Posted by antigua3 on December 29, 2008, at 11:45:33
In reply to Letting go of family and home, posted by Partlycloudy on December 29, 2008, at 11:08:49
I think you've got it right: your family is never going to fill that need. You can't make them, and you can't make them change. You can only change how you react to them.
I don't say any of this lightly. It is a tremendously difficult thing to do. I expect nothing from my family of origin anymore, and it took decades to get there, but you AREN'T going to take that long (do you hear me?). I would visit my mother for years and then have major meltdowns afterwards (drinking, I mean). It had to stop, and the only way was for me to tell her what had happened to me--just state it, and not go into details because she didn't want to hear them--and then go from there. That was enough for me.
But, I'm also lucky in a way because my father is dead. I don't have to ever see him again and I don't need anything from him--no apology or explanation, because while I really think I would get the apology, nothing would be enough. I had to find a way to make it enough in my own mind. I'm still working on it, but I really try hard not to expect anything from my family of origin.
The only way I could do this was to start taking care of myself. You do this already, so I don't know what I could offer in the way of help, except to say that this "new" stuff has to have time to settle, in your mind and body, and that seems to be brutalizing your body right now by not being able to eat, pain, etc.
I don't know pc. It sounds simple to say, "You're getting there; it will pass," because I know it will, but I know how terribly hard the journey is. But you will get there. You have to find something to hold onto. For me, it was faith, and I don't mean religious faith, I just mean some kind of faith that I kept telling myself, "everything is going to be OK." And even when things aren't OK, I just keep holding on and having faith. Hey, maybe it's having faith in myself. I just thought of that.
I wish you weren't suffering so much. I can't imagine the physical pain you're experiencing and how you need for that to settle down so you can relax. Maybe it's like finding your center. I posted about losing mine recently, and how horrible it feels not to have a center to hold onto, but my pdoc says it's shifting and it will come back. I have to believe that, while I work on readjusting meds, etc., eating less sugar, whatever, and just hold on.
Again, I'm just so sorry you're hurting so much.
antigua
poster:antigua3
thread:871283
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081219/msgs/871286.html