Posted by Shortelise on January 1, 2005, at 23:52:48
In reply to thanks and another question, posted by messadivoce on December 22, 2004, at 2:07:09
Not an answer to your question, but a reflection of my own family dynamics.
I was the "problem child" the one who was screwed up, the one who caused problems, etc. They sent me to see a shrink for the first time when I was nine. Honking donkies, I was depressed! And instead of ... but I digress.
At some point in the therapy I've been in for the past six years, my shrink said to me that it sounded to him like, as a child, I was having a sane reaction to an insane situation.
You mean I'm not crazy? No? I'm not, like, completely and utterly fritzing finky (God, don't you LOVE this no cursing thing?!)?
So I've come to understand that I was the scapegoat, the one who could be pointed at, accused, and who took the blame for the dysfunction in the family.
If that's psych 101, forgive me for stating the obvious. But since I've surreptitiously begun to refuse to play that role, I've watched other parts of the castle begin to have to take the weight it should bear. Ha! And then of course I feel guilty because I am aware and they're not.
That's my short version of family life at home, now 3,000 miles away, and hey, that's no coincidence.
But I tell you, my mother could no more do family therapy than she could fly to the moon and back on her broomstick. Facing her own devils has had her running for some seventy years, and it's not at this late date she can face any of them. She doesn't even realize she's running.
I pity her.
Love,
ShortE
poster:Shortelise
thread:431958
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041228/msgs/436626.html