feel some feelings that I haven't been able to get in touch with surrounding how my own family cut off from one another because it was too painful to even try anymore to communicate about anything but the weather. And as a child I was manipulated in this way. Believing the adults and older siblings have the power and know better than me whats really going on and who I really am...that's what my mind believed while my gut sucked it up, feeling the fire of all the anger of knowing they have no clue who I am and therefore all they can do is make assumptions based on how they are wanting/needing to see me. It's like the mind swallowed what was told me by how they treated me whole, while my heart had to put on one more layer to protect myself...and so I just created distance and cut off trying to converse at all. I tried too many times to connect and always felt like I would be led into a trap that they needed me to be stuck in, to make their lives easier - so they wouldn't have to take in another way of seeing into their lives that may just have a sliver of validity. And so my mute-dom began as my belly accumulated all the rage I felt for having to shut myself down. "Not OUR fault you stopped talking, can't blame us for that, not our problem, but yours...ALL yours!"Okay that right there makes me feel like I want to get out my axe and start chopping heads off! Where's my ice pick? I need to bludgeon their hearts. It won't cause them any pain anyway because their fucking heart is a stone! How dare you set up the dominoes in your favor and place me in the row you need me to stay in, sending me the vibe that says, "Don't you dare step out of line soldier, and keep your trap shut, not a word out of your mouth!" That fucking psychic vibe of control you use that's like an electrical shock to me and then you tell me, "We're not doing anything to control you. You can say anything you want. We didn't TELL you you can't talk so stop blaming us. This is ALL ON YOU!" And I have learned to obey this psychic language and have lived as a child quaking in fear should I ever disobey and get fried by the electricity. "Go away, get away from me. I hate you. I reject you" This is what I am still hearing inside when I consider crossing over the psychic lines I feel and while feeling my fear ask my questions. Thanks Marion and James for helping me bring some more up out of me for me to follow and feel through. As always, I feel like this is a teeny tiny thread that wants to lead to a mother load.
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Post by James on Aug 27, 2014 17:36:21 GMT 10
Marion says thanks back to you Desire as you helped bring up more stuff in her.
Your post had quite an effect on us both Desire. It helped me realise something about Marion that I’d not fully understood or appreciated before. All the assumptions you made were wrong, as the psychology you put forward doesn’t apply to Marion. It might apply to yourself, and some of it I could relate to in myself, but not so for Marion. You see, this being what I can now see very clearly for myself - she’s always seen it herself but we’ve not fully put it all together, she didn’t grow up in a family that engaged in power-plays like all the ones you referred to or suggested - and assumed - she might have. It’s quite extraordinary, as I’ve not known anyone else like her, but she has no guile, no hidden agenda, and is very straightforward on a feeling level. And all because her parents gave her no room whatsoever to have her own power. And not even like myself, was she able to escape into her mind and fantasise that she had some power and say in her life, even if it was only one she made up in her head.
Over the years I’ve accused her of various power plays, but she’s always rebuffed me saying it was all just my stuff I was projecting onto her and that she was not seeking power over me or power in any way. And as I’ve progressed in my healing, all she said has turned out to be true.
And so I can see how you are very much interested in, and well immersed in, and desperately wanting to know as part of your survival as you say, such psychological intrigue, all the inns and outs of what might be happening to the child and how it goes about trying to survive by gaining some power within the existing power regimes. And I think you have an incredible grasp of it being able to see it all in action, relating to it all obviously through the structure you grew up in.
And I understand you wanting to break out and ask all the questions you want, and of course you have all rights to, and to see what happens, all of which you are more than capable, that too being obvious, in working through.
So now I clearly understand Marion and her behaviour, mine more so too, being able to put into perspective so much of how different she is to me and other people who look at life through the power-perspective they are entrenched in. And how she can’t relate to most people, as she being so straightforward in her feelings is taken wrongly by those looking out for hidden power agendas, as such people feel threatened by her not knowing where she is coming from as they have not had to deal with someone who is not all bound up in the power structures they are familiar with. She has had very odd reactions from people all through her life, but now we both understand why, thanks to you asking your questions and adding your assumptions.
So her greatest struggle in life has been how to protect herself from people who have felt threatened from her when she has meant them no harm and has in fact been the very opposite as to what they’ve wrongly felt, assumed and accused her of, being actually on their side rather than opposing them. And she used to think that if she healed herself she’d be able to ‘come out’ and be with such people without having to feel so bad because of their reactions, but now she feels she doesn’t want to come out, that she is more than happy to leave them to it, as she gets on simply staying true to her feelings.
So nothing to worry about Desire from our side. It was a full-on blast from you which led to helping us understand ourselves more, and we thank you for that. But as Marion could see, you were merely expressing your own anger at her parents, it actually having nothing to do with Marion herself; and so really it was all probably to do with yourself and all you’re going through - which is how it is for us all anyway, it all being about ourselves what we’re projecting onto others as we fight for our survival.
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Post by desire2bme on Aug 28, 2014 4:19:01 GMT 10
Thanks for your sharing your own insights you are coming to find about yourselves as I keep on allowing myself to feel everything this continues to bring up for me. I wondered what it felt like for you James to be the one finding yourself in the middle of two women relaying messages through you. Your reply here as you share your own explanations and conclusions that you are feeling currently bring up some very deep core pain in me that I am very very grateful for. This is all so perfect, as is, I can't even begin to tell you. All of where you two are at in your lives as you have shared here is bringing up the Big Kahunas of projections I dealt with especially with my mother. It is so very unbelievable to me, what pain is being unearthed, when I choose to not counter any of what you or Marion have said. Phew! Grateful as I groan and feel it all in it's intensity. Thanks again.
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Post by James on Aug 28, 2014 14:50:26 GMT 10
I'm so glad Desire that you see and feel it this way, all for you to go further into yourself. Again you are confirming for me that people will be able to do their healing and with minimal help from myself - even none whatsoever, as that's how I think it should be. So the fact that you take it all on board to help yourself go deeper rather than hitting out and not using it to help yourself makes me feel better about it all.
And as for being the 'meat in the sandwich' between two women, there are a few pairs of women currently in my life that I am involved with in similar ways (including unseen women like Mary M), it's always been like that, all because that's how it was for me with mum and Gran, it all being part of my pattern. And all of which I've been working on over the years to understand. In some way as I've said in my writings somewhere I've always felt like being something of a bridge between Marion (and Mary) and all she says about the healing and how false and wrong we are, and other people, hence my writing and doing all this on the forum. And I enjoy it. I have wished we could both do it together but it's not gone that way the reasons being revealed along the way and to do with what we've needed to do to keep progressing in ourselves. So as for now I will continue as I feel to do, and if you have any other questions at any time, please don't hesitate to ask them.
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Post by James on Sept 2, 2014 22:46:40 GMT 10
Marion is in rapture reading Germain Greer’s book about her search for her father. I’m on the computer opposite her. The cuckoo is singing is haunting song. She stops reading and announces: I’m having another profundity:
"My body is sitting on the couch but my spirit is on a wonderful journey."
She can’t do anything with her body, it’s giving up the ghost allowing her spirit to be free. Her body is inhibiting and holding back her spirit. As her healing progresses she’s letting go her body and giving her spirit the freedom to soar as it was her spirit that got squashed.
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