Posted by lil jimi on September 9, 2016, at 1:07:49
In reply to Re: ? » lil jimi, posted by Tabitha on September 8, 2016, at 23:15:08
> Jim, you are a really imaginative writer and I appreciate your thoughts.
>
> I picture a different analogy. Instead of Carol being some person your friend deals with out there somewhere, let's make Carol a person who is always in your living room. She talks a mix of 10% sense and 90% nonsense. She talks to you and your guests whether they talk to her or not. Would it be comfortable if everyone just pretended she wasn't there? Would it be comfortable if you told your guests to ignore her, and gave them a demerit any time they talked to her, or even mentioned her? I think that would seem a little weird and unworkable.As this reality actually has it, Carol is not the problem. She is very sweet and shy and suffers sheepishly as she is being gently snubbed while she mumbles incessant apologies. On her meds she cooperative and compliant.
My friend, her brother, Allen is the problem. Allen insists she be something she can't. I am Allen's problem. I insist he be a better brother than he can. Carol sometimes rattles on to me to be nicer to Allen. I can't.
In the larger version I expect I am the one to be dismissed. But I love them both and can't make myself let them go. I think we have grown to accept we each have our own insanity.
But when Allen get too riled up he knows Carol and I will talk to each other quietly till he calms down. More than once Carol's caregivers have had law enforcement orders to keep Allen away from his sister. Nothing hurts him so much as when this has happened.
Of course your analogy makes sense if there's no reprieve from unrelenting aggravation. But in that analogy, I think establishing the mandatory signage is the benign, appropriate boundary and defense.
I can be wrong. I am insane.
poster:lil jimi
thread:1090160
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20151112/msgs/1091924.html