General Chat

Both my brother & I have been wondering for years why we both have ongoing, but unexplained health problems such as upset stomachs, dizziness etc which don´t have any obvious physical cause after every test known to man.
Eventually, my brother went for counselling & was told that it is all caused by years of stress due to the lack of relationship with our mother & that the symptoms are not imaginary.
We both still have health problems, but at least we know there is no physical cause.

Jill....My DARLING I WANT TO GIVE YOU A GREAT BIG HUG....YOU ARE A VERY MUCH LOVED AND TREASURED LADY...HUG'S & KISSES GWEN <3 <3 <3 <3

Hi Liz. Thanks. <3

I'm afraid that I have been more grouchy than normal to hubby and the kids. <3

Wisechild.

So often I feel like things are sureal and spaced. I can fully believe that you and your brother have all these ailments but with no apparent cause.

Cane.

I have no idea what to say. I'm not sure I am worthy of such lovely words but thank you anyway <3

JIll please can i ask,how did/do you feel having not gone to the funeral...I hope i am not upsetting you asking this question..its just that i am trying to to visualise how i might feelas i am arguing with myself wether i do/do-not want to go to her's when the time comes)...will i regret or rejoice....Luv Gwen x

I very much enjoyed my mother's funeral. It was a day when the other members of the family gathered,probably all glad to see the back of her!

For me it was a new beginning with no more abuse and emotional blackmail and an end to all that had gone on before.

The thing that took strength was to be honest with people about exactly how she was when they were being sympathetic.

Using dtr's mobile to read posts. No prob with question. Be on comp this evening with luck to do best to answerxx

Gwen - coming in on your question - as I said earlier I did not go and had no regrets - I felt nothing at all - any emotion for her had been knocked out over the years. Do what you feel is right for you and if you can stand mourners telling you how wonderful she was - fine.

I watch Corrie - the only soap I do. However, it's days may be numbered since Gloria has arrived. I have lost count of the times I have said OMG on scenes between her and Stella - has the scriptwriter been reading this thread????

Sharron.
I felt exactly the same. Didn´t shed a tear, nor did most of her neighbours who she had harrassed for years. I was so embarrassed when the chap from next door told me what a difficult person she was ....as if I didn´t know. She had apparently been phoning a blind elderly lady in the dead of night, saying she needed help. In fact it was entirely the other way round, but she had made this poor lady feel it was her duty to help her.
I thought it was a bit odd when my younger daughter didn´t come to the funeral, but put it down to the fact that she was newly pregnant & lived 100 miles away. The last contact I had with her was when I phoned her to say I was sending some money to buy a cot or pram for the baby. She informed me that after the way I had treated her grandmother, she didn´t want anything more to do with me.
Despite every effort on my part, that was the last time I had contact with her . I have never had even so much as a photo of my granddaughter, who started school last week & although I send birthday & Christmas presents to her, they are never acknowledged.
So the abuse continues from beyond the grave.

Wicked old bitch!

Hello

I am wondering how you people cope with the lingering mind control, after the N person has passed away or you have left them and have nothing else to do with them.

I had a N spouse, and find it difficult to stop thinking about it.
I took a holiday last month to get away from my thoughts, and occupy myself with other fresh things, but now that Im back, its the same stress and anxiety again.

Does time really help, its been 3 years now?

Have you read the article?

I found it gave the whole horrible mess some sort of shape,

Prolonged hypnotherapy.

Thanks Sharron
yes Ive been reading up on this for a couple of days and its helped a lot.

Knowledge is power. Ive written a list of my coping strategies
and another list of my goals.

My main concern is to stop second guessing myself and have the confidence to be ok with decision I have made to separate. Im not at risk of physical harm, but I do feel that I am still manipulated , even though I have made boundaries.

Too right it is.

I find that the biggest problem is my reaction to my husband if he chances to say or do something that would have been typical of my mother.
For instance he will sometimes, with the best intentions, insist on doing something I can easily do for myself & all I hear is my mother telling me that i´m not capable of doing it.
We´ve only been married for 3 years. so we´re still getting used to each other & the adjustment isn´t easy when you´re in your 60s.
This horrible feeling of "here we go again" doesn´t help.

There are certain words and phrases that I rarely use and which I still start at.They are words or phrases that would have been hurled at me on a daily basis.

I doubt I have said the word detestable more than ten times in my life.I heard it a million.

Sharron - having read your post - the words 'vivid imagination' immediately came to me, evidently that phrase imprinted itself more than all the others.

YES. And "you and your imagination"!


Bringing it all back now.

That's good of you.(irony)

Hi Cane,

Sorry not to have replied when I said I would. List of excuses.

I went to the female parent's funeral. We went in after everyone else and sat at the back. I even parked around the corner, almost out of sight so that I could watch the coffin leave the house and then went a slightly different route and got to the cemetary and went into a different car park from where I knew vehicles attending the actual funeral parked on a drive.

At the end of the service at the Crem, everyone filed out. My sibling saw us and came and gave me a hug. No idea if the male parent saw it but friends and neighbours did. When everyone including him was looking at the flowers, hubby and the kids went over there. Hubby tells me that went and spoke to the male parent just to say sorry about the female parent's death. I went and sat in the loo. I didn't want to see or speak to anyone. Eventually I came out and then he must still have been there. Now either before I went to be by myself or afterwards, because I don't remember, one of his ex-neighbours came over and told me to go and speak to him. I refused so she grabbed me by the wrist and made to pull me. Twice I told her to let go of me please. The second time, another neighbour told her to not try to make me and she did let go. But by that time I was wondering what I was going to have to say to her to make her loose hold of me.

I was sad I suppose that she was dead. But it was what she had wanted for some time and her condition was so awful that it wasn't living. She wanted away from him too I think.

But she had died in my eyes about thirteen years before. I was expecting child two. It was Feb 1997 and one day she was at my house. She said something to me incredibly nasty. But it was also the way she said it. She had been getting more unpleasant for long time but it was a shock to realise just how much she hated and disliked me. After that, there was just someone wearing her skin and who had her voice but it wasn't her. That day she totally destroyed everything I believed in about mothers. It changed the way I was with my daughter. I didn't believe in mothers any more. I cried a lot. I cried every night for months. It was grief because she died suddenly in front of me that afternoon.

Things never changed. The next decade wasn't good and I'm scared and scarred from it. Then I ended up without any intention on my part of becoming carer to both parents. My life was a nightmare and worse quite honestly was having to help to lift her, help her to walk and then almost lift her into the car. Then I'd have to lean across and put the seatbelt on. It was all physical contact which I didn't want.

After the funeral people went back to the parent's house where my sibling had put on a buffet. I do a pretty mean salad platter and she had me do one for her. I also did the memorial A4 turned into a 2-side 4-page Order of Service.

My lovely friend Jo who is a writer and poet helped me to write a memorial poem just for her. It's posted on GR. This is the link. http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/general_chat/thread/1255692?page=6

When she was alive I did everything I could except for the last few months. But she was being well cared for in a home and then after her second stroke in hospital. If her welfare had been in danger, maybe I'd have stuck around but there was no telling how long I'd be stuck caring for both of them if they took themselves back home. It was non-stop and I'd had enough. I was a mess and knew I was heading for a heart attack, breakdown or stroke myself and I owed it to my own family who the parents totally disregarded to walk away.

I was sad on the day of the funeral but hubby and kids made a fuss of me. I was more sad as I frequently am, not for the life I had, but the life I would have like to have had; the life that others had. I try not to think about it too often but sometimes I still can't believe how bad things were, how bad they became, and how it all ended.

I'll come back and talk about what happened when he died but I didn't go near his funeral. Regrets for how I went to hers and not going to his? No. I was true to myself. I had done everything I could when they were alive to help. I'd had nothing but abuse and never ending critisism. I never regretted walking away either. My consience was clear then and still is clear. If you think that you can live with yourself afterwards if you don't go to the funeral, then don't go. However, if you are still wondering if you can stay away or not, I'm guessing that you haven't been pushed quite all the way yet and that may still happen. It's no easy decision to make. I felt that it was right to attend hers but not his. I was still undecided when cousins told me about something that he had done which if I'd known about whilst he was still alive, would have had it out with him. That was when I knew for certain that to go to his funeral would have been total hypocrasy on my part. I'm a lot of things but hopefully not a hypocrite.

It's been a long day and I need sleep. As a recovering insomniac, I can't allow myself to get so tired that I can't sleep. Too tired means demons kick in and I daren't let that happen.

Hope you liked the poem.

xxJ

Sorreeeeeeee Sharron