Charlene I have found that peace it has taken me 9 long years but I'm almost there and i too understand the losses i had to exclude myself from some who saw me as an ingrate but they knew nothing of my life.
Remember before you criticize you are guessing and looking from the outside and they are the ones knowing and feeling whats on the inside.
Thank you and may God Bless you and keep you♥
Wren most of the people i know who had theres out have had the same problem glad it didn't happen to you.
Wise words...
Harmony, Charlene...
There are a lot of people that have experienced something similar to what you have gone through. I myself have been--by my choice-- estranged from my family for over a decade. It was out of venomous hatred first, and a wish to be safe, second. I deeply wanted to be a very different person than they are, and I could see I was becoming just like them, so there was a lot of self-hatred as well.
Having removed myself from their toxicity, though, I then realized I bore the full responsibility for my actions from then on... FULL responsibility. I began to work to be a more loving and kind person to the folks I cared about... and over time that feeling has come more and more easily. It's grown and expanded and I often experience a wish for others I don't know to have peace, contentment, and wholeness. To wish that they not have pain, difficulty and hardship in their lives.
Imagine my surprise when that feeling cropped up in relation to my parents...! My enemies! The people who have treated me the absolute worst in my life. At first, I was pissed, really pissed! How DARE they intrude, co-opt love they didn't deserve! If I let myself love them, wish they not suffer,... they were not GOOD enough for my love. They would somehow ruin it, just like they ruined everything... yah-dah-yah-dah-yah-dah. I immediately went to a tight, small, mean, hurting place in my heart...
And I caught myself... maybe this horrible, scared, stingy, hateful, arrogant feeling was what they lived with and caused them never to be satisfied with me, to use me, to belittle, demean, mock, ridicule, insult and beat me.
And a huge wave of compassion hit me, for all of us in my family. I absolutely and utterly regretted every moment of pain and harm I ever caused them. I wept for every moment of fear, hatred, and meanness they ever experienced.
I allowed myself to love my parents, with all my heart. I still love them. It feels a whole lot better than hating them.
But I also still don't talk to them. Loving someone doesn't mean becoming an idiot.
I daily pray for their well-being, their happiness, their goodness. I hope they don't feel fear, hatred, self-loathing.
May all beings be happy.
May they be joyous and live in safety.
All living beings, whether weak or strong, in all realms of existence...
Small or great, near or far, born or to be born...
May all beings be happy.
No exceptions.
=o)
You know the amazing thing is when you finally get to that HAPPY place in your life, you can see more clearly and sort out things more efficiently.
I know that my father's life was awful He was orphaned at 9 years of age. He had older siblings that were on their own and younger ones that were babies and easily placed. He wasn't able to fit into anyone's home as a working child or a loving baby. In his day kids worked at early ages and he did experience a few placements where he was worked and whipped very hard. He hoboed across the country at age ten and even fathered a child (whom I have never known) at age 14. He tried to go to school because he really had a yearn to learn, but was sent home when there was no parent to sign forms for him. He told me many stories of pain and suffering from his own childhood and I often wonder what terrible things he may have withheld.
So, with that said, I know he had many burdens to bare of his own. However, that didn't make it right to do the things that he did. On his death bed he asked for forgiveness. I told him I forgave him. I really did forgive him, but as was said earlier, you can never really forget.
Jayryunen to think of him in a loving way is to discredit all the pain and suffering he caused to many people. It also brings up memories of him and I don't want to remember him as there is no way to remember the good without the bad. So, in this case love is not the answer.
Letting him go has made love possible for me. Love of life, love of myself and those in my life that mean so much to me can happen now for me.
I am at a point where there is neither hate nor love. I do have sadness in my heart for him and for my loss of him (the good side of him). I don't let that sadness envelope me any longer and that is the secret to my survival.
I sometimes take my mom to the cemetery to place flowers on his grave. I try not to let her sense how hard it is for me. She needs to handle things the way she handles them and my way need not step on her way. I take her and help her to place the flowers in the styrofoam block in the container. I help her arrange them to her satisfaction. I do this for her, because I love her. She too has her own story as do we all......
Charlene
This message was edited Feb 3, 2009 1:21 PM
Well, I think we all have to work out our own path.
I most heartily disagree with you that to think of him with love is to discredit, ignore, or minimize in any way the harm he did do.
I can love my father and still see very clearly the wrong he does. I don't excuse it. Nor do I permit it. I just wish that he have well-being and contentment. Feel safe and whole.
Because I think if he had those things, he would stop hurting others. My father's not a sociopath, he's just another confused, hurting person. Animals in pain bite. So do people.
You say you don't think of him because it brings up too much pain... I'm sorry, but I think that you may just be trying to avoid your own pain. It seems you actually think of him quite a bit, and memory is just not something so easily shut off. After a couple of decades of night terrors and waking up in a sweaty panic, I know memory has a way of replaying hurt over and over. The hurts go deep and the healing takes a long time, but in my experience ignoring such suffering just lets it fester and it comes out in terrible ways. Go easy, go slow, go gently... but don't think you can just lock it away.
That's not been my experience, any way.
I have already faced the night terrors and even day terrors as well. There are good memories that I would like to pull up, but he comes with them many times. I cannot always shut off the bad that comes with them. So, I don't pull them up. It is my way of avoiding pain, for that you are correct.
I must say that I do love a part of him and always will, but he is more than one part of a whole person and there is a part that I don't love or hate, I just pity. I pity him for what he was and I pity all that he hurt in his lifetime.
For many people that see the inside of an oyster, they will never taste it. For some have tasted it and then seen the inside and became disgusted. Others can eat the oyster knowing of it's greenish black inside and still enjoy it. I for one like to eat the oyster whole without looking at the inside.
My dad was like an oyster and I react to that with disgust after seeing the greenish black part. Not loving the whole person, I simply accept that I don't love him anymore, as would the person who refuses to eat the oyster after seeing the inside. I also don't hate him anymore. Like some are with the oyster who have tasted it and liked it until seeing the inside, they know there is good, but they can't deal with the bad.
I am 62 years old and can remember his visits to my room as early as three years old. That is a lot of time. He died in '85 and I have only come to a place of piece for a few years now. It took a lot of work getting here. I am very happy here. It is not locked away, I do have a key. I just choose not to take out the key very often.
God has given me a place of hope, happiness peace and most of all salvation. I look forward to each and every day on this earth and even further to Heaven. For this I am grateful.
Dave's Garden has been an extra blessing and I have so much here to enjoy, that I can not thank Dave enough for getting this up and going. I have learned today that I can deal with every little thing here on Dave's.
Talking about this has been good for me. It is good to put in writing that I am OKAY, that I am WELL and most of all that I am at PEACE. No HATE for it is poison!! Don't drink of that poison as it will bring you down and if a person continues in it, it will cause their total demise.
I've got it now, thanks for saying it again. =0) You do love him, and have compassion for him, and you also have compassion for the child he hurt and abused. And that's a good thing, she still needs it. She will always need you to care for her and nurture her. =0) I was just worried you were ignoring that little child to avoid the pain around her.
I'm also glad to have this board, and to know that so many folks are working to not get sucked into anger and hatred, realize they do have a choice and are trying to make the more beneficial one. For oneself and those around us.
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."
T.S. Eliot
Again Charlene you speak my words and this too has helped me♥ Thank You!