CONTINUED CONTACT...
I've been thinking about continued contact, after having to talk to my brother, who was in hospital waiting to hear about the dad. Our dad has always been the one person we held out as the semi-safe person in our WHOLE childhood.
NOT!
I kept thinking "it's safe," cuz the bastards that were our handlers are long dead or too old to care. Well I wasn't thinking about our own family. Oh yes, they count since they sent us out to the handlers in the first place. They made life at home totally UNSAFE. The mother literally participated at home but the dad contributed with silence and avoidance.
Safe, means not having to worry that your own brother won't verbally assault you. I called to see how our dad was doing and what I got: a rash about how I should listen only to him, only he knew what was happening. We have no right to a thought on the subject. Then came the notice to me, "you don't work you should be here taking care of your father."
\Yeah, this gets thrown up at us at every crisis. It's the usual family notice. From both our families bio and foster. This time when he spat that into the phone a flood of memories hit like a tidal wave. Not just the knowledge, cuz I had this memory, but the feelings and realization that our father was in the room below and heard everything that happened and did nothing. When I told him what happened he did nothing. Our whole childhood he did nothing. So much nothing it was like drowning in the abyss of broken hopes.
We're all still susceptible to the influence of our childhood scripts. That doesn't mean we have to follow or be drown, but it does mean we can find ourselves in trouble if we're not vigilant. What a sick way to have to live. Just another gift that keeps on giving. Still I said, "no," that counts for change, small as it is, breaking the contact isn't always about the physical but about the strength in ourselves to resist the pull to live dissociated.
Tricky stuff.
Ravin
NOT!
I kept thinking "it's safe," cuz the bastards that were our handlers are long dead or too old to care. Well I wasn't thinking about our own family. Oh yes, they count since they sent us out to the handlers in the first place. They made life at home totally UNSAFE. The mother literally participated at home but the dad contributed with silence and avoidance.
Safe, means not having to worry that your own brother won't verbally assault you. I called to see how our dad was doing and what I got: a rash about how I should listen only to him, only he knew what was happening. We have no right to a thought on the subject. Then came the notice to me, "you don't work you should be here taking care of your father."
\Yeah, this gets thrown up at us at every crisis. It's the usual family notice. From both our families bio and foster. This time when he spat that into the phone a flood of memories hit like a tidal wave. Not just the knowledge, cuz I had this memory, but the feelings and realization that our father was in the room below and heard everything that happened and did nothing. When I told him what happened he did nothing. Our whole childhood he did nothing. So much nothing it was like drowning in the abyss of broken hopes.
We're all still susceptible to the influence of our childhood scripts. That doesn't mean we have to follow or be drown, but it does mean we can find ourselves in trouble if we're not vigilant. What a sick way to have to live. Just another gift that keeps on giving. Still I said, "no," that counts for change, small as it is, breaking the contact isn't always about the physical but about the strength in ourselves to resist the pull to live dissociated.
Tricky stuff.
Ravin