Thread: Oh Well? Part 2
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Old 06-29-2020, 05:21 AM
  # 290 (permalink)  
Obladi
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
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Thanks for the birthday wishes, y'all. I wish to have no more birthdays, but it's bound to happen.

I completely agree with you about not turning the guilt into shame. In fact, I'll see your guilt and raise you some remorse. Today, I don't feel guilt or shame, but I do feel deeply remorseful for what I did to my kids. I do hope that one day we'll be able to discuss this in a dispassionate sort of way that allows me to own my stuff and hear theirs, but I don't know when or if that might happen. If it does, it will be a gift. In the meantime, I'm doing O and have dropped the transactional approach to making up for past transgressions by being a doormat. Eldest gets that and in fact applauds it. Youngest asks virtually nothing from me and I do intend to help her out in some surprise ways just to sort of even things out with help I've given the other girls. Not from guilt or any attempt to buy her affection, just from a sense of fairness. I write least about youngest because she is the most distant from me, but I hold deep admiration for her boundaries. Middlest is perhaps shocked that I've developed this backbone and doesn't care much for it. That's purely speculative, of course. But it kind of fits.

What to do about that? Not sure, but it feels like 'dispassionate' is a good place to stay in those conversations. You know what you did, I know what I did. It's understandable that our kids might try to capitalize on those wrongs without perhaps even realizing that's what they're doing. I think if it's a direct confrontation, "You did xyz, and I'm pissed about it," then we say, "I totally get that and I'm truly sorry I did xyz." And leave it there. We can't fix what's past, but saying so does no good. We're doing our best just as we always did our best (even though it wasn't what we were capable of, it was still our best), but saying so does no good. If it feels like there's an indirect "you owe me" sort of dynamic going on, then I think we notice that and let it go without saying a word to the kid. I don't know. What do I know? Those are just my thoughts at this moment while safely ensconced in my solitary bubble.

I was struck by that thought about firing my sponsor too, Drops. It wasn't really about "firing," it was more like, "Oh God, here we go again. I don't think I can do this another time - live through the assumptions yet another woman is going to make about me." It was that Get Away Now impulse. It's a vivid clear sign that something is very threatening to me (or perhaps my ego) when my head starts screaming, "I knowwww!" I think I did the best I could at that moment by hearing her out and responding as tactfully and honestly as I could. I hope you don't think I go around this world thinking I know everything. I most certainly do not, but I definitely do want to be in charge of my own "not knowing." I've got zero problem saying, "I don't understand" or "Can you explain this to me?" or "This is what I think - what do you think?" or even "Explain this to me like I'm a 2-year old." In fact, this easy acknowledgement of my own ignorance is something I value about myself at least as much as I do that I'm well-read and observant. "At least as much" because I worked to develop that trait of humble curiosity.

I don't know what it is that bothers me so very much about this, but certainly it is in no large part related to my family of origin's "affectionate" ribbing of the kid who displayed their ignorance or lack of knowledge. There's a certain way that people sometimes (it seems?) preemptively put me in the position of being less knowledgeable and therefore lesser than. It feels unfair.

Thanks for calling this out for more attention, Drops. I mentioned it because I thought it was significant, but didn't really think about it aside from noticing the knee-jerk reaction and being pleased or maybe relieved that I sat through that discomfort and was able to kinda talk about it with her. Thinking about it now, I think maybe this bristling arises (only) when I'm already feeling emotional. I initially typed that the bristling happens when I'm feeling insecure but then realized that's not true. I think it's true when my emotions are heightened in any number of ways.

I think I could riff on this for quite some time but am "thinking out loud" right now and it feels like this contemplative thread is going to follow a long and twisty path until I get to the "why" of it.
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