A Blasphemous Litany for the Day and Season.

[bellatrys]

It is not adequate, to spend your hours making ornate stuffed toys or hand-sewn clothes or knitted sweaters for your children, and never talk to them or still more, listen; it is not an adequate substitute, to fill your hours baking cookies and roasting dinners so that you can have everything homemade and thus healthier (but also far cheaper, if

Comments

[tlachtga]

Some things I identify with; some things I'm glad I don't have to identify with, that I didn't go through them. As angry as I get at my family, at least they never pulled that kind of bullshit on me; it was a different kind of bullshit, but that's every family, I guess.

What I'm trying to say is that I admire you. You're a hell of a lot more thoughtful and coherent about this (and most other things it seems) than I would be. And no matter what your family did, damn it, you came out clear-headed and they didn't. That's got to be some kind of victory.

[sajia]

So much to say. I'll start by saying that my head burns with Vesuvian fury whenever people say that divorce is an evil invention of reckless leftists/feminists, and when Muslims and Asians wax rhapsodic over the virtues of arranged marriages; the wreckage of my and my brother's childhoods to me is proof enough that the institution of heterosexual marriage is not the safe refuge it is claimed to be.

There's no such thing as "normal"

[deiseach]

That's the conclusion I eventually came to after years of "Why can't you be like X?" and "You're not *normal*", every time I opened my mouth and said something that was a genuine opinion

That's a relief--

[bellatrys]

"What, you too?" I thought you must have the grand Happy Family™ yourself [VEG/rlh]

Good point about the "why can't you be more like X" - I actually never thought of it quite like that, but it's true. I thought of it bieng more like the inverse of wishing you had X's parents instead of yours - strangers trying to impress you, which is even true of adults towards children if they're not *their* children, are always nicer than people who feel entitled towards you.

books never lied to me. Books never said one thing one day and the next day you re-read the page, it said something completely different. Books never tried to convince me that what I remembered never happened, couldn't have happened, I was lying/crazy/unnatural to say it happened, so that for years I mistrusted my own memory until independent confirmation made me go "Yes! I *didn't* imagine it or make it up! It *really* happened, just like I remembered it!"

YEA, VERILY, YEA -- The most important thing my counselor ever said to me, after using the words "cognitive dissonance

*wry smile of recognition*

[deiseach]

(And if it looks more like a grimace, ignore it - my youngest brother is currently in the next phase of the guerilla war he's waging against me for no good reason, actually, but he seems to think there's something there for (a) us to be fighting over (b) him to win and I am strongly trying to *learn* something from past experiences such as we have been discussing here and moving on instead of bringing out my own tactical nukes (i.e. the personal secret of his the rest of the family all know about that our father doesn't) and toasting him - resolve: this season, I am way past trying to win parental affection by strangling my siblings in their cots - I'd strangle him on his own merits :-) - the concept of nonattachment is something very valuable for me which I am trying to incorporate and wow, this is the longest peripheral comment I've ever done yet so shutting up now

[megpie71]

I read what you've written, and I feel echoes of my own childhood. I've at least got labels for what fucked me up, and why it happened. I know the whys - depression on both sides of the family is a big part of it (and I know from personal experience that depression is one of those things which really pulls your focus in very sharply: this isn't an excuse, just an explanation). It doesn't make the pain any less.

I'm having trouble finding anything to say here - I've typed and deleted, typed and deleted. I suppose the best thing I can hope for is that you and the rest of your family find some kind of peace.

[nenya_kanadka]

*hugs*

I'm very glad you've come out as sane as you have, and clear-enough headed to see that things have been screwed up (an accomplishment in itself) and then to try to fix what's messed up in your own head. The thing I want to say is "I'm proud of you", although I don't know if that works for whatever level of friendship we have. From what I know of psychology, from my own experience of being ex-cult and also reading about coming out from under stuff like this, this looks like definite progress that you are able to write some of this for others besides yourself to read. That's good.

Shuddering at the idea of you getting into this with some guy in your generation again--thank God you didn't.