# Psychiatrist father said some weird shı†



## LongWalk

When I was about 14 or 15 my father, a board certified psychiatrist/neurologist, said that I suffered an Oedipal complex. I knew what an Oedipal complex was because Freudian psychology was in the media in the early 70s. But he had to spell it out.

"It means you want to murder your father so that you can marry your mother," he explained. He face was dark with rage, normal in our father son conversations.

I am now 54 years old and have two daughters (18 and 15). Their mother and I divorced around 9 years ago. We live in Europe. My parents in the States. We try to visit as often as possible because my parents are in their 80s. My father, 83, has Alzheimer's and my mother, 81, is doing a great job taking care of him. However, he is getting weaker and weaker. It is likely that he will not survive many more months.

Thoughts of my childhood are actually becoming more and more disturbing to me. The Oedipal complex accusation was simply a particularly memorable and disturbing example of the emotional abuse to which he subjected me.

In my sophomore year of highschool my mother suggested that I be sent away to a boarding school on the East coast. My father agreed. The ostensible reason was to get me to take school more seriously. I think my parents wanted to reduce the conflict between me and my father.

Now my father is at the end of life, I will sooner or later have to go back and bury or cremate him... maybe he donated his body to his medical school. Is that a kind of rug sweeping, to not want a grave? Dumping out ashes, isn’t that just a way of getting rid of the memories and putting zinc and mercury into the air?

I once tried to talk to my mother about her role in failing to defend me from his rage but she didn't want to talk about it, although she was also given some terrible emotional drubbings. She was disturbed about what I said because one of my brothers mentioned the conversation and that she had not liked where it was going.

I am considering telling my brothers about my feelings about my/our childhood. One is a surgeon, the other a telecom business executive. Both of them make more money than I do. Their wives have actively shunned my daughters when we've have opportunities to visit in the States. Is costs a lot of money to get together and they sabotage the family reunions.

I don't care if my SIL don't want to hang out with me. But my daughters are very nice and it hurts them to rejected.

The surgeon brother and I are closer. He just shrugs his shoulders and asks me to be patient and humor his wife. I feel like I am walking eggshells to not offend her. She is very smart. Graduated from the same medical school as my brother but has been a SAHM.

My other brother is a very straight uptight guy. He loved my dad and always sided with him in all the family fights. We used to have Saturday family meetings in which the abuse was dealt out, mainly to me, the eldest son. My father insisted that we follow Roberts Rules. So there were always motions. So and so would move that X child be criticised for Y. All those in favor raise your right hand. So the whole family would condemn X.

My youngest brother sometime raised his arm slowly and reluctantly. My telecom exec brother always condemned quickly. He could not see that our dad had Alzheimer's. He refused to use the word. Today my father can recognize many people. He has even had a bad morning when he did not know our mother, with whom he has lived for over 50 years.

There is more to say, but to me the watershed has been reading TAM. Denying problems and rug-sweeping just makes things worse. However, is bring stuff up now appropriate. Maybe I should just accept that I suffered emotional abuse and let it drop.

I do not have money for psychotherapy and I do not like psychiatrists or psychologists all that much. My father used to drag me to psychiatric conventions around the US and even other countries to stand in his scientific booth as a representative of his exhibition.

I had to work in his office every summer... fvck I am so angry about this stuff. Why when I have so much else to do in life does this stuff float to the surface?


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## hambone

LongWalk said:


> When I was about 14 or 15 my father, a board certified psychiatrist/neurologist, said that I suffered an Oedipal complex. I knew what an Oedipal complex was because Freudian psychology was in the media in the early 70s. But he had to spell it out.
> 
> "It means you want to murder your father so that you can marry your mother," he explained. He face was dark with rage, normal in our father son conversations.
> 
> I am now 54 years old and have two daughters (18 and 15). Their mother and I divorced around 9 years ago. We live in Europe. My parents in the States. We try to visit as often as possible because my parents are in their 80s. My father, 83, has Alzheimer's and my mother, 81, is doing a great job taking care of him. However, he is getting weaker and weaker. It is likely that he will not survive many more months.
> 
> Thoughts of my childhood are actually becoming more and more disturbing to me. The Oedipal complex accusation was simply a particularly memorable and disturbing example of the emotional abuse to which he subjected me.
> 
> In my sophomore year of highschool my mother suggested that I be sent away to a boarding school on the East coast. My father agreed. The ostensible reason was to get me to take school more seriously. I think my parents wanted to reduce the conflict between me and my father.
> 
> Now my father is at the end of life, I will sooner or later have to go back and bury or cremate him... maybe he donated his body to his medical school. Is that a kind of rug sweeping, to not want a grave? Dumping out ashes, isn’t that just a way of getting rid of the memories and putting zinc and mercury into the air?
> 
> I once tried to talk to my mother about her role in failing to defend me from his rage but she didn't want to talk about it, although she was also given some terrible emotional drubbings. She was disturbed about what I said because one of my brothers mentioned the conversation and that she had not liked where it was going.
> 
> I am considering telling my brothers about my feelings about my/our childhood. One is a surgeon, the other a telecom business executive. Both of them make more money than I do. Their wives have actively shunned my daughters when we've have opportunities to visit in the States. Is costs a lot of money to get together and they sabotage the family reunions.
> 
> I don't care if my SIL don't want to hang out with me. But my daughters are very nice and it hurts them to rejected.
> 
> The surgeon brother and I are closer. He just shrugs his shoulders and asks me to be patient and humor his wife. I feel like I am walking eggshells to not offend her. She is very smart. Graduated from the same medical school as my brother but has been a SAHM.
> 
> My other brother is a very straight uptight guy. He loved my dad and always sided with him in all the family fights. We used to have Saturday family meetings in which the abuse was dealt out, mainly to me, the eldest son. My father insisted that we follow Roberts Rules. So there were always motions. So and so would move that X child be criticised for Y. All those in favor raise your right hand. So the whole family would condemn X.
> 
> My youngest brother sometime raised his arm slowly and reluctantly. My telecom exec brother always condemned quickly. He could not see that our dad had Alzheimer's. He refused to use the word. Today my father can recognize many people. He has even had a bad morning when he did not know our mother, with whom he has lived for over 50 years.
> 
> There is more to say, but to me the watershed has been reading TAM. Denying problems and rug-sweeping just makes things worse. However, is bring stuff up now appropriate. Maybe I should just accept that I suffered emotional abuse and let it drop.
> 
> I do not have money for psychotherapy and I do not like psychiatrists or psychologists all that much. My father used to drag me to psychiatric conventions around the US and even other countries to stand in his scientific booth as a representative of his exhibition.
> 
> I had to work in his office every summer... fvck I am so angry about this stuff. Why when I have so much else to do in life does this stuff float to the surface?


I have a father who was similarly abusive to me and my mother. Not so much to my brother. My mother bailed out when she was 62. I can't blame my mother for failing to protect me. She didn't have the ability to protect herself. In the end. I felt like I failed to protect my mother but I had no idea she was that far down. If I had... I'd have rescued her. 

At this point. What's the point? Doesn't sound like your father is in any condition of even know what you're talking about. 

To this day.. my father is competitive with me. He's 83 and he's only told me once that he loved me. The day my mother died. He's never told me once that he was proud of me, that I did anything well... The best I can hope for is that he can't find anything to criticize me about..

I limit my time around him to about 2 hours at a time. I can't stand to be around any longer than that. He is also 83..

I gave up on trying to have a normal relationship with him about 20 years ago. 

The bottom line is your dad doesn't have time to make things right... At this point ... let it go..


Maybe in the future... you can tlak about it with your mom.


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## SlowlyGettingWiser

Probably floating to the surface because you know that you're running out of time to confront him/deal with him about the abuse.

I'm not saying you SHOULD and I'm not saying you SHOULDN'T; just saying *why* it's coming up now.

I suggest you try a couple of different tactics right from the outset.

1.) Write a letter to your parents and let out ALL the vitriol you have against them for their emotional abuse. LET THEM HAVE it! Hold NOTHING back! Think of it as an emotional 'bloodletting'. But, do NOT mail the letter or show it to anyone. 

2.)Hold onto it for one week without looking at it. Then re-read it. Add anything that needs adding, make any changes, deletions, etc. 

3.)Hold onto it for 1-2 more weeks WITHOUT looking at it. Then see *how YOU feel* about what's in the letter.

Was writing it down ENOUGH of a release to let you acknowledge the crap, accept that it WAS crap, accept that it's done, and move on?

If so, burn the letter and your anger with it! Figure they were screwed up and did the best they could with the problems they posessed.

If not, decide how/when you want to bring up the MOST IMPORTANT issues from your letter. Write your parents a different less ANGER-FILLED letter? Confront them face-to-face? Go from there.

Best wishes to you. Dealing with childhood crap is difficult and painful for ALL of us. It's easier to rugsweep, but it doesn't fix anything....usually makes it boil over. Remember, the point is NOT to judge, dole out punishment, point fingers, etc (although that's tempting as hell!)...the POINT is to help YOU feel better emotionally and be a stronger person going forward. 

Remember: It's all about YOU! Not them, Y-O-U! Put your focus where it belongs...on getting yourself better!

...my 2 cents


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## hambone

Mavash. said:


> I think the fact that your father is at the end of his life is triggering the anger you've been carrying around for years.
> 
> My dad is psychotic (diagnosed) and he did permanent damage to me.
> 
> Unlike you I sought help when I was 32 (I'm 47 now) and worked through my anger in counseling so when my dad died I was okay. In fact the day he died he appeared to me in a dream. Peaceful and smiling. In the following days I felt his presence and he guided me to solve a VERY big problem in my life.
> 
> And then he was gone....


My mother appeared to me in an apparition and told me bye a few minutes before the Doctor called us back to that little room, for a little more privacy... to tell us she had passed away. 

It's been 20 years and I remember it like it happened a few minutes ago..

She said,, "Hammy, I'm tired... I'm gonna go now".

And I said, "No Mom... you have to fight... you have to fight mom!"

And she said, "I'm going now" She closed her eyes, bowed her head and I saw her floating up and away.

Every time I tell that story it brings tears to my eyes.

My mom did not deserve to be treated the way my father treated her.. She died when our son was 9 months old and before our daughter was born. It tears me up that my mom didn't live long enough to know my kids. I'd give everything I have just to have my mom back.

Bottom line, she'd had all my fathers crap she could take.


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## LongWalk

I cannot talk to my dad obviously. I have been his caregiver twice in two week blocks to give my mom a break. She went to her home country to see family. So it was just me and dad alone. I changed his diapers. Dressed him. Got him to daycare. Fed him. I must admit I didn't put in a big effort to get him to brush his teeth.

I was not angry or hateful towards him because he is just a helpless old man. I don't even want him to die. In fact, his death will mean that I have to go back and deal with my memories. It's all so meaningless. But I feel like my brothers, although they both know what he did, pretend we had a good childhood. In truth there was something very wrong.


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## Mavash.

They are entitled to do whatever it takes to cope.

If believing their childhood was peachy gets them through the day then so be it.

Has little to do with you and your 'truth'.


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## LongWalk

hambone said:


> I have a father who was similarly abusive to me and my mother. Not so much to my brother. My mother bailed out when she was 62. I can't blame my mother for failing to protect me. She didn't have the ability to protect herself. In the end. I felt like I failed to protect my mother but I had no idea she was that far down. If I had... I'd have rescued her.


My mother was a nurse. She came from a very poor country between Ireland and England. She used her job skills to escape to the US. Her real education, besides nursing school, was to around 7th grade level. She learned no geometry or algebra. No foreign languages, other than English. She was not my father's equal. He used this to rule over her. 

Like your mother, she did not have the tools to protect herself.



> At this point. What's the point? Doesn't sound like your father is in any condition of even know what you're talking about.
> 
> To this day.. my father is competitive with me. He's 83 and he's only told me once that he loved me. The day my mother died. He's never told me once that he was proud of me, that I did anything well... The best I can hope for is that he can't find anything to criticize me about..


True, there is no point. He cannot respond. My father was not an evil person. He was only cruel to me because he was fvcked up. 



> I limit my time around him to about 2 hours at a time. I can't stand to be around any longer than that. He is also 83..
> 
> I gave up on trying to have a normal relationship with him about 20 years ago.


I lived out my life running from him. I am dysfunctional because you my childhood. I have learned three foreign languages. Graduated from university, but I feel that I operate without any confidence.



> The bottom line is your dad doesn't have time to make things right... At this point ... let it go..
> 
> 
> Maybe in the future... you can tlak about it with your mom.


My mother is emotionally need and very domineering. I don't think she has ever said sorry to me or anyone about anything ever.


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## moxy

It floats to the surface because it needs to be handled and dealt with. Sometimes, just acknowledging what's happened helps dispel it. Holding the burden by yourself isn't easy and it takes it's toll. You have plenty of reasons to be angry. You have plenty of reasons to reclaim a self that bears only the labels that you give it, not what others give it.

I'm especially sorry to hear that your daughters are being treated badly by others in your family. I hope that you all have friend-family or other community that welcomes them and gives them joy.

I think it is a good idea for you to acknowledge your life so that you can cope with your own demons. With respect to discussion in your family, have you thought about what you hope to gain by talking to your brothers? The obvious answer is that you seek peace, but, I mean specifics. Knowing what you hope to gain will give you some guidance in terms of how you want to talk about this or in what way. You were given a dreadful role in your family; perhaps others in your family escaped the same fate by complying with your father. It will be harder for them to see your role because it will mean they were complicit in your pain. I think that if you talk to them, you should be very careful and you should proceed with caution -- and you should have a clear idea of what you hope to gain from it. 

I think it's good for you to talk about it here or with others who you trust to be there for you. But I, personally, would suggest waiting until your anger has subsided a bit before talking to your brothers or mother. Right now, this is your burden. You've held it secretly for so long. Take some time to look at it, open the parcel, make up your own mind about it. Then it might be time to bring it up with them. 

The stuff we bury deepest hurts the most when it us exhumed. Every time you face one of those memories, just remember that you don't have to accept the role that someone else has given you, or rather that it says nothing about who you truly are in your soul.

The suggestions of letter-writing in stages (without sending them! ) above are very good, IMO.


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## LongWalk

Yes, bringing up this stuff with my brothers now – it will only create problems if I start such conversation that demands that they take a stand. I pretty much know where they stand. My really-love-dad-a-lot brother was born with a bright happy personality. The constant turmoil of our family had a negative effect on him. He never became the laughing happy person that his genetic blueprint offered. He is very calm and defers always to the rightness of authority. Authority is good even when it lies.

We had an incident once in childhood when I was in 6th or 7th grade.

(Note, it bothers me that I cannot pin down dates and this is because I don't want to remember things and yet I am a journalists and writer so I am constantly pushing myself to recover the truth – it seems as if I have buried the truth just to, as you put it Moxy, exhume its stinking half decomposed corpse.

post script – I now realize it must have been before 7th grade. The job of the writer is to avoid losing the reader by littering the narrative with irrelevant observations. Has my brain been so over boiled by all those attacks and the desire to forget them and move on scratched and corroded the hard disk of my mind. I fear that this is true. This is why unconditional love or the ideal of it are so important for a child's development. If you throw your child's psyche against a wall to release anger, it must go back to the hardware and create actual physical chaos. We desire the repartition our minds to wipe off or reorganize the experiences that have caused trauma. Each fragment of this experience has or had a date. We want the facts but we cannot Wikipedia our minds... maybe TAM is the tool to this?)

We were sitting around the formal dining room table, having one of our family meeting and the subject was a small hole that someone had poked in window screen. My mother had found this childish act of destruction in beautiful house into which we had recently moved. The culprit had to be found. My father quickly narrowed down the possible suspects. Out of the 4 of us it had to little Oedipal.

My father was always angry so this naturally another occasion to rake me over the coals. He decided that I had done it based purely on each child's quality of denial. My refusal to buckle further enraged my father. He used to call our interactions "tests of strength". The purpose was force me to agree to what real or imagined fault or mistake I had made. I had never even seen the hole so I refused to admit it.

On and on went the grilling and the tirades, as I squirmed in the straight backed dining room chair that was largely reserved for Christmas, New Years and Thanksgiving. It was I think a sunny day, or rather I felt that I could not see or look at the monster of fury that was the chairman of the family meeting. Yes, in the early years we started the meeting by voting him chairman and writing it down in the minutes. All those in favor of dad being the chairman raise your right hand.

I must have been looking down glumly, trying to bear this bull shı†, though I would not have dared to think those words. "Unfair" is perhaps all I had. It was a fact that my father would not end a session like this until his will was done. He was intractable. He was getting his anger out but the failure of the meeting follow his improvised but always identical script created a new cause for ferocity.

How long did the standoff last. For me it was half an eternity in the fuzziness of Kafka's Trial, why did I so and so many others identify with that book. Why did he not finish it.... Sorry, for the digression. I was clinging to like a barnacle to rock that the sea has decided to destroy. All I could do was hang on. As I write this I want to cry, my chest is shaking, I am 54 years old and the fvcking tears are running down my face as I type. I fvcking hate this. No, they have passed. There are only three or four tears. The shaking had stopped. I never stopped typing.

Suddenly out of an interlude of silence. My brother, the one who loved and admired my father without reserve piped up. He had done it. What could he been then, a 4th grader?

At that moment you would think that I would have rejoiced that the trial was over or that I would be angry at my brother. No, I was far too uncertain about this truth. It was dangerous because I had been treated like shı†, and now I was guilty of having made my father look bad – I could not actually formulate this in my mind but I sensed it like small animal hiding under a stone knows that the fox is waiting. And my father could at anytime go into badger mode and start to dig me out. There was silence and my father defeated once by the truth wound the meeting up. There was no punishment or further interrogation of my brother. The matter was unimportant.

My parents still live in that house. My father now sleeps in his study unable to climb the stairs. Since Alzheimer's has hollowed him out I have stood behind to catch him as he gripped the banister and struggle up to his bedroom. Other times I have not bothered to help him. But he no longer can make to his bedroom. I cannot hate my father, at least the person that he is now. He is no longer a human Cape buffalo. 

My brother, the beloved good son, was quite shy and earnest. He did well in school because he was conscientious. The PhD in physics, the Italian doctor who left NASA to teach at the boarding school we attended, told me, "your brother is not very gifted, but he works so hard that someday people will say that he is gifted." This was prophetic. His work ethic has served him well. He is always the loyal employee to whatever manager he serves. He became sales manager for an entire region. The company, a historic US institution collapsed under the weight of incompetence, casting him out of work. He simply took a couple years off to regenerate. Eventually even with huge gap in his CV he managed to get good job in the same industry, not as senior but still a very good position.

He was a virgin until after graduating from college. He really only dated one woman, a very neurotic person who suffers Münchausen syndrome by proxy. She has subjected their children to a barrage of invasive medical tests. My nephew has now survived and escaped to university. But she could have done him in. Once when I hoped he, his sister and my daughters would be meeting and bonding, she had convinced the doctors in the US to perform a cardiac catheterization to find out if he had a heart defect.

There is nothing wrong with my nephew's heart but my brother simply defers to her rulership and so the specialists slit a opening in his femoral artery and slipped the catheter up to his heart. The procedure itself involves risk. And yet he never stands up to her. One time I remember she was forcing him to be tested for mercury poisoning due the fish they eaten through the years.

Of course who he marries is his business, but I wish he could stand up to her and say that our children should meet. Incredibly, a couple of years ago, my SIL's sister, a wealthy person who also is obsessed with imaginary illnesses – she had lupus but it eventually disappeared – out of the blue wrote and offered to take my then 16-year-old daughter to a rented house in Italy. She sent this invitation directly to my daughter and did not bother to sound out the idea with me or my ex wife. My brother puts up with that stuff and never protests.

I seldom have contact with my brother. It is sad. Our relationship is damaged. We will come into intense contact now when our father dies. I am not looking forward to it.

Note to LL, if he ever returns. LL, I wrote the following above:



> Has my brain been so over boiled by all those attacks and the desire to forget them and move on scratched and corroded the hard disk of my mind. I fear that this is true.


After reading enough TAM thread I believe events and emotions shape our brains at a neurophysiological level. My brain was rewired to cope with my father's rages. It is both hardware and software. 

Your wife's brain has been changed by her serial cheating. Each episode of emotional excitement coupled with sex/orgasms has altered her. The woman you loved is gone. Someone else is there. The shock and anxiety you suffer are physical, the experience is making a physical impression on you.

I have learned about my own tragedy from yours. Thank you for sharing. This is true for you, too, Moxy, but you intellectually well enough to give your brain some other reward. Maybe not romantic love directly but other activities.

Mavash, Hambone and Slowly, thank you for your posts. They help.


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## hambone

LongWalk said:


> My mother was a nurse. She came from a very poor country between Ireland and England. She became a nurse and escaped to the US. Her real education, besides nursing school, was to around 7th grade level. She learned no geometry or algebra. No foreign languages, other than English. She was not my father's equal. He used this to rule over her.
> 
> Like your mother, she did not have the tools to protect herself.
> 
> True, there is no point. He cannot respond. My father was not an evil person. He was only cruel to me because he was fvcked up.
> 
> I lived out my life running from him. I am dysfunctional because you my childhood. I have learned three foreign languages. Graduated from university, but I feel that I operate without any confidence.
> 
> My mother is emotionally need and very domineering. I don't think she has ever said sorry to me or anyone about anything ever.


My father's abuse affects me to this day. Constantly being told that you are stupid... that no one likes you and no one every will.... He convinced me. Like you, my father stripped all confidence out of me. Not only was my dad verbally abusive, he was physically abusive to me. He used to beat the hell out of me. I remember going to the bathroom in school... going into a stall because I was afraid someone would see the whelps on my thigh and buttocks were I was whipped the night before. And running my hands up and down...feeling the whelps. Wondering, why I was so inadequate... why I was so much worse than the other kids.. that I DESERVED to be beat. I was ashamed. 

My dad feels so competitive with me. He HAS to be king of the hill... even at my expense. He's not that way with my brother. 

But, the good part. I have NOT raised my kids like my father raised me. I have never whipped my kids. 

One of his favorite things to do is ask me a question... And no matter what I say, his response is, "Are you THAT damn stupid?" Now, I just answer him, "I don't know'. 

I spent a lot of time and energy


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## LongWalk

Hambone,

I never got beaten. Can't make things better. Why did your brother get off scott free?


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## johnnycomelately

I don't have much advice to offer that hasn't already been given, I do have a poem by Philip Larkin, a great British poet:

Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse
_
They fvck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fvcked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself._

So, you are not alone.


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## Mavash.

My dad did those family meeting tirades as well. They lasted until the wee hours of the morning. I was 10. Used to pick a spot on the wall and check out while he berated me for hours because I answered incorrectly. I now know this was how he dumped his anger and brainwashed me. My sister was spared these meetings because she was smarter than me. No literally she's gifted with a high IQ and that gave her a free pass.

Ultimately I fared better than her because it seems the negative attention I got was better than none. She's about to marry husband #3 and no longer speaks to me. Her oldest is a train wreck. Too early to tell with the other one. She has cut herself so there is damage.

I was never hit but the emotional abuse was the worst. Being told daily how worthless and stupid you are takes its toll.

My mother resented me and was jealous so she was an especial kind of evil. She would metaphorically trip me then bat her blue eyes and pretend to help me. It would take years of counseling before I could face the truth about her. I now think she did more damage than my dad did.


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## hambone

LongWalk said:


> Hambone,
> 
> I never got beaten. Can't make things better. Why did your brother get off scott free?


No. But, he has a little bit of a speech impediment.

So, growing up... it was always, "Poor Jeff". He wasn't held to the same standards that I was. 

When I was in HS. it was pounded into my head that I had to have a job. And, I worked. I worked as a janitor, in nasty hot factories, paving streets, etc. 

My brother never had a job. When he graduated.. I asked if he was going to get a job. And I was told. ''NO!!!... we have plenty of jobs around the house for him to do... besides.... he's taking flying lessons!".... And I responded. "WOW... things have sure changed around the place since I finished HS."

I really think a large part of the problem was that my Dad's perception was that his older brother lorded over him. Always got the best of him. I think he was taking revenge on my for the way his brother treated him and... he was making sure that I didn't take advantage of my little brother.

His brother told me that when they were kids... and their father told them to mow the yard, he's ask my dad how he wanted to divide the yard... and which half he wanted to mow... and my dad STILL thought his brother got the easier half of the yard...

One time, my father found a single car garage that a guy was willing to pay $150 to take down and carry the debris to the dump. He said he'd take $50 for a "finder's fee" and pay me and a buddy $50 each to do the job. We did it. He paid $50 to my buddy, took his $50 finders fee and charged me $50 for using his truck.

People say I will still miss him when he's gone. I don't think so.. What I'll miss is the fact that we never had a loving father/son relationship. 

This is the funniest story of all. My mother caught my dad red handed running around on her. So, a few weeks/months later... he's still in reform mode. We're riding in the car,(before seat belts) I'm sitting in the middle of the back seat... leaning forward with my chin on the front seat. Dad's driving... mom's in the passenger seat. My dad starts talking down all my girl friends. Finally, I ask him, "Dad... what are you trying to tell me?" and he says, "Well... me and your mother don't like the caliber of women you've been dating lately." And I said, "Well, mom and I don't like the caliber of women you've been dating either." Boy that pissed him off but what could he say!

BTW. My dad never apologized for beating me. BUT, after particularly nasty beatings... he'd bring me a gift.


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## LongWalk

johnnycomelately said:


> I don't have much advice to offer that hasn't already been given, I do have a poem by Philip Larkin, a great British poet:
> 
> Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse
> _
> They fvck you up, your mum and dad.
> They may not mean to, but they do.
> They fill you with the faults they had
> And add some extra, just for you.
> 
> But they were fvcked up in their turn
> By fools in old-style hats and coats,
> Who half the time were soppy-stern
> And half at one another's throats.
> 
> Man hands on misery to man.
> It deepens like a coastal shelf.
> Get out as early as you can,
> And don't have any kids yourself._
> 
> So, you are not alone.


Great poem.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## hambone

Mavash. said:


> My dad did those family meeting tirades as well. They lasted until the wee hours of the morning. I was 10. Used to pick a spot on the wall and check out while he berated me for hours because I answered incorrectly. I now know this was how he dumped his anger and brainwashed me. My sister was spared these meetings because she was smarter than me. No literally she's gifted with a high IQ and that gave her a free pass.
> 
> Ultimately I fared better than her because it seems the negative attention I got was better than none. She's about to marry husband #3 and no longer speaks to me. Her oldest is a train wreck. Too early to tell with the other one. She has cut herself so there is damage.
> 
> I was never hit but the emotional abuse was the worst. Being told daily how worthless and stupid you are takes its toll.
> 
> My mother resented me and was jealous so she was an especial kind of evil. She would metaphorically trip me then bat her blue eyes and pretend to help me. It would take years of counseling before I could face the truth about her. I now think she did more damage than my dad did.


You know, I think one reason that I got the worst of it was because my brother had a little bit of a speech impediment.. 

He didn't make as good of grades as I did. But, I was driven... trying to please my father.

I think he thought I had more potential than my brother did and he was bound and determined to get it out of me... by moving the bar.

I remember, one time, I made a 102 on a test.. the highest grade in class on a particularly hard test that I had really studied hard for. I kicked butt on that test and was really proud of that grade. I was beaming with pride... so proud of what I had done... I showed the paper to my dad, he gave it a cursory examination and growled, "How come you missed that 3rd bonus point?" Wadded it up and threw it at me.

It was devastating.


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## LongWalk

Mavash. said:


> My dad did those family meeting tirades as well. They lasted until the wee hours of the morning. I was 10. Used to pick a spot on the wall and check out while he berated me for hours because I answered incorrectly. I now know this was how he dumped his anger and brainwashed me. My sister was spared these meetings because she was smarter than me. No literally she's gifted with a high IQ and that gave her a free pass.
> 
> Ultimately I fared better than her because it seems the negative attention I got was better than none. She's about to marry husband #3 and no longer speaks to me. Her oldest is a train wreck. Too early to tell with the other one. She has cut herself so there is damage.
> 
> I was never hit but the emotional abuse was the worst. Being told daily how worthless and stupid you are takes its toll.
> 
> My mother resented me and was jealous so she was an especial kind of evil. She would metaphorically trip me then bat her blue eyes and pretend to help me. It would take years of counseling before I could face the truth about her. I now think she did more damage than my dad did.


My mother managed to become the dominant one in me parents' relationship. My father messed up his medical practice, closed it and became a state government employee, prison psychiatrist to over 3,000 felons, a hellish job. My brother died of schizophrenia. Hurt my parents a lot. I used to go and nurse him out the state mental hospitals. He thought he was Paul the apostle. When he died of blood clots to the lungs, my brothers and I went to the county morgue. My brothers did want to go, I made them. We saw him laid out on a black and white CTR screen.

My parents knew my brother was Not 100% and my dad left him alone. My youngest brother charmed my parents. My loyal brother was always good. I was the focal point for constant attacks. My father said he was going to praise my nonexistent virtues, but then he fell silent. He couldn't even imagine anything positive to lie about.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## LongWalk

Spot on the wall. All stuff I stared at, same experience
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## hambone

LongWalk said:


> Spot on the wall. All stuff I stared at, same experience
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


When I messed up... I was never asked what happened... I didn't get any lectures...I was never grounded, had anything taken away from me.. 

The ONLY discipline was an ass whipping. 

The sound of my father's belt going through those belt loops was the worst sound in the world. 

Until I got too heavy for him to pick up with one arm.. He'd grab me by the wrist, lift me up in the air and whip the hell out of me...

My mother never intervened.

One time, my grandmother did. My dad was out of control.. She yelled at him that "You don't know what you're doing".. He dropped me and Grandmother got a huge cursing out by my father. I used the opportunity to run out the door. She was the only person in my life growing up that ever told me she loved me.


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## LongWalk

My father condemned violence because had been on the receiving end. My grandmother beat my eldest uncle. He beat my father. My father always hated him.

One time we were together at the holidays and my went ape shı† apoplectic, accusing my uncle of being disloyal to the Chinese Communist party. He was waving Mao's little red book at my uncle and everybody was just dumbfounded.

Of course it wasn't really about politics, it was the bad blood between them. 

My grandmother told me: "I have four sons and your father is the stupidest of them." He was the one who sent a check every month that supported my grandparents. 

The fact that he got so little love from his own parents f'd him


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## treyvion

Psychiatrist always diagnose everyone else to some mental ailment or weakness. They never do themself though.


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## LongWalk

My father used to say that everyone needed psychotherapy. I once challenged him and said that we should go for family therapy, not daring to say that he needed therapy.

"There are not psychiatrists around here qualified," he replied.


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## hambone

My father doesn't believe in "Psychological BS"..

He has preached to me all my life to not take no crap off anybody... He forget to exempt himself! 

BTW... there are literally millions of people out there that came with in an eye lash of getting their ass whipped by my father... and they never even knew it!..

About 20 years ago... he threatened to "Whip my G.D. ass" and I called him on it... He definitely didn't like it... LOL...


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## LongWalk

He was a very violent guy. Did he look for fights? How did he stay out of prison?

My father liked to smash inanimate objects, rulers and other light stuff that he would smash down on a desk. I remember he used to look around for something, decide it would do and then let loose.

He used to talk a lot about physical punishment. He used to say "no physical punishment". Clearly, he had memories and was determined not to go that route. But his rages were given license by this benevolence. In other words, the fact that he did not whip me with a belt gave him permission to simply explode with anger.

As I write this I remember now. He did take his belt out and whip the desk in rage. I had forgotten that. Clearly this is why I needed this thread. To remember all of shı† so that I can try to bury it.

My father is Asian and has dark skin. When got angry his face would turn dark, he used go red almost purple. You need testosterone to be angry like that.

Have you read about the Florida juvenile detention center where they used to beat teenage boys to death?


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## hambone

LongWalk said:


> He was a very violent guy. Did he look for fights? How did he stay out of prison?
> 
> My father liked to smash inanimate objects, rulers and other light stuff that he would smash down on a desk. I remember he used to look around for something, decide it would do and then let loose.
> 
> He used to talk a lot about physical punishment. He used to say "no physical punishment". Clearly, he had memories and was determined not to go that route. But his rages were given license by this benevolence. In other words, the fact that he did not whip me with a belt gave him permission to simply explode with anger.
> 
> As I write this I remember now. He did take his belt out and whip the desk in rage. I had forgotten that. Clearly this is why I needed this thread. To remember all of shı† so that I can try to bury it.
> 
> My father is Asian and has dark skin. When got angry his face would turn dark, he used go red almost purple. You need testosterone to be angry like that.
> 
> Have you read about the Florida juvenile detention center where they used to beat teenage boys to death?


My father was only violent with me and my mother and to a lessor degree, my brother.

He never got in a fight with anyone to my knowledge. 

If we pulled up to a road block... and the policeman told him he had to U-turn. My father would be just as nice.. "Yes officer, No problem officer." As soon as he got out of ear shot.."If that SOB hadn't been wearing a G.D. uniform.. I'd have beat the hell out of him!".... Or, "If that SOB hadn't been wearing glasses.." Or, "That SOB was damn lucky. If he hadn't had his wife and kids looking on, I'd have beat the hell out of him"... See, he was nice to their face... as soon as he got out of ear shot.. he's start telling what he WOULD have done... except for that one little thing. That's why I say that millions of people ALMOST got the hell beat out of them... and they never even knew it! It's a coward... Deep down, HE is the coward he accused me of being...

One of the real downsides to all this is that I learned nothing about conflict resolution so consequently, I became a conflict avoider. I'm better than I used to be but still not very good. I usually just remove myself from the situation. 

What's amazing now, is that my father is 83 and still refuses to ride in a vehicle unless he drives. If he physically can't do it..it just can't be done. He calls me to come help him and all he want's me to do is stand around and watch. He get's all twisted if you try to take a little initiative. And he does things the absolute hardest way. Any other way is cheating. He'd much rather fail doing something HIS way than succeed with any body else's method. 

I haven't read about the Florida Detention center. BUT, we have a "boot camp" about 20 miles away for boys.. They can go there rather than wherever they send boys ~15 years old and younger. Last year, they marched a kid until he died from dehydration/heat stroke.

You know, it almost sounds like you dad had some symptoms of PTSD...


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## LongWalk

I came out of it sort of like you. But on the other side. I go for conflicts because I am always fighting to prove myself worth. The problem is that when people attack me or try to take advantage I am always stunned. I am paralyzed. After the fact, I think of all the witty comebacks and what I should have done.

Bottomline is my father's rage and attacks made me passive. Knocked the self confidence out of me completely. I want to fight back but I usually need time to think about it. I think that when I child is healthy it will defend itself. But if you attack it constantly and do not allow it to speak in its own defense, it becomes a sitting duck. 

Also, and this is cultural pattern, my father was not from the US originally, in authoritarian and totalitarian cultures many people are beaten down not by their families but by the state and society, so they long for the chance to attack back. My father wanted to fight the authorities. I will write more about this as it consumed my family.

He wanted to fight the Catholic hospital administrators for not allowing him to perform electroshock therapy at the hospital. He take me to the treatments. I did not see the actual convulsions but saw the people recovering consciousness. All of this when I was in my early teens.

My father could not accept failure at anything. He was perfect. He was genius. OK, my dad was a creative guy but you cannot go far if you cannot work with other people. If you are perfect, who wants to work with or for you.

For example, when I was in kindergarten or first grade my father came home with an aquarium on a Friday evening. There was a tiny painted turtle and a goldfish for each son (there were four of us). I can't remember if youngest brother was on the scene yet, but lets say there were three fish and three turtles. Well, within a day or two one of the fish was injured. And by Monday they were are all chopped into bits and floating belly up.

"Dad, the turtles killed the fish! You shouldn't have put them together!" we cried when came home from work.

He denied it.

What sort of healthy person lies about something so unimportant?


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## moxy

LongWalk, rage and intimation can cause a sort of aversion to violent outbursts. I imagine that many of us who have been intimidated are a bit more likely to pick our battles very carefully and a bit more likely to question our beliefs, which can dampen confidence at times. How do you dispel your own anger? You must have a lot; do you just bury it inside yourself? Do you manage it with self control and discipline?

Hambone, it is not uncommon for abusers to bring gifts in appeasement instead of apologizing for the pain they've caused. They feel remorse, but cannot admit wrongdoing, I suppose.


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## LongWalk

Hi Moxy and Hambone,

My own thread. Makes me feel special. I have place where I can now dump this shı†. It makes it so much easier than unloading it on my mother or my brothers. My mother is at the end of her life. She bears responsibility. I have seen signs that she is uncomfortable inside. However, she feels terrible guilt and sorrow over my brother's death. She does need more now. I have to help her be comfortable even if it was not fair and she failed.

My father was very intimidating. Divorce was not the done thing in those days. I imagine she did not even dare not to love him. Later in life, I know she thought about leaving my father but not then. Perhaps, I will ask her about it... but maybe not. 

My father got a MA in electrical engineering just after getting board certified in psychiatry and neurology. He got a Master's while he was practicing medicine. He is not a genius, but had a good memory and great drive. My mother knew no algebra or geometry. My father always lorded his education over her. Sick. My mother dreamed to going to university. My father wouldn't have liked her go. 

Everything unsound about my father, his brooding anger sometimes was directed towards her, was justified by the great issues of mankind.

My father could suffer no criticism. After he began to practice medicine he began inventing and creating new theories and treatments in psychiatry. Some of it was brilliant, some was unsupported by empirical study. My father actually submitted a few papers to professional journalist and got published. But this conventional academic success required some sort of adherence to methodology, e.g., quoting reliable sources, testing hypotheses.

My father did not have the patience or humility to be criticized or challenged. He wanted all of his bold and overreaching conclusions to be accepted by virtue of his authority. It was an intellectual style from centuries past. His solution was publish his own journal, naming himself editor-in-chief. Never mind that it was a one man ego trip. He paid for it.

His office was full cartons of unsold journals in boxes. The journals name is so grandios, I wish to tell you it. Google still makes three references to it after all these years. An professor of pyschiatry form the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, still lists it on his resume. I wonder if he still alive? Would he remember my father and his honorary appointment as correspondent editor?

My father used to force me to read his journal. He was so proud of it. In reality he reprinted articles or would accept any poor quality work, just to pad it out.


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## hambone

LongWalk said:


> Hi Moxy and Hambone,
> 
> My own thread. Makes me feel special. I have place where I can now dump this shı†. It makes it so much easier than unloading it on my mother or my brothers. My mother is at the end of her life. She bears responsibility. I have seen signs that she is uncomfortable inside. However, she feels terrible guilt and sorrow over my brother's death. She does need more now. I have to help her be comfortable even if it was not fair and she failed.
> 
> My father was very intimidating. Divorce was not the done thing in those days. I imagine she did not even dare not to love him. Later in life, I know she thought about leaving my father but not then. Perhaps, I will ask her about it... but maybe not.
> 
> My father got a MA in electrical engineering just after getting board certified in psychiatry and neurology. He got a Master's while he was practicing medicine. He is not a genius, but had a good memory and great drive. My mother knew no algebra or geometry. My father always lorded his education over her. Sick. My mother dreamed to going to university. My father wouldn't have liked her go.
> 
> Everything unsound about my father, his brooding anger sometimes was directed towards her, was justified by the great issues of mankind.
> 
> My father could suffer no criticism. After he began to practice medicine he began inventing and creating new theories and treatments in psychiatry. Some of it was brilliant, some was unsupported by empirical study. My father actually submitted a few papers to professional journalist and got published. But this conventional academic success required some sort of adherence to methodology, e.g., quoting reliable sources, testing hypotheses.
> 
> My father did not have the patience or humility to be criticized or challenged. He wanted all of his bold and overreaching conclusions to be accepted by virtue of his authority. It was an intellectual style from centuries past. His solution was publish his own journal, naming himself editor-in-chief. Never mind that it was a one man ego trip. He paid for it.
> 
> His office was full cartons of unsold journals in boxes. The journals name is so grandios, I wish to tell you it. Google still makes three references to it after all these years. An professor of pyschiatry form the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, still lists it on his resume. I wonder if he still alive? Would he remember my father and his honorary appointment as correspondent editor?
> 
> My father used to force me to read his journal. He was so proud of it. In reality he reprinted articles or would accept any poor quality work, just to pad it out.


Wow!! Either an absolutely huge ego.. or poor self esteem.. maybe both? Is that possible?

My mother wanted to leave my dad. She asked her mother for permission to leave him. Grandmother said, "No".. about a month later.. my mother was dead. unfortunately, I didn't know all that until it was too late.


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## doureallycare2

moxy said:


> LongWalk, rage and intimation can cause a sort of aversion to violent outbursts. I imagine that many of us who have been intimidated are a bit more likely to pick our battles very carefully and a bit more likely to question our beliefs, which can dampen confidence at times. How do you dispel your own anger? You must have a lot; do you just bury it inside yourself? Do you manage it with self control and discipline?
> 
> Hambone, it is not uncommon for abusers to bring gifts in appeasement instead of apologizing for the pain they've caused. They feel remorse, but cannot admit wrongdoing, I suppose.


I just read up on this tread, TY LongW, very enlightening but sorry for the emotional pain you have been through. Moxy, Ty for that insight.. It really just helped me put in perspective my own avoidance of confrontation. 

My own father was a violent drunk who I know now had psychotic breaks and my step father was beyond imagination brutal... No wonder I let my stbxh intimidate me so much.

I hope LongW that you can come to peace with it soon. too much of your life has already been negatively affected by your fathers treatment. It’s hard, I know and yes we will have residual fall out that will come on us unawares but for the sake of living the rest of a very short time we all have here, we need to put the past behind us and look to the future. It truly sucks the abuse that is inflicted on children but the best revenge is to lead a happy full life.

By the way my brother thinks he's a profit, yes paranoid schizophrenic. He had a wonderful job, beautiful wife and children and at age 34 bam..... His wife has held on for over 18 years with him like that but she just finally left him.. His children don’t remember him any other way... I believe a lot of it is attributed to the abuse he suffered at the hands of my father and stepfather.


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## LongWalk

hambone said:


> Wow!! Either an absolutely huge ego.. or poor self esteem.. maybe both? Is that possible?
> 
> My mother wanted to leave my dad. She asked her mother for permission to leave him. Grandmother said, "No".. about a month later.. my mother was dead. unfortunately, I didn't know all that until it was too late.


Huge ego and poor self esteem mixed together. A gift to him from his parents. I lived with grandparents when I was 18 to learn my father's mother tongue. There I was able to better understand why he was fragile.

One day my grandmother, who could barely read and write, said "of my four sons your father was the stupidest." 

If she could say something mean like that to me, her grandson, she said similar stuff to her children. She was very charming, intelligent and strong willed. She lived in a country torn by war and fled thousands of miles without money while my grandfather was working in London. He drank, ate and had an English mistress. That hurt my grandmother, but divorce was not possible in those days.

My father was ripped up from that defeated country and had pull himself up by the bootstraps. But he never got the psychotherapy he wanted and needed. Instead, he took it out on me. And his brothers did the same with their eldest sons. One of them got a PhD in clinical psychology. We swapped notes about how hard it is to be seen as a mortal threat by your own father.

"He wanted to break me," said my cousin.

"Did he?" I asked anxiously, for he was older than me and someone I admired as a child.

"Yes," he replied flatly and without emotion.

Really hurt to hear that. It was like a sentence on me as well.


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## SlowlyGettingWiser

it's sad to think what scars we all bear.

sadder still to think of the scars we may unknowingly inflict on our own children, even while vowing so strongly not to.


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## hambone

LongWalk said:


> Huge ego and poor self esteem mixed together. A gift to him from his parents. I lived with grandparents when I was 18 to learn my father's mother tongue. There I was able to better understand why he was fragile.
> 
> One day my grandmother, who could barely read and write, said "of my four sons your father was the stupidest."
> 
> If she could say something mean like that to me, her grandson, she said similar stuff to her children. She was very charming, intelligent and strong willed. She lived in a country torn by war and fled thousands of miles without money while my grandfather was working in London. He drank, ate and had an English mistress. That hurt my grandmother, but divorce was not possible in those days.
> 
> My father was ripped up from that defeated country and had pull himself up by the bootstraps. But he never got the psychotherapy he wanted and needed. Instead, he took it out on me. And his brothers did the same with their eldest sons. One of them got a PhD in clinical psychology. We swapped notes about how hard it is to be seen as a mortal threat by your own father.
> 
> "He wanted to break me," said my cousin.
> 
> "Did he?" I asked anxiously, for he was older than me and someone I admired as a child.
> 
> "Yes," he replied flatly and without emotion.
> 
> Really hurt to hear that. It was like a sentence on me as well.


So, sounds your grandparents might be responsible for some of your fathers problems. As in, you dad was driven to success in order to convince his parents that he wasn't stupid.

Why did your dad want to "break" you? Was that for his benefit or did he think he was doing you a favor? As in, making you stronger.


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## Corpuswife

So glad that you are here to vent or "dump." It's what we all need. 

I've learned that you just can't keep it inside. You need to process it and eventually move on for the past. You will never forget but hopefully as the feeling fade....your memories won't be so vivid.


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## LongWalk

hambone said:


> So, sounds your grandparents might be responsible for some of your fathers problems. As in, you dad was driven to success in order to convince his parents that he wasn't stupid.
> 
> Why did your dad want to "break" you? Was that for his benefit or did he think he was doing you a favor? As in, making you stronger.


My father is from China originally. His grandfather (my paternal great grandfather was a high official in the education system. He did very well career wise. Travelled abroad. Had two wives. He had a vicious temper. My father's aunt told me that once when my grandfather did not get his hair cut as short as my grandfather wanted it, he erupted with rage and turned over the dining table, casting lunch, crockery and all to the ground.

She said that my great grandfather died of a stroke after getting really angry.

re: why he tormented and abused me

I think he could not cope with his childhood issues. He felt discriminated against in the US. Racism was worse in the 50s and 60s. He never felt fully American. We barely celebrated the 4th of July.

I was rebellious. 

He used to offer a compliment about my toughness after he ran me down for an hour or two.


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## LongWalk

Mavash. said:


> I've already got my 13 year old in counseling. My youngest, 7, will need counseling as well at some point.
> 
> 2 out of 3 have my predisposition for depression and anxiety.
> 
> At least one was spared. She's like my husband - all sunshine and butterflies. I want to be like her when I grow up. LOL


Character is genetic. And now that you mention it, my father used to say "you were born this way" as if I was defective. He implied that he had given up and that he had no part in any of my problems.

Mavash, I've read your posts on RG's thread. You're smart. I've been meaning to start yours, too. But RG's is huge.


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## LongWalk

Corpuswife said:


> So glad that you are here to vent or "dump." It's what we all need.
> 
> I've learned that you just can't keep it inside. You need to process it and eventually move on for the past. You will never forget but hopefully as the feeling fade....your memories won't be so vivid.


I have kept my memories hidden, even from myself. Now, I realize that doesn't work. If I had acted sooner I would have been a far happier person.

A friend and I met up today. He is from LA. His father used to kick the shı† out of him. Chase in the yard, corner him and beat him. My friend used heroin. I am going ask him if it was the reason.


----------



## LongWalk

This is just copy pasted from my friend LL's thread. Thank you Mavash for all the work you did with RG. It has helped me.

Doyoureallycare, thanks for coming here. I wanted to look at photo of you but didn't know where to look exactly. Go look at Disenchanted's before and after photos. One can come out of troubled times looking better.

LL,

Thank you again for not getting teed off at me for coming here and swinging lumber. Every time you duck, I hit myself and in so doing learn. One reason that I introduced you and Moxy is because you share a common strength that works against you. You both love big and you love the love itself, even though the object of love does or cannot love back.

It is true that both Moxy's husband and your wife are at some level incredibly impressed with your devotion; they have nothing to give back. In fact, they both do nasty shı† and are amazed that you are still there hoping.

It becomes a game. Your wife's car breaks down and she asks a man you must resent deeply if not outright hate to help her. If you were truly married, you would have been the one there to help. So, she is blaming you for not being there, but how could you be there since she fired you. To make it even more pathological she tells you that she provoked him by mentioning your name. She is using you to reel him back in.

She is like a crab fisherman, treating you like a piece of dead fish tied to a string to draw him up. She is not forming a healthy long term relationship with him. He will never her take seriously because she cheated on him so many times. If he is smart, he will realize that bringing you up the way she does is exactly what she has and will do to him. Yes, he, too, is just a fish that belongs on her crab line.

When you catch a trout or tuna you have to have fight, for once it realizes that it is being captured it will struggle until it is exhausted or rips the hook out. Crabs are stupid. There is no hook. Still they will gnaw and clip at the bait even after the fisherman lifts them in the air.

Your ex got Masters in counseling because she had issues. My father became a psychiatrist/neurologist because he had issues. It did not help either of them, as much as they hoped. They remained dysfunctional and punished those around them. This does not mean that there lives are entirely wasted.

My father was for many years a great doctor who helped many people. But he burnt out and ended up being a prison psychiatrist. Maybe they had 2 or 3 psychiatrists for over 3,000 felons. That was not successful career path. From there he retreated further to become a paper pusher ruling on disability cases for the state, never again seeing a live patient.

My father was a very creative person and could have been the famous and influential academic researcher he dreamt of being, but not as long as he failed to understand himself.

Your wife may have done some wonderful things with the students she tutored and counseled. I can well imagine that when she took her work seriously she had something to give, but she has not flourished either. She has squandered her potential because, like my father, self destruction was easier than healing. My father did not have a doctor. He had no one he could confide in. In college he had real friends who would have all drifted away had not my mother kept the relationships alive.

Women intuitively know more about a healthy social life than men. However, the feminine intuition can be sick. Your wife, instead building up healthy friendships that would have supported your marriage, built up a separate community of men whose purpose is to excite her. Her voice, her eyes, her vagina and her broken heart are all that she can offer them. They'll take her pvssy but not her crazy.

Who wants to marry a separated, unemployed, single mother of two who tortures her husband with details of her affairs? No guy with his shı† together is going to stand it for long.

She is destroying herself. Her parents are worried about her. Perhaps the summer holiday by the sea is something that they are not looking forward to at all. It is merely a last ditch attempt to salvage her.

Sadly her own parents are just enabling her to treat you like crab bait. They wish that you would become an alpha male and bring her to heel. They fear for the future of their granddaughters.

Moxy is so effing smart. Her IQ must be above the 95th percentile. She reasons and writes like a dream. But where are the TAM hard hitters on her thread? I see the relationships formed on ReGroup's thread and I say "wow". How could I get such help? When I say help I mean they work together as a group to respond to Mrs RG's antics. They laugh and they plot. They actually are able to predict her behavior. 

They do not hate Mrs RG. They love her as a human being. By helping RG they help her. If she chooses the path of self destruction/dysfunctionality, they will not feel very terrible. It will be a pity but they saved RG, they save the person who listened and took advice. Moxy – and I care about her – doesn't listen. Two years of inaction... sorry the top posters will not pour their time into help if you do not listen.

But they are watching you. If Moxy, you (or I) say no to being crab bait, they will jump in and help. Collectively, even your poor mixed up wife may be influenced. You should state your goals clearly and the path will be easier. You will get positive feedback.

LL's priorities

1) LL must be number one in the near future, for if you do not put on the oxygen mask, you will not survive to put them on your daughters. That is why you can skip the week of fake reconnection. If you have to tell your parents-in-law that their daughter/your is slu††ing herself out because she is broken inside. You are stepping back, sad as that may be. They will understand you.

2 and 3) Your work and your daughters
You must remain financially solvent and productive while being a good dad. If you can keep these two going in a holding pattern, you will find yourself in a better place.

4) You wife as mother
If you start to heal by disengaging from all of her EA sex addiction drama, you will force her to face being a single mom seriously. Right now, and it will hurt you to read it, but it is true. Your wife is on the prowl for new men. In exchange for emotional stroking by men who recognize her as an easy lay, she sleeps with them and tries to extract an exciting relationship, with her in the center, while at the same time throwing out new crab lines.

She is not being a good mother as long as she thinks about this stuff all the time.

5) Your marriage
Over time once you are in a better place. She may realize that you are strong. That will attract her back to you as man. That will not happen overnight if it happens at all.

Goals 1 & 2, you can control
Goals 3 & 4 depend on your wife as well

In principle all of the above advice applies to me and Moxy as well. Look at the progress of others (FF, BW, GP, Dis, Confused, etc) they have moved on. We cannot just surrender to being crab bait on string.


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## LongWalk

My father the psychiatrist knew my brother was not OK. He gave him Mellaril in the early 70s when he was in grade school. To avoid stigmatizing him, he gave the pills to my brothers. I was in 6th or 7th grade. He did not try to force me. He knew I would have fought him.

The disquiet my parents felt had foundation. My brother became psychotic in his early 20s. My parents had great difficulty dealing with it. When is schizophrenia ever easy. They did do to some gaslighting and rug sweeping. In the end a person who has the illness knows they must stick with meds or crash and burn. The disease killed my brother.

My brothers and I looked at his body in the Cook County morgue. More people came to his funeral than the average single guy. The pastor thought she was going to whip through the service but people spoke up. My brother was very warm hearted and kind. He touched people. But when he was psychotic he was big trouble.

Once I went to visit him in an institution and the guards all laughed and said, "Oh, man, your brother, do you know what your brother did?"

Turned out he put his shoulder into a security plexiglass window and knocked it out of the frame – we are talking minimum security prison conditions. "Come on everybody, let's escape," he cried.

Nobody went. Neither did my brother. All staff knew who he was after that.

Psychotic people can refuse meds because of their human rights. It is such a struggle to get people with problems to face them.

The involuntary wards for psychotics smell horrible. There is a kind of body odor from schizophrenics. I knew it from my father's office – Yes, he forced me to work there. More about that later – The TV was on all day. Baseball or Oprah Winfrey. People shuffling around in a daze.

I used to bring pizza to give my brother a break from the institutional food. I remember my brother having left quite a bit one day and another inmate came up and asked if he could have some.

"Sure go ahead," said my brother, with that sort of easy generosity that was his. Makes my almost want to cry thinking about him. After he died I went back to Sweden turned over the autumn earth in the garden plot. I told myself that was burying him there. In a country he never saw. They wouldn't let my eldest daughter go into crazy house. I think he saw her through the smoke plexiglass window.

My brother willed in small IRA to my daughters but he never sent the papers in. The money has been in a bank for over ten years. We have never gotten it out because my family is dysfunctional. My brother the business executive was supposed to take care of it but he said: "Let's do what G---- would have wanted us to do."

What was that, I replied.

My brother's reply was so evasive that I cannot remember the words. But he meant we should do nothing.

The money should be left there untouched. I am mad that my brothers and I have not gotten that money. It's less than $20,000, but it could have been split between all the nephews and nieces. They hid this fact from my parents.

How did it feel for my dad the psychiatrist when he went to visit my brother in the mental hospital. I am sure he expected everyone to greet him and say hello Dr X. He didn't go that often. I don't blame him entirely. Helping the mentally ill is often beyond the most loving families. It's like alcoholism. They can drink and drink.

Mavash, you are right to take care of the problems early. You are right that unborn children are vulnerable to the stress and drugs their mothers' blood stream. That is why love is a drug.



> Thioridazine (Mellaril, Novoridazine, Thioril) is a piperidine typical antipsychotic drug belonging to the phenothiazine drug group and was previously widely used in the treatment of schizophrenia and psychosis. Due to concerns about cardiotoxicity and retinopathy at high doses this drug is not commonly prescribed, reserved for patients who have failed to respond to, or have contraindications for, more widely used antipsychotics. A serious side effect is the potentially fatal neuroleptic malignant syndrome. It exerts its actions through a central adrenergic-blocking, a dopamine-blocking, and minor anticholinergic activity.


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## LongWalk

An aunt in my father's family died by the side of the road in the chaos of war. She was mentally ill and in times of great stress and disorder no one can take care of them.

My mother and I once talked about the schoolmates who disappeared. There was X. He had such a mousy name. Dropped off the face of the earth. Family did not know what became of him.

The tennis kids. There was David, Paul and Diane's brother. He didn't play. Also, disappeared. And then there was Susie Y, another tennis kid. She was beautiful. Her elder brother tried to stick up the movie theater and went to jail (mental illness?). One day I was at her house. What was I 15 or 16? She looked at me in a funny way, as if she wanted me to kiss her.

I was too shy to make move. Later on the tennis court at the university, a tennis hustler, a Black ex semi pro basketball player from Detroit, told a story about Z, a varsity player at the U who slept with Susie while she was still in high school:

"Mrs Y opened her daughter's bedroom door and Z was in sleeping in the bed. So, Mrs Y was surprised at what she saw. Susie done grow a dıck."

Laughter from gallery.

"Yes, Susie done growed a dıck."

More guffaws from the crowd.

Years later it turned out that she was schizophrenic , too. Got sucked into the Hare Krishna movement. Was rescued by classmate who, I think went to Harvard or some other good school and played tennis. Later she died. Suicide, I gathered.

My brother's roommate in college married a girl whose brother was bipolar and when manic ended up psychotic in France. She had to fly over to rescue him. He is stable today. Manic depression is much better than schizophrenia when the meds are consistent.

I am reading the RG thread. Just great in a tragic comic fashion. Do you think that Mrs RG is an exaggerated example of feminine logic gone wrong? She is not really mentally ill or?


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## LongWalk

Mavash. said:


> LW mental illness runs in my family. I get it. I've got some seriously disturbed people in my family tree. Very few have escaped and I'm grateful to be one of them.


I am also grateful.


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## LongWalk

GP, some time back we all cheered when you threw the D papers on the desk and drove your WW to the detox clinic. Even though many are against R because of their own experiences, no one said made a single peep. Now when you said your love had died we all groaned inside.

If the irreverent good ol boy from Alabama with the beautiful wife, two loved kids and a beagle can't make it, what hope is there for the rest of us.

My father is 83. I don't hate him for things he did to me. He has Alzheimer's and is a helpless old man. I am nice to him. When I gave my mom a break I took care of him. Tried to talk to him, revive his memories. Fed him. Changed his diapers. Bathed him.

I also ignored him because it's a disease that makes for one way conversations. He is going to die this year or next. He just cannot go on that much longer.

I never got the urge to push him down the stairs. In fact, what bothers me is that I feel so little. I am afraid that when he dies I will just IDGAF.

I am also felt the love that I had for my mother begin to die out. She is a potter, a very good one at that. She does so little to teach my daughters. She has her favorite grandson and loves the others less. She actually likes mine more than one of my brother's two kids because those two are very indifferent and disrespectful to my parents.

Anyway my mother consciously and maliciously destroyed a pot my daughter made. When she did that I felt my love for her suddenly vanish like dew under a hot sun. I don't want to not love my parents. It feels horrible.

That is why it bothers people to read these TAM stories in which love just fvcking disappears. We want to love the people we're suppose to love. What is wrong with us. With a WS you can at least have sex and create a new bond.

But are some people just dead inside? Frostine was 13 when she started getting used by men because her mother did not give her love. Later Frostine mastered men (became the mistress of men) and medicated her pain with alcohol. And now after many years of that is she even capable of love?

She wrote to Bullwinkle something like I hate you and hope you die, now come and give me a good screwing (so we can forget just how bad I feel).

ReGroup's wife, crazy as she is, is full of feelings. That's folks still ask him if he want to R. 

I think I feel like Chuck does. He is a smart, witty guy with a lot of self-knowledge but it sounds like he has given up on trying to connect with women. It depresses me.

Another poster whom I respect a great deal – and I know he has helped many people – wrote of a WW
Quote:
Hopefully her tubes are tied off and vag!na is sowed shut.
. WTF

TAM has a lot of raw emotion. 

I wish I had your sense of humor. I feel like a tour guide in Dante's Inferno, trying to collect enough tip money to get a Hieronymus Bosch painting tattooed on my back.

I am going copy and paste this to my own thread. I am lazy.


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## LongWalk

GP, some time back we all cheered when you threw the D papers on the desk and drove your WW to the detox clinic. Even though many are against R because of their own experiences, no one said made a single peep. Now when you said your love had died we all groaned inside.

If the irreverent good ol boy from Alabama with the beautiful wife, two loved kids and a beagle can't make it, what hope is there for the rest of us.

My father is 83. I don't hate him for things he did to me. He has Alzheimer's and is a helpless old man. I am nice to him. When I gave my mom a break I took care of him. Tried to talk to him, revive his memories. Fed him. Changed his diapers. Bathed him.

I also ignored him because it's a disease that makes for one way conversations. He is going to die this year or next. He just cannot go on that much longer.

I never got the urge to push him down the stairs. In fact, what bothers me is that I feel so little. I am afraid that when he dies I will just IDGAF.

I am also felt the love that I had for my mother begin to die out. She is a potter, a very good one at that. She does so little to teach my daughters. She has her favorite grandson and loves the others less. She actually likes mine more than one of my brother's two kids because those two are very indifferent and disrespectful to my parents.

Anyway my mother consciously and maliciously destroyed a pot my daughter made. When she did that I felt my love for her suddenly vanish like dew under a hot sun. I don't want to not love my parents. It feels horrible.

That is why it bothers people to read these TAM stories in which love just fvcking disappears. We want to love the people we're suppose to love. What is wrong with us. With a WS you can at least have sex and create a new bond.

But are some people just dead inside. Frostine was 13 when she started getting used by men because her mother did not give her love. Later Frostine mastered men (became the mistress of men) and medicated her pain with alcohol. And now after many years of that is she even capable of love?

She wrote to Bullwinkle something like I hate you and hope you die, now come and give me a good screwing (so we can forget just how bad I feel).

ReGroup's wife, crazy as she is, is full of feelings. That's folks still ask him if he want to R. 

I think I feel like Chuck does. He is a smart, witty guy with a lot of self-knowledge but it sounds like he has given up on trying to connect with women. It depresses me.

Another poster whom I respect a great deal – and I know he has helped many people – wrote of a WW
Quote:
Hopefully her tubes are tied off and vag!na is sowed shut.
. WTF

TAM has a lot of raw emotion. 

I wish I had your sense of humor. I feel like a tour guide in Dante's Inferno, trying to collect enough tip money to get a Hieronymus Bosch painting tattooed on my back.

I am going copy and paste this to my own thread. I am lazy.


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## LongWalk

Thanks, Mich

My mother is pressing me to go back to the States and help take care of my father again.


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## moxy

I'm sad to hear about the small pot destroyed so needlessly. There seems to be a lot of unresolved anger and cruelty in your past LW. It speaks to your own integrity that you have managed to become a conscientious, self-reflective person who seeks to make sense of things instead of just lashing out, which would be easier. I see this distancing of your love for your mother in response to her insidious act as one that demonstrates a strong and protective love for your daughter. That's a good thing. Your girls will remember that and will love you with more depth when they become parents, one day. 

It sounds like writing about your history might be cathartic for you. I hope so. Hearing about it makes me think less ideally and more realistically about interpersonal dynamics. You seem to be a person for whom deep connections matter. Thank you for sharing your experiences so candidly; it encourages the readers of your thread toward candor in their own reflection, I think.


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## LongWalk

Thanks, Moxy.

I think most posters advise against bringing up past. My youngest brother and I are close. He knows how I feel. My other in the States and is spending a couple of day in the hometown area, and then is flying off to the other side of the country to look for a house.



> Hi (youngest brother),
> 
> I feel guilty that we are not back in the States. I think a lot about Mom and Dad, and our whole childhood. It's ironic that every time I talk to Mom she goes on and on about her childhood and how important it is for everyone to know about it.
> 
> Why is her interest in talking about her life limited mainly but not exclusively to the time before she got married? Does it mean that the time after she got married was no longer significant in the same way? She doesn't talk nearly as much about us.
> 
> Much negative happened that was out of her control. Perhaps she cannot stand thinking about it.
> 
> I realized relatively recently that I was emotionally abused as child. I remember one time when I was about 14. Dad was in a super rage. He said to me: "You, you are suffering from a Oedipal Complex."
> 
> His face was dark red from anger.
> 
> "Do you know what this means? You want to kill your father and have sex with your mother."
> 
> He used to take rulers and other objects and smash them down on desk and chairs until they shattered. Sometimes he took off his belt and lashed inanimate objects, screaming that physical punishment was not okay.
> 
> Of course, Dad hasn't been like for a few years, haha.
> 
> I don't want to make you feel guilty. You couldn't do anything.
> 
> Maybe I was just like X (his son who doesn't take school seriously enough)
> 
> I don't want a pity party but realized I should have figured all this stuff out 20 years ago.
> 
> Obviously many people throughout history have gone through worse.
> 
> Never mind.
> 
> Hope you are having a good summer.
> 
> Love,
> LongWalk


Brother replied


> 6:51 AM (4 hours ago)
> 
> to me
> Ahh LongWalk,
> 
> 
> If you have time, come. If not, we all must just muddle through. I'm off to Italy next week for 10 days, so just as guilty...
> 
> Would live to see you. Mom is hanging in there.....
> 
> I hope you and the girls are having fun this summer. It's nice to see Y(other brother) if only briefly.
> 
> We all need help.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Young brother


My brother is a good guy. He became a doctor and fulfilled one of my father's deepest desires, to have a son follow in his footsteps. My brother became an orthopedic surgeon, which in American reality mean fixing broken bones with surgery or by leaving the body to heal itself. He's the first to admit that it is not so easy to diagnosis pain in something as complex as an ankle joint.

A lot of his work, maybe 25 to 30% involves amputating feet and toes. The poor people and there are a lot of folks without out medical insurance smoke, drink Coke and have diabetes. 

"Oops, your toes are turning black. I think we have no choice but to amputate. I think I have time in my schedule next week. Shall I tell the administrator and you can speak about a time with her?"

He then has to try and impress them to quit smoking to improve the healing process.

We always used to talk about medicine when I was growing up. My father once brought home a human brain in a pink plastic tub to show us. Maybe I was 7 or 8.... wait the brain was pink, the tub was baby blue.

There was a neighbor doctor who had kids who were friends with my brothers. He was an all American guy who had played varsity football at Big Ten university, tight end. His wife played tennis. That earns a lot of respect, but not from my father. Dr X was an orthopedic surgeon who failed to pass his boards, so he was like a GP, practicing a specialty.

My father told us outright that orthopedic surgeons were not bright compared with psychiatrists. It was an attitude out of Middlemarch. He is the one who told us Dr X couldn't pass his boards. We used to go to summer camp with them, all university alumni. It was great to American stuff, shoot guns, bows, canoe, fish.

I must confess I like shooting, although I think the NRA line is flat out nuts. Took both of my daughters to shoot skeet and .22s. I would have taken my nephews to shoot but my SIL would have seen that very negatively. She wouldn't let it happen even if the cousins could hang out.

It's ironic that my father could speak so disparagingly about Dr X and the inferior branch of medicine, and then have his own son choose that as his life's work. In truth, my father felt uncomfortable. Dr X was hero in the neighborhood because of the football. My father and mother were foreigners, outsiders. This must be the story for many in America: dysfunctional families struggling to figure out the American dream. Not everyone of course, but some.

We Skyped yesterday. I asked my parents if they were American. My mother said no. My father, who doesn't remember how many grandchildren he has, replied "no" and then "yes". Did he understand the question? I think so. But the answer is coming from a different person at time when it has no effect on life.

One funny thing about my dad. He always bought American cars because many patients worked in the famous giant auto plant (doesn't exist anymore). He knew it would offend them if he didn't drive American. Funny thing is my brothers and their wives would never dream of buying an American car.

I should fix my daughter's new bike and go for a ride with her.

One more rant: Every time I speak with my mother she talks about wills, inheritance, death.

"We'll gone and I won't be here to answer questions about the past," she always says. "You'll be sorry."

"I know, Mom, I am writing down your stories like I promised," I replied.

"Your brother wants the artwork, I'll leave you more (some slang euphemism for money)," she replied.

"That's fine, Mom, do whatever makes you happy," I answered.

"I want it to be fair," she explained.

We have these sorts of conversations all the time. Getting old sucks. I told my daughters I am certain to be shıtty tempered old man. And herein is a cause for optimism. My father had a corny sense of humor until he destroyed his practice and had to go to work in the prison. He still had some then, but probably the Alzheimer's was already creeping in and robbing him or creativity.

My brothers both have decent amount of self deprecating wit.

Skyping yesterday my other brother, the one who is moving as far away as possible, said that his company had not done so well the last quarter. CEO's under big pressure to turn things around.

"Haha, got to put one of his hands in the fryer at McDonald's," I quipped. (cynical and lame, I know)

"Yes," my brother replied, "but that only works twice and then he can't type anymore." (good one, I thought)

That is why TAM threads with humor give the most hope.

I feel sorry for the TAM lady, real estate agent, who cheated for 5 years because her husband treated her like shı†, now she desperate for a miracle. But how can he not D her?

If only she can make her husband laugh in the blackness that surrounds them. Can't one take a joke and make start of something. Or least spray a little analgesic coolant on the dying beast.


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## LongWalk

Just I began to question the amount of time I've been spending on TAM, I have made some important realizations. Somebody wrote something that is true of me and probably Ms GP. Paraphrase:

A person who is abused by their closest in childhood will not know how to cope with healthy love later in life.

This explains to me why I longed to write an letter to the teacher in high school who gave me positive emotional support. I felt ashamed to write him. Why? It's very illogical. Around 12 years ago I once wrote his wife an email. She was very happy to hear from me and said that her husband had worried that I'd never grow up.

But you see I never did grow up, or to be more precise, I never began to feel good inside. I still don't know what do when people like me or say you did a great job. I feel confused. Failure and being yelled and told that I was going to "kill my father and marry mother" and other such nonsense that my psychiatrist dad spewed out in rage seems normal.

Of course, addiction is a solution to these feeling.

I think Ms GP didn't feel comfortable having a great life with a great guy, so she destroyed to get back to normal, i.e., being abused and criticised.

So, GP is right on when he says Ms GP must get rid of the guilt and accept herself so that GP doesn't have to bear the burden fixing her.

I have to do things well and accept that I deserve to succeed.


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## LongWalk

I am beginning to understand the Iliad better.


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## LongWalk

Moxy,

Tell us more about your family and your relationship with them. They are, in general, worried about you. Your husband is sore topic for them. Do they know that you are so skeptical about the permanence of love between men and women?

I know that my mother became disenchanted with my father. He was not all knowing wizard, leading her through trials towards a destination of eternal wonder, but a shy man without direction. His devotion to a hobby, the spread of his native language – yes, everyone should learn like Latin or Greek – was a costly disaster.

My father frittered away a fortune on his fanaticism. It is difficult for me to come up with a sum, because of my father's subterfuges, but let us say he burned up two or three million dollars. This of course bothered my mother more and more. It was an addictive behavior pattern. She made it more difficult for him to spend money but she never divorced him.

My father would never have survived divorce. I now see that the preservation of marriage is not only about sexual exclusivity and two person's love, but survival. Staying together in an imperfect relationship – and by imperfect, I mean at times loveless – we have a sociobiological scheme that aids survival over pure passion.

You are an example of a person who generally is deeply cynical about love and yet you stare at your love like a character out of a Greek myth. I am going to reread what you wrote about the myths.

Also, I realized that why the Iliad is such a profound part of literature. It is the record of how female infidelity drives men to war's of destruction. Indeed, war's in general are about possession of things: including land, history and reproduction. Helene could be a metaphor for more than just female beauty. 

Yesterday, as I cycled to the city with my brother, I realized that TAM is not just an addiction. It has gotten me to see the reality of my formation as a person.

One of the purposes of our trip was to show my daughter 15 the way from the outskirts of the city where we live all the way to the center of town. I have taken picture of the royal castle together with her leg and bicycle. 

On the way home I insisted that stop and eat a meal. We ended up at Burger King. She ate french fries with peppered catsup. Nourishment improved her mood for the return in the gloaming that was giving way to summer night.

I challenged her from time to time to tell me the way. She confessed that she did not know it. At one point we made a wrong turn and ended up cycling on a completely irregular footpath through high grass. I pushed forward, using instinct. I have a sense of direction and know intuitively how people create these ant trails. So without an retreat to the point we made the wrong turn, I found a new way, one that we will never take again. 

Think Lord of Rings, three books about people not knowing where they are going. It is part of our hunter gatherer brain.

In masculine triumph I said to her that this demonstrated that men and women had different brains. Men had better spatial sense while women were socially much more acute. The relationship between men and women was complementary and adaptive to survival. 

"It better for survival to be socially acute because we have iPhone's with Google map," she replied mischievously. 

"You mean women don't need men because we're replaceable with an iPhone app?"

"Well, I suppose women could get by with just a giant sperm bank... but then more men would be produced by using that."

Kids make the damndest observations. I tried to get mastery of the conversation by noting that there were science fiction and fantasy authors who gone into this subject. Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale is an example. I had to admit that I hadn't read it when my daughter asked more questions. I told her she could find it in library.

I could assure her that Atwood was an excellent writer. I have read some of her essays so I remember that she has a pen.


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## moxy

LW, if your daughter likes Margaret Atwood's stories, I wonder if she might also like AS Byatt's. "Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice" is a good collection, one that seems to discuss romantic relationships between men and women a fair bit and through interesting characters. I'd recommend that one.

I answered some of your questions, but did so on my thread. For some reason I mixed up threads, I guess. Hope you're doing well!


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## LongWalk

Hi Moxy,

I am back after being banned.
We can start talking about books again.

I am now copy pasting from threads that I post on to preserve a record of my progress. Must make for disjointed read, but so be it for the time being.

From LL's thread:

I agree that Lost needs to be strong. Not to ‘move’ his wife, but for himself.


However, the blog was not, I think merely interested in sex, otherwise it would not have expended so much thought on maintaining the upper hand in the relationship. It was a player's bible applied to keeping the acquisition. Implicit in the philosophy is the belief that without strong sexual attraction, based on the insecurity of women, a man is not capable of maintaining a healthy relationship.

The fact that it is entitled ‘The Commandments of Poon’ defines the purpose of the blog quite effectively.

‘a player’s bible applied to keeping the acquisition’....there we go.

As for ‘the insecurity of women’.....not even going to go there.

LW, I’m sure you are a nice person, but you seem to have a very narrow view of women and relationships. Let’s agree to disagree.
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LongWalk
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Default Re: Lost's Story/Journal
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frostflower View Post
I agree that Lost needs to be strong. Not to ‘move’ his wife, but for himself.


However, the blog was not, I think merely interested in sex, otherwise it would not have expended so much thought on maintaining the upper hand in the relationship. It was a player's bible applied to keeping the acquisition. Implicit in the philosophy is the belief that without strong sexual attraction, based on the insecurity of women, a man is not capable of maintaining a healthy relationship.

The fact that it is entitled ‘The Commandments of Poon’ defines the purpose of the blog quite effectively.

‘a player’s bible applied to keeping the acquisition’....there we go.

As for ‘the insecurity of women’.....not even going to go there.

LW, I’m sure you are a nice person, but you seem to have a very narrow view of women and relationships. Let’s agree to disagree.
Frost we are on an Internet forum. We do not have to agree. Besides I don't even know exactly what we disagree about. A person with a very narrow view of women and relationships by definition cannot be very nice. If that is your opinion of me, then at best you offer pity and at worst contempt.

I suggest we keep talking to reach some higher truth, unless LL considers us threadjackers.

When LL was surprised that I could be depressed, given that I wrote with the voice of self assurance. I immediately was forthcoming to correct him. People who come to TAM are trying to figure themselves out. The most brilliant and insightful posters may be wrestling with personal demons.

As to insecurity, most people, except sociopaths suffer insecurity. The essence of consumerism is based on uncertainty.

Vladimir Putin has cast off his wife to replace with a much younger former gymnast whom he has elevated to become a member of parliament. He puts his political opponents in prison. He can order military exercises of 160,000 soldiers. He constantly displays himself as a super macho guy, without his shirt on.

His new woman has only to tell him he is smaller than her previous lovers and cannot really fill her and his fragile ego will crumble. For the sake of world peace we must hope that she does not have an affair with a younger man, but then she is not a free woman. The KGB are watching her. 

If we are honest, we should admit that the institution of marriage is based on insecurity. The vow to remain faithful (i.e., monogamous) in health and sickness is a contractual agreement designed to allow us to sleep at night, secure in the knowledge another will wake up thinking about us. In reality both husbands and wives may be thinking of others after 15 years of marriage.

The reality is not so secure. If a spouse becomes obese, abusive, financially irresponsible, the marriage vows may well come to naught. If 5'10" guy who went from 180 lbs at his wedding to 306 lbs while his wife is looking the same after two children should not be surprised if his wife refuses sex. She cannot find the man she married in all the layers of fat. It is not right for her to cheat, but is she a monster failing to take a courageous decision to ask for a divorce before looking for happiness? He was having an affair with Dominos pizza while sitting in an office.

Yesterday my daughters and I quarreled about where we were going to eat out, or rather daughter, 18, rebelled and walked off. In the end I had to follow her and steer us to an Eritrean restaurant near home. After reading on TAM I now understand that my daughter was testing. She wants to be reigned in so that she will feel secure. 

Daughter, 15, is a social genius. Daughter, 18, has many positive traits but she has many of flaws that come from my ex and me. Part of this genetic and part of it learned.

"Your mother would have been a better parent if she hadn't been married to me, I accentuated her character flaws," I told them.

"That's what she would say," replied the 15-year-old.

"It's true I told them, I failed her, but I can see that now and tell you that is the truth, I have some insight," I told them.

Better late than never.

This talk seems important to me because I don't want daughter 18 to end up in failed relationships because she blindly follows the feminine instincts that sow the seeds of destruction. A woman needs to be self confident enough to attract the right sort of guy and recognize him for his pluses and minuses. A man needs to know how to woo his wife. The Commandments of Poon are vulgar prescriptive recipe but they contain elements of truth.

Here Frost is where you and I disagree. 

A man and woman can limp through life, remaining married to the end but it may be a failure for their souls. These things are difficult to face. This is why I have asked LL how long he could tolerate a marriage in which he can only look forward to pity sex. That is the best he can do if simply negotiates his way back into his marriage (and I see no evidence that it will even happen).

LL is going to have 180 and rebuild himself. If in a few months time if his wife begins to gain insight into herself, she may want him back but at that point she must begin to repair herself. She is seriously damaged, so I question whether he will find her so attractive.

re: modern life
Ms GP wrote on her husband's thread that equality has brought many difficulties to marriage. How can a man be masculine if his wife has equal earning power. Once a man has been relegated to beta status her attraction to him will diminish.

That is why there are more single mothers today. At work there is a very alpha executive. She has adopted a child to raise on her own. She is very smart, pushy and aggressive. She is not unattractive but it would be impossible to be married to her. The tests she must have put her boyfriends and partners through have broken all of them.


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## LongWalk

Source:



> Managers, Firefighters, and Exiles
> Are there common roles for parts across people? After working with a large number of clients, some patterns began to appear. Most clients had parts that tried to keep them functional and safe. These parts tried to maintain control of their inner and outer environments by, for example, keeping them from getting too close or dependent on others, criticizing their appearance or performance to make them look or act better, and focusing on taking care of others' rather than their own needs. These parts seemed to be in protective, managerial roles and therefore are called managers.
> 
> When a person has been hurt, humiliated, frightened, or shamed in the past, he or she will have parts that carry the emotions, memories, and sensations from those experiences. Managers often want to keep these feelings out of consciousness and, consequently, try to keep vulnerable, needy parts locked in inner closets. These incarcerated parts are known as exiles.
> 
> The third and final group of parts jumps into action whenever one of the exiles is upset to the point that it may flood the person with its extreme feelings or make the person vulnerable to being hurt again. When that is the case, this third group tries to douse the inner flames of feeling as quickly as possible, which earns them the name firefighters. They tend to be highly impulsive and strive to find stimulation that will override or dissociate from the exile's feelings. Bingeing on drugs, alcohol, food, sex, or work are common firefighter activities.


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## doureallycare2

LongWalk said:


> Source:


very interesting... I can see this in myself a lot. thanks for sharing


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## moxy

Wow. That excerpt really is interesting. In a way, managers are control freaks and firefighters are avoiders. But it's more complicated. I'm going to think about this, a bit.


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## treyvion

LongWalk said:


> Source:


Binging on sex doesn't seem so bad at all.


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## moxy

treyvion said:


> Binging on sex doesn't seem so bad at all.


There are sex addicts (and partners of sex addicts) who would disagree with you.


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## LongWalk

Originally Posted by familyfirst09 View Post
After I calmed down (I left the room she was in) I went back in and told her it would be okay, no big deal. She told me it sucked. He definitely had a direct conversation with her because he told her she could pick out her room color. So he is doing the right thing by the sounds of it but I just don't think I should be hearing this from my 6 year old. Its stupid passive aggressive BS yet again. He could have warned me so I could have been prepared. 

I have no idea what my biggest concern is to be honest. I'm worried about how she will be treated. The biggest thing I think is just accepting this tramp in my daughters life. I knew it would eventually happen, just another change we will both have to adjust to. The anxiety I get when some new change comes up just overwhelms me. It has usually ended up being anxiety over nothing but its just the waiting game to let it subside. 

The thought of other people in my Daughters life scares me, not sure why.
Posted via Mobile Device
Quote:
Its totally a control thing for me, I know it. I've been in "control" of her entire life until all of this and now I have none when he is with her. Its a situation I'm accepting slowly but surely but I hate this PA BS. I've been really good with her full weekends so far, even when D calls and is reacting to him and wanting to come home, but these without warning episodes.... Its not fair to me nor Olivia. 

I honestly don't know much about tramp. Yep she did sleep with at least 2 other men and tried with another at work (2 were married). No idea about drugs and alcohol, I don't think tho. I know she is an emotional needy person (ha who isn't) and she pretty much is at his beck and call but other than that no idea. She has no kids, don't know if she has any in her life but she did babysit my friends kids and was fine. I know D is totally going to change the dynamic of their relationship. Tramp is immature and Diwali I think my D will also fight for X's attention like yours did.
FF,

You wrote insightfully about your anxieties, admitting that you care too much about things outside of your control. You are a very caring and giving person. You take it hard when your emotional commitment does not pay off as you wish it would. Learn to be more accepting that your love can change you. Your love for your daughter is unconditional. It cannot supply Nova Scotia with electricity. Don't make unrealistic expectations about the power of emotions.

What sort of love your ex is or will be able to give her, that is on him. Your daughter is clever and perceptive little girl. She picks up on your anxieties. Those anxieties will become a burden for her. When there is no basis for the dread you feel, she will become confused.

Quote:
Mom is worried about Daddy doing something wrong. Nothing bad happened. Mommy is still unhappy. Was something bad supposed to happen and it didn't or it did and I didn't get it?
Don't think about the tramp as your competitor for a place in your daughter's life. You lost interest in your Stbx and when you got back into your relationship with him, it was too late he had checked out and cheated to boot. You were careless. He was dishonest.

Now that your marriage is over, why not look back at your ex and make up a list of positive attributes and experiences to create a balanced history. Don't rewrite the history of your marriage as total and unmitigated failure. If it was, what does that imply about you?

Since coming to TAM I have realized that the failure of my marriage is largely due to me. I had a terrible childhood and teens. My father was an angry psychiatrist with grandiose delusions about saving the world through the power of his intellect, a brain that deserved worship by mankind. He was a very needy angry man. I carried his torch although it led to unhappiness and dysfunction.

On ReGroup's fantasically funny and entertaining thread there is a discussion about success in marriage by some of the sharpest TAMers: Mavash, Conrad, et all. They give advice about what is necessary to succeed. Their observations are worth study. Mavash notes that 67% of second marriages fail. So, everyone who is divorced and lonely needs to make sure they learn the lessons they should know.

Much of ReGroup's thread has to do with conflict after separation which includes coparenting. Communication failures are central to the narrative. 

The challenge that we face when gaining insight on TAM is that we must then act upon them in our lives to do a better job the rest of the way.

Your generous heart and sense humor shine out. Instead of feeling anxious and regretful about the shadow of the past figure out how to be the mistress of your own happiness. Your ex cannot and will not be the key. 

You've done a great job with the house mess, etc. Pat yourself on the back.

re: rewriting history
I had to be more honest with myself when I read about one failed marriage: A woman told her new guy that her ex was terrible in bed. In the 6 years of her miserable marriage she had only had sex with him twice. That busted marriage happened to have produced two children.

When I laughed at this I realized that had the ability and need to laugh myself. OK, it is depressing to admit to failure but denying failure is a sure way to continue down the same path.

Finally, it was wrong for your ex not to discuss the topic of introducing the tramp to your daughter. However, he knows that you hold certain opinions about her and may not have wished you to become anxious about it, for fear that your fears would poison the start of your daughter's relationship with his SO.

Your ex affaired down. His loss. You will go on to a better guy.


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## LongWalk

I find it easier to face myself on the threads of others. This is not bad. I can write there, and then cut and paste. Thank you FF, LL, Moxy, RG, GP, MsGP, BW, Dis, BS, Dday, Jerry123, and the lady whose husband left her – wonder how she's doing now? – for letting me threadjack. If I left some dung on your gardens, hopefully it will help things grow. There are others who have helped me, I won't go on naming names. No point.


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## moxy

It can be helpful to do just this. Sometimes, one's own thread is too focused to allow divergence from its original aspect or too narrow in its scrutiny to allow confronting hard truths. Learning from each other on TAM and in life enriches experiences, IMO. When I'm ready to move on from a mindset, I sometimes want to leave behind a thread and start a new one; it's that shifting of the gaze that disarms us enough to see who we are, I think.


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## LongWalk

Limerick *Do it yourself*

There was a wife so conflict averse
that she offered to die in a hearse.
"Dear husband,
I'll drive myself there,
and the price will be fair.
I'll bury the coffin and throw in some verse."


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## LonelyinLove

My foster mother told me, after a minor disagreement over religious theology, that people like me are serial killers. She referenced that guy in Atlanta that killed all those children. I was pregnant with my first child at the time.


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## LongWalk

I disappointed her..l. 

My ex is a clever woman. She is not originally from Sweden. We ended up here by accident. You could say that it was an exit destination from the country where I wanted to work. We had a distance relationship, I continued to live in the empire while she studied at a Swedish university.

At the beginning of our relationship prior to moving to Sweden she became pregnant. That was back in the days that you could buy Nonoxynol-9 suppositories, which I thought better the rubbers. We miss timed the need for BC. Dumb mistake.

I thought it best for her to have an abortion as we were both students at the time, living in the empire. This was very hard on her emotionally. She came out of the procedure rather shaken, noting that the medical staff had discussed the Swatch I had given her as a present. If it had been general anesthesia perhaps she would woken without it.

In the best of all possible worlds, I would advise men not to push women to get abortions because it is a wound to the relationship. But having been raised in the consumer pro choice rust belt state that votes Democratic, I thought it was no big deal. Or rather, I was uneasy but convinced myself that this was the rational thing to do. Older and wiser, I figure the job of the man is fight to provide for his offspring.

Anyway, fast forward to Sweden. She was in university and doing well. I was still working in the empire and travelling back every two three months. We struggled on like this for maybe an year or so. I don't remember the exact length. Of course, sex through a copper cable is not very satisfying but it never causes conception.

Eventually she became pregnant again without plan. Maybe it was wise that they removed the Nonoxynol-9 from the market.
Quote:
A 2004 study found that over a six-month period, the typical-use failure rates for five nonoxynol-9 vaginal contraceptives (film, suppository, and gels at three different concentrations) ranged from 10% to 20%
This I said we'll keep it but I had no job in Sweden. I dropped my work in the Empire, which hadn't made me much money, although I had great adventures. 

So D18 was on the way and the Swedish economy went into recession. Not good for a person who cannot speak the language. I managed to have some success in my work, nonetheless. However, we had financial difficulties and then came a second child D15. In short, our economic difficulties undermined our relationship. And eventually we divorced.

Today I make a living by working for the people with money, instead playing it straight and serving the public interest, which what my profession is supposed to do. This is was bitter thing for me because my father had raised me to be a fanatic. I was supposed to save humanity. So we make the same mistakes our parents do, but with our own twist.

To be frank I am a somewhat dysfunctional person. Educated, yes, but I have always been depressed, although I don't think I have any genetic hardware issues. It makes interpersonal relationship difficult. I am uneasy around conventional happy people. So, I understand GP's wife and Frostine. The search for happiness in people and things that are wrong or disjointed has plagued me.

So it made me smile when you or RG joked that you would rebound with another person in need of rescue. 

And I am grateful that I stumbled onto TAM. Best mindless surfing, until suddenly you figure out there is a wave to ride.

My ex lives not far away. She has a government job and has done well rising to a lower middle level position, which is very good for someone without blond hair. She has had a couple of LTR since me. I don't care much. OK, maybe a little but with time you disconnect, except for the co-parenting. There will always be a relationship. I think if person has good in them, there will always be some love, perhaps mingled with anger and other emotions. But hate is nothing to invest in. Love is more powerful. A cliche but true. 

The exception is when you realize the person you have invested in is incapable of reciprocity and genuine feeling. This doesn't apply merely to spouses, but to all important relationships.

Since divorce I have only had misadventures with women, including the hooking up with an old girlfriend from college. Turned out she was also divorced. But that couldn't be anything permanent. And in some way I figure I merely cannibalized a good memory from the past.

The key thing that I have learned from TAM is that I would have had great difficulty succeeding in any marriage because of the emotional abuse I suffered as child and teen. It is rather scary to find that this has gotten worse with time rather than better. It feels rather heavy to read about roles we have: the fixer, the giver, the taker, the enabler. Golly (post ban word) whatever happened to free will?

Reading these threads I sometimes feel like a member of herd that is out of control. The ground is shaking. The failure of marriage is only one aspect. But here are statistics that a sobering: 

Quote:
Although statistics vary widely*, according to a recent study published in a leading U.S. women's journal, 64% of married women in the U.S. have had at least one affair.

In Britain, 80% women and 60% for men admit they have cheated on a long-term partner.
I apologize for rambling. Insomnia, your old friend is here with me. Today I will pick up visa to travel to an exciting job producing propaganda for industry. So in the middle of August I will disappear from TAM for a while. Need to figure out some method of stopping TAM mails from clogging the inbox.

p.s. Soca70's ex seems utterly cold and unreachable. It was curious read how he and you compared her to Frostine.


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## LongWalk

LonelyinLove said:


> My foster mother told me, after a minor disagreement over religious theology, that people like me are serial killers. She referenced that guy in Atlanta that killed all those children. I was pregnant with my first child at the time.


That was pretty psycho of her. What was going on in her head? I've always been skeptical of foster parents. Why to they want other peoples children. There must be altruism among some but evil among others.


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## LongWalk

ound
You're back, BW. Great for all of your fans, or whatever the heck we are.

Picking gooseberries with D18 and D15 on a cold summer's day. I asked D18 if she and her teammate (goalie 17) met the captain of their U21 team when they travelled to the Island of Gotland.

(There the locals used to mess with the lighthouses to cause shipwrecks on the coast that could then be salvaged. They murdered the crews to shut them up. Ah, but the good old days of piracy are over here. The pirates are off the coast of Africa and Indonesia.)

I know that both D18 and her teammate had a crush on him. He's a really nice kid. Blond with a hip ponytail. What stands out about him is happiness. He smiles he knows to give off a good vibe. He has perspective and commitment. In short, a mature kid.

They had not met up on the island, where he lives. Probably has a girlfriend, I thought.

In my usual clumsy didactic fashion, learned my dysfunctional mad shrink father, I plunged on to tell my daughters that the reason girls liked this kid is because he is happy. A girl would want to be his girlfriend because she would hope he would make her happy. However, happiness, I intoned, has to come from within. I pretended I was Mavash, Happyman, Turnera and Conrad rolled into one. I don't tell them I learn stuff on an Internet forum. If they found out they would groan that dad had totally lost it. (I have to listen to them discuss dealing with me in Swedish. Du vet pappa är lite så där.")

Anyway, I am worried that saying wise things doesn't mean anything since your children are going copy some variation of what they're parents do. Here I am on shaky ground. What sort model am I?

So, I sort of wound up the lesson on boys, thinking that's that. The girls discovered the first harvest from a plum tree, stolen from the neighboring plot 8 or 9 years ago when it was abandoned. Every winter the deer and hare savage it. But the past two winters I wrapped in plastic and there were about a dozen plums to pick. About one third were edible.

I forced them to taste everyone before chucking them. Depressed doom's day dads don't let their kids throw out any food. I gave D15 one that I found in the crotch of a limb. Looked ripe but dubious. She spat out a bite and showed me that it was a little rotten. I decided against trying it myself.

We moved on to picking black currants.

"You're not going to say anything to L___ (the teammate) about the guy, are you dad?"

"No, why would I. I know she had crush on him, the whole club knew."

D18 then, without saying exactly what happened, implied that something had happened. Either this girl had her first heavy make out session or lost her virginity to the dream guy the night after the competition. He then disappeared back to the island.

D18 then went on and on about me keeping my mouth shut. As if was going to go and tease this girl at practice. D18's brain was completely in this sort hormonal illogic, think RG's wife in milder form. After a while D15, born social genius told her stop talking about it.

The truth is D18 would very much have liked him to chase her. And I understand that an 18 wants to have a boyfriend and it's going to hurt the first time. Tomorrow she goes off to work as a summer camp counselor. For sure all of the counselors will be on the make. Wonder that the kids don't drown. No guns at a Swedish summer camp. I made sure they tried skeet and .22s last summer in the US.

Everyone matures at their own pace. But if D18 is a normal kid, which she is, she is ready to find out about boys. A year ago, much less so. Two? No. Five years ago at the age of 13? You've gotta be kidding me. That's sex with an underage girl bordering on pedophilia.

So, BW that is why Frostine is such darned (post ban adjective) mess.

I imagine that Frostine learned that older guys were going to give her all sorts of attention, until they figured that having a 14 or 15 year old girlfriend was complicated. She must have learned to replace them before they could dump her. She probably learned how to make the one she wanted jealous of the new one. Sometimes it worked and sometimes not, but she was never lonely. That doesn't mean she slept with all of them. But she did a head job on them.

Frostine probably thought things would be different once she got married and hatched a chick but the old patterns just surfaced as they had to. What intrigues is her drive and intelligence. If she had good IC and decided to work on herself, maybe she could put her life in order. Happiness may be elusive, but at least she can turn away from becoming a shrewish harpy like her mother.

If you know who her IC is, you could almost write a letter to him/her dispassionately explaining what happened to Frostine. Maybe it could be some sort of jump start.

Really sucks about the detached retina. MMA fighters, boxers and NBA players sometimes suffer this as well.

Sometimes when people like Chuck or Chaparral get going about the decline of civilization, you have to wonder about what we teach people. How can we have no fault divorce? If people can do bad things and escape scot free, isn't that incentive to cheat and walk away? Must be strange for US soldiers in Muslim countries, telling people there how run their societies by changing the way women are treated, etc. At the same time many of the soldiers, both men and women, went home to destroyed families. Must be a high percentage. BW would have noticed this and found it ironic, I thought. And guess what if you Google Bullwinkle, infidelity, Afghanistan, there it is bingo:

Quote:
Wow, it's gotta be really tough living like that, so close, yet so far.... It would kill me, I'd be forever wanting to pull her close, as much as I hated her.... Keep waking up in the morning hoping it had all just been a bad dream and WS never did those things or spoke those terrible words. 

I was in Afghanistan a couple of years ago and an Afghan Army general was telling me how in his home village that when adulterers were caught, they were tied to a rope and dragged behind a jeep for about ten miles down a rocky dirt road. No need for IC, no self-help books, no protracted divorces. Certainly no TAM. 

Not advocating we go to this method, but I would give anything to believe I can get past all this. 

Have a good one, hang tough.

Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Washington DC.
Posts: 2,427
Default Re: Stop Dragging My Heart Around
Jesus God, LW, just when I thought you couldn't write a better post, you send this. A classic, one for the ages. Gooseberries and daughters speaking Swedish and fussing over boyfriends. Very sage advice about Frostine, my friend. Writing to her IC may be a wonderful idea. And I think you at so right about her experiences as a 13 year old girl. 

Spent the afternoon flying in a Piper Cub, bouncing around in the thermals. Tonight, Lil Penguin swimming underwater like a fish. 

What happened with your wife, LW?
Share


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## LonelyinLove

LongWalk said:


> That was pretty psycho of her. What was going on in her head? I've always been skeptical of foster parents. Why to they want other peoples children. There must be altruism among some but evil among others.


She was just old and mean I guess. I hadn't thought of that incident in a while and reading your post brought in back in a flash.

They fostered because of infertility.

As for raising other people's children, we have 2 adopted children ourselves. We consider them "ours."

Some people should not be parents, however. Sometimes God says "no" for a reason....

I'll be thinking of you and your situation...been there and done that...:banghead:


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## LongWalk

Old and mean. So you did not have a joyous childhood? Did she love you?
My father loved me but that made it very confusing. Why did the person who loved me treat me like cursed failure?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## LongWalk

Did it again. Hijacked someone else's thread, ReGroup's, to tell flesh out my own tale. 

Originally Posted by Mavash. View Post
Some people are far to toxic to do this with in person.
What a good morning on TAM. I am east of GMT and at work 6 hours ahead of you.

re: apologies

Mavash, I am a little pleased with myself because I came up the idea of an apology for BW myself before I read the discussion on RG's page. My thoughts were as follows:

BW needs to write a letter or tell Frostine in person that he forgives her for her infidelity and homicidal rage. Turns out the blow she dealt him partially detached BW's retina. So, perhaps he should let her know about this detail, so that she can understand the full extent to which Jesus has worked on BW's heart.

I have no idea whether BW is a practicing Christian. Personally, I am an atheist but the Christian or Buddhist spirit strikes me as the healthy approach. When BW tells Frostine that he sincerely forgives her, he also throws in an apology for all his failings. Heaven knows he wasn't perfect. By doing this Frostine can no longer use BW as a leg for her victim chair.

When the person you wronged forgives you and apologizes himself, then there is no emotional energy to blame that person. 

Frostine, IMO, has more insight into herself than RG's wife. As their marriage broke down as consequence of her affair, she impulsively wrote a note stating that she hated him and wanted him to die and a sentence later requested wild monkey sex with him at once. 

She wanted BW to die because she was betraying him and destroying her own romantic fantasy that in marriage she was going to end her addiction to relationship hopping. BW was guilty of existing and that is what led her to act on her murderous impulse.

Sex was always the wildcard in her teenage years, a confused 14-year-old girl could always throw sex at an unhealthy relationship and leverage some power or delay it's collapse.

Although her response to the inner conflict was sick and criminal, she was asking herself the right questions. There was insight if not a normal conscience.

In contrast, Mrs RG doesn't seem to ask herself the right questions at all. She blames RG for her adultery and believes it herself. If RG "fought" for her, she would be given a choice to choose between RG and POSOM. Implicitly, that would validate her choice to solve her marital frustrations by lying with another man.

It seems as if it will take failure of her new relationship and RG's indifference to cause her to examine herself. Depending on the character of POSOM, that relationship may limp forward for some time to come. Correct?

Of course the apology or forgiveness road only has currency if it is genuine and heartfelt. Of course some anger may remain but it will lose the pathological hold over the emotions and allow healing.

Is is safe to do this in person with Frostine? She may, given her sharp brain, read this a veiled attack. It would be easy for her to respond by spraying vitriol that would escalate the conflict and destroy BW's intention to let go.

Another danger would be that she would see this as an opening for a rugsweeping reconciliation. So BW should absolutely not have intimate relations because that would undermine the meaning of his action.

BW should probably divorce Frostine and find a healthy woman, but theoretically, if she had good IC and kept her nose clean, she might really change, but it would take a long time if it happened at all. But this is probably the sentimental romantic in me, thinking this.

re: baseball
My father, disdaining American culture, took us just once to a MLB game. I am certain that my mother, who also never fully embraced America, must have nagged him into driving an hour and half to the stadium in Detroit that was home to the Tigers back then. We were really happy. I don't remember the game itself, just the atmosphere of the stadium. Somewhere inside me it as a sign that we going to be American, normal or at least more normal. That turned out not to be true. But the memory of stadium lives on. My recollection is that we did not watch the the whole game, but just three or 4 innings. Then my father was fed up and jerked us out to go home. To interrupt the Saturday of a man who was plotting to save mankind through his lonely brilliance was mankind should have applauded that we got out before the 7th inning stretch.

Many of my father's patients were working class auto workers at the GM plant. He knew so little about America although it was his home for 77 years. He has no idea what a 7th inning stretch. He has heard of Elvis Presley but could not name a single song. He never listened to the radio.

We had a Black housekeeper nanny from Arkansas. We secretly watched the Tigers on TV with her in Black and White, that's how old I am, that's how quickly life passes by. Daisy loved the game. We were not allowed to watch TV when our parents home, but when they were out Daisy fried herself a pork chop with red pepper and made some grits for herself and had bottle of beer. We had already eaten our food but little boys are always hungry. I think we all got a bite of her dinner. 

"Let us taste, Daisy." 

She was illiterate and had a hard life. Still she was full of love.

My father once bought a German shepherd named Silver Bell for us but neither he nor my mother trained Silver and she grew up to be an unruly animal that bit the postman and chased cars. So they gave her to Daisy to take home to the slum on the other side of town.

Once I was in junior high and my youngest brother had started school, my parents decided they did not need old Daisy anymore. A few years later someone killed Silver, snuck into Daisy's house and slit her throat. Murder was never solved.

RG, last summer I tried to get my two brother and my SIL to go see the Tigers play. We have few opportunities to get together because our families are scattered around the world. My brother the doctor, thought he would bring his three boys, but he couldn't make time. I am sure my SIL made sure it wouldn't happen. We got to Detroit but no one had bought tickets. It was sold out.

We ate a ****†y dinner in Greektown and wandered around the Renaissance center, looked across the water at Canada. I convinced my brother to go look the ruin of the old central station. Detroit is dysfunctional. Sort of like our family. Couldn't even make to the ball game once. The cousins missed that chance to bond. It will never happen now. Kids are starting to go off to college. Profound 

Don't let Mrs RG take your daughter away RG. You can't undo some things. You don't want to be a weekend dad who and let your deluded wife pump her head full nonsense. Read about parental alienation.

Anyway TAM training is necessary for what is left of life, both the good and bad.


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## turnera

> Anyway, I am worried that saying wise things doesn't mean anything since your children are going copy some variation of what they're parents do. Here I am on shaky ground. What sort model am I?


I just wanted to step in for a moment because of this. I have learned that this definitely is not true. I say many things my mom said. I like many things she liked. It's all a blend. And now I'm watching DD22 turn into a mini-me with a little of her harsher dad thrown in. For example, I always give money to the beggar on the corner. I would tell DD that if someone is so destitute that they have to stand there, humiliated, they need that dollar more than I do. My husband, who won't help ANY beggar, ever, always said things like 'why don't they just get a job?' and if a school group was begging for camp money, he'd say 'why aren't they doing a car wash instead of just begging?' DD22 has decided that if she sees someone washing windows or selling a flower, she should help them out - at least they are DOING something, not just begging. She's an amalgam of both of us - both of our words AND actions.


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## LongWalk

Limerick four (*Where do all they go?*)

She came home from work one fine day
to find that he'd gone quite away.
He left some credit card debt,
golf clubs and a pet,
but gone was the flat screen display.


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## Memento

LongWalk said:


> When I was about 14 or 15 my father, a board certified psychiatrist/neurologist, said that I suffered an Oedipal complex. I knew what an Oedipal complex was because Freudian psychology was in the media in the early 70s. But he had to spell it out.
> 
> "It means you want to murder your father so that you can marry your mother," he explained. He face was dark with rage, normal in our father son conversations.
> 
> I am now 54 years old and have two daughters (18 and 15). Their mother and I divorced around 9 years ago. We live in Europe. My parents in the States. We try to visit as often as possible because my parents are in their 80s. My father, 83, has Alzheimer's and my mother, 81, is doing a great job taking care of him. However, he is getting weaker and weaker. It is likely that he will not survive many more months.
> 
> Thoughts of my childhood are actually becoming more and more disturbing to me. The Oedipal complex accusation was simply a particularly memorable and disturbing example of the emotional abuse to which he subjected me.
> 
> In my sophomore year of highschool my mother suggested that I be sent away to a boarding school on the East coast. My father agreed. The ostensible reason was to get me to take school more seriously. I think my parents wanted to reduce the conflict between me and my father.
> 
> Now my father is at the end of life, I will sooner or later have to go back and bury or cremate him... maybe he donated his body to his medical school. Is that a kind of rug sweeping, to not want a grave? Dumping out ashes, isn’t that just a way of getting rid of the memories and putting zinc and mercury into the air?
> 
> I once tried to talk to my mother about her role in failing to defend me from his rage but she didn't want to talk about it, although she was also given some terrible emotional drubbings. She was disturbed about what I said because one of my brothers mentioned the conversation and that she had not liked where it was going.
> 
> I am considering telling my brothers about my feelings about my/our childhood. One is a surgeon, the other a telecom business executive. Both of them make more money than I do. Their wives have actively shunned my daughters when we've have opportunities to visit in the States. Is costs a lot of money to get together and they sabotage the family reunions.
> 
> I don't care if my SIL don't want to hang out with me. But my daughters are very nice and it hurts them to rejected.
> 
> The surgeon brother and I are closer. He just shrugs his shoulders and asks me to be patient and humor his wife. I feel like I am walking eggshells to not offend her. She is very smart. Graduated from the same medical school as my brother but has been a SAHM.
> 
> My other brother is a very straight uptight guy. He loved my dad and always sided with him in all the family fights. We used to have Saturday family meetings in which the abuse was dealt out, mainly to me, the eldest son. My father insisted that we follow Roberts Rules. So there were always motions. So and so would move that X child be criticised for Y. All those in favor raise your right hand. So the whole family would condemn X.
> 
> My youngest brother sometime raised his arm slowly and reluctantly. My telecom exec brother always condemned quickly. He could not see that our dad had Alzheimer's. He refused to use the word. Today my father can recognize many people. He has even had a bad morning when he did not know our mother, with whom he has lived for over 50 years.
> 
> There is more to say, but to me the watershed has been reading TAM. Denying problems and rug-sweeping just makes things worse. However, is bring stuff up now appropriate. Maybe I should just accept that I suffered emotional abuse and let it drop.
> 
> I do not have money for psychotherapy and I do not like psychiatrists or psychologists all that much. My father used to drag me to psychiatric conventions around the US and even other countries to stand in his scientific booth as a representative of his exhibition.
> 
> I had to work in his office every summer... fvck I am so angry about this stuff. Why when I have so much else to do in life does this stuff float to the surface?


Why were you the recipient of his anger and not your brothers? 

Many parents scar their children for life. But carrying that anger and resentment, only keeps you from moving forward. Now that you know your father will not be here for long, try to forgive him while you can. With all his faults, he is your father and I am sure that deep down inside, a part of you still cares for him.


----------



## LongWalk

It's funny Turnera how I am not far behind you. D18 has a handicap, hearing impaired somewhere between grave and moderate. Fortunately, she hears all frequencies. In fact, she can hear high pitched noises that we no longer can. So, she has no speech impediment and is very good a reading, writing, speaking, etc.

She is not very pretty but not plain either. She has a super charmer smile, but it is a feminine communication smile rather than a joyous character smile (those are not so common). She really wants to be kissed and have a boyfriend. I suppose her handicap makes her less attractive. After all, mates are selected for their survival traits. As a father it makes me a little nervous. I don't know how this will affect the choice of guys she'll have.

Your daughter has got better handle on this stuff now, right?

Anyway D18 is very like me in terms of character, both defects and strong points. I think a lot of it is genetic. D15 is not like her mother or me. She has real smarts and uncanny grown up maturity. I don't know where she got it from. She is very calm and forbearing, but misses nothing.


----------



## turnera

I raised DD22 with logic. It was the only way I knew of to get her past her dad's bizarre behavior (it's him, not you). But I would help her logic every situation. "If he asks you out and then tries to have sex with you, and you turn him down, what will happen the next day? If you say yes, how will that affect YOU? What will happen with your friends? What else might could be done?" So now she is VERY logical, and it's resulted in her being the only level-headed person in her group of friends. The only other person as good as her is her male gay friend, who's had a lot of drama in his life. He's decided to just be positive, and it's a joy to behold. She strives to be like him, but her dad and my negativity drags her down sometimes.

Anyway, they hear EVERYTHING you say to them. And usually grow up to believe exactly what you say. So if you believe something, say it!


----------



## LongWalk

email from my mother:



> I've just go up, early than usual (7:30a.m.) and I find your father fast asleep and very pale.
> 
> The cleaning lady comes at 9.
> 
> Love, Mom
> 
> I wrote this at 9a.m. Things have changed since then.
> 
> Molly (the dog) licked your father's face and he was woken up by the licks, and he said, "get rid of him." I got your father up (not Molly) and as usual he was soaked in pee. I wiped him off and put on a red "communist" shirt and wheeled him in for water, meds, coffee and porridge, oh! and blueberries. I asked him if he remembered his birthday yesterday when he turned 84. He laughed heartily and said, "I can't be 84." So we had a chat back and forth about the age. He was animated and relaxed. Last night I gave him 1 1/2 Ativan. Maybe this had something to do with it.
> 
> This woman, Miss C...... could be somebody in the hospice office, somebody who gets the reports from the people who come here from hospice to take care of him. She should have sent me a copy of what she sent you, (my brother).
> 
> How did it feel to leave X (my nephew) behind in Italy? Definitely different.......As I said yesterday, he'll learn a lot of Loredana, Pepe and the boys. An education he could not get in class.


I don't know how long my father will live. I don't want him to die, in part because I do not know how I will react. Ms GP said that she will not be sad when her abusive parents die (her father was also a psychiatrist). Maybe she will feel pity.

Many people on TAM talk about family relations. It seems that many believe that marriage liberates them from the, as Moxy calls it, the family of origin. Later, though, it turns out that the issues of childhood cannot be avoided. They are there and if they are bad enough they rot and stink worse with time.


----------



## LongWalk

turnera said:


> I raised DD22 with logic. It was the only way I knew of to get her past her dad's bizarre behavior (it's him, not you). But I would help her logic every situation. "If he asks you out and then tries to have sex with you, and you turn him down, what will happen the next day? If you say yes, how will that affect YOU? What will happen with your friends? What else might could be done?" So now she is VERY logical, and it's resulted in her being the only level-headed person in her group of friends. The only other person as good as *her is her male gay friend*, who's had a lot of drama in his life. He's decided to just be positive, and it's a joy to behold. She strives to be like him, but her dad and my negativity drags her down sometimes.
> 
> Anyway, they hear EVERYTHING you say to them. And usually grow up to believe exactly what you say. So if you believe something, say it!


My daughter has good guy friend who gay from what I gathered on FB.


----------



## moxy

turnera said:


> I raised DD22 with logic. It was the only way I knew of to get her past her dad's bizarre behavior (it's him, not you). But I would help her logic every situation. "If he asks you out and then tries to have sex with you, and you turn him down, what will happen the next day? If you say yes, how will that affect YOU? What will happen with your friends? What else might could be done?" So now she is VERY logical, and it's resulted in her being the only level-headed person in her group of friends. ...


These kinds of questions probably also help her discern what she actually and really wants; instead of encouraging her to just choose the best option presented, this will help her make her own path. You sound like an accepting and understanding parent that doesn't hem her in with criticism and judgement. This is a good thing.


----------



## moxy

LongWalk said:


> I don't know how long my father will live. I don't want him to die, in part because I do not know how I will react. Ms GP said that she will not be sad when her abusive parents die (her father was also a psychiatrist). Maybe she will feel pity.


Death is so final. Some people see a release. Some people see only the end of a possibility for redemption of past mistakes. Some people aren't bothered by it. You carry a lot of wounds from your past and many of those emotional injuries were caused by your parents; that has so be painfully complicated by the awareness of your father's dwindling health. I wonder if it might help you to heal from some of these lingering, painful memories to learn about your father's past (and your mother's) to try understanding why he is the way he is and what might have made him behave so badly. It may not be possible to understand, but, sometimes making the effort helps ease the sting because it gives you a bigger picture to look at. Of course, that might be a terrible idea; it's just a suggestion, anyway.



LongWalk said:


> Many people on TAM talk about family relations. It seems that many believe that marriage liberates them from the, as Moxy calls it, the family of origin. Later, though, it turns out that the issues of childhood cannot be avoided. They are there and if they are bad enough they rot and stink worse with time.


"Family of Origin" isn't a term that I've coined. I heard it from someone else and it made so much sense to me that I've been using it ever since. I think that our formative years do leave us bent out of shape and that sometimes, trying to fix those things is horrible, painful, and frustrating. Sometimes, it's impossible. I do think that with the right combination of factors, we can escape the problems and the issues. Haven't found it yet, myself, but I think it's possible.

I'm sorry to hear that you're having to contend with such heavy thoughts. I hope you find some levity in your weekend to distract you a bit.


----------



## moxy

LonelyinLove said:


> My foster mother told me, after a minor disagreement over religious theology, that people like me are serial killers. She referenced that guy in Atlanta that killed all those children. I was pregnant with my first child at the time.


How awful! Some people can be quite cruel in their insults.


----------



## LongWalk

Stolen from LL's threadÖ

I hear you, Onmyway. Once I sat in an empty seat on a train next to a middle aged woman. I am hesitant to get into conversations in this situation because there is always a risk that they will not be interesting. We started chatting and there was a huge coincidence in our lives. Her son was foot and ankle surgeon who had been the Navy and so was my brother.

"Hard life, my brother is always, so sleep deprived," I said.

"And my son, too," she said.

One of the big worries is falling asleep at the wheel and crashing the car. My brother has destroyed a couple of cars, but so far never been injured.

Pretty soon we agreed that they ought to work less and enjoy a better quality of life. The obstacle to that was the need for money. In both families money had to be burned to create happiness. Both this woman's DIL and my SIL have a tremendous appetite to consume conspicuously.

On my last visit to my brother's I went into his bedroom with him to fetch something. We went into walk-in closet which is three times the size of my kitchen. Hanging more or less unworn was a row of suits, jackets, button down cotton shirts and pants that could not be used in the lifetime of three business executives. I should have bit my tongue, but he's my little brother so I expressed my amazement. He told me to drop it in a way that he never spoken to me before.

In retrospect, I know why he feels bad. He doesn't want all those suits and stuff. His wife loves shopping and he has spent many hours of his life following her around shopping malls when he would rather be doing other stuff, like working out, playing the with kids, etc.

This woman's was in the same situation. The MIL never let a critical word out about her view of the consumerism because she said that her DIL would cut her out of their lives immediately. She was part American Indian and had grown up poor. It really bothered her to go out to dinner and hear grandchildren complain about food in expensive restaurants.

"They order something, take one bite or look. Say they don't like it and refuse to eat it."

Men are not living according to their values. They are emasculated by a lifestyle that they don't know how to resist. Men and women need to educate themselves so that they do not mindlessly slip into these oppressive roles. Men are also guilty of being manipulated. All the hours spent watching sports on TV when they should be doing things with their wife and children.

How is wife supposed to feel sexual desire for husband because he worships Kobe Bryant. All that can do is make her wish for some fantasy man from a romance novel.

If a wife has a hundred pair of shoes, a husband should stop he buying more, not to save money but because it's obscene. A man has to say no when his wife has tried 4 or 5 lovers.


----------



## LongWalk

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bullwinkle View Post
So I saw Frostine today when she picked up and dropped off D3. She looked fabulous, boober shirt, makeup, lustrous raven hair. But oh, yeah, I hate her.
She hates herself more. Don't forget to resign from her club.

Did you ever get a copy of her rap sheet and mug shot? Good to get those before you fly off. Scan them in and save them online in a private album.

Make sure you have some nice pics of Penguin swimming.

I am not sure how old I was when I had my first series of swimming lessons but I have this vague memory of learning at the high school pool. Was I seven or eight years old? Everything is a haze. The color of the tiles. The smell of chlorine water and the sound of sloshing in the gutters. On the last day of the course the instructor, probably a high school swim team senior got emotional at our goodbye.

She drew me and another boy in tight, crushing my head against one of her boobers. I didn't feel any depression or unhappiness. I was too young to know anything about sex, but I knew it was a wonderful place to be. I didn't want to share her with the other boy. 

Guess there is no pool in Kabul... hmmm Google. Gosh horrible.


----------



## LongWalk

Lifted from FF's thread:


Originally Posted by Ms. GP View Post
I think LW is trying to get her to set aside some of her anger and take an unbiased look at the relationship for her and her daughter's sake. Anger can be a very toxic emotion. Just my 2 cents.
Posted via Mobile Device
Exactly. FF is a bright, optimistic, humorous person, but for some reason uncertain of her own worth. The rewrite of her marital history is destructive to herself as much as to her ex.

FF, it is very likely that could not cope with your rejection during the period that you drifted away from him. 

I am not bothered by my ex's anger because I was emotionally abused as child so having loved ones angry at me is normal. It is almost approval. After coming to TAM I realized this. It is hard to undo a pattern of dysfunctionality. I am thinking about writing an apology to my ex. I need to write something that will help and I need to make my insight deliver in action as well.

FF must see that "I wish you were dead" and "slit your wrists" are not mere words but action. Once she can apologize for that, she forgive herself for other failings. That will help her let go. Whether her ex can respond in kind is not her problem.

In my family, on both sides, grudges last an eternity. My mother almost died of diphtheria as child. When she was strong enough her elder sister took her piggy back to the village graveyard to show the fresh graves of her two twin sisters who had not received the antitoxin. There had been only one dose and my mother had been the illest of the three.

That aunt was very alpha and successful professionally, but she said and did things to hurt my mother. Now at end of their lives they refuse to speak, to say goodbye, to remember anything that was good. My aunt came to America and helped my mother after my birth. Those good things happened. How is it healthy for my mother to punish her by denying her existence?

My mother is a cake eater. For the hated aunt has son who after many years of struggle as an impoverished actor who went between feast and famine (he was in a film with Steve Martin) made it from character actor to getting better roles in BBC productions and in the theaters. My mother is very proud of him, but since she has thrown gasoline on the grudge in recent years, that nephew is no part of our lives.

How absurd to be proud of your minor celebrity artist nephew, only to be completely cut off from him by choice.

And so people leave this world, refusing to forgive, all the while hoping to hear bad news about the other even as the sources of news whither.


----------



## LongWalk

Originally Posted by ReGroup View Post
That was a dope flow!

She was raised in Upstate NY - her father was from the city, so was her mother. They are both rough around the edges and moved upstate for the kids.

I was born in Harlem and raised in Upper Manhattan: drugs, gangs, violence, etc...

I am of Dominican Descent - you know birth place to: Robinson Cano, Albert Pujols, Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz, etc...

In the 80s the saying was always: either you become a baseball player or a drug dealer.

That has changed though as the opportunity to get a higher education opened up.

Though our community was/is laced with all that sh*t, my mother shielded me from all of that. My father and brother weren't as lucky.

She always said: If you don't bother them, they won't bother you. Keep it moving.

My mother did a better job of raising us than Mrs. RG's parents. 

Nevertheless, I want to move out of my area. No place to raise a kid - it's just asking for trouble. Even though I am well known and respected in my area. Can't leave it to chance.

Don't understand how she has such a foul mouth and I dont. Lol.
Posted via Mobile Device
NYC is a cool place at certain time in life. My brother went to Columbia in the 80s. One time some dorm mate say a nice carpet rolled up by the garbage cans and thought they check to see if it was salvageable. The cut the rope and body fell out.

Twice I had a car window smashed out by, I presume addicts, looking for the radio hidden under the newspaper on the floor of the passenger seat. God, was I naive.

My uncle was a bartender on Wall St and a gambling man in Chinatown. When the restaurant went bust he worked as a bookie for the mafia. My cousin worked there one summer and my uncle's Italian friends took them out on boat, from which they shot cans and bottles floating in the water.

One night he was stabbed and robbed outside the door of his Staten Island apartment. His wife was robbed, too. 

Another cousin his sister actually lived in a roach infested apartment in Chinatown for a couple of years. She moved to LA to her husband could pursue his Hollywood dreams. Just heard he ran away with another woman, leaving her with the troublesome skateboarding teenage boys.

Another friend, a piano tuner hippy martial artist lifted in Brooklyn was cycling home across the bridge one evening and a Black kid hiding on the side whacked him on the head to try and rob him. Piano man was an animal he chased the boy town and held him out over the river to face death. Let him go but was a good lesson.

No, NYC is not for everybody and not for a lifetime.

Someday I'll pass through and if you're still there we'll have brew IRL.


----------



## LongWalk

Copied from Ryo's thread:


Good. Just make sure she makes all the changes necessary for a healthy relationship.

I was emotionally abused as a child so I empathize with your distance from love. I know that I love my kids. I don't know what I feel for my parents. I suppose I love them, but I don't feel it. Makes me sad. I love my youngest brother. I love his boys, my nephews like my own. My other brother, I love him but I never call him. He sided with my dad always when I was getting abused. He couldn't help it, little guy. I don't love his son or daughter (my niece and nephew are around the same age as my kids). My SIL kept her kids away from mine as much as could. This hurt me and my relationship a lot. Makes me sad, too.

I wish life was like online, where you could suffer disaster and them heal to fight again without any effort. It's easy to be addicted online BS. You need to keep divorcing your wife to make certain she is committed to your IRL relationship. You need a woman who has your back so you can get a better job. You are a smart guy. You are honest. Fight for life on your terms. Get a hobby that brings you out of isolation. Your wife needs to know in no uncertain terms that online gaming is a deal breaker. 

If she is a good cook but cannot give that to her family, why would want her? 

Keep working with Conrad. The guy is so generous.


----------



## LongWalk

Default Re: WAW finished nursing school and left M for herself
Looking forward to the FB photos. Get those kids together so that they understand concept of loyalty. I think that makes a big impression. 

Angstire, you are a contemplative person. You will make sense of this and let your emotions catch up.

I saw my daughters, 18 and 15, for the first time since returning from a two week business trip. I didn't bring back a lot of expensive presents. Got D18, a nail care set, nice little steel tools. As long a she doesn't lose them, they'll last forever. D15 likes rubiks cubes. I got a a 7x7. She was happy. Don't know how to do one myself. Kind of proud that she so smart.

D18 is talking about her last year of gymnasium. High school is one year longer here. She is thinking about applying to medical school or going to Germany for a year to study German. She dropped design to start German.

They are growing up fast. They are doing well. Our divorce was not so bad for them. I saw my ex. She was pleasant. Sometimes she can be moody. I think women hate going into menopause. I don't know where she is at in that regard, but it is weird to think that you have to think about the women in your life in terms of the state of their ovaries.

I predict your ex will not age well. She won't be a nice old lady.


----------



## NextTimeAround

turnera said:


> *I raised DD22 with logic.* It was the only way I knew of to get her past her dad's bizarre behavior (it's him, not you). But I would help her logic every situation. "If he asks you out and then tries to have sex with you, and you turn him down, what will happen the next day? If you say yes, how will that affect YOU? What will happen with your friends? What else might could be done?" So now she is VERY logical, and it's resulted in her being the only level-headed person in her group of friends. The only other person as good as her is her male gay friend, who's had a lot of drama in his life. He's decided to just be positive, and it's a joy to behold. She strives to be like him, but her dad and my negativity drags her down sometimes.
> 
> Anyway, they hear EVERYTHING you say to them. And usually grow up to believe exactly what you say. So if you believe something, say it!


I think that sometimes that puts you at a disadvantage. Someone who is comfortable with their emotions is more likely to react when something is not quite right than worry about whether they are being fair to others.

I see this as a disadvantage for myself when I was trying to deal with OSFs with my ex H and with my fiance at the beginning of our relationship. 

My emotions were saying that something is wrong but since I am not completely against OSFs, I had trouble trying to articulate exactly what the problem is.

We have to remind ourselves that is emotion is not a bad thing either. And that other people are making decisions on that basis as well.


----------



## LongWalk

Default Re: Time To ReGroup and Move On
Mavash, it is very hard for me to interact socially because both of my parents were dysfunctional in their relationship and in their dealings with others. I cannot ever remember either of my parents ever apologizing for anything to each other or anyone else, ever. In my father's culture, apology and remorse do not exist in the same way as in Western culture. Shame rather than guilt are the basis of order.

In my mother's family there were 17 or 18 kids who grew up in the depression. So inside of such a large family there were constant battles. They did not discuss or communicate in but verbally bullied each other, competing to see who spoke the loudest and grabbed the fastest.

Over time I slowly realized that I muffed a lot of social norms, but I can see that someone like Mrs RG just doesn't get it at all. She cannot read people. She cannot even understand ReGroup, despite having lived together. Mindboggling. How could RG stand living with her?

RG, you must be so relieved to know that sleeping with her would be a mistake (unwise choice). You can feel in advance that the aftermath would be a disaster.


----------



## LongWalk

NextTimeAround said:


> I think that sometimes that puts you at a disadvantage. Someone who is comfortable with their emotions is more likely to react when something is not quite right than worry about whether they are being fair to others.
> 
> I see this as a disadvantage for myself when I was trying to deal with OSFs with my ex H and with my fiance at the beginning of our relationship.
> 
> My emotions were saying that something is wrong but since I am not completely against OSFs, I had trouble trying to articulate exactly what the problem is.
> 
> We have to remind ourselves that is emotion is not a bad thing either. And that other people are making decisions on that basis as well.


One needs to balance two systems of gathering information.


----------



## PieceOfSky

LongWalk said:


> One needs to balance two systems of gathering information.



I agree.


Sometimes I think it works best when the rational part of my brain pays attention to what the emotions and subconscious/non-verbal parts are trying to say or might be resonating on. 

Other times, my rational part would be wise to accept it cannot decode the emotion/hunch in real-time, and choose to follow where the emotion/hunch takes me. Or, decide to temporarily ignore the feelings and stay the rational course.

Hard to know the best way, in the moment!

But flat out ignoring the feelings over a long period is probably not going to get me anywhere nice over the long run.


----------



## PieceOfSky

Longwalk,

Have not read the whole thread yet, but wanted to say I wonder if writing a book about your childhood would be therapeutic. Even if you don't even try to publish it.

Maybe I'm naive, but I wonder if somehow through the exercise you would start to find a way to comprehend and shape it, as crazy as it was, into something you can integrate in a healthy way into your present and future self. Not sure if that makes sense.

Also, in my mid-twenties to mid-thirties, I came to believe that certain kinds of trauma and pain, once repressed, will stay with oneself forever if one lets it. It may often affect oneself -- often going undetected. Then, at some point, other things change and it gets closer to the surface. Hopefully at that point one is more equipped or better supported to let it out and lose its power. I think if one does that well, it will be good in the long run. Liberating. 

I don't recall exactly where I got those notions, but I read some books about repression and have more recently let some things out in IC with a truly healthy and admirable therapist -- and, it was a big relief.

Reading some of your posts here, I was getting the feeling maybe you were getting to the point where de-repressing some of that toxic stuff stored in you might be a very good thing. Scary as hell, and painful no doubt. But perhaps an unprecedented opportunity.

Just some thoughts. Take care.


----------



## turnera

Plus, you are an excellent writer!


----------



## Ms. GP

Glad you are back man. I think it takes a very brave person to admit when they are wrong. Everyone makes mistakes. Don't beat yourself up buddy. I'm sorry to hear you are going through a difficult time. I don't think you are irrepairably damaged. I stick my foot in my mouth all the time. It's called being human. Sucks sometimes don't it?


----------



## LongWalk

There once was a pyschiatrist's son
who knew life wouldn't be fun.
To start there was that jolly complex
named after Oedipus Rex
which means Pop's Darth Vader: "Better run!"


----------



## LongWalk

Ms. GP said:


> Glad you are back man. I think it takes a very brave person to admit when they are wrong. Everyone makes mistakes. Don't beat yourself up buddy. I'm sorry to hear you are going through a difficult time. I don't think you are irrepairably damaged. I stick my foot in my mouth all the time. It's called being human. Sucks sometimes don't it?


Thanks. It was hard to explain why I did that. There are different kinds of posters here. People like Happyman, Turnera, Conrad are very ego free and they are like therapists.

Others drift between different roles, finding friends. Sharing a common problem. It can be hard to discover that this sort of environment is not so stable.


----------



## LongWalk

PieceOfSky said:


> Longwalk,
> 
> Have not read the whole thread yet, but wanted to say I wonder if writing a book about your childhood would be therapeutic. Even if you don't even try to publish it.
> 
> Maybe I'm naive, but I wonder if somehow through the exercise you would start to find a way to comprehend and shape it, as crazy as it was, into something you can integrate in a healthy way into your present and future self. Not sure if that makes sense.
> 
> Also, in my mid-twenties to mid-thirties, I came to believe that certain kinds of trauma and pain, once repressed, will stay with oneself forever if one lets it. It may often affect oneself -- often going undetected. Then, at some point, other things change and it gets closer to the surface. Hopefully at that point one is more equipped or better supported to let it out and lose its power. I think if one does that well, it will be good in the long run. Liberating.
> 
> I don't recall exactly where I got those notions, but I read some books about repression and have more recently let some things out in IC with a truly healthy and admirable therapist -- and, it was a big relief.
> 
> Reading some of your posts here, I was getting the feeling maybe you were getting to the point where de-repressing some of that toxic stuff stored in you might be a very good thing. Scary as hell, and painful no doubt. But perhaps an unprecedented opportunity.
> 
> Just some thoughts. Take care.


I agree with this completely. What I ask myself is why it took me so long to come this point. Why reading about infidelity on TAM reveal this seam of repressed anger and disappointment.

I know that two of my cousins, both eldest sons, underwent a very similar traumatic childhood and adolescence. One blew out his mind on LSD around 1971. He became clinical psychologist but he can't think straight.

The other became a psychiatrist. He does not practice medicine and is high functioning, but he has character traits from the past that are not normal. Still, he became a adjunct professor at a famous medical school.

He treat(s) treated his wife horribly.


----------



## LongWalk

*Using harsh verbal discipline with teens found to be harmful*
Sep 04, 2013
Many American parents yell or shout at their teenagers. A new longitudinal study has found that using such harsh verbal discipline in early adolescence can be harmful to teens later. Instead of minimizing teens' problematic behavior, harsh verbal discipline may actually aggravate it.

the article


Read more at: Using harsh verbal discipline with teens found to be harmful

Using harsh verbal discipline with teens found to be harmful


----------



## LongWalk

LL, Thanks once again for share your thread with me. I have gained insight from you. Here is the latest little bit:

My eldest daughter, 18, is in her last year of high school. It's called gymnasium here and lasts one year longer than in the US. She is searching for universities now. Her grades are good but not perfect and she struggled with chemistry and math, but did better in physics than she expected.

So, she knows that getting into medical school will be tough. She could go to one of those English language programs in a Central or Eastern European country. Around 40% fail out the first year. She says she doesn't want to study in Poland. But what does she know of that country? Very little. But we have all sorts of prejudices.

She suddenly got excited about a human sciences degree at Oxford University. The same is offered at Kings College in London. I am happy that she sees public health as possible career. She rushed to the college admissions advisor to discuss her new plan.

"You don't have a chance of getting into Oxford," the woman told her.

I tell my daughter not to worry about what university but just to read more about the subjects she now considering and use the Oxford application as an inspiration. The key is to have the process become a positive experience, not the source of disappointment.

In relationships isn't this sort of choice making the same? One cannot simply pick a famous artist, actor or athlete out of a catalog and say: "That will be my mate." IRL we have to choose and commit resources to winning a particular individual, if a spouse and family are what we want. We cannot play the field day after day and expect to have deeper relationship.

Of course Hard to Detach's wife and your wife are shocked because they allowed a cake eating retreat to single behavior to blow up in their faces. It is sad for them. Baldy is not the Oxford of lovers.

My daughter got two tickets to school event that is immensely popular. The tickets are sold out and price of the scalped tickets has shot up ridiculously – teens are needy and will pay to go to this event that will be an orgy of pure fun, driven as we know by the hunt for sex and love.

She put the extra ticket up on FB for sale at the price she paid for it but the those who want it must sing a song about how cool she is. She thought this was clever. After being on TAM I recognize it instantly for what it is teenage anxiety. She has channeled her desire for validation into a harmless diversion.

The same energy could go into makeup, clothing, tattoos, etc. So, this just something to learn from. However, it is obvious that she doesn't really want affirmation from hundreds. She wants a boyfriend.

Her teammate, I gather, lost her virginity to the guy who was captain of their mixed team. Lost her virginity and was dumped. I know the guy and he is a nice kid. He was just looking for fun. She may look back at it and see it as a positive experience. It life is going well why shouldn't a no strings attached night be OK? Probably my daughter is jealous.

I don't think your wife's behavior is so very different than a teen's. Even though I wrote about her probable dalliances in lurid metaphor, it is not because I really believe that a woman having sex is something dirty and abnormal. What needed to be shouted was that she shouldn't have ben doing it at your expense. Worse, since you are father to her children, damaging you as person and weakening your ability to parent. Very selfish and immature.

Now that you are detaching from her, just how many guys she slept with and what they did becomes less painful and less important. That she went through panic at the idea of Baldy reaching out to you to expose her lack of fidelity was her meltdown. She has learned her lesson but at a high cost.

I don't think a husband can rescue a WW from such a situation, unless that person makes a leap. But your wife no longer has the energy to save your marriage. Hard to detach's wife wants to reconcile, but only so that he will safe her from her folly, not because she has recovered her love for him. She admits it openly. He refuses to be the so-called plan B guy.

You aren't going to be the plan B guy either. Your wife doesn't believe in it either. It will be interesting if she tries to sabotage your single life once it gets going.


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## Ms. GP

I' m really impressed with the open communication style you have with your daughters. Any tips? Do you share pertinent details about your past? Just curious.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## LongWalk

Hi Ms GP,

My daughters are two very different individuals. Personality is much more genetic than we care to admit. Everybody gets a different hand. In terms of communicate the needs of each are different. They all need unconditional love, but this causes parents guilt because absolute unconditional love cannot and does not exist. I guess the closest thing we have is a fight with wild animals to protect our offspring. But the animals are all gone.

I suppose we all want to communicate that we do love them. And after coming on to TAM, I realize much more that actions speak louder than words. My open communication is not a replacement for a happy father. I need to rebuild myself so that I can be a good parent down the home stretch. I actually think I did well after divorce. It is more in recent months that I have begun to slide into my depression.

Depression goes hand in hand with addiction. TAM can be addictive. But I know that writing a thoughtful reply to you is more important than reading about some CWI story as a form of voyeurism. I have moved beyond that, although it was important for me to actually begin puzzle together my own childhood.

I noticed by the way that GP reached a point at which he became much more like Conrad or Happyman, offering advice that was no longer about his needs. He was a 50,000 ft and could help. Usually by offering just a sentence or two. This can be a very good lesson in communication. A person who doesn't say too much but means what they say is often heard and respected.

GP would probably say that he fights off the verbose needy guy within. I need to follow that example. That does not mean being less open but being more selective in what I say.

My youngest daughter is very bright. Her ability to read social situations and individuals is mind boggling. She is better at dealing with people than most grown ups. She still needs emotional nourishment. Actually like physical affection. She still wants to hold hands sometimes.

I can tell her about what I have learned about human interaction and I think she learns from it. She tries too hard please sometimes, she agreed to go skiing one time when she was just getting over a cold and she had an okay time but then relapsed. I shouldn't have let her feel that she was spoiling the trip by not taking part.

I recently bought her an 8 x 8 Rubik's cube and she can solve it, probably by watching YouTube, but still she can do them quickly and only refer to a piece of paper when there is a really long algorithm. I cannot even do the 3 x 3 but I am going to try. She even takes the apart and puts them back together.

My eldest is like me... but a better version. She doesn't have the social calculus skills but responds to warmth and love. Adults and peers who like her make all the difference for her well being. She has more trouble seeing the consequences of social interaction.

I once bumped another car... actually when my eldest daughter distracted me by kicking up a huge fuss. Still my responsibility as the driver, I know. Anyway, she then made that into a story to amuse people. "Dad had and accident haha." My younger daughter would not do that. She thinks before she speaks. I would probably have been like my eldest at her age.

So, in my interaction with my eldest I try to give her love and support and not nag her about the mistakes that she repeats. She calls and SMSs rather often, seeking support. Which is good. My younger daughter never calls or SMSs.

What I want and need to do in my communications has to be adjusted to fit them. When the three of us are together I do tell them about our crazy family because they have interacted with it and are mystified.

Why do my SILs sabotage our family reunions? That hurts my daughters but the responsibility lies with my brothers, parents and me, not just my SILs.

The SIL married to my youngest brother was a med school classmate. She became a pediatrician but never practiced, preferring to be a soccer mom and driving an absurd amount of her life away. She is very smart but pretty fed up with our family. She has flaws. My brother would admit that her values are different ours... but then she is a realist while my brother is a nice guy. Perhaps they are a good fit. I will ask my daughters that.

My other SIL has Münchhausen by proxy. My brother who is a successful business executive in the telecoms lets her do all sorts of terrible things to their children. Endless medical and psychological testing. They must have some sort of disorder. The worst was her insistence that my nephew had a heart condition. She pushed this so hard that underwent pulmonary artery catheterization through the femoral vein. Yikes. Dangerous stuff. But there was nothing to discover. My brother has, I believe, submitted to mercury poisoning tests because she was certain fish from the Pacific ocean had deposited high levels of the metal in their family. Why? They don't eat sushi for breakfast everyday.

I asked my nephew what he thought of his grandmothers. "Aggressive and passive aggressive," he replied. He has started college in CA. I am sure he is really happy to have gotten away from home, which is natural of course.

My ex's family has a lot of issues. My ex FIL was a political prisoner – accused of being an American spy and forced to work in a coal mine –suffered a great deal. My ex MIL who was a terrific cook and seamstress had a heart attack. So, ex FIL, while caring for her, has developed a OCD. The whole apartment is filled with containers of water. He is hoarding water. My daughters visited this summer for a few days. Flushing the toilet was forbidden. Only when there was a No. 2 could they get a bucket of old dishwater and slosh it down. WTF.

So my daughters see disfunction in real life. I don't think my family is so unique. Alcoholism, mental illness, drug addiction, infidelity and divorce are common. There a few who can claim that their extended families don't have these problems.

What I need to communicate to my daughters is that we are not dragged under by these things. Heck, my brothers are doing way better than I am despite the lack of perfection in their lives.

I need to put what I have learned on TAM into action in my life. That should be the communications strategy.


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## LongWalk

Piece of Sky wrote


> Have not read the whole thread yet, but wanted to say I wonder if writing a book about your childhood would be therapeutic. Even if you don't even try to publish it.


Absolutely right. I need to use this threat to start writing. All the confusion... my father believed that he could leverage an army of people, his patients and his staff – note to be a employee at my father's clinic, one of the qualifications was that you were a patient or had a family member who was – to carry out a revolution.

In concrete terms this was the Catholic hospital that refused to let my father do electroshock therapy to erase memory and reprogram patients. I was forced to join this army as child soldier.

The administrators at the hospital had murdered my father's patient – he committed suicide – by refusing to allow him treatment. And so the lawsuit began. Sister Mary J was the enemy. All my Saturdays were spent at the clinic, vegetating or working. At last my father would allow me to go down to the coffee shop below the clinic. It was an extension of the clinic, providing work to the mentally ill or their family members. 

One of the cooks was Richard G, a tall slovenly hippy with drug problems. The guy made a wicked double cheeseburger. He explained that lettuce and tomato took up to much room. He buttered the buns and grilled them so they had a crisp greasy brown surface. Richard smoked Cool cigarettes and had a slight facial twitch, aftermath of drug abuse? In Richard I recognized the nice guy broken person. There is something fascinating about dysfunctional people if you are one yourself. 

I enjoyed those burgers. His mother, a very nice lady, an RN who did not say to much, worked for my father for years. I have no idea what became of Richard. He was not going to hang around and be a paying member of my father's cult.

It would have been around 2:30 or 3:00. Sometimes my mother would drive in with my brothers. The patients and staff would all order their burgers and fries and my father the super star would stride in. He also ate a greasy burger, perhaps with chili or other soup in a large white styrofoam cup. He gulped his food quickly, like a young dog afraid that another swoop in and steal off his plate. This was a scar of my father's childhood, being a refugee from war and not getting enough to eat. He did not become dysfunctional on his own. World events conspired to shape him.

After he finished eating lunch he would read his translation of the Journey to West ( long novel), adding in laser beams and whatever his creative mind came up with to adapt an ancient story. The translations were published in each issue of his medical journal "The XXX Journal of Psychosynthesis." He was editor-in-chief. Everybody had to listen and enjoy the wisdom. It was a great work of literature, so it was not bad. My father loved it. It was a book that an uncle had read in the courtyard under the grape leaves. My father once had pet cricket in a little cage.

Once when we were having an Alzheimer's jog-your-memory conversation, maybe two or three years ago, he told me that a servant girl had died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a leaking chimney pipe. Buddhist monks had come for her funeral. Another childhood memory was a huge worm coming out of his mouth or anus. I can't remember which... must ask my brothers.

Yes, when I think about it my father did tell some tales of hardship, all that he had to overcome. On his neck there was a terrible scar from the removal of all the lymph glands on one side. He TB, given to him by his brother who came America infected. He survived. Tough SOB, my dad.

He bore the scars. The uncle who read the story died a few years ago. The brother who gave TB died of a stroke. The grapes in the courtyard were destroyed. The courtyard itself was stolen by the Communists, whom my father taught me to worship. Not so very long ago a letter came from the city back there saying that my father and his brothers had a right to apply for compensation for the property.

The family was too dysfunctional to do anything about it.

My father was a victim of a loveless family in a war torn country. He made himself into a educated and respected member of society, but he channeled his energies into Don Quixote attacking the windmill projects and forced others to participate. Hard to say how much money his pıssed away... a million dollars at least. 

Not all of that money had the same value. The early years of his career when things went well produced great money, playing the insane insurance system to the max. This system is still with us today, if you didn't notice. Later the money for his fantasy projects came from his salary as a prison psychiatrist and then later as disability evaluation decision maker. That money was hard earned. He had to drive from the hometown to one of the largest prisons in America. Everyday he had to go through security; what a humiliation for a once impressive doctor.

My father's insane project caused my mother endless pain, but by then I was long gone, bearing the mutated seeds of his misguide idealism. 

I should write about these dysfunctional projects to get it out of my system.

Topics:

1) the cult of the friendship society

2) the battle agains the hospital that ended with blackmail of the attorney general of the state. My father had patient who had an adulterous relationship with the attorney general, so he threatened to expose him if the case against him wasn't dropped.

3) the language reform cult. All the people of the world should learn the language of my father's homeland. Like Arabic for Muslims and Hebrew for Jews. The insanity in this project... my brother who supported Dear Old Dad always used to say it was like a hobby. Some dads spend time on money on a boat. Our dad was trying convince America to speak language x.

He used to preach to any person, regardless of their education or interest. Total strangers. It was like talking about Jesus.


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## Ms. GP

Thanks for sharing about your daughters. That actually helps me a lot. It seems to me you really took the time to study them and what makes them tick, and then adjusted your communication style accordingly. That makes perfect sense and I think says a lot about you as a father. They are lucky girls. 
As far as GP goes, I think your observations are pretty spot on. He struggles sometimes after reading the cwi section. I myself don't read it. It takes me to a bad place too and I think my presence there would probably cause people more pain and they are in enough pain already. GP actually is a man of few words in real life. Trying to extract details from him about a conversation he had is like pulling teeth. I think he might have a touch of add. For example, he probably won't even read this because it is in the second paragraph and he's already bored.  That is just how he rolls. It is just his personality. ( bless his heart!) You have to adapt what you say to your own personality.

I heard something I really liked. It says stop and think before you speak. Say to yourself, is it necessary, is it kind, and is it true? I try to do that


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## LongWalk

> I heard something I really liked. It says stop and think before you speak. Say to yourself, is it necessary, is it kind, and is it true? I try to do that


Too true. I must make this my mantra. And I have known for some time. The problem is that both my parents speak without thinking. Everything is stream of consciousness for them. For me mother, who has a charming accent and larger than life personality, it is liked by people, not all but many. She is a character.

She talks about herself 80% of the time and that is her favorite subject. My father, prior to the Alzheimer's, talked a great deal when he was young and energetic. He was all over the place. I think my father's cognitive function declined in middleage because he did not exercise and suffered type II diabetes. 

We are not the same people all our lives.

I could tell GP is not a big talker, but he is an active thinker. He is not dull if chooses to speak.


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## Ms. GP

No he is definitely not dull. I can honestly say that after 14 years together, I still don't know what he is going to say most times. We make each other laugh all the time which is fun.
I could tell from the first night I met him that he was different from other guys. Usually when I went out with my girlfriends some guy would walk over with some cheesy pick up line, offer to buy me a drink, and then blather on endlessly about how great he was. After about five minutes, I would be wishing I had bought my own darned drink so I could just walk away. GP was different. The first thing he ever said to me was, "how about I whip your azz in a game of pool?" (Pretty alpha huh?  )I remember thinking, "well this should be fun." We ended up trading funny stories and laughing a lot. (He is very quick witted) He expressed interest without being needy. He didn't brag about himself. In fact, he was really self- deprecating which was very endearing. His whole aura just seemed like he just wanted to just have fun. So yes he wasn't boring then and still isn't.


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## Ms. GP

Another thing that does't really have anything to do with anything. My dad was also his favorite subject of conversation. He can go on for hours. I used to joke he doesn't talk to you but at you. My mother is actually kinda socially awkward. In fact, she has no friends of her own and never really has.They are both food addicts too with type 2 diabetes. Just found the similarities a little interesting that's all.


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## LongWalk

Both of my parents completely lack any subtlety in their communications with others. My father is a painful earnest person. At one time he had a corny sense of humor that had a sort of charm but that died in middle age. Never was there any self depreciation in his character, but then that is absent from his culture. Loss of face is too terrible so why would make a joke about yourself.I have followed the same pattern.

My father devoured books as a young man but after he started practicing medicine he ceased to read great books and settle for topic material. He loved to buy books about the greatness of his homeland and the great chairman who put so many millions to death. To criticise the mass murderer was the greatest personal affront to my father. He would fly into a rage.

As he aged the rages diminished from the decline of testosterone. But the intransigence remained.

My father believed doctors and psychiatrists had followed the highest calling on the planet. He felt pity for pharmacists. Bill an American joe whose pharmacist father wanted his son to become a doctor dropped out of med school, not because he was not smart enough but because he lacked the drive to study and switched instead to pharmacy school and graduated. For my father it was a shame.

My father liked the pharmacist who had a drug store by his first office. I remember that relationship as one of my father’s few connections with America. That was back in the day when the soda fountain was a place and two pieces of Bazooka Joe bubble gum cost a cent. All those pharmacists have been wiped out. The buildings are boarded up and this in university town on the main street. The destruction of America just sits there. The broken glass and dust waiting for the wrecking ball.

My father only had few friends from college. If not for my mother, he would have had no friends. I am becoming like my father. It’s horrible how alike we are.

How old were you when you realized your father was an alcoholic abuser? I could not see my father because he had so inflated his rhinoceros ego. If my father had a obvious vice, I could have put a name on it. You ran away from home. I felt that I should but I too cowardly. If I had run away, I would have come to a bad end no doubt. Or I would become a lot tougher earlier on in life. 

I think my father and yours would have talked intensely for a moment, ah another psychiatrist, sensing another dysfunctional person, but then would stopped listening and drifted away from each other.

Years later my mother would say, “I thought your father had a plan but he had none.”


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## turnera

He defended Hitler? No wonder you have so much baggage.


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## LongWalk

No another sociopath. Hitler was only one of several monsters. The man my father adored also wrote a book that everyone read to avoid horrible consequences. His body lies in mausoleum for worship even now.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Ms. GP

When did I realize my dad was an abusive alcoholic? That is a good question. I don't really have a black and white answer, but I will try. I don't have a lot of memories before age 12, but my brother tells me things were bad. I know he is telling the truth because of the few things I do remember. He told me we used to hide in the woods for hours when things got bad, and I do remember playing the quiet game with my brothers in the woods a lot but have no idea how or why I got there. I do know that both of my dad's parents died within a short time span of one another, and that's when things got really bad. That's when " the disease of the month club" started and dad would break out the dsm IV and diagnose us and hand out meds. Better parenting through pharmacology. I was old enough to say no to all of the questions, but my poor brothers would say yes to everything to get out of trouble. I then became the scapegoat for the family.
Granted I was not perfect, at 14 I started a relationship with someone who was 21 and it lasted five and a half years. It was dysfunctional to say the least, but it was far less dysfunction than I was used to. 
Running away from home was probably my saving grace actually. My best friend's parents got custody of me and I got to see how a healthy family lives.


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## LongWalk

Handing out the meds. I refused. All my brothers had to take Mellaril (Thioridazine). There were little gray green ones and big dull light brown one. My father used to break the big ones in half for my brother who schizophrenia (but he had not diagnosis at the time and was simply hyperactive and anxious).

No other physician was consulted. 

My father invented his own test. I helped him make it at the age of 8, 9 or 10 (hard to place ages on these memories). The test was a success. Some doctors from Sweden wrote and wanted to collaborate with him. My father did a lot work for a short time.

I think he even got a journal article published. But soon he would abandon all attempts to seek per review. He would review others. No one would ever review him again.

Ms RG, you must have some memory of seeing drink and knowing that it was a problem.


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## LongWalk

> I heard something I really liked. It says stop and think before you speak. Say to yourself, is it necessary, is it kind, and is it true? I try to do that


I am sending this to D18


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## Ms. GP

LongWalk said:


> Ms RG, you must have some memory of seeing drink and knowing that it was a problem.


Mrs. RG?? WTF. I'm assuming you meant me. I'm crazy buy I'm not that crazy. Cut me some slack dude. ha ha 

Mellaril??!!! Holy crap that is dangerous!! I'm not surprised.

I think my dad adopted my drinking pattern. Which was to gobble a whole bunch of pills behind everyone's back and only have 3 drinks in front of everyone. I remember seeing tons of benzo bottles lying around the house. A house that had small children and he didn't use safety caps either, but heck the man kept loaded guns in the house too so I shouldn't be surprised. He was always accusing the kids of stealing his pills. I think because he kept running out early, but the meds were self prescribed so it really didn't matter. I also remember getting myself ready for school in kindergarten and then getting myself and my oldest brother ready for school at age 8. No one would even wake up. Too hungover I presume. My parents would just dissapear for hours starting about age 8 and I would be left to care for my brothers. I remember at age 12 they left me with my infant brother to go out and I was terrified because I didn't know how to even make a bottle. They didn't tell me where they were going either. But honestly, it all seemed normal at the time.


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## LongWalk

If I could get Mrs. RG following my thread, I'd be a superstar. Of course, I meant Ms GP.


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## LongWalk

Ms. GP said:


> Mrs. RG?? WTF. I'm assuming you meant me. I'm crazy buy I'm not that crazy. Cut me some slack dude. ha ha
> 
> Mellaril??!!! Holy crap that is dangerous!! I'm not surprised.
> 
> I think my dad adopted my drinking pattern. Which was to gobble a whole bunch of pills behind everyone's back and only have 3 drinks in front of everyone. I remember seeing tons of benzo bottles lying around the house. A house that had small children and he didn't use safety caps either, but heck the man kept loaded guns in the house too so I shouldn't be surprised. He was always accusing the kids of stealing his pills. I think because he kept running out early, but the meds were self prescribed so it really didn't matter. I also remember getting myself ready for school in kindergarten and then getting myself and my oldest brother ready for school at age 8. No one would even wake up. Too hungover I presume. My parents would just dissapear for hours starting about age 8 and I would be left to care for my brothers. I remember at age 12 they left me with my infant brother to go out and I was terrified because I didn't know how to even make a bottle. They didn't tell me where they were going either. But honestly, it all seemed normal at the time.


That sounds worse than what I went through. I didn't have responsibility.


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## Ms. GP

LongWalk said:


> If I could get Mrs. RG following my thread, I'd be a superstar. Of course, I meant Ms GP.


Ha. Ha. That would be a miracle!! She'd probably just try to one up you with terrible RG stories. Which wasn't my intention BTW, I was just trying to explain my parent's drinking pattern. I don't know I think you had it pretty rough. My dad never started a cult. Have you read the book running with scissors yet. The entire family's complete desensitization to the insanity is what I found the most fascinating. Was your house really dirty growing up? Ours was but only when mom was depressed. You should see it now. Nails sticking out of the carpet and three day old dog crap on the floor and all the tables are covered with the hobbies my dad got bored of seems to be their decorating motif. Yuck!!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## oregonmom

Ms. GP said:


> I heard something I really liked. It says stop and think before you speak. Say to yourself, is it necessary, is it kind, and is it true? I try to do that


I love this too . I also like wait = why am I talking? I use that one a lot.


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## LongWalk

oregonmom said:


> I love this too . I also like wait = why am I talking? I use that one a lot.


Sent to D18 in a FB message.


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## LongWalk

Ms. GP said:


> Ha. Ha. That would be a miracle!! She'd probably just try to one up you with terrible RG stories. Which wasn't my intention BTW, I was just trying to explain my parent's drinking pattern. I don't know I think you had it pretty rough. My dad never started a cult. Have you read the book running with scissors yet. The entire family's complete desensitization to the insanity is what I found the most fascinating. Was your house really dirty growing up? Ours was but only when mom was depressed. You should see it now. Nails sticking out of the carpet and three day old dog crap on the floor and all the tables are covered with the hobbies my dad got bored of seems to be their decorating motif. Yuck!!
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


My father got a masters in electrical engineering after he got his MD. I remember that he had tutor to help him pass one course. But what was the purpose of the engineering degree. My father refused even to change light bulbs. He never fixed or cleaned anything at home, ever. OK, maybe laid out a mouse trap once.

You would think someone with an engineer degree would teach his kids about electricity, magnets. All of that knowledge about engineering was jettisoned.

Our house would have been filthy if my mother hadn't cleaned it. My father's car, a bright red Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, was pretty filthy. There were dried out McDonald's french fries on the floor for years. He didn't ever take the car to be cleaned. The color red was not arbitrary: he chose it to celebrate Communism.

Actually my father and one of his brothers, my eldest uncle, were both nearly deported from the US in the 50s because they opposed the Korean War. My father would have been dumped in Hong Kong, except that my grandfather was a diplomat and had some connection to a Congressman who had my father's status tied to a bill and so my father was allowed to stay.

Herein, lay a contradiction. My father wanted to remain in the US because he knew life was good and yet he did not want to participate in American life. And that conscious decision not be an American was a source of shame and embarrassment. My father was for the destruction of capitalism while he raked in money from Blue Cross and Blue Shield for seeing patients for 10 minutes and billing for a full hour.

Why did the patients accept this treatment? My father was enormously self confident, or at least projected self confidence. In reality he was fragile. I think I wrote about the chess offer before.. Well, I will write it again tomorrow. Time to sleep. Good night.


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## LongWalk

> Originally Posted by LongWalk
> I collected Spider-Man in the early 70s. My dad confiscated them. Childhood ends sooner or later
> Posted via Mobile Device SMALL STEPS
> LW, you just made me want to cry.





> FROM ANG Re: WAW finished nursing school and left M for herself
> ________________________________________
> I still have all my comics and even though my Star Wars figures are long gone, I've got a few nice Aliens, Walking Dead, Wolverine and Avengers toys on my desk.
> 
> Never grow up. Never be complete. Play. One of my favorite things, and all 4 girls too, is to play with them. Rough house, board games, volleyball, etc.


Conrad


> Originally Posted by LongWalk
> I collected Spider-Man in the early 70s. My dad confiscated them. Childhood ends sooner or later
> Posted via Mobile Device
> The man was clearly a child abuser.
> 
> As if taking you to a Detroit Tiger baseball game wasn't bad enough





> Actually this is a big part of the story. I bought comics at a used bookstore and I shoplifted a two playboy magazines. The owner caught me and called the police. It was after that that my life was transferred to my father's psychiatric clinic.
> 
> I was sitting in the swimming pool and my father said never in 2,000 years of the ancesteral history had anyone been such a disgrace. One of my younger brothers started to taunt me.
> 
> More or less every day my mother emails reports like the one below.
> Quote:
> _Your father/XX was covered in bm this a.m. I think he was like this all night. He said, "I struggled." The aide came here last night and only stayed 10 minutes. I wonder had she left for a reason? I'll find out.
> I'll go to the guild and trim cups and put handles on.
> "life is a joyful struggle," that was a favourite utterance from your father. It's true, I guess, otherwise it would be boring. I'm glad LongWalk's working, I'm sure he is too_.


So, he got his later, right? The brother I mean. asked Angstire



> My father was never hard on my brothers. Brother two had schizophrenia, as yet undeveloped but his uneasiness was ever present.
> 
> The next in line had a very sunny character and revered my father, never questioning anything he said or did. He even denied that my father had Alzheimer's although my father was completely disconnected after a prostatectomy that almost did him in. My brother's willingness to cast our childhood as good and normal is not accept by my youngest brother, who has the biggest capacity to love everyone else in the family.
> 
> My youngest brother became an orthopedic surgeon. My father told us when were kids that the orthopedic surgeon whose kids were our friends could not pass the board exams and was dumb. Actualy the guy was varsity football player on a Big Ten team so all the kids admired him. But for my father orthopedics was just mechanical stuff, nothing compared to investigation of the brain.
> 
> But by the time my brother became a surgeon my father had mellowed and was merely happy to have one son follow in his footsteps. Of course, I have always felt guilty for not becoming a doctor.


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## LongWalk

Wow LW. That's some childhood, I'm sorry. You seem to carry a great deal of baggage with you over this.

If there is one thing I have learned it's you need to come to terms with your childhood and put it in the past. 

Tell that little child inside that grown up LW is okay and there is no need fror him to feel guilt over big LW's choices in life.
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LongWalk
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Default Re: WAW finished nursing school and left M for herself
SmallSteps, it is surreal to reach the of 55, birthday soon, and have all this garbage from the past collect on the surface of my mind. It has disabled me successively during my adult life. Intellectually, it is very frustrating. I mean who cares about such stuff, just get over it.

CWI caught my attention because I can completely and not at all identify with a BS who cannot simply dismiss the WS by pressing a button to erase them. 

"You cheated on me, ahha," says the BS while pressed cntrl, alt, delete on the BS to see them their picture disappear and the screen start up fresh again. A 20-year or 5-year marriage is a huge amount of the hard drive; all the software settings are custom adjusted. Worse you want to reboot and the darn thing won't start again: it's burnt out.

With childhood you cannot easily delve into the past. It is so deep. Ironically, my father believed in erasing memory. He gave the patients electroshock therapy to cause memory loss. I am sure that I heard him instructing a husband or wife to assist in eliminating the cheating spouse's memory of the affair.

"Are you Johnny the alcoholic cheating husband of Judy?" asks my father.

"Yes," groans the man emerging from unconsciousness. His eyes are still closed and his wife wipes the sweat and spittle from his face.

In goes the mouth guard again and new shock is applied. His body arches every muscle taut. Seconds pass and the current is turned off.

I was in another room watching on black and white TV.

"Are you Johnny the alcoholic adulterous husband of Judy?"

"Yes," he groans but rather weakly.

How many shocks was a treatment? I don't remember to be honest. Perhaps 4 or 5?

At the end John got a bottle of baby formula and Judy cradled his head and rocked him.

"You are not Johnny, John loving and faithful husband of Judy," says my father.

Judy then repeats the message in the first person. "You are John, my loving husband, sober and faithful and I am Judy, your loving wife."

I am 13, 14 or 15. I don't remember. I just want to f'ng go home.

John drinks the formula. He is a baby being reborn in my father's office. Some patients repeated it for an entire series, maybe 4 or 5 such treatments. I don't remember. The families typically idolized my father. He did not do this sadistically. He was like religious leader with scientific authority.

Whatever faith patient had, my father would have them add statement about being true to their faith. All of the values my father stood for were fidelity, honesty, loyalty, family, above all family.

At last it was done. I got into my father bright red Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser with the massive v8 engine and he drove out of the dying automotive town to the university town. Oh, yes we did not drive straight home. My father had patients in the other hospital. We drove past the state capitol building and onto Grand River. Immediately, after the seat of government was the strip with drunks, prostitutes, the Jesus saves light. The decaying state library, the abandoned train station, KFC, all of those shops, Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips shining yellow in the night. 

Then came the green of the campus and soon we were home. The way the door from the garage did not fit tight and heavy. The dog was there. My miserable day was over. My brothers had already eaten. I ate with my father. Wrapped in his thoughts, he did not usually yell at me.


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## PieceOfSky

Longwalk, 

Have you ever looked into therapies for effectively dealing with repressed emotions, past traumas, etc.?

My impression from looking into that years ago was/is that there are effective ones. Experienced a little bit of such recently, and found it useful.

Also, if you don't mind my prying, what is your opinion of Psychology/psychiatry these days? Given what I have read of your father (and maybe of practices on his time), I wonder you find it difficult now to see any positives in these fields that may exist.


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## LongWalk

Default Re: Who Says Women have to Submit?!
Thank you Bagdon for starting this thread. I would like to reply to Northern Lights. Hope she will find her way here. I wrote about women being led in marriage being important, and Northern Lights protested that women don't want to be led. She wanted to throw up when she read that. Blondie agreed with her and wrote:

Quote:
No but the "wants to be led" is paternalistic (and can be very dangerous, IME as a recovering "follower" right to Hell on Earth)

Bagdon's wife is an intelligent and accomplished woman. She wants to be valued, appreciated, and respected. She wants to be part of a TEAM, a partnership, like two oxen EQUALLY yoked together (ETA- a Biblical allusion).

Bagdon used to ignore her ideas for his business IIRC?
This is a good point to open the discussion. Oxen are castrated adult male bulls. Yikes. How much more beta can a man end up? You were a male animal and then your gonads were removed to make you quiescently accept the yoke with a female. And the cruel market place of modern life cracks the whip over the pair of you. What misery.

Men and women in relationships are seldom absolute equals. Strength or personality, intelligence, common sense, wealth, education, etc. all come into play in making each more or less equal. My father was had an MD and Masters in electrical engineering (a degree which he got after he become a board certified psychiatrist). My mother was an RN but her primary and secondary school education was rudimentary.

She struggled to get through nursing school in the UK, a clever Italian classmate helped her to study. She coped with anatomy well enough because that involved memorization. My mother never understood biology. She had difficulty dealing with abstract ideas. This is not to say she was unintelligent. Quite the opposite, she is a very sharp person, but her childhood included little intellectual stimulation.

My father felt profound insecure around women. His mother was an illiterate, charming narcissist, who never gave her children unreserved warmth. His father was distant and authoritarian. This loveless childhood badly scarred my father and my three uncles. My father did not want to marry an equal. He wanted someone he could snow with his intellectual superiority.

He was the leader in their marriage and had my mother back footed for many years. He squandered money and energy in various eccentric change-the-world projects. Ultimately he drove our family to the point of bankruptcy, as an expensive consulting firm racked up the hours massaging his ego.

At this point my mother reigned in his madness to some degree. My father was forced to abandon the private practice that he destroyed and scramble and accept a job a prison psychiatrist, a terrible demotion from a professional point of view. What physician would like to start his (her) working day passing through the maximum security check points?

My father would not admit that his practice was gone. He kept a huge building and drove from the prison each night to spend more hours in his office, seeing a few patients and pumping for time and money into his schemes.

By this point my mother realized that my father had no plan of any practicality. And from that point on her role as leader of the family increased until at last my father, his brain plaque-ridden by Alzheimer's, became a child and my mother his caregiver.

My father, though not an ungenerous person, always considered the family's assets his. It was his money that he had a right to waste. When my parents were in their late 60s my mother had more sway over my father's wasteful projects – by wasteful, I mean to the tune of more than a million dollars or maybe two, I don't know how it could be calculated – but she never managed to cut them off, until his health collapsed.

If my mother had early on in marriage issued an ultimatum to end my father's mad behavior, there probably would have been no mechanism for compromise. They would have had to divorce. My father would not have survived divorce. My mother sucked it up and played second fiddle, still saying that my father's fantasies might one day succeed. She felt no conviction about this when he was in his 70s. My parents did not even claim social security until they were in their 80s, so divorced from reality were they.

In some sense my mother was the leader in their marriage after a certain point because she guided my father to earth, though it cost her a great deal of suffering.

In Bagdon's marriage his wife is the impractical one with dreams. In fact, she has done pretty well, certainly better than my father, and her efforts deserve praise and admiration. In some sense she was leading the family by taking on this role as an intellectual. At the very least she was head of her own career and identity.

That career path placed a great burden on Bagdon. And if she had scored a best seller that brought in good income, she would have divorced him in short order to replace him with a new lover. In a way his position was like my mother's, for if my father had succeed he would have become more insufferable.

It is ironic that we followers of Bagdon's thread admire what he has done, in essence he woke up to find that he was not one of a pair oxen, but a lone ox whose partner only tolerated him for the sake of their children. And remember this is a man who volunteered to be sterilized to improve his wife's quality of life. But that sacrifice perhaps even contributed to making him unattractive. 

Machiavelli would say that man must display his testosterone to maintain his sex ranking. If we consider Bagdon the writer, we can say that he is a good one. He has moved us and that is proof. His ability to empathize with his wife even as she utterly rejected him sexually is truly an intellectual and emotional feat. This is also why the people in his church ask him to speak and see him a lay minister.

If Bagdon's wife were to share the reasons that she fell in love with him again, she would no doubt list multiple events: she discovered that he was sexy again once he lost weight. He carried out the physical transformation in a low key alpha fashion. He displayed intelligence, for although he did not share this TAM exploration with her, it shone through. He also acted more decisively in being a leader. He even became a better communicator about sex, something that surprised her.

I think Northern Lights and Blondie would see this multifaceted complexity. The conflict over leadership in their relationship would appear a wise balance of give and take, with mutual respect. However, Bagdon noted many times that she did not respect him.

It is possible to say she did little to save their marriage or that she did a lot by responding to his changes positively once she believed they had substance. The account of what happened, who led whom, depends on your angle and how you judge certain moments.

Re: leadership and male sex appeal
At bottom, although we live in a structurally different world than primitive man, women are generally attracted to masculinity. That was once tied to the ability to hunt prey and fight other males. Out smarting prey and other males also was sexy.

Violence was probably a part of relationships when people were half hungry when the hunt or raids went wrong. Today much of that violence has been channeled off into an elaborate industry of professional sports (and that includes college football, basketball, etc). Those men are the alpha males. The legion of male fans are cast into a beta role.

The beta male may through the institution of marriage believe that he has secured a mate, but there is unstated insecurity. There is a worry that a musician, athlete or rich man who applied himself to chasing his wife could do so. There are many TAM threads about bosses seducing wives. There are also many stories that illustrate the truism that cheaters affair down. It is not entirely simple.

One key question is why are the majority of divorces initiated by women? What does that say about who was leadership?

Quote:
Who initiates divorce
Statistics retrieved from the National Center for Health shows that, from 1975 to 1988, a wife files for a divorce in 2/3 of the cases when the couple has a child, in the US. In 1975 and 1988, the number of divorce cases filed by women was 71.4% and 65% respectively.

A study which was published in the American Law and Economics Review showed that women are the initiators as far as filing for divorces are concerned, filing 2/3 of all cases. There are variations to this statistic over the different states, and the number has also varied with time, with 60% of divorce cases being filed by women in the 19th century. The number saw a jump as the no - fault divorce was introduced, going up to 70% of cases.

There is also evidence which shows that, as far as college - educated couples are concerned, the number of cases filed by women leaps to 90%. In a study known as the 'Child Custody Policies and Divorce Rates in the US', Kuhn and Guidubaldi have reasonable grounds to prove that women expect a lot of advantages to come their way as they become single, rather than being married.


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## LongWalk

PieceOfSky said:


> Longwalk,
> 
> Have you ever looked into therapies for effectively dealing with repressed emotions, past traumas, etc.?
> 
> My impression from looking into that years ago was/is that there are effective ones. Experienced a little bit of such recently, and found it useful.
> 
> Also, if you don't mind my prying, what is your opinion of Psychology/psychiatry these days? Given what I have read of your father (and maybe of practices on his time), I wonder you find it difficult now to see any positives in these fields that may exist.


My father insisted that everyone should be in therapy and that none of his patients should ever leave him. When I once request therapy for our family my father was shocked and said there were not competent psychiatrists in the area, which I interpreted to mean from Ohio to the the Canadian border.

I believe psychotherapy and counseling can be valuable. But I feared professional help, a legacy of my father's fear. Today, I have TAM but it is probably not as good as professional attention.

I don't know if I would subscribe to a particular school of psychotherapy. I haven't studied them much, although I did take psychology 101 in university.

My father had a disciple, a guy had a Masters in counseling and wanted to become a doctor. He eventually went medical school in Mexico. He took the exams for foreign medical school graduates three times. The last time he failed by just 2 points.

Later he and a doctor with whom my father collaborated were arrested for insurance fraud in New Mexico. The doctor who never made it was treating patients as if he were licensed and they the other doctor billed the Medicaid and Medicare or whatever they were milking. My father refused to offer either of them any support. It was said because the failed guy so adulated my father.

Side tracked in that reply.


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## LongWalk

Hi Sherri,

I was failure as a husband. Only after hanging out on TAM and reading and reading have I realized the extent of my failings. I am considering writing a letter to my ex to tell, even though we have been divorced for some time.

Actions speak louder than words. I realize that insight is useless without change even now even starting tomorrow. I cannot give my ex back the killed dreams. I am sorry for that but maybe I can be a better co parent and become a friend. Actually she invited me over for my birthday in few days so that my daughters, she and I would be together. I don't deserve it really.

Not to shift the blame but to explain at least in part why a husband can fail so badly. I was emotionally abused as child and I never faced up to that in an honest way. Burying it made me actually do the same stupid things that my emotionally abusive father did. Of course, I created my own flavor of mess up, but I am shocked by the similarities.

Perhaps for your ex also had unresolved issues that he failed to confront. If you have insight into his character, you can tell him why you think he did the cräp he did, not to give him an excuse, but an opportunity to see it and own up.

A little blame shifting to society: young men are poorly educated to understand women or marriage. TAM is full recommendations for self help books. This is really sad. Hollywood, religion, TV, etc. give us ideas about marriage that are just wrong.

A lot of guys think that they have to chase and chase, and for those beta men, and most of us are beta by definition, we some how managed to win a woman's hand. Unfortunately, from that point on we actually need to become more alpha, leaders ourselves and our families as much as possible to remain attractive to our spouses and on top of life.

What woman wants a husband who is passive. Why do women lose passion for their husbands? There are good reasons. Men are also unprepared for the biological aspects of psychology. A woman whose emotional and physical needs are not being met at 30+ may unconsciously find herself drifting away.

If we had better educated ourselves about these problems we'd meet them better.

I think you are right to pursue divorce. You may not have the power to change your Stbxh now. However, there is not harm in firmly planting some critical ideas in his mind so that he can change. It may take a decade or may never happen but it is not a mistake to take stand, probably in fewer words than I have written here.


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## GutPunch

I stole a Playboy from my friends Dads house and got caught. He laughed and said your not ready for that yet. Told me not to worry he wouldn't tell my Dad. Man I got off easy.


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## GutPunch

LongWalk said:


> Hi Sherri,
> 
> What woman wants a husband who is passive.
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> 
> Ms. GP


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## LongWalk

GP, last summer I went I was taking care of my father, helping him with diapers and other fun stuff I ran into the used bookstore owner and asked him if he remembered me.


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## Ms. GP

I bet that store owner had no idea what was in store for you. Our son is starting to notice girls. Yesterday he told me what girls he thought were pretty in his class. I told him I had my first crush in second grade too. It was a good feeling being able to talk like that. I could have never talked with my parents like that. They would have blown it way out of proportion. I remember taking a bottle of nose spray when I was 10 and keeping it in my room because I had a cold, and the accused me of filling the bottle with cocaine. I didn't even know what cocaine was, never mind the fact I don't think I could have had the money to pay for it even if I did want it. 

I had a lot of trouble trusting people in the mental health field too. I found I had an easier time trusting licensed counselors and social workers. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact they can't prescibe drugs. I still don't think I could bring myself to see an actual shrink. I totally get where you are coming from on that one.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Ms. GP

One more thing. The two best counselors I have had are both licensed social workers. They both give excellent feedback. It's one thing to understand why you think and feel the way you do but it's very difficult to change your patterns of behavior. I feel like my counsel I have now is kinda like a Monday morning quarterback. I tell her how I handled situations and she gives me her opinion and specific ways to handle things going forward. I need that. That's why I was so frustrated in Mc yesterday. She explained why gp and I thought and behaved the way we do, but left us with no clue with what to do with the information.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## LongWalk

This thread has veered off subject. Neither Republicans nor Democrats desire workplace violence to occur. Neither party has a comprehensive policy for preventing non terrorist violence. Most mentally ill people do not buy guns and commit atrocities of this sort, so it is very difficult to identify them.

Could the health care system take better care of the mentally ill?Here you can read about the reforms that failed to make a transition from the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to something functional, humane and cost effective.

The truth about mental illness is stark. The families of mentally ill people cannot compel their sick family member to take their meds. They cannot stop them from getting a car and driving across the US. My brother who was ill with schizophrenia was scaring the living Jesus out of my mother, but instead of hitting or strangling her there as he came down the back stairs by the kitchen, he stared at her in his total psychotic rage, and then he brushed past her.

He strode past all the coats and sweaters that have hung there for years after all the kids left home, past the spot where our dog used to sleep. He stomped through garage, got in his car and drove off with no sane plan. Where did he end up that time? Iowa? I don't remember.

Once he simply drove westward across the plains states to Washington, where he ended up hospitalized. My parents did not know where is was but they flew out and pumped as much love and money into his treatment as they could.

On meds he eventually stabilized and got into University of Washington and graduated with a BA. Let us be honest, though, his brain was physically damaged. The subjects that he had loved and wanted to study (math and chemistry) were now completely beyond him. He could no longer think as well. Schizophrenia causes brain damage.

My brother lived fairly well when he was on his meds. But he hated how they made him a little bloated and slow moving. Every time he went off them, he felt great for a few days until he remembered he was Paul from Bible (and we are not Christians). He cut himself, horribly, danced naked in the street. Getting him involuntarily committed and back on meds was so hard.

When he got out he went back to a 90% functional life. He used to dance. Made friends there. He did not drink or abuse drugs, that he knew would lead to disaster. He had an odd co-dependent girlfriend with whom I think he did not have sex. That would have led to disaster. My brother was very kind. He was loved by many, many more than the average person.

The last time he crashed and burned he played the catatonic game, sitting in an expensive private hospital. He would not leave his bed, except to go to the toilet. They put cuffs around legs to pump the blood up. Eventually when the bill was through the roof, they transferred him to grungy county institution.

Being catatonic there did not work. The second day he played ping pong. That night blood clots travelled from his calves to his lungs and he died of a massive thrombosis. I had just checked him there and flown across the ocean. I got home and another brother called to tell me. I flew straight back. My two brothers and I looked at his body on a black and white CTV screen at the Cook County morgue. The attendant, a poor Black Chicago guy, pulled the sheet down so we could see his face. How many times had he done that?

We bought the cheapest coffin. The undertakers didn't argue. They saw that we were not sentimental about boxes. We had him cremated. Lots of relatives came to the funeral. I ate oysters and drank Guinness two nights in a row. I had a great appetite but felt like shyte. Death makes some of hungry.

Many came to the service. My brother made difference in people's lives. It was at church. We are not Christian but his ashes went into a hole in dirt in Evanston, Illinois. I don't remember the name of the church. I probably would have trouble finding it again.

My brother did some violent things when he was ill. Once he busted unbreakable plexiglass window at the county hospital for the mad. He just lowered his shoulder and smashed it like an NFL football player. Unbelievable. The male staff thought he was the dude.

My brother's states of psychosis are nothing that the average person can imagine. He thought his own sperm had escaped within his body and were traveling inside of him. I never heard why he tried to cut his own thumb off. My brother once beat up a cab driver who cheated him. Could my brother have gotten some bizarre idea that required him get a a gun and shoot a bunch of people? Sure, if he had been exposed to the idea in the wrong way.

Can the families and authorities predict which mentally ill person is going to stop taking their meds, buy a gun (my brother had not criminal record) and start shooting?

It costs money to run mental hospitals and run out patient care to reintegrate the mentally ill into society. You don't walk out of the hospital with a job and apartment. You have to be in a program. Some poor communities don't spend money on the mentally ill, other than to let them commit crimes and put them prison.

You can imagine how the shootings can be stopped by everyone having a weapon and being ready to use it. However, that largely ignores a much more complex reality.


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## LongWalk

Ms. GP said:


> One more thing. The two best counselors I have had are both licensed social workers. They both give excellent feedback. It's one thing to understand why you think and feel the way you do but it's very difficult to change your patterns of behavior. I feel like my counsel I have now is kinda like a Monday morning quarterback. I tell her how I handled situations and she gives me her opinion and specific ways to handle things going forward. I need that. That's why I was so frustrated in Mc yesterday. She explained why gp and I thought and behaved the way we do, but left us with no clue with what to do with the information.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I see this now so much more clearly. My situation is the same, except I never got any professional help ever. Except MC three times when it was too late.

It is good that you can talk with your children about the opposite sex in a calm sympathetic way. Why should a boy have to be ashamed about being attracted to girls? Crazy. It just has to be appropriate so that the child does not feel that they have no privacy. Love and sex should not be pathological.

My father considered sex a "primitive force". It was nothing positive. He came from a society were hugging, kissing and touching were not done. My relatives in the old country have only gradually and uncomfortably gotten used to the idea of hugs.

re: the bookstore guy
The bookstore guy sure remembered my dad because the old man threatened to file criminal charges against him for exposing minors to pornography. My father asked the police chief if he masturbated to to Playboy. The police chief made sure the charges were dropped to get the angry psychiatrist out of the station asap.

GP,
I was not cut out to be a thief. I had bought some Spiderman comics. On the way out I took the Playboy. Went out and looked inside. It was such an old issue there was no fur. I went back to get a second one and that was when he nail me.

If I had been an alpha male I would have just run and gotten away.

The bookshop owner told me about all the thieves and crooked employees through the years. One professors son was so impressed by his experience he became a policeman.

I wrote it all down in a notebook, forgotten in my parents' house.


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## Ms. GP

I read in RG's thread you were thinking of writing your x a letter. Might not be a bad idea. Judging by the fact she is inviting you to dinner and including you in things, I think it will probably be well received. Hopefully it will open up a dialogue that will be very healing for you. They tell us in AA to only include our own transgressions in amends letters. I'm sorry for x,y, and z. I wish this would have been better/different. You get the point. I don't see you bringing up her stuff anyways. Good luck.


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## LongWalk

Hi D18,
We are so alike. It amazes me but then we are genetically connected. It is amazing that personality, strengths and weaknesses, are so hardwired.
It is very easy for people to say, "do as I say" but then contradict that message by their own actions. For as we know actions speak louder than words.
Still, I want to convey to you the importance of not making the mistakes that grandma, grandpa and I have in our communication style. For your grandparents change is now impossible. For me it is difficult but I am trying. For you it is possible to change and you will be happy that you do not repeat the mistakes of your DNA.
Always think before you speak. What is it that you are about to say? Is it kind? Will it accomplish the purpose you have in mind?

When you volunteered to help order equipment for fellow players within our club, you took on an unpaid job.

“I’ll never do this again,” you said last night in a voice full of irritation.

That is the wrong attitude. You benefit from other people volunteering and you must take your turn. You build goodwill for yourself by helping your teammates. Don’t expect a reward for everything you do. Doing something for others is a form of communication through deed.
Do not allow irritation to creep into your voice. It is a sure way to sabotage whatever message you are trying to send. I know I and many other people can be better at following this principle. This emoting without thought is what got you in trouble with your chem teacher. So, learn from that experience.
Your grandparents on both sides are or were very strong people. Not perfect people but strong: they have survivor in the genes. Be confident that you have that, too. You can recognize faults but maintain the positive aspect.
You have amazing successes to your credit and many more to come.
Love,
Pappa
p.s. Your granddad used to write me letters like this, except they were very garbled. He did not know how to express what he was feeling. Unfortunately, his love and concern were wrapped in incomprehensible sentences scrawled in a doctor’s handwriting. I understand his good intentions only today.


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## LongWalk

Ms GP,

Yes, if I write something it will not include any criticisms of her at all. It's not my business to dissect her so long after the fact.


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## LongWalk

Notes from the day:

My cousin in LA is going through a classic TAM scenario. Husband is cheating with a woman on the East coast. He has moved out. He has a new love. His teenaged sons need him badly. One flunked out of college. Another has a marijuana induced psychosis and is in terrible shape.

A cheating dad who is trying to help his new love, whose professor of philosophy husband cheated and left her cannot take care of his own family. Where will the money come from to fly CA to the East coast every weekend?

re: self
Plenty of problems but today I felt a glimmer of hope. I imagined repairing my life and felt it could be possible. The thought came as I was about to walk in the door at work. Why? Where does hope come from? Why can't put in cage like ED's poem?

Wonder is Americans in the South read the southern writers, Falkner, Wright, McCullers, et al differently than we Northerners do?

Why was I raised to believe the South is and was evil? Slavery was evil. Is the South that way today.

Why do so many people in America want marijuana legalized. I see that it has destroyed three teens in my extended family. When I say destroyed I mean destroyed. 

That's my rant for today.


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## angstire

Hey LW, I've been reading. I don't have much to add, but I admire you for getting it out.


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## LongWalk

My brother's schizophrenia has changed the lives of everyone in our family. "He was a fretful baby, and I felt uneasy early on," my mother says.

When were playing in the sandbox with plastic soldiers, all four of us. What could I have been, 10 or 11 years old. We had stolen matches and were lighting a fire. As the eldest I was bossing everyone around. My brother poured water too soon or in the wrong moat, so I socked him in the back pretty hard, just once. I used to hit them sometimes.

Suddenly paid me back with the coffee can – the water container – full force, bringing the edge down on my scalp. Blood flowed. I started to chase him with the intent of pounding him. He made it to the house into the arms of our mother. I had a bad cut. I think they took me to the emergency room for stitches. I wasn't mad at my brother. I was confused. How could he be so violent?

Three or four years later we had a fight. Actually, I didn't want to fight him and I wasn't hitting him, just holding him down so that he could not hit me. I wanted to quit and let him up but I couldn't because he was not going to stop. I was scared of him. I held on and begged to stop fighting. Eventually he began crying hysterically. It was disturbing.

I was sent away to private school, so I didn't see my brothers as much from the age of 15 to 18, at least during the school year. My father forbid me from joining the Boy Scouts because of reference to God, but he let my brother join. My brother loved the boy scouts. He liked the organization. Order. He liked order. His brain was headed for disorder and he was fighting it. Even after he died I think some of his scouting clothes were in a drawer back in my parents' home. My mother could never throw them away.

In high school he threw himself into sport after sport. Swimming, tennis...his dedication was fanatical. They were faiths. He was not good at winning. He was too nervous, but he tried with all his soul. Did he make the last doubles team on the boy's varsity? I must ask one of my other brothers.

He lost his virginity before me. My parents took all my brothers to Aruba or somewhere like that and left me behind. When they came home my brother said that he had met a girl and "fvcked the hell out of her" on the beach. He said that he had fvcked Diane C. the sister of one of our tennis buddies. I would have been jealous, but he made it sound horrible, as if he had not enjoyed it or liked the girls because of it. They were bad for having had se with him. Sex was like violence to him. It was disturbing to hear him say these things.

He went to a really nice private university. He tried out for the cross country team, without ever having run cross country or track. They did not cut anyone because, well, all the team did was meet and run. My brother went from not being a runner to looking like a Greek statue in one semester.

During a holiday I tried to run with him. Ten yards from the house I could not keep up. He was just running at a training pace and he pulled away from me and left me alone the first block.

My girl cousins told me that he was super handsome. He was getting good grades in math and chemistry. He was excelling and he acted aloof. I was sort of in awe. Where had this guy come from? And yet he was tense.


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## turnera

Why did they leave you behind for vacation?


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## LongWalk

I don't remember exactly. I was sent away to boarding school and the plans for holidays may have been made to exclude me to avoid conflict. I didn't go to Greece either.

My father had a loyal assistant. I transcendental meditation guy from Wyoming. He wanted to get out of the draft. It was at the end of the Vietnam War. My father diagnosed him as suffering from Polemosphobia, fear of war. I think my father invented this term and he mispronounced it so that I heard it as belaphobia. He was proud that he could fight the American government with a word that he had invented.

Anyway this patient worked for my father as an assistant. All of my father's employees were patients. The loyal assistant lasted the longest. In fact, 40 years later he is still working for my parents. He drives up two or three days a week and helps my mother with all sorts miscellaneous help. He cannot talk with my father anymore because my father is incapable of much meaningful conversation.

The assistant used to babysit while my parents went to psychiatric conventions. 

(Late here must break)

My father's assistant had long blond hippy hair and movie star good looks. He had perfect SAT scores. He was very bright and curious about the world but the complete gentle door mat. As we passed through our teens he sometimes introduced us to a couple of his girlfriends. He was our babysitter. My dad like his patients to work for him and socialize with him.

I remember that she was hot, smart, sensitive and attractive. He would never keep these women. They would come and dig the cool guy vibe and then after a time realize he was a door mat with zero ambition who was emotionally dependent on a mad psychiatrist.

My mother was always jealous of their relationship. She told his father, the ex mayor of town in Wyoming that "my husband has been a father to your son." The man agreed.

So my father's patient, turned loyal assistant, pseudo family member has been my father's EA for decades. He paid the salary of a yes man. A man who said you are brilliant long after all of my father's insane schemes had come to nothing. My father's relationship with this was not sexual but it was homosexual in some sense.

So my father had P, the gregarious hair dresser with massive feminine breasts worshipping on one side, my mother must have hated her, and an loyal assistant on the other. My father demanded a whole cast of people adulating him. Everybody was supposed to go the court and support him in the court, as if he were the Che Guevara of the region, battling capitalism through family psychiatry.

OK, my father would never have touched a gun. Guns and the real America he felt contempt for and he feared real America. Or in truth all real relationships. He wanted control. That is why he became a psychiatrist, to try and get control.

TAM always talks about changing oneself because changing other is hard. Revolutionaries want to change other. They have to kill and murder because changing others is hard.

So, Turnera, whenever my father wanted to opt out of being a father to me, and that increased in adolescence, he handed me over to the assistant with long blond hair, the guy who pours over Popular Science and then tells you about all the cool inventions.

My father helped him go back and get an Master's in computer science. Did he do anything with that degree? He was smart and geeky and could have been a person in Silicon Valley but he had no ambition. He stayed and did less as my father's energy and madness ran out of gas. He sat in basement of my parents house, managing the old computers and network of my father's mad scheme. The computers are useless. He has an MA in C Sci and can barely keep the Wifi going.

He build little antennas of of cardboard and tinfoil to beam the signal upstairs. It worked, not. One summer while visiting I took the router upstairs and ran the cable down to him in the basement.

He did eventually marry late in middle age to a woman who wanted a door mat companion. I know I am running him down, a little unfairly. He is a kind person. Really a decent human being. But I did not want some strange person being a tool to control my life.

My mother put up with it, this sick EA. Ironically, he works for her now. My father's brain is rotted cottage cheese. So his relationship with him is now with her. He drives an hour to my parents's house two times a week to work. My mother pays him the reduced hourly wage. He must have huge pension by now.

In TAM terms my father's assistant was a paid enabler of my father's unhealthy behavior...

I used to work with my father's assistant in his office. We aid lunches together many times. He was my companion. How many hours of my youth was spend in that fvcking office, watching the Gong show or I Dream a Jeanie or the Price is Right when I wanted to be out playing baseball.

Of course my father's assistant remained a patient for many years. He used lie on the couch and talk to the TV. My father once listened to him and other patients but eventually he burnt out and left them with just the video equipment. How long is someone going to pay their money to talk to themselves and then watch it playback week after week. Not for long.

That is partly why my father's huge and lucrative private practice collapsed and he had to work in the prison in X town. Ironically my brother works in a hospital in X town, he hates it. He is bullied by the hospital administrators and the sociopathic manipulator colleague. He also commutes over an hours there and back. My father's assistant lives there. It is a town that has died, like so much of America.

I have visited it just few times. It has de-industrialized, leaving it with a big percentage of urban poor who cannot get good paying industrial jobs anymore. The outskirts of the town have that strip development feel: the oil lube specialist, the Oriental massage parlor, the telephone lines running down the road.

I hate that town in a quiet way.

There may be spelling errors and typos. I'll fix this later, when I can bear to read it.


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## LongWalk

Turnera, that YouTube clip just reminded me of why I so dislike US TV.

All in the Family was a good show because it was original at the time. After that America produced show after show with the mythical happy family at the center. So, many of these families, and they included weird non traditional constellations of friendship, all have rubber characters who act the same month after month.

Insight and character development typically did not occur because the characters were indestructible. All of the buffoonery causes no chance. Missing – at least during the time I watched – were alcoholism, domestic violence, child abuse, etc. In short, America wants to humorously poke fun at foibles, but not look at real problems.

Probably this has changed with shows like Madmen. I should steal them from the web and watch them, because people say they're great.

Conclusion: I have always disliked the romantic and false. Hansel and Gretel and the Little Match Girl seem like real life to me. I don't like Disney versions of the Little Mermaid. The original story with it's unhappy ending was just fine. Pixlar got an edge on Disney with the grittier more real characters. Disney said, "Oh, no we can't have that, and bought Pixlar and turned it into another McDonald's of entertainment."


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## turnera

I'll just say you have apparently missed out on a huge swath of television shows and tv movies that have been some of the best things I've ever seen. Funny shows, thoughtful shows, renditions of the classics, shows that make you look at yourself...you just have to look for it. I get that it's harder in Europe to access it, but it's there.


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## LongWalk

You're right, Turnera.

I got side tracked. My brother's illness. Why I was not included in family vacations. The baby sitter, my father's patient, turned male servant EA... I have sew this together.

Little story: When my brother died my father's loyal assistant, who knew everthing about our family since was a de facto member working in the basement. My mother forbid him to eat there so he went out and at sandwich in his car. What a humilation. You has a strange role in family. You walk the dog, clean the pool and eat your lunch by the side of the road.

Anyway when my brother died he was going to drive down to the funeral in Evanston, Illinois, but storm came up and lightning struck an old cedar tree, felling it on to his car. So he did not make it.

He would have cried at the funeral.

My mother let the people who sawed it up take it for nothing. It was worth some money. It would have many great firewood for years.

The assistant is still in the basement now taking orders from my mother. The man he served hardly recognizes him.

In my teens I used to watch my father assistant couch therapy sessions if I wanted to. I didn't. They were boring. He talked about the things that upset him. He was so kind and sensitive. 

I watched with interest the televisions trained on the women patients. N, the beautiful young woman from Detroit. I think her father was a lawyer. He wanted her treatment to be far away. Is is right for a 14 or 15 year old boy to listen to the private therapy of a woman talking about her life. I am sure hung on every word about sex.

I also like the sessions of the touch cute teenage sisters whose father became a patient by court order. He exposed himself. I listened to one of his private therapy sessions in which he talked about cheating. He walked into the basement of a house to do some service call and had sex with wife in laundry room.

My cousin, the one who blew his mind out on LSD and later went on to become a clinical psychologist with a PhD, worked for my father. as a camera man. My father hired 85% patients and relative, 10% relatives and 5% outsiders.

Anyway my cousin took the virginity of the elder daughter of the flasher in his classic old Benz (drive shaft split in two and it did not move quickly even before that). My father was angry when he found out that my cousin had an affair with a patient. Come on, my cousin was a college student. He saw a hot high school girl and closed in.

The younger sister told me not get any ideas, for she had a boyfriend.


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## turnera

It was child abuse to have you watch those things.


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## Ms. GP

All four of us kids have worked at one point in my dad's office too. My youngest brother and my mother work there to this day. It never ceases to amaze me that he actually has patients. I think most of them are drug seekers. I've filled some of his scripts and he's pretty liberal with the narcotics in my opinion. He's never hired a patient that I know of. He is pretty respectful of patient privacy . Sounds like your dad didn't have any boundaries when it came to patient privacy. Wow!


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## LongWalk

My father loved and chanted about confidentiality, doctor patient privilege. Theses were mantras of the highest holy order. In practice my father was too insecure to deal with equals. To his mind hiring patients was good. He was giving them an opportunity. 

My father paid the going wage, so he did not seem exploitative. What was sick was his desire for adulation. 

My father expected me not to watch private therapy sessions. But what else was I to do since I was supposed watch a few minutes of each tape to make certain it was the right patient. 

I was also supposed to erase the tail on recycled tapes to prevent the last patient on a tape from catching the previous patients.

Largely I was bored. You had to have something for me to make a point of watching. I watched my dentist. His demon was alcohol. He had two beautiful daughters. They were in their late teens early 20s. I watched them when I could. 

There was a prof whose wife suffered depression. She actually came to say hello to my parents and expressed gratitude to my father for saving her. My father remembered her.

They had two daughters. One was my brother's classmate, the brother who died. On FB a picture appeared of the daughter and my brother in their teens. Good looking smiling and full of hope. 

I FB friended her. She liked my dad and was happy that her therapy helped her in the conflict with her mother. I shared a little about my weird situation, telling it had been relief to she her and her sister back then. She agreed that it been strange to see me working there. We never talked I just put in fresh tapes and left the room. 

She and her sister were cute but too young for me, since they were the ages of my younger brothers. 

Today she is a full time gay, lesbian, trans political organizer who is paid for her work. Her FB wall is just a stream of posts about the cause with a few I-love-you partner photos. It might be interesting to meet her IRL. She lives in the town where my cousin who died of cervical died. 

The patient memory was Donnie. He was catatonic much of the time. He had pried off all his finger nails, leaving raw scabs in their place. He smelled of schizophrenia. That odor I was recognize when visited my brother in the Cook County ward. 

That smell is disturbing. I abhor it. I learned to tolerate it to be professional at the age 15 or 16. 

When Donnie was in group my father came in and tried to rally all the patients to cheer Donny's family. It was a tough sell. Evolution is not kind to the Donnies of the world. Poor skinny guy with curly reddish brown hair just sat their and longed to close his eyes. I was filming him. 

I think my cousin also worked then. I will ask him which patients he remembers.... I wonder if his wife who has beaten cancer twice knows about him fvcking the 16 or 17 year old patient? What does she do for a living? PhD clinical psychologist, like my cuz her husband.

If you look at the facts, life is freak show. 

Of course, I love life. Writing this is good for me. No more cover up. We have to laugh. I will laugh again. 

TAM has changed my life. I am rooting for you, Moxy, Conrad, Chuck, Ang, Turnera, It'sKaren, GP/Ms, so many more.... And BW.

_Posted via *Topify* using iPhone/iPad_


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## LongWalk

I know there are typos. IHone posting

_Posted via *Topify* using iPhone/iPad_


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## turnera

Why do so many people just adore iPhones when nearly every single person complains about the phone replacing their words? Windows and Androids don't have this problem. In fact, they HELP you spell better!


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## LongWalk

turnera said:


> Why do so many people just adore iPhones when nearly every single person complains about the phone replacing their words? Windows and Androids don't have this problem. In fact, they HELP you spell better!


I like Apple's metal casing, Turnera.

GutPunch told me not to blame my parents and I agree. A pity party is not a solution. However, understanding is necessary. I am so like my father it is horrible, but while he hid from his problems, I will not... anymore. My father ran away and hid behind the universe... that is lonely cold place... I don't want to end up there.

He needed psychotherapy to deal with his issues but never took that step. It was too scary for him. TAM is a de facto couch. I am only sorry I did not face these demons when I was 30. However, regrets without action are useless.

My father addressed his anxiety by co dependence with his patients and employees, refusing successfully interact with intellectual equals who had spine and integrity. In short he demanded Yesmen and women. He tried to transform me into a worshipper, but he did not worship his own father. He hated or feared him. Thus, the Oedipal laser shining into my 15-year-old face.

My father had some great successes early in his career and then he went off the wall with his lawsuit against the hospital and then his crusade to make everyone learn the language of his country. Every fvcking body in America was supposed to pay him for incomprehensible books and computer programs to enter the best culture produced by mankind.

Our whole family spend weekends clipping out tiny pictographs and gluing them them with glue stick to the pages of a thick book to be photocopied and then printed and published at great cost. NO ONE WANTED THAT FVCKING BOOK, DAD! HOW MANY HUNDRED COPIES LAY ON DESKS AND TABLES NEVER READ WHILE YOU PREACHED TO ANYONE. BULLWINKLE'S WAFFLE HOUSE WAITRESSES. Sorry for the caps... yes, dad would proselytize a waitress, telling her she was going to learn a magic language easily. She would smile bemused and wonder if it were true. He would then tip generously for her attention.

How many times did my mother witness this humiliation without putting her foot down? To be in that situation made me feel stupid.

My father took out a line of credit and paid his salary to Merrill Lynch for the joy of financing his fanaticism.

I have done the same thing in my career, chasing just causes that sold well to the papers sometimes and sometimes not. But my dedication was the same fanaticism and now I am unable to do my real professional work. Instead I can only work for money, which where my father the philosopher, linguist, medical and social revolutionary ended up.

Towards the end, and he did not stop working for the state until he reached 80, he had to learn new data systems on the work computer with Alzheimer's coming on. That was so hard. He just managed to keep his head above water. He drove to work and back without knowing the other streets in the city.

If he had to turn he was lost and couldn't get home. 

All those days working for the state... 20 years ago he used to to work early, then hop in the car and come home for lunch to work with his loyal assistant in the basement and then go back to the office. 

I don't know the economics of it but lets say 25% of his 90k physician's salary went to the assistant in the basement to run a religion of you learn my language. WTF.

My father more than once asked me to join his company and work for him... it was not more than once. It was over and over.

... it was all comical. You gotta to laugh. I hope I soon will.


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## angstire

What was the language?


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## anotherguy

(...its odd to me that I just commented in another thread that Freud was completely wrong.. and then I stumble on this thread that opens up withsomeone being told about an 'Oedepus' complex...)

without reading it...I dont have a good feeling already...


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## LongWalk

Chinese. 

The Oedipus complex may be more relevant to some cultures than others. My father comes from a country where elders are venerated and distribution of resources with the family is not democratic or fair.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## angstire

Teaching Americans Chinese? Good luck. 

We refuse to even learn some Spanish and there are so many Spanish speaking countries near us.

Chinese could be very useful in the next century, but oh well.


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## LongWalk

Originally Posted by illwill View Post
I'm not going to have a long debate on if people can change or not, that was not the point of the thread. Some took a negative term and ran with it. I'll say this: I'm in my late 30's, have a child, been around the world. I know rich, poor, and famous people all over and my view stands. I said many people don't change. Not all. I believe at a certain age you stop progressing. I think you can learn to manage your flaws and repress negative aspects of your personalty, but unless you encounter a HUGE moment. A full 180 does not happen. Sure I think, if a child dies, you win the lotto, or lose all your fortune it can happen. But I don't believe content people just walking around are changing for the better unless they are thrown into a situation like losing their freedom or a career that defined them. Now I think it's easy to change for the worst, but to grow into a better person...

As for seemingly faithful people who all of a sudden change into cheaters then change back. Is it really all of a sudden? Not likely. Now, can a cheater change? Sure. Do most? No. Why? I think many times the BS make it too easy for them. The pain and fallout for cheating needs to be much worse then the thrill of an affair. It has to be so jarring it breaks them down to their core. I have seen a few on here like DD and Someday and Rookie who handle their R with class, love, and strength, and I'm willing to bet my next check their wives won't cheat again, but unfortunately most BS don't handle it that way.

This is just my point of view, I could be wrong, and again the point of the thread (and thank you to those who honored that) was to single out the waywards who have shown their change by staying and helping out.
You caught my attention by commenting on a post you made, so I came to read the threads you started. You're an incisive person. I agree with what you say about people not changing. What torment it is for everyone to see the manifestation of a significant inner flaw appear in the daylight not once but seemingly without end.

An alcoholic who wakes up with a dry mouth, pounding head and jumbled room knows that they said or did things that are going to be hell to repair. They go into damage control mode for a few days but they keep using booze to survive the shıtty way they feel.

A cheater goes back for more sneak sex, even though they may feel their integrity running down the drain.

The underlying psychological construction of our character is in some sense hidden from us because it deep inside. When we try to know ourselves it remains a slippery rubber knot that is smooth and resistant to our desire for change and a better life.

Whether it is alcohol, cheating, embezzling, once these destructive manifestations are growing problems in their own right, fixing oneself becomes even more difficult. I think you are right about that one.

So, why did you bother to ask?

I can only suppose that you want to see a brighter side. There is one of course and may not be a life changing event (disbarment, divorce, bankruptcy) that finally sparks a change of character. Those who badly need some insight and action need a combination of things. Encouragement is important. Sometimes the person who encouraged is long gone. There are couple of people in my life who just believed in me. To do better is a way of paying them back, though I don't where they are.

As far as wayward spouses go, the repetition of cheating causes additional damage just like each drink. You should read Tears, she wanted to try strange, got some one afternoon, rushed home to confess and was kicked to the curb. She did not want to go down that path of being a person who could not respect herself, so worked so hard on herself afterwards. One might say that she did not change so very much, but rather was fundamentally sound person who made a bad choice and retreated forthright to protect her core. 

Maybe, her exhusband's character slid off more than hers. He drank and womanized himself into worse state. She was trying to pick him up in her last post. Perhaps she is not a good example.

I just turned 55. I don't think, I know my life is all f'd up. Someone on TAM wrote that if you haven't resolved your issues by the early 30s it's never going to happen. I fear that this is true and yet I feel better that I am at last not running from the facts that I think malformed my character. I only wish I had begun in my 20s.

There is a fine line between a blame game and understanding.

You don't go into the story of what happened to your marriage. Your wife cheated and you put your marriage in box, nailed it shut and buried it deep in the earth while your wife pleaded. It was your way of dealing with it. It crushed her, it crushed you. She had to leave and go and look her unforgiven, unchanging cheating face in the mirror everyday.

Does she still dream of forgiveness that would allow her to feel the warmth of a single sun? Has she been remorseful? Has she changed?

Would you be willing to read great short story in which adultery might have been the right thing to do?


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## LongWalk

angstire said:


> Teaching Americans Chinese? Good luck.
> 
> We refuse to even learn some Spanish and there are so many Spanish speaking countries near us.
> 
> Chinese could be very useful in the next century, but oh well.


Sure languages are useful and for many countries learning foreign languages, especially English, is mandatory. You cannot get a job in many countries if you don't have decent English. The US is acting like a third world undeveloped country in this respect.

But the point is not that it would be good if more people in the US studied Chinese or Spanish. What gave my father the idea that he could with a few brilliant ideas cause two or three billion persons to change their lives by taking up the study of Chinese?

Arabic is studied for a reason. People want to read the Koran in the original. English is necessary for work and study. Spanish, for the US may become a practical necessity. But why did my father insist that the Waffle House waitress and random stranger at the airport had to start learning Chinese?

He showed a complete lack of empathy for the needs of others, who needed to live their normal lives and had no time. My father was huckster. He used to beg people for money, not because he wanted or needed the money. He didn't it was to gain emotional approval.

He did this with his coffee shop for the patients. The coffee shop routinely lost money because it wasn't quite a real business. The mentally ill people who worked there were earning a wage in a place that was forgiving of their quirks. Actually the Families Coffee Shop was a good thing, but the way my father shook down everybody who came to hear him preach bothered me.

He contributed, too. That made me feel better. But the coffee shop was where he received adulation. I had to watch it. It embarrassed the héll out of me. I know my mother hated it. What normal person wants to see their needy spouse deified?

When it came to the language thing my father spend years selling shares in his high tech software company. Most of the people who invested were friends and relatives. They lost every penny. My father used to shares and manuals to anyone, literally any person he met.

My brothers don't like talking about this. We were members of a cult. I am now deprogramming myself. I think my youngest brother never got sucked in. Everyone else bears horrible scars.


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## LongWalk

Your posts have patiently portrayed the failings in your relationship. Sad that he is content while you are hanging on waiting for emotional warmth. Part of the problem is that perceives you as part of himself but without feeling your pain and frustration.

I have seen this in parents relationship. My father was always emotionally dependent on my mother but unable imagine or prioritize her needs. His needs always came first, even when they were self destructive. 

My parents did fight but my mother won battles while my father laid waste to his career and dissipated their wealth.

My mother was always cognizant that divorce would destroy him. She never had the heart to do it.

Do you think your husband could flourish without you? Elegirls suggestion that you distance yourself from is a good one. If he courted you with creativity and charm, he might change everything. 

Right now there are no consequences for his lack of engagement.


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## LongWalk

One thing I didn't understand is resentment. My parents have tremendous resentments that they bore their whole lives. Their compromises became more and more like pick ax blows, until at last the rock left was so hard, they didn't have the strength to swing.

My mother talks so much about the resentments of my grandmother, whom I never really got to know. She had 12 or 13 children. A pair of still born twins almost killed her. They had no money and not enough food. Grandfather still drank beer and played darts in the pub. The kids were hungry. It was not Angela's Ashes but it was not too much better.

If I had understood that resentments are poison to a relationship, I would have done something about them.


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## LongWalk

A limerick I wrote:

*He was sitting in church*

There was a man with a feverish brow
who was frightened but didn't know how
to quiet the fears
that screamed in his ears
Hell was present, it was here, it was now.


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## LongWalk

re: friendship with ex's
Sunday was my daughter's 16th birthday. We put off celebrating at restaurant until later in the week. I went over to my ex's and we had a pleasant conversation. She vented about work. She complained about a journalist friend whose politics she can't stand. Indirectly I introduced them and they collaborated successfully. But my ex feels frustrated by her government job. I sympathized but I cannot fix these things.

She reminded my that should get my daughter a present. I think I will buy her a unicycle. Birthday daughter hardly talked to me; she was glued to her computer. I left her in peace.

Daughter 18 ate most of the Swiss chocolate I brought over. I stole a pancake. Folded a piece of chocolate around it and nuked till it melted. D18 was in a good mood and we watch YouTube clips of our sport. We replayed the slow-mo of the Danish player kneeing a Russian in the head several times. Happiness is a strange thing.


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## John Lee

I haven't read the whole thread, but I have therapists in my family and I can relate to some of the original post. I don't think this is true across the board, but sometimes people in the psychology field think they have a free pass for themselves -- they get a kind of god-complex about their ability to diagnose other people and don't look inward. Without getting too specific, I had family members say things to me that were very damaging coming from a family member regardless of whether they were "objectively" true -- both things about myself and about other relatives. I would think it would be part of ethical training for psychiatrists to learn not "bring their work home," but I guess that's not the case.


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## John Lee

And I don't know if anyone has pointed this out, but it's very interesting that your father chose to tell you during your teenaged years that you have an "oedipal complex." What could be his motivation for saying that? To me it sounds like he was actually feeling threatened by you and competitive with you. He projected this onto you by labeling it an "oedipal complex" when in reality it was he who couldn't face the fact of another person in the house coming into manhood, so insecure was he in his own manhood.


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## John Lee

One other thing -- you say you are against therapists now and understandably so. I have mixed feelings about them myself, because it's a setup where you put so much trust and give so much power to a stranger, and that person can turn out to be abusive of their power (like your father) while you are in an extremely vulnerable position. Yet I also wonder if a GOOD male therapist might be of enormous help to you, like a counterweight to your father. Just a thought.


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## LongWalk

John,

I am not against therapy. Good therapy would have helped me, I should have sought it years ago.

My father was obsessed with medical ethics and the special priesthood of the MD. To him anything bad about doctors was a lie. He hated reading about malpractice suits. He feared them and shared this fear with me regularly. He did not even consider that made him sound weak. 

Lawyers were evil to him. He loved being a member of the AMA and American Psychiatric Association, which hoped would put lawyers in their place. It was a longing he had.

He seldom or never read medical journals. Our home was littered with them.

_Posted via *Topify* using iPhone/iPad_


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## John Lee

I know this might be a strange suggestion, but have you ever considered writing about your father -- an essay, a short story, even a novel? You write very well and you have a lot of insight into his character.


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## LongWalk

John Lee said:


> I know this might be a strange suggestion, but have you ever considered writing about your father -- an essay, a short story, even a novel? You write very well and you have a lot of insight into his character.


I have. Perhaps this thread will help me do that.

One of the strange things is that my father and mother have always asked to bear witness to their struggles as a biographer. My father had me named archivist of all his patient records. Some are a home. Malcolm X's mother was my father's patient. Somewhere there is a historical document of famous man's mother telling a crazy Marxist leaning immigrant psychiatrist about her life on the other side of the railroad tracks.

The huge video library of his patients may have been largely destroyed by age and poor conditions but where could your have a more interesting bunch of documents about America fading. The place that my father bought a huge V-8 powered red Old Vista Cruiser station wagon has been abandoned for many years. It sit central on the main street that goes from the capital of our state all the way to Detroit.

I remember how proud my father was to buy that car without asking for anything off. He told us it was red to symbolize Communism. My father ate up the flattery doctors receive. He was insecure. It cause a lot of ill feeling between him and my uncles who were university professors. They didn't make as much money but they were academics. They still had him defeated. However, they were professors at Big 10 schools, so it wasn't so bad.

If one of them had been at Harvard, Yale or Princeton, my father would have felt bad. What research they did was completely not of interest. One of my uncles taught biophysics, he was a chemist by education, and I don't think my father ever went to his lab, even though we lived in the same town. He was the chair of the department. You would think that they would have shared their success, but they were too jealous, too insecure.

My uncle was just the same. His son, without any coaching, walked on to the tennis team and became a varsity player. He was self taught and made a Big Ten team and won a scholarship. My cousin was my hero. What a sorrow to hear him say that his father only came and watched one of this matches (and wasn't interested in it). Most parents would be so proud, but for my uncle it was just something to hold in distain.

For that matter my father never went to see my cousin play either. The moment my brothers and I could beat my father at ping pong he quit playing. His ego was destroyed. When we beat him at chess he quit playing chess were in grade school when this happened.

My father said that any boy who could beat him twice in a row would win a $100. The first time I beat him he was incredibly angry. The second game frightened the héll out of me. If I won my father would hate me. I was so nervous. I wanted to win and yet the emotional turmoil was killing me. I was only in 4th or 5th grade. After that my father never played chess with me again.

My father had straight A's in every subject. He got Master in Electrical engineering after medical school. He could have studied a chess book and learned how to play well, but he wanted to be a winner automatically without competition.

One of the saddest experience of my childhood was when my mother found a woman who taught science. She paid her to give us some extra instruction. And one day she taught us how construct a magnet with a battery copper wire, steel nails and a wooden board. It was so cool. But I always wondered why my father never did anything like that with us. It hurt.

He would seldom do anything with his hands. For him to change a light bulb was an extraordinary event. He didn't know were they were kept. You would think that a guy with a MA in electrical engineering would do the wiring on something or tinker with a car's electrical system, but he would not ever do those things. Those jobs were for the workers, the lower caste.

In his homeland upper class educated people and government officials looked down upon merchants, business people and technicians.

The sad thing is I have imitated my father in so many ways. He was dysfunctional and so am I. So, yes, if I had gone to therapy 30 years ago, I could have worked through these problems, instead I starting now when my life is 2/3 over.

Better to face up to the task now.


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## LongWalk

Manticore wrote about his parents abusing him. His father cheated and his mother employed him as the PI. When he got sick of it she took anger out on him.

That was a moving story. Parents do not always perform like adults and they pass their dysfunctional behavior on to the next generation. Your mother's abuse was horrible and her refusal to admit makes in worse.

My father abused me emotionally as child. My mother knows it and I would like to say something to her. But she is her 80s and I can't bring myself to end her life in a depression.

Sadly, though, I find it difficult to call her and write her. I resent her inability to stand up to my father. I know she couldn't. He was angry and would have given her a terrible fury in response. 

The sad thing is once they get older they don't have the strength to be angry. It just winds down without any justice. Sometimes I would just like to swear and curse or guzzle a bottle of whisky. Bet you felt the same way at times.

There a few spelling/typos that you could fix, but thank you for sharing.


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## LongWalk

There are people who are unable apologize. My parents grew up in difficult circumstance. There were 16 or 17 children in my mother's family and my grandfather largely unemployed during a long stretch of the her childhood. They were wards of the parish in the Depression. Food was never abundant.

As a child, my mother relished dishes such sheep's brains. They used to eat bread with dripping. Her father drank beer in the pub and smoked pipe, expensive habits when your kids are hungry. Is it to his credit that from time to time he crept about the mountains a stole sheep when necessary?

At any rate, the struggle between the siblings for love, affection and nourishment, left a rough edge. Many folks in her family don't say sorry very much.

My father was a war refugee from China after the Japanese invasion. Chinese culture is not big on confession of guilt or responsibility publicly. My father also suffered insecurity about food as result of hunger.

As a result of this, the dynamic between my parents was very odd. Their conflicts and affection were hidden from us a children. I cannot remember a single time that they ever apologized to each other for anything. And yet there marriage lasted. They are now 84 and 83. They love each other very much, despite great conflicts and stress. My father has Alzheimer's so he is completely dependent on my mother for everything. Today he would readily say sorry to mother if she requested, but he is now child-like: disease strips away dignity.

Although my parents did not admit wrong doing or acknowledge mistakes, that did not mean there marriage was conflict free. They did have fights and the resentment hung in the air. I expect that if my mother were sufficiently angry that killed their sex life from time to time. So even if my father would never admit mistakes, he must have been forced to make peace offerings to end their arguments.


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## NextTimeAround

> There are people who are unable apologize.


I agree with this. Just like I believe that some people are so entrenched in their beliefs about life, whatever that they will do whatever they can to rewrite history.

For example, my parents always tried to convince me that white men do not take black women seriously. So when I was married to my white husband, my mother used every bit of information that I shared with her to prove that my race was an issue with my husband's family.

Sadly, it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I came to terms with the fact that my parents could be my worst enemies. I wish I had made the emotional break with them much sooner.


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## LongWalk

Anon Pink,

You are right these things go both ways. I am sure there are plenty of men who are divorced because they did not do their fair share of the work. 

My father did almost zero in terms of household chores. He was doctor and his time and profession made him too important to lift finger. He was also and electrical engineer, but he resented the hell out of my mother for asking him to change a light bulb. He did no traditional work in the yard.

You would think that an electrical engineer, MS no less, would as a matter or professional pride have fixed fridges, furnaces or something that would challenge the engineer. No way. My father used PCs but never learned to do anything but word processing and email. He claimed he was a computer scientist.

I had no sisters. They would have been in a pitious situation because my mother believed girls should work. She was brought up in an imporverished country in the UK. My mother treats my daughter poorly because she thinks they should be polite, obedient and work. My mother does not demand that of male grandchildren. They can treat her disrespectfully or ignore her she will put a good spin on it. 

So it is not just men who push women into the servant roles. Women have done it and do it to other women, not least their own daughters. 

So who helped with the dishes when I as a boy. As the eldest son it fell upon me. My first younger brother, who later died of schizophrenia, was not forced to this work. My mother was protective of him. She realized their was something wrong with him and left him be. The next youngest, who had a very sunny disposition, always said that he had to go to the toilet. He simply never returned. My youngest brother was too young.

It was the unfairness of it that bothered me. And it is funny that such a small thing from the past still eats at me. Ridiculous, really. My mother never let me do any masculine chores, nothing with tools that were dangerous, aside from cutting the grass. 

Her brothers were working class men who did things with their hands, but I was not allowed to saw, hammer or nail, all masculine chores.

i am certain that spouse inherit baggage when it comes to expectations about household chores. They pay for the habits and resentment from childhood. Those who had parents who knew how to successfully divide work at home gave their children a pattern for success.


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## LongWalk

NextTimeAround said:


> I agree with this. Just like I believe that some people are so entrenched in their beliefs about life, whatever that they will do whatever they can to rewrite history.
> 
> For example, my parents always tried to convince me that white men do not take black women seriously. So when I was married to my white husband, my mother used every bit of information that I shared with her to prove that my race was an issue with my husband's family.
> 
> Sadly, it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I came to terms with the fact that my parents could be my worst enemies. I wish I had made the emotional break with them much sooner.


Growing up in mixed race family, I can understand that. When my White mother married an Asian man her parents disowned her. Later they forgave her. When my brother married a woman from Jamaica my mother told one my Asian cousins "it would even be better if he married a Chinese."

Of course my SIL, who is no dummy picked up on my mother's racism, and has paid her back by not being the compliant DIL.


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## turnera

LW, have you ever read any of Rob Thurman's books? I think you'd enjoy the angst.


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## LongWalk

Rob Thurman... another to buy book.

Today I spoke at my friends funeral. His organs collapsed after struggling with liver failure. He successfully had to liver transplants, the second from his own son.

I was a little late. I found myself wandering around the enormous cemetery, searching for the Jewish section. Eventually after cutting through the gravestones, I came to a dirt road and came to the building. I put my hat down and went up and spoke. His son had asked me to.

I was not 100% firm in voice. It was strange to speak to so many professional pall bearers. Hardly anyone came. I am not Jewish but they give you a skull cap. I felt more grief than I expected. My friend gave a lot to me. He was really a brave guy.

The second to last we met in hospital it looked bad, but he still held out hope of a third transplant or gall bladder procedure. He got the later but could not recover. But that evening we were drinking tea in the dinning room and there was an old man, severely jaundiced in the face. I could not bear to look at him because I knew he would die.

I was afraid of death. And yet I could talk to my friend who was in the same situation. He was calm and dignified, facing the end. Afterwards, our mutual buddy, whose partner left him, was standing on the snowless dirt road with a bit of blood and snot on his lip. He didn't go to the son's apartment for coffee. He has not taken the dissolution of his family well. It has aged him.

His teen age sons don't tell him what they think about their mother's departure. The last time we visited the friend who died I stopped in his office and looked at some old photos of him working the decommission presidential yacht. They toured the US inland waterways raising money to restore the vessel to service but the foundation directors frittered away the money on their lifestyle and compensation. It is kind of sad that people can be reduced to looking at photos of their youth, thinking that the present is largely gray and hopeless.

At the post funeral coffee my deceased friend's DIL, a famous pop musician, pulled out a drawer full of photos. She wanted to show us Bali. They were flying out tomorrow. It was perfect timing. Her FIL died. They buried him and the day after would get to the Hindu sunshine. She had been there. There were photos of her in a bikini. She lingered over them. Hot woman singer on MTV, now mom at the last minute.

Why didn't more people come to the funeral?


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## turnera

Lots of people can't handle such things.


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## moxy

I'm sorry to hear that you've lost a friend.

I agree with Turnera about why funerals aren't as well attended as they could be; sometimes, people just can't face what is difficult.


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## LongWalk

I promised my mother I'd go back for Christmas. Didn't buy a ticket. Feel terrible. 

On Facebook I look great at the center of a photo surrounded by beautiful (and ordinary looking) women in swim suits.

My daughters are off the coast of Africa with my ex. They are learning to surf. Wish I was there. 

Listening to Mazzy Star. Hope Sandoval has the voice of sadness for the ages. 

Going to try and convice a musician friend to record some songs.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## moxy

Mazzy Star is one of my favorites. they're great for those contemplative moods. They've released a new album. Have you heard it?


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## LongWalk

I will.


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## Ms. GP

Merry Xmas LW.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## LongWalk

Ms. GP said:


> Merry Xmas LW.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Same to you and GP. I hope 2014 will be a great year for you both. You deserve it.


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## Ms. GP

Yeah bring on 2014. This year sucked. I hope it's good for you too. On a side note, saw my crazy family yesterday and were completely unaffected by them. You probably did a good thing not going. My brother didn't show. He says he's just not ready. I completely understood that. He's trying to get healthy and needs the time to heal. I respect that.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## LongWalk

You quit smoking in 2013.


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## Ms. GP

I quit a lot of things in 2013!!!  I have been off the cigs about 4 months now. Makes working out a lot easier. Go figure. Now I'm kickboxing and doing yoga. Fun stuff. You still swimming?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## LongWalk

I think kickboxing and yoga are great.

If I were younger, I'd take up martial arts.

I'll send you a link of me in water. Show it to GP.


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## LongWalk

More about me from a post on another page:

In between careers in my mid 20s I had a little pile of money from my last job and was preparing to go an a great adventure when a friend asked me to sell off the entire inventory of a failed business venture, rolls of silk and silk garments. He and his wife had trusted friends to sell the textiles but the friends had stolen and embezzled from the business, less because they were crooks and more because they were not business people.

So my job was not to make a great profit but to liquidate the stock. I took the stuff from Indiana to Chicago and lived with my brother and his roommate who were finishing up U. And for a few weeks I cold called and knocked on doors of all sorts of garment makers and small clothing stores.

The stuff was of very high quality but how many women need a silk blouse and how many dressmakers need a roll of silk? I succeeded by driving all over the greater Chicago area. In process I realized that there were huge neighborhoods of Black Americans who were completely separate from each other.

Once, I drove in a pot hole and bent the rim of wheel. I found a garage in a terrible neighorhood, were you would assume a White would be mugged and murdered, never mind that I am only half White. The guy in the garage was dressed in filthy overalls. He took the wheel and pounded it back into shape with powerful blows from a rubber mallet. It was like a scene out of a Greek myth.

My appearance in the garage was a mystery to him. He only charged me five dollars. He had skill.

Another time I went to a barbershop in lower middle class Black neigborhood. The customers and barber were astounded that a non Black had walked in. They were in no way hostile, just dumbfounded. I got a beard trim and hair cut. I walked out looking like a Latin pimp.

I realized that even Black America in Chicago was really complicated socio-economically. Further up there was Evanston, the feel there along the shore of Lake Michigan was completely different. Drive the other direction into Indiana and it was deeply depressing that people lived and died in the wasteland of Industrial collapse. Keep going east and there were Amish and Mennonite villages. You could stop by the side of the road and buy apples from Mr. Coffin, a very salt of the earth guy who worked and lived in the countryside and probably never went to Chicago more than a couple of times in his life.

If you take a boat from Chicago due north your reach the Upper Peninsula, where in some places the streets all have Finnish names and the people tend to laconic alcoholism, as in their forefathers' homeland.

America is full of very separate and different communities. They do not really get along and they do not mix. Here on TAM there are people who recognize this tribal community aspect of some parts America and they want guns to defend themselves. Consider this pre Civil War history:

Quote:
The Toledo War (1835–36), also known as the Michigan–Ohio War, was the almost entirely bloodless boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining territory of Michigan.

Originating from conflicting state and federal legislation passed between 1787 and 1805, the dispute resulted from poor understanding of geographical features of the Great Lakes at the time. Varying interpretations of the law caused the governments of Ohio and Michigan to both claim sovereignty over a 468-square-mile (1,210 km2) region along the border, now known as the Toledo Strip. When Michigan petitioned for statehood in 1835, it sought to include the disputed territory within its boundaries; Ohio's congressional delegation was in turn able to stall Michigan's admission to the Union.

Beginning in 1835, both sides passed legislation attempting to force the other side's capitulation. Ohio's governor Robert Lucas and Michigan's 24-year-old "Boy Governor" Stevens T. Mason were both unwilling to cede jurisdiction of the Strip, so they raised militias and helped institute criminal penalties for citizens submitting to the other's authority. The militias were mobilized and sent to positions on opposite sides of the Maumee River near Toledo, but besides mutual taunting there was little interaction between the two forces. The single military confrontation of the "war" ended with a report of shots being fired into the air, incurring no casualties.
In the end Michigan became a state and got the UP in exchange for giving up the southern strip. Michgian - Ohio state is great rivalry but people don't realize that men with guns assembled to settle it. Luckily for Washington the Feds could steal the land from the Indians by breaking the treaties and satisfy Michiganders.

Just the other day there was an article about Wyoming courts ruling in favor of Native Americans. The accusation is that Obama controlled courts are screwing Americans, pandering to the Liberal guilt trip of being nice to this minority.

We are not one nation under God. We never have been except in songs and pamplets. In that sense Obama is the big lie. He presents himself an American success story: Hope for every color, every ethnic group. in reality he cannot bridge the gap. The Affordable health care plan is not affordable. It creates winners and losers. But the net result is that ordinary people of all incomes are losers and the insurance companies, the really rich people are the winners.

By the same token Americans are still dying in Afghanistan and probably the dying is not over in Iraq because Obama supports these wars and the military industrial complex. Hundreds of billions of ultra modern weaponry is being produced for our country. Too bad a considerable part of it is not really modern, just expensive and obsolete. Naval surface vessels, for what? Nuclear missles, for what? A helicopter fixed wing hybrid, for what?

When it comes to operating the miiitary it is White small town America and Black urban America that produce the soldiers. The upper classes are not interested military careers. The people who bleed and die for America and those who get wealthy from weapons programs are not the same nation.

Bush was stamped Ivy League to prove he had brains. Obama was stamped Harvard law school to prove he was loyal to the elite. Both act pretty much the same way. Both would like to have unifers of America but neither was.

America is falling behind in education. We have given up on industry. But one never knows what the future holds.


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## Harken Banks

I am reading, but fighting sleep. You have been patient with me. Your story is compelling. And fascinating. I will keep reading.


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## Harken Banks

Holy cow. This writing is so dense (by which, for avoidance of misunderstanding, I mean dense like the richness of a chocolate cake you can only take small bites of). It's like reading Pynchon. It may be a while before I report back.


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## LongWalk

Thanks. I need to write more and put it behind me

_Posted via *Topify* using iPhone/iPad_


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## Harken Banks

LongWalk said:


> Thanks. I need to write more and put it behind me
> 
> _Posted via *Topify* using iPhone/iPad_


There is a lot there. Your childhood is not one that should be wished on anyone.


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## LongWalk

There are threads that are unreal. 

Do you remember looking at micro organisms under a microscope in 6th grade. Those tiny one celled animals were sometimes out or focus or moving. You took turns with your lab mates looking and comparing with the photos in the text book. It was hard to figure out everything but that was interesting.

While I was in high school my father got me jobs with the clinical labs prepping urine for drugs sample and getting pap smears ready for the cytology tech (Ursula, she was sexy and very unapproachable). Ursula did show me various cancer and pre cancerous cells in her book. It was thick. What kind of cell was what was not always easy to make out.

She wrote her opinions on the slides that were abnormal and left them for pathologist to review. She did not think of them as patients or women: she was very business like. The slides were purple. I don't know how long they save them. Perhaps is all digital. TAM is very digital. 

But you, LL, Conrad, Moxy, ReGroup, etc will never be digital zombies, even if the only time we really meet is staring out of airplane window into the clouds.


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## LongWalk

Couple of thoughts to record:

Countless time when I was working in my dad psychiatric clinic, a two-story brick building with enough room for three physicians, I witnessed him badger and bully patients into continuing therapy. His line was that everyone needed therapy, except him. Ok, he lay infront of the video camera a few times but no one every saw the tapes but him.

My father always called it family psychiatry. So if there was one person who had problem, say son Greg was skipped school and smoking dope. Well, my father would insist that the whole family came for family therapy, group therapy. Greg would individual therapy and my father would try to get every other member to have individual sessions as well.

He put a lot of energy into the patients until he burnt out. However, he spend shorter and shorter amounts of time with them. I cringed inwardly that they waited for 40 minutes, talking into the cameras. Then at last he would rush in and give them 5, 10 or 15 minutes. The worse the crisis, the more time he gave. I know folks wanted more.

Eventually the insurance would run out. At that point some dropped out or cut back. My father never accepted them quitting. He always badgered and harried them. Usually, they booked another appointment. Later, they would call and cancel if they were trying to escape.

In those days it was all paper. Man, all those filing cabinets. My father appointed me director of archives. When I was in my 30s. He was always trying to suck me into his career.

Observation two:
Why did my father and two uncles all marry white women? My youngest uncle married an American woman first and then two Chinese women. This is complicated but first, they wanted to marry upwards. But in the case of father, who left the homeland in his early teens, he was not comfortable in Chinese culture because he lack experience growing up in it. He must have sensed that had he married a Chinese woman who had strong sense of Chinese culture and norms, she would have used all the social obligation stuff to control him. He was scared of that.

Cultural expectations in marriage are a model, sometimes for happiness, but sometimes for imprisonment. You never see this clearly if you have mono culture background.


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## LongWalk

Often when people fall in love their idealize their spouse in many respects. They are having good sex. There is loyalty and bonding. Real life dashes a lot to earth. Lost jobs, financial mistakes, toxic friends, etc can all tarnish the sex appeal of basically decent husband. The wife revises her expectations of her husband. These new tests, which may or may not be vocalized, cause her even more frustration. When sex falls off because she resents these failures, the husband may at times even fail more.

Horrible to be at work asking customers to write positive reviews of your service performance while also thinking about the sexless nights. Some guys just don't feel on top of their game when both fronts are discouraging.

Must be very frustrating for wives to want their husbands to stand up to the alpha males bullies at work.

I remember an aunt and uncle of mine who owned a business together. My aunt was probably the better business brain but she ran my uncle down to all the family. My uncle had very little formal eductation but he was very intelligent and had great sense of humor. But he was a nice guy. He had trouble confronting people.

Once, for instance, my aunt discoverd that two women were systematically stealing from the business. It was my aunt who had to push to face them down and fire them. Another time she discovered that the bank that had charged high fees for handling the night deposit. My aunt fought those battles. She is a wonderful person warm and loving but very alpha. I can't imagine that they had good sex life... of course it's hard to imagine close relatives having sex, almost as bad as imagining your parents doing it.


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## LongWalk

My father was a teenage war refugee. My grandmother took a huge brood from Beijing to Tianjin (helped by her EA (PA?) family friend). Grandfather was in London working in an embassy. He had an English woman mistress my grandmother later learned. She felt bitter about it.

The flight required my grandmother to beg and plead for much of the road southwards. Eventually they made it to the ancestral home and then went on to Chongqing (Chungking), the wartime capital. My father remembers the bomb raids. My grandmother said that my father was terrified of the Japanese planes.

After he got Alzheimer's recalled that up the mountain an American home had been bombed to bits.

Later they flew to India and then took a ship to Europe. 

Being a refugee was very traumatic for my father. One of his aunts who was mentally ill or who went mentally ill after the Japanese invasion died by the side of a road somewhere. This was told to me by my grandfather's sister who raised four kids in Shanghai. All became Communists. Three are still alive. Very good people. Honest, intellectual, patriotic, individualist, artistic, complicated. Not the stereotype of the Communists that Americans fear. At bottom they were nationalistic and hated the corrupt KMT (my grandfather's party).

When my father made it to Europe the war was still going on. My grandfather was stationed in Portugal. He helped my grandfather read the Kanji (Chinese characters) on papers in the Japanese embassy's trash. They info was then shared with the US. i am not certain how useful this was. Could have been.

My father was too young to have fought in the war but it changed everything. My grandfather died in exile. I took my grandmother back to China. I even helped her visit her EA guy. He was really a nice guy. My grandmother was smart, charming and narcissistic. She was tough, a real fighter. I learned Chinese when I went to live with the at the age of 18.

My mother was living in poverty in the UK in the mountains. The war brought rationing, so their standard of living shot up. They ate better. My uncle, mother's twin brother, went up in mountains to pillage the few German plane that crashed. He told me he found a boot with a foot in it. He brought ammunition down to the village. The school headmaster beat him for that. My uncle hated that man with a passion. My mother named me after him and spelled it wrong because she never learned the native language properly.

Her half brother died in the invasion of Normandy. "It was the only time I saw my father cry," she recalled. My brother found his tomb stone. I can't remember if he visited it.

Another uncle was a sergeant in the British army. He would not tell any stories but he had a huge collection of military badges and buttons, including German stuff, which came from bodies of course. He was a very tough guy. He did once tell about going out on a reconnaissance mission on a motorcycle, i.e., behind enemy lines. There was not much story. Later after he died my cousin, his eldest daughter, said that he had shared one confession.

On that mission or another his motorcycle died and he found himself outside a house in Belgium or somewhere. It was night and he was cloaked in darkness. He did not want to be shot while starting the bike up again, so he shot out the windows of the house, not knowing whether there were Germans or civilians inside. Started it and rode out as fast possible.

He felt bad about it and told his daughter that he hoped no one had died.

Another uncle was in the merchant marine sailing the North Atlantic. He say ships being sunk, men's burning to death as they sank into the icy waters. He was badly traumatized and never recovered. He lived in London, working as a master carpenter after the war. Never married. Used to pop up in the village from time to time.

My grandmother in Wales used to give the German and Italian POW's tea and toast. My mother was very proud of her generosity to Hans and Luigi. They used to make things out scrap as presents to her. I don't know what my grandfather thought about her entertaining foreign men. 

I have a have feeling my grandfather cheated. In fact I know he was a cheater. One of my cousins said that not all of my 17 or whatever uncles and aunts were sired by my grandfather. 

My ex's father was very likely a Japanese orphan whom the mother handed to my ex's grandparents. The Japanese settlers in Manchuria scattered in the wind when the Soviets advanced. 

Quote:
When the Red Army invaded Manchukuo, they captured 850,000 Japanese settlers. With the exception of some civil servants and soldiers, these were repatriated to Japan in 1946–7. Many Japanese orphans in China were left behind in the confusion by the Japanese government and were adopted by Chinese families.
source: Wikipedia

Here Wikipedia is painting a false picture. People rarely hand over their children over to strangers unless they are close to or facing death. 

Her father doesn't want to know the truth about his past. But I joke with my daughters that they are 1/4 Japanese 1/2 Chinese and 1/4 Welsh. It doesn't bother them.

My ex's grandfather was a very clever guy. When the Soviet troops came, he hid the women the cellar and welcomed them with food and hard liquor. They got drunk and passed out. When they came to they just moved on.

Anyway the Second World War shaped my life. It sure put a lot of people in the victim triangle in one role or another.


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## moxy

So much overlap with history. I'm thinking of a novel by Chang Rae Lee called "A Gesture Life". I think you might like it.


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## LongWalk

Chuck,

The nostalgia. Are people worse than in the past? I doubt it. But the norms of trust have sunken. How could it be otherwise if your own government, regardless of party, lies to you in matters of life and death. The mortgage crisis. Sickening.

Houses, home, property, land, condo, single family dwellings, duplexes – all of those ways of life, with both richness and sterility. The first place we lived was an red brick apartment complex by a busy throughway. The first two distinct memories of my life that I know happened and are not black and white photos that have been transplanted back into the memory were mom giving me a dripping sandwich, i.e., beef drippings from a roast spread thick on bread with salt and pepper. We're talking lard, pure evil fat. I was standing by the fridge and wolfed it down fast and asked for another. Today if a mother served her kid that, people would demand CPS do an investigation.

The other memory from that utterly rectangular complex was the sight of two young ******* guys dressing a big snapping turtle on concrete steps. It was pure gore: blood, decapitation, prying open the shell. Buckets to catch the insides. My mom was a country girl but from a place without any turtle soup. I wonder how long we watched?

We didn't live there long.

All the housing projects in that university town promoted sterility and lack of individuality. The bulldozers wrenched all the tree stumps out, leaving the land utterly naked, a clay landscape with giant shovel marks. They stripped the top soil. You could see this because weeds didn't grow. They put the houses pretty quickly. Already the prefab methods where becoming more standardized. Architecture became a mass product.

Today trees have grown in those neighborhoods, making them comfortable, but it took decades for nature to get shaggy in the backyards. 

Once I was staying with my SIL's mother while my mentally ill brother was hospitalized. It was nice of her let me stay there. (Note to self. Write her and say thank you. ) She asked me to poison the dandelions that growing up in the cracks in the sidewalk. Why would you pour chemicals into the earth, into your own groundwater to make certain that no beautiful little flowers poked up? 

The housing in every country has its character. I get a feeling from for where you are living. Impressionism with words.

Ms GP,

It was I who got GP banned. I PM'd him that Conrad was banned and he went on and said something unPC. I think he knew he could get a ban but he was already posting less on TAM and probably wanted a break anyway.

Great to hear about the baseball.


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## jld

LW, I used to belong to a vegan support group. There was a lady there who made a sign to put on her lawn in the spring: Dandelions do not cause cancer.

I don't think she was very popular with her neighbors.


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## turnera

I have tried to sneakily turn my yard into a garden with native plants. I say sneakily because the hubby wants a huge green lawn, so when I work the flower beds, I will every once in a while dig just a little bit out of the 'grass' area and add it to the 'dirt' area; the flower beds keep getting just a little bit bigger each year. I'm getting there!


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## Ms. GP

Please don't blame yourself for the ban. He is responsible for his own behaviors. He had to know that going on a racist homophobic rant would get him banned. For the record, I do not share is views. I'm not 100% sure he does either, he just says stupid stuff when he's mad. Or maybe it was a self destructive unconscious way to break from TAM. He didn't feel it was healthy for him anymore.


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## LongWalk

Oh, no Ms. GP, I know GP wanted to get off of TAM, Conrad's ban was just an excuse to act righteously.

I don't think I saw anything real racist and homophobic but it might have been deleted. I cannot see see GP an being a hater. 

Make sure you copy his entire thread in case he deletes it. It's a great story. I think it's a kind of literature. Maybe Moxy could do some analysis of TAM and include his thread.

Say hi to him.


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## LongWalk

Had an important conversation with D18 almost 19 this evening. She's been agonizing over what to major in when she starts university. In Europe many schools of higher education require applicants to seek major from the beginning. So, you don't start university and then decide you like chemistry as to take courses in the subject. You choose chemistry as your department and take a set group of courses. Of course, once you are in a school you can take electives and apply to switch but it is not quite a simple as in the US. I guess you could compare into hopping between engineering and liberal arts. I may or may not work.

She applied to biology, polysci, bio-medicine and law. But she put law low on the list so she probably won't get in, but now she is leaning towards law. Also, she is giving up the idea of studying in the UK, which would mean borrowing more money.

I think law would suit her. I only warned her that lawyers can be a bit cynical and argumentative, but I think she understands that you don't want to take the adversarial aspect of law into your personality.

If she does go for law, she said she'd take a semester off and work and shoot for a place in the spring term. Sounds good.

This lead us to talk about her childhood. She is handicapped with moderate to grave hearing impairment. She started out with sign language because we discovered her problem when she was in nursery school around the age of three.

Once the problem was diagnosed she got hearing aids and and special nursery school for hearing impaired. Much of what happened in her life then was in sign language. She picked it up quickly. Sign language helped her learn to communicate as she also learned to speak. 

At one time my ex and I thought we would have to learn to sign but D18 learned to speak and we never really learned to sign so well, though we took some classes.

The school for hearing impaired was not entirely ideal. There were some children with learning disabilities who slowed the class down. One by one the parent with more education took their children out and placed them in regular schools. Two boys whom my daughter had been close to left, leaving her the smartest girl in the class. 

D18 was not entirely modest, feeling that the some of the others were not interesting. She spent a lot of time reading books instead of playing with them. The teacher really came down hard on her and forced her to socialize more and follow the Scandinavian way.

Today D18 said that that teacher was actually a hypocrite because the two of them were both strong personalities and a bit bossy, so it wasn't fair for her to be bullied by the teacher for the same traits. 

Eventually D18 left that school around the age of 13 so that she could be in a regular school environment. We were nervous about the move but the county wired the classrooms so that the teachers could speak in to microphones that would broadcast directly into her hearing aids – amazing advances in technology.

Tonight D18 admitted that she rejected all the hearing impaired schoolmates and sign language. She junked her own past. For the first time she said that she might take a sign language course to pick it up again. That made me happy.

I will never forget one time I took her to a cider press. I have sacks of apples to be crushed but the line was long. D18 was maybe 9 or 10 years old at the time. She didn't complain about waiting but sat on a little wooden bridge and sign interpreted a children's book to an imaginary classroom of deaf or hearing impaired children.

In conclusion D18 is not a kid anymore.


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## jld

Nope, she's not. 

Dd19 just had a birthday a few weeks ago. Your ex-wife and I were pregnant at the same time then. The summer of 1995 sure was hot where we live.

I hope your dd feels satisfied with her choice of career, LW. It is so important for young people to study and find work they enjoy.


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## turnera

DD23 graduated last spring with a BS in Psychology. Planned to get a PhD in biopsychology and do research. Was SUPER sure what she wanted to be/do, for 4 years (before that, she wanted to be a fashion designer). Worked this year at a hospital in the Psychiatry department. Is now volunteering at a university's psychology department as a research assistant. Just by experiencing those two things, she's already changed her career path twice. What I'm saying is, encourage them to keep an open mind and not make decisions that will bind them until at LEAST their senior year in college. Their brains aren't done developing, their experiences aren't broad enough to know what they'll really enjoy yet.


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## LongWalk

Thanks, jld and Tunera,

I feel like I am now following your kids.


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## jld

Lol, LW. Dd loves working in the lab. She is thinking about PhD work or medical school. I am encouraging her to consider just working for a few years as a chem eng. 

She loves her studies, and really loves that lab. She has always been a serious student, and self-motivated. Just very responsible in general. She is our oldest, and I think that has something to do with it.

She is also very thrifty. To read on these boards, you would think young women are not. Not dd. She is thriftier than I am!

Is law as saturated a field in Europe as in America? That would be my concern for your daughter, if it is. No one wants to get out of school, esp. if they owe money, only to find there are few opportunities. 

Dd has always loved science, and is doing well in her math classes, too. STEM is heavily promoted here in America, and is a great fit for her. 

Money is certainly not everything in life, but when you don't have enough, it is an issue.

Just my thoughts; feel free to ignore.


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## LongWalk

The situation for law is not as bad here. The US mania for litigation never hit Europe the way it has the US. You cannot sue McDonald's for serving the coffee too hot and make a fortune. Malpractice awards are peanuts compared to the US. So from the job perspective it should be ok.

I always encouraged my daughters to study natural sciences because the liberal arts don't pay well. I did not like the idea of polysci. Actually my daughter and I are friends with a young woman from Belgium. She just got an MA in polysci and has been unable to find a job, so she is thinking about a PhD. She warned my daughter.

I know that law can be a very horrible job. Reviewing contracts under enormous time pressure is not fun. A mistake could have serious consequences, so just how fun is that sort of work?

But law has many fields, family law, criminal law. Some people find organizations that need in house lawyers.

D18 said that she does not like lab work, so her biology and medical interests have weakened. She struggled with chemistry and math, but oddly she thinks she is going to get an A in physics. She says she doesn't remember much but has learned to plug things into formulas.

One of my biggest worries is not about what she chooses to study but the reason and expectation that she has. If she studied English literature and was prepared to teach it, okay. But if she takes English, knowing that she would consider teaching too low in status, then it is a mistake IMO.

She is not as careful with money as your eldest but I think she will learn. She has taken jobs and earned money. Amazingly she applied for stipends and got them.

My younger daughter (16) is leaning towards graphic design. This is actually worrying from a job perspective. However, she is socially adept and creative, so I am at ease. Not wrongly, I hope.


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## jld

Sounds very well thought out, LW. And in Europe, you have more financial support for students than we have in America. I think you have more social support, period.

Here in America, everyone is scared of "socialism." I think a little more of it could benefit us, but I am in the minority . . .


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## LongWalk

jld,

As far as medical care goes, it is clear that all developed countries are struggling to contain costs, regardless of the form that health care comes in. The US system is especially bad because it actually contains both socialist medicine and privatized parts.

The elderly and very poor have some sort of free medical care. Both of these groups have expensive needs. So the socialist part is costing a great deal.


> Minimum Duty Requirements
> 
> Most Veterans who enlisted after September 7, 1980, or entered active duty after October 16, 1981, must have served 24 continuous months or the full period for which they were called to active duty in order to be eligible.


There are enhanced benefits for those who are poor.


> Previous years' household income is below VA's National Income or Geographical-Adjusted Thresholds.


Without disparaging the contribution of veterans to the country, that is not much time in service in order to gain a huge benefit in insurance.

So basically the US trying to milk the younger, healthier and wealthier for a bigger share. The only problem is even well to do people who lose insurance coverage face personal bankruptcy.

Obamacare was a patch on a broken system.

If America wanted a better system, it would require scrapping the existing one. Washington DC doesn't have the courage to do it.

Is there a solution? The UK has about 3,000 infant deaths per year (I read this in the Independent yesterday). That is a miserable statistic. Something that you would expect from a third world country. So having a comprehensive health care system does not solve the social problems of people at the bottom of society. The UK has a big underclass.


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## turnera

My daughter's friend's sister got a graphic design degree at SCAD (big school for that here) and lives in LA and has been on half a dozen of the biggest movies of the past 5 years, and she's not even 30 yet. It's like a fairytale life. We are in awe.

Another kid is graduating tomorrow who started in graphic design and got pulled into the voiceover/acting/directing field and now has several projects under his belt. And he has Aspergers!

I was listening to a story about our Art Car Parade tomorrow, and this one guy is creating a covered wagon that's pulling a half-pike; he brought in two skateboarding/artist friends from LA and NYC to help with it. And I was thinking, DD23 asked me recently if I would have been ok if she chose an art path, and I think I wasn't enthusiastic enough to her, to show her I'd love for her to do whatever makes her heart sing. Gotta have a talk with her...


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## jld

That is interesting to hear that there is a big underclass in the UK. Do you think it is because of the financial crisis? Or did it start before that?

We used to live in France, and loved the health care system there. Cheap, efficient, and friendly.

There is a lot we could do in America, but there is, as you said, not the political will.


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## LongWalk

The UK has always had plenty of poor people. Those Irish who starved in the famines did not shock the ruling elite enough to make them offer relief. England had the money, but getting rid of the peasants was a policy.

Drink is a big problem in the UK. The French, Italians and Germans all like alcohol but they seem to have better control of themselves.


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## jld

LW, I don't think you have talked much about your own marriage on TAM. I am not asking you to, but if you think it would be healing in any way for you, I would encourage it.

And, of course, feel free to ignore.


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## LongWalk

Ah ha, jld, you outed me into the sunlight. I stand here still blinking and wondering what did I do with my life. LongWalk, I chose the name because that's what I did after getting divorced. I put on hiking boots, actually old Swedish army boots, and spend hours walking in the nature reserves. I'd start out whenever and hike through the woods to a lake. Sometimes I strip off and dive in swimming a half a mile.

I'd cross the highway and head to the big lake that runs to the sea. There are paths along the water in some places. Stones and some cliffs. I got to know some spots with old oaks and sunken sailboats. I walked and walked to deal with the sorrow of divorce. It took about a year to recover. My legs were stronger and felt like I rediscovered me. I was me again instead of the person in a marriage.

To be me means being lonely. Strong but alone. I have watched the sun set on the water and walked into the city at night. I have walked by the houses that are so quiet. I have watched the people partying on the rocks. You never know when you weave up and down the paths when you might catch a look of a beautiful young woman. Might just be a couple of shaggy fishermen.

I've walked by the outlaw biker club. It was hot and I asked if I could drink from their outdoor tap.

"There's some water," he said, pointing to puddle on the asfalt. He laughed at his own joke. A character out of Blue Velvet.


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## moxy

You're an excellent storyteller, LW. I'm sure everyone would listen for more, if you wanted to share it.


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## LongWalk

I guess I will. Ask away.


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## jld

LongWalk said:


> I guess I will. Ask away.


How about just telling us the story of your marriage, like you told us about your childhood?


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## LongWalk

I am an expat who sometimes fantasizes about returning to the US. Without health insurance, an unwise move.

I never contemplated dual citizenship until other Americans asked if I had gotten it. I think a lot of them want to be able to leave European country X for another country when they retire and the European passport is more convenient.

As for the consequences of renouncing US citizenship, well, if you have a European passport you may be able to enter the US without trouble, visit friends and relatives and leave. There wouldn't be much practical effect.

How many millions of illegal immigrants live in the US? Their presence is federally sanctioned and this devalues US citizenship IMO. Every time an illegal immigrant receives intensive care after an auto accident or heart attack, the hospital must pass on the costs to everyone else. Illegal immigrants children have the right to attend public schools. So if you can get a lot without paying in, the value of citizenship and taxpaying is diminished.

I never heard an American say that politics had caused them to renounce citizenship. However, in Europe there is a kind of pitying exasperation towards America. 9/11 caused Europeans to really identify with the US and all the pain. But when it turned out there weren't any weapons of mass destruction and the pictures of the naked Iraq prisoners in various states of torture and degradation, people lost faith in US leadership. Most still love the US but believe it has entered bad times – Americans are deluded by political farce.

Obama gave "Hope" but that evaporated. The people who most liked Obama in Europe, the young and social liberal, were the most disappointed. Older more right wing Europeans who did not idealize Obama probably are less cynical.

Both of my daughters are dual citizens. Maybe some day they will want to live or study in the US. I only speak my American English with them. My younger daughter feels more American because she went to an English speaking school.

They enjoy vacation in the US a great deal. We took a great road trip one year. We started in Ohio, visiting my cousin who was dying of cervical cancer. She had no insurance. Her son was into drugs and was stealing from her. My kids bonded with her three daughters, who were all doing well. They are partly orphans now. It was the real America, driving through places with 1950s drive in root beer burger joints.

We went through Kentucky and Tennessee, visiting state parks and wandering country roads, where people live simply. America is beautiful and interesting. People are friendly. A good reason to love America.

I have relatives who immigrated to the US. One lives in beautiful place in Washington state. She told me she doesn't want US citizenship because she can't stand the way she has suffered racism. She is a very easy going and well liked person, so I felt a bit ashamed to hear her say it.

Another immigrant relation saw her 401K take a real hit in 2008. She said something about the American dream not living up to her expectations. Same story from the vet school professor who saw funding dry up

I always wanted to be American and felt I wasn't as child. The real Americans were the neighbors named Mahoney. The French professor of French who used to beat his kids was no American. His deep and heavily accented voice was darkness out of Grimm Fairy Tales. He gave all his kids French first names. That was a family like ours foreign and dysfunctional.

Real American kids watched Disney and were happy. My father turned it off when the Mouseketeers were still singing the intro song. I just wanted to hear the song to the end. Please, Dad! Walter Cronkite was okay. Later in life my father, his mind already rotting with Alzheimer's, though we didn't know it, would watch Larry King. He had become more American.

My mother, also an immigrant, was I think reluctant to give up UK citizenship. She feels Britain is superior in manners and culture. One of her best friends was a economics professor who had fled Nazi Germany as a child. He was a Czech Jew but spoke in the same Welsh accented English as my mother. He loved that place where he had found safety.

Do people belong to countries and visa versa? What connection is there if Americans have their embryos implanted in the wombs of Indian women and then fly over to pick up their children after they born. Do they have the right to Indian citizenship?

I once read a history book about the Korean war. There was one mean SOB Chinese American Marine Lieutenant leading troops in a desperate situation near the Chinese border. He used to shout in bad Mandarin sometimes to confuse the enemy. His troops had to tell other US soldiers not to shoot him that he was an American, albeit a very bitter man with a chip on his shoulder.

Being American is a great thing but its not perfect. I wasn't given any choice in the matter anyway.


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## LongWalk

Neuklas,

I think you are doing a great job. I don't feel that you blowing it. Your wife will start chasing you and if she puts her heart into it, she may win you back. That would be a happy ending.

Yesterday evening D16 finished studying biology and went to sleep. D18 wanted to watch the EU election results. She voted for the first time in her life.

"Who'd ya vote for?" I asked.

"It was a choice between the Liberals (a conservative party) or Feminist Initiative. Who do you think I chose?"

I correctly guessed the radical women's party. My daughter noted that a classmate of hers had drawn an irritated response from her father for doing the same.

So my daughter is a feminst rebel interested in equality, right?

On a commercial channel Notting Hill was playing. It was at about the end. I pretended that I had not seen it and asked her if we could watch the end instead of the election analysis. She teased me about this and I have to be the one who wanted to watch the sappy movie. In the end we watched Notting Hill. And my daughter had an involuntary smile on her face as the happy ending neared.

Herein is the paradox. Women want equality and the Swedish feminist party is at least in part driven by misandry so equality means getting men back for the wrongs of thousands of years.

My girls were at my ex's place. Ex is away on vacation. As I prepared to go D18 brought me a bag of moldy strawberries and some left over beans. WTF?

It was typical female shxt test. It was dad's fault that the mold grew, the girls did not put the berries in the fridge the night before. The beans were in plastic bag in fridge instead of on a plate with plastic rap or a special little sealed plastic box.

I told me daughter to toss the strawberries and put the beans in the fridge and I'd eat them later. She got all pıssy. She had complained of a stomach ache (PMS?).

Anyway I left without a hug good night.

After I got 20 yards down the road she texted to apologize for her grumpiness.

I worry that D18 will have trouble in future relationships. She is so beautiful when she smiles. She has an extemely disarming way of accepting compliments. She wants to fall in love. And I am sure it is coming. At the same time she is planning to study law. So she is going to be ready to argue.

This will mean that getting along in relationship will take some experience and she will have to learn. Maybe it will all go smoothly and she will find a Dug like guy. But Dugs are not that common or easy to get.

Jld,

Neuklas has been shot down a lot and it has hurt him. I suspect that once his wife becomes alarmed at the distance between them she is going to try and repair the hurt with lots of sex. That wil help. Ultimately, she must also face up to the damage she has caused and apologize.

The Dug type response would be to not discuss it but just accept the implicit apology in her attitude. What would stop that from happening would be smugness on her part. If neuklas gives a good pounding and she is exhausted happy and grateful, he'll feel better. If she is just chasing to reel him in and repeat the dynamic of the past, he'll see red.

A sexless or duty sex marriage is not something he is interested in. Talking about it did not work. Reducing his emotional stake to stop the pain is working.

One of the obstacles is his wife's own sense of selfworth. If she feels vaguely dissatisfied with SAHM status, then she may be compensating by wanting more power in her marriage. It would be better for her to work part time or study, not to have affairs, but to balance out her sources of affirmation.

Shopping is a bad way to fill her needs. Women are pulled between the need for self respect as defined by equality and the romantic need for mystery coming from men. Finding a happy, mature solution is not easy. The high rate of divore and infideity are witness to this.
Copy pasted from another thread


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## LongWalk

Divorce is so normal:
Yesterday we had our sports clubs end of season summer party. Not that many came this year. The host was the same team mate who did it last year. His home is by the water and that allows us to have the duathlon running and swimming. Only three or four took part. I showed up late to avoid making the effort. Brought some beer and sausage. The host provided potato salad.

I understood he was selling his house and yesterday I learned the reason why: divorce. He is not someone I am particularly close to as teammates go, but I appreciate that he has personal qualities. Very tough competitor, smart, fair player, reliable, modest, cheerful. He is not particularly extroverted. His smile is ready but but a bit tight.

For that matter I wish I smiled as much as used to.

He doesn't live far from me and two other players but he never offers us a ride home from Monday practice. Of course he doesn't owe it to us. If we felt more comfortable with him, we'd probably have offered to chip in for gas. He is a 39-year-old engineer working telecom giant. He has two cute little girls. His Facebook timeline shows that he married 7 years ago.

Seven years. Machiavelli would point to the time and note that the biological rhythm of hypergamy causes women to fall out of love, according to the seasons. If he is 39, his stbxw is at the age that her reproductive last hurray is in sight.

His Facebook page doesn't have many family shots. Deleted? Anyway there is one of him his daughter's and a woman. I guess she is stbxw. She is modestly pretty but in Scandinavia people are generally good looking. You could say that pretty is downgraded to plain in Sweden. It's amazing how many beautiful girls are not conceited by their looks. That's a credit to national character. There is something slightly wistful about her eyes. But what can you tell from a single photo?

Among her family photos is her brother. He is a real gym rat with the before and after photos. This guy has real 6 pack. Looks vain to me but then if I had that sort of body maybe I'd be vain, too.

We all wandered around the house that is going to be sold. I gathered stbx has already moved out, but the daughters still have beds, clothes, toys, etc. Their double bed was huge. Probably slept all four of them.

The furnace had a geothermal pump with intricate copper tubing. People are proud of saving money by using this environmentally friendly method of heating. The savings are a good topic for dinner parties. For my teammate and his ex to be the investment will be returned in a higher sales price on their home.

The fridge and freezer was still full of food, way too much for single dad. He still has "married" as his Facebook status.

Made me kind of sad to see a divorce. Two daughters and divorced. I think you have to be unrealistic to think that marriage is likely to last a lifetime. Here is a family with no substance abuse, no mental illness or other compelling reasons to split up. No one is fat or ugly. I cannot imagine my teammate cheating. He is not that sort of person. Hard to imagine him married to a cheater either. He is too serious. People just don't stay in love.

The timing seems to follow a pattern. People who go to college and pursue careers start looking to settle down in their late 20s. The commitment comes late in life compared with earlier generations.

I walked home with another teammate, passing by the neat little houses designed for the nuclear families. You generally need to have two incomes to afford them. I asked the other teammate about para gliding and sky diving, his other hobbies. He never gets tired of talking about them. He is a a bore. How can jumping out or airplanes or gliding above beaches be a dull subject. He always wants to show me YouTube clips.

We passed some kids on BMX bikes. I took a few photos of them in the air agains the late evening sky.


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## angstire

Great post LW. One of your thoughts is interesting and I know has been talked about on TAM. Why 7 years? Why is that such a common number?

Women initiate 75% of the divorces in the US, and I assume the % is close in other countries too where women are closely equal to men.

So, if women initiate a huge majority and 7 years is the number, why? What happens at 7 years? You mention they fall out of love, but is that really it? Women fall out of love at 7 years? 

I guess I doubt that, but I don't know.

I think feminism is a huge part of the problem for the high % of women triggering D. Esp when, as you mention, there is no substance abuse, no violence, no cheating, no mental illness. I think that women have been told they can have it all and the grass looks greener, so they try to go get it all again with a different man. I think many of them end up in a new relationship (or alone) frustrated and angry and resentful, because their lives still don't end up the way they've been told they should be.

Men play their part in this as well; losing interest in her, gaining weight, focusing on work. But women do these same things or equivalents that decrease their attractiveness. Nice Guys just want things to work out, instead of being strong and leading the marriage. I think Nice Guys are also an outgrowth of feminism. For me, I was raised by a single mother, and so I was taught as a boy to cater to a woman's needs, without the guidance of a male figure on how to be a man. That has come later, but I was primed to believe that keeping a woman happy was the way to happy marriage and life. I was wrong.

Women have been led to believe by feminism and Disney (a toxic mix) that they can get a graduate degree, have a good career, marry a fit man who's an equal and cherishes her as a princess, have 2.4 kids, go to yoga and do headstands, scrapbook on instagram, be a French chef, rescue dogs, be involved in politics, etc, etc, etc. I know my X2 held herself up to this standard. And it can't be done successfully. Life gets in the way.

The more I think on this and see other men's stories, I really believe that feminism is part of the problem. It doesn't change the mistakes I made, but I think it explains the macro number of 75% of D are triggered by women.

But why 7 years? What happens at 7 years? Are there some cycles that are built into our brains, where we try and think our relationship is great in the beginning? Later, we may be a bit disappointed, but then we focus on kids, work, etc. and think the relationship is ok. As time marches on, women see less value in the marriage and wonder if prince charming who likes housework and won't hassle her for sex is out there somewhere. 

I see that 7 year number enough that there is something special about it, but I'm not sure what it is.


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## jld

I do think some women have unrealistic expectations. I read some of the stories here and I am convinced of that.

I think some men have unrealistic expectations, too.

Rather than focusing on being "in love," people should just focus on loving their partner. Serve him/her, please him/her, seek to understand him/her and make him/her happy. 

Less selfishness could go a long way in our society.


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## turnera

angstire said:


> I see that 7 year number enough that there is something special about it, but I'm not sure what it is.


It's the PEA chemical. It typically stays in the body from 3 to 5 years. Then it slowly stops being produced, and you slowly start feeling differently toward your partner; if your marriage is built on a strong foundation of respect, admiration, trust, recreation, and love, you'll withstand this loss of the 'high' of 'being in love' (that's what the PEA chemical produces, to keep cavemen and cavewomen together long enough to produce some kids and keep the species going). If your marriage wasn't built on this stuff, you'll wake up one day and say 'what was I thinking, marrying this person? We have nothing in common, blah blah blah.' That process will psychologically take a year or two or three to sink in, for you to start looking at your partner and, instead of seeing all the 'wonderful' stuff you thought you loved about them, you see all their faults. You fall out of love, you grow resentful that they're no longer meeting your needs (and they aren't because YOU are no longer meeting THEIR needs), and your eyes start to wander. Voila!

And fwiw, I'm old enough to remember when the women all stayed home and it was the MEN who got the 7-year-itch - because they COULD, as they controlled the job and the money and the women were dependent on the men.


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## angstire

Thanks Tunera that makes sense. I had a longer response typed up but TAM ate it, so I'll just say thanks for explaining. Infatuation lasts 12-24 months, is mistaken for mature love and eventually fails around the 7 year mark.

JLD, agreed on unrealistic expectations apply to men too.


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## LongWalk

Back in the States at my parents' house in the old home town. Went in the basement the other day and saw all (perhaps it's only a portion) of the patient records from my father's private practice. He made a big deal about appointing me "official archivist". Since most of it dates back to the 60s, 70s and 80s, many of the patients may be deceased now. I doubt there is any legal requirement to maintain the records. Even if there were a former patient whose current physician requested material, my dad wouldn't give it to them if he could. Now he has Alzheimer's and can't remember much anyways.

I opened up one file and glanced at it. It's like reading TAM. Should all be destroyed really.


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## moxy

I imagine that reading those files would give you a great deal of insight into the stuff that makes us human. If it were me in your shoes, I would read those files...greedily, curiously. I would be horrified to know that anyone were reading my own file; my therapist gave me a copy of her notes when I moved away and I couldn't bear to read them, even though it is all my own life in there and synthesized into her notes from my own words. I am sometimes horrified by my own posts on TAM, too. What do you think you will do?


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## LongWalk

Of course I would never destroy those files because I am a writer.

There is one file I should find. A very famous person's mother was my father's patient for a time. Even if there is not much there to read it would be greedily coveted by a historians. I should go and look for it. I wonder if my dad took it out and saved somewhere else.

I might have wrote before than my father had a patient who had an affair with the state attorney general. When learned this he blackmailed him to drop a lawsuit against my father who was at war with the Catholic church where he electro-shocked patients.


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## LongWalk

My brother is going away on a trip with my nephew for the next two weeks. This means we'll have no get together when my other brother arrives. Why did my brother decide to go on this trip across the ocean when our kids could have spent time together to bond as cousins?

I discussed this with D19 and D16 on the hour drive back to their grandparents' home.

It upsets my daughters that they only spend 3 days with their cousins, but as we said good bye my SIL became very warm and friendly. I told me daughters that Aunt X is sneaky, turning on the charm during the farewell. 

D19, who is more naive, got sucked in more. Generally, the adult generation "protects" the younger generation from the reality of grown up conflicts. But since my daughters want to know why they cannot see their cousins, although their aunt seems to like them. I explained that her words mean little and that they should judge by her actions.

When we were together the evening before dinner, my brother and I cooked dinner. Well, it was a late supper really since we started cooking it around 9 pm. Everything was ready by around 10 pm but my youngest nephew hopped in the shower just as we got ready to serve the food. My SIL insisted that we wait for him before starting. She did not hurry him and it was 10:45 before we started to eat.

This collective meal was not served around a single sit down at a dinning room table. Everybody was spread out between the counter and the breakfast table. So, what was the point of waiting? My daughters agree that it just delayed the Risk game to which all the kids were looking forward.

My youngest nephew could have, I pointed out, eaten at the dinning room table over the Risk game. My cousin, who is an orthopedic surgeon, had worked during the day, including putting a screw in the ankle of a 15-year-old cheerleader. He was exhausted and sleepy after drinking a Red Stripe beer at dinner. During the Risk game I thought he was going to fall asleep. 

My SIL, a SAHM, called him to the kitchen a couple of times to help her transfer leftovers into plastic containers for the fridge.

"Could she have let him play the Risk game in peace, since he had worked all day and cooked the dinner?", I asked my daughters. Did they see that my SIL was orchestrating the evening to delay the game and break my brother down?

They saw this. Moreover, they said that once they over heard my SIL speak rudely to my brother when offered to make her a cup of coffee. What should he have done, I queried?

Talk to her about it, replied D19.

I replied that the solution was not to offer to make her coffee as often. My brother, I offered, needed to establish a boundaries by not enabling abusive behavior. 

We discussed boundaries as the basis for healthy relationships. If a person enables his or her spouse to mistreat them, does it make them love them more, I asked? If you treat someone badly and get away with it, doesn't the person who cannot stand up for themselves lose out?

When I put it to them them this way, both my daughters agreed that healthy boundaries and respect strengthened love. Both my daughters already have the idea that there are alpha and beta relationships.

They mentioned family friends, a couple whose marriage has been in trouble, because the wife, a MD, PhD is not respectful of her husband who is a music college guitar instructor. He is talented and does gigs on TV but he doesn't make as much money as his doctor wife. My daughters understood that he had to stand up for himself to save his marriage.

It is good that my daughters are thinking about these things. D19 believes she could well end up divorced because she is not easy to get along with. She allows herself to be a b*tch. Amazing that she is aware of this problem but is unwilling to try and control her emotions.

D19 is a good kid but she does not have D16 emotional intelligence. I am like D19 and it took me decades to better understand social relations. TAM has been instructive. I feel I must clue my kids in so that they can avoid failed relationships.

I am worried about my brother. He is aging too fast. The bags under his eyes, the crows feet, all speak of chronic fatigue. He doesn't have time to work out. My SIL runs him ragged. When were shooed out the door my SIL was harassing him to book her a rental car in Florida. Why couldn't she book her own car? She is an MD and can navigate the Internet.


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## moxy

Great conversations with your daughters. They'll make better choices in life, simply because they have these experiences to think about. Excellent boundary lesson.


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## turnera

Great that you're teaching your daughters this stuff. Are you teaching your brother, as well?


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## LongWalk

I have wondered what I could do for my brother. He is a nice guy in the good sense of the word. I would have to say he is utterly pvssy whipped. He dislikes cruelty and injustice but has a hard time confronting bullies. 

He had a hard time learning to stand up for himself in all the power games in the hospital. I think he has gotten better at it. 

Being on call is a real drag.

Taking care of people is a reward. But is also an escape. My father used medicine to avoid personal decisions and responsibility, too.

Going go the hospital is a way walking away from family.

My eldest nephew got an 0.0 GPA his first at the big state U. This is now a chronic problem. Now my brother is running off overseas with one son for two weeks. SIL will go to Florida with favorite son, the youngest. The troubled son will be left alone at home. He has job coaching soccer this summer.

_Posted via *Topify* using iPhone/iPad_


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## moxy

LongWalk said:


> He had a hard time learning to stand up for himself in all the power games in the hospital. I think he has gotten better at it.
> 
> Being on call is a real drag.
> 
> Taking care of people is a reward. But is also an escape. My father used medicine to avoid personal decisions and responsibility, too.
> 
> Going go the hospital is a way walking away from family.


Maybe you can encourage him to talk to you about the hobbies, activities, thoughts, and interests that make him an individual (as opposed to instead of those that he shares with his wife). By talking about those things, you may be able to encourage him to just BE himself a little more and, by doing so, help him see that there is a self worth standing up for.


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## jld

A 0.0 GPA? So I imagine he is not going back in the fall?


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## LongWalk

He has to take a year off. He could tuition money back if he had a psychological evaluation to say that he suffered depression, but then he would never be allowed to return.

These big universities are mercenary. 

re: the care givers
My father has two care givers who get paid $14. They are a woman and her aunt. The younger one is much sharper and gets along with my mother much better. The aunt if shameless flatterer who is lazy. Just sits and watches TV with father. She was once a hair dresser but quite the profession because she burnt out.

My mother, 83, now spends all her time potting. She couldn't be bothered to buy food.

My father struggled to explain that he wished he had more say in his life. There were "controllers", which I eventually understood were the care givers. He spoke about he "electric box". WTF.... oh, the TV.

Being naked before the caregivers apparently bothered him. 

This took him ages to cough up. His speech is so halting.


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## LongWalk

Classic dysfunctional family interaction today. My brother and SIL proposed meeting at a state park on Lake Michigan about halfway from Chicago. I got the proposal from my brother in the morning. He suggested we start driving and let him know when we were on the road. It took us longer to get started than I estimated. Our mother is 83, so it is never easy to get her on board for such a day.

The beach is around two hours away. Eventually around 2 pm we were on the road. My brother and SIL went to change their rental car because it was not comfortable enough. This did not go smoothly. They arrived 45 minutes before sunset.

Our mother was exhausted by the climbing the sand dunes to reach the water. So after my brother and SIL arrived. My mother was up for some group photos, then we headed home. My brother's family got to see the sunset.


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## jld

Pretty ridiculous. 

How about just saying transparently to brother and SIL, "I don't get the feeling you want to connect. Do you want to talk about it?"


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## moxy

LongWalk said:


> Classic dysfunctional family interaction today. My brother and SIL proposed meeting at a state park on Lake Michigan about halfway from Chicago. I got the proposal from my brother in the morning. He suggested we start driving and let him know when we were on the road. It took us longer to get started than I estimated. Our mother is 83, so it is never easy to get her on board for such a day.
> 
> The beach is around two hours away. Eventually around 2 pm we were on the road. My brother and SIL went to change their rental car because it was not comfortable enough. This did not go smoothly. They arrived 45 minutes before sunset.
> 
> Our mother was exhausted by the climbing the sand dunes to reach the water. So after my brother and SIL arrived. My mother was up for some group photos, then we headed home. My brother's family got to see the sunset.


Ugh. That sounds dreadful. I imagine that you and your daughters and mother must have been upset. Whenever families have blurred boundaries and turbulent communication, stuff like this happens. I could see it happening in my own family, even, because similar things have happened. Usually, talking about it helps resolve the hurt feelings, I think, but...pride and ego get in the way of discourse, at times.

On the one hand, it's easy to say that it isn't personal, that their behavior wasn't meant to insult you. On the other hand, it's also easy to say that it was offensive and rude because their behavior completely discounted the effort you all expended in getting there and the hopes you may have had for the encounter.

Did they express any remorse for this? Do you get to see them often? Sounds like they take everyone else for granted and happen to be a bit inconsiderate. Is this a pattern? Did your brother even realize that his behavior was hurtful? Would it help if you talked to him about it and just said, "Hey, we were really looking forward to spending some time with you and we were disappointed that your actions seemed to value us so little. We would like to actually spend some quality time with you all and we hope that you also want to do the same."?

At least you were able to spend time with your mother and daughters at the beach and kinda saw your brother for a bit. Hopefully, your brother will realize how crummy things were and will make an effort to see you all again, later.


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## jld

They don't really want to get together. But they feel an obligation, and then accept to sabotage it.


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## LongWalk

Well, I have a perspective of the cost of infidelity that I can share. Over the previous weekend I attended the wake of a special uncle, my mother's twin brother. He had very little education. Only learned to read when he was about 13. Witty and very handsome he was womanizer. His profession, crane operator, made it easy for him to sneak off and deceive my aunt.

She was very kind woman. I loved her because of the way she made scrambled eggs, patiently stirring them over low heat with a wooden spoon. They were so moist and creamy. How many aunts or moms take the time to make gourmet scrambled eggs for 4 children of her own and two or three nephews. She never seemed cross.

Eventually my uncle started sleeping with a striking woman who was quite charming. She was cheating on her weak architect husband, a step up in social class for my uncle. When she got pregnant she b!itch slapped my aunt in a fury: "You've had him but he's mine now!"

All of my uncle's children, three sons and daughter, turned against him. One of my cousins refused to come to the wake.

"My father died when XXX, the baby was slid on to the kitchen floor," he said, "he ceased to be my father then."

The daughter who was his youngest was uncertain whether she'd come but she did after I FB chatted with her. One of the additional hardships was that my uncle disinherited the children from his first wife and left pretty much everything, house and money to his son with her. He was the organizer of the wake. I knew him when he was little boy. Hard on him. He's a nice guy. He bought me a Guinness for me to wash down the white bread sandwiches of egg salad or ham. 

After the wake I went to the old chapel, even though there was no plan to spread his ashes yet but I went look at my grandparents's grave stones. My grandfather has two in the same cemetery. One with my grandmother and the other with his first wife, who died of TB. My grandmother, a young single mother, which was an even worse disgrace in those days because she was the daughter of a vicar, was a caretaker or helper as my grandfather's first wife lay dying. We all suppose that the two of them became intimate before the unfortunate woman departed.

As we left the cemetery one of cousin's said that my grandmother had two more children out of wedlock. There had been a boy by the name of XXX. My aunt, now 86, admitted that there was a letter revealing this. My mother doesn't like the story. Now XXX has become the "waif".

Infidelity and fornication can cause a lot of pain and hardship. Must make cheating all that more delicious.


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## moxy

Beautifully written update. Sad to see the toll taken on the families, but I guess it is more common than we think when we are young and still attached to the idea that love can fix things. Life is long and difficult, an that's if we are lucky to have many days; we seldom think enough about those whose paths we cross and how we influence them. 

Did you talk to your daughters about the experience?


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## LongWalk

I have told them a bit. D19 has started law school so she is busy. D17 is in teen get away from parents mode.


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## Ms. GP

Sorry to hear about the passing of your father. I can't imagine what you must be feeling right now. I imagine a lot of mixed emotions. Sending prayers and good thoughts your way.


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## LongWalk

Thanks. I wasn't sure what I would feel. Was scared at the prospect of his death. But in truth Alzheimer's had already removed him from the living. He did not know who anyone was in the end. Okay, maybe my mother but it was also a hazy recognition at best.

It turned out that my daughter was there the night he died. She my youngest brother and mother.

I was in South America. It took four days to make it back.


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## Haiku

LongWalk - I just read your original posting. I have no advice but wanted to pass along my sympathy over struggling with your memory. 

My father was physically and emotionally abusive. I have vivid childhood memories of being curled up on the floor as he kicked and punched in his common drunken rages. In my life I've talked to a few other people who struggle with the anxiety of what to do when their abuser has died. It's troubling how the abuser still has this type of power in our lives. 

My mom is already gone and when my father dies I have no intention to attend his funeral. He left a trail of destruction in my mom and sisters' lives. Most people in our small family and community really knew him and knew of his chronic angers. And I am unconcerned from those who didn't and might come to criticize me. I won't pretend his death is a loss nor stand in a line thanking people for coming to his funeral and trying to say something nice about him. I won't grieve the way they want me to. 

Funerals, I suppose, are for the living. But I am alive. My approach to this conflict is not for everyone. 

I now realize I made my post about me. I regret and feel sorry for that.


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## LongWalk

I hear you. No cause for regret. Through TAM I realized the same sort of truths that you have discovered. 

If my father had merely raged, it would all be so much simpler.

Hambone had an abusive father, too.

Others have had loveless childhoods.

All the kids whose parents became wrapped up in affairs and ignored their children, they must wonder what is wrong. Why did dad dump us or why is mom acting like a crazy teenager.


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## moxy

Life is so complicated. Strange how talking about these things helps us process pain, but I find that reading others' stories helps me be a better person. None of us grieve in the same way. And none of us knows just how things will turn out, I guess. I'm wishing all of you good things, peace for the difficult memories we all carry for various different reasons.


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## LongWalk

Thanks, Moxy.


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## jld

I did not realize your dad had passed away, LW. I understand the relationship with him was difficult. I hope you can find healing and peace. 

All my sympathy to you.


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## snerg

LongWalk said:


> I was not angry or hateful towards him because he is just a helpless old man. I don't even want him to die. In fact, his death will mean that I have to go back and deal with my memories. It's all so meaningless. But I feel like my brothers, although they both know what he did, pretend we had a good childhood. In truth there was something very wrong.


Dude - you dad was three beers short of being a 12 pack of pure evil

Holy crap dude, you went through a long period mind eff with this guy.

And being angry or hateful because he's a helpless old man?

He was a trained Psychiatrist that used his skills as a means of psychological warfare on you. He did a social experiment on you with the rest of the family to see how all of you would turn out. I don't even want to know what else this wack job did to you.

Your brothers won't help you. They know what they participated in and have convinced themselves, in order to protect themselves, that it really wasn't that bad. If they ever had to actually admit the truth, they would have to admit their whole lives have been a lie - no sane person could/would do that.

You need help. Intense help.

You should also be looking at the end of your father's life as a release. He did tremendous damage, but he can no longer hurt you. 

Get help so you can realize that this walking nightmare will soon be out of your life.

As for you SIL and how they treat your daughter, eff em. If they can't be nice, then cut them out. Who needs cancerous people like that.


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## LongWalk

Well, my father is gone now.

I wish I had had psychotherapy or TAM back in my 20s or 30s. I've lost energy since I got into my 50s.

My father wasn't evil. He was just so insecure that that he tried to bluster his way to greatness. Didn't work for him.

Before his memorial service there was a heavy rainstorm that flooded the basement. There's a large walk in safe full of video tapes of patients. All the paper records are in another room. My father told me years ago that he "appointed" me his archivist.


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## LongWalk

Well, more FOO stuff has come out. Met my cousin back in my mother's old country. She brought out pictures of two little boys and the birth and baptismal certificates of one. So my maternal grandmother had at least two, possibly three children out of wedlock before she married my grandfather. So my grandmother had between 13 and 17 children. One was stillborn. My cousin related a deceased great aunt's assertion that my mother, her twin brother and my youngest uncle were not fathered by my grandfather. Who she did not say. I did not tell my mother, who is 84 years old.

My grandmother was vicar's daughter so her premarital sexual relations disgraced her. It was at the end of the First World War. I know that she did not get along with my grandfather in later years. He was a scoundrel. Stole all the inheritance, shafting all his siblings. He crossed the ocean and spend a few years in Chicago. The money did not last. He almost certainly spend it on drink, women and horses. Someone said he left Chicago because people were after him. So, if in later years my grandmother cheated on him, that was probably because she was completely fed up with his pub habit. Divorce was not done in those days.

Both of my grandparents were cheaters. They started their relationship in the presence of my grandfather's dying first wife. She left him 5 children.


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## turnera

Holy cow. Well, at least your past was colorful!


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## LongWalk

Every time I speak with my mother she insists that I write the story of her life. My parents were co-dependent. Both came from hard childhoods. So they were probably drawn to each other.


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## NextTimeAround

LongWalk said:


> Well, more FOO stuff has come out. Met my cousin back in my mother's old country. She brought out pictures of two little boys and the birth and baptismal certificates of one. So my maternal grandmother had at least two, possibly three children out of wedlock before she married my grandfather. So my grandmother had between 13 and 17 children. One was stillborn. My cousin related a deceased great aunt's assertion that my mother, her twin brother and my youngest uncle were not fathered by my grandfather. Who she did not say. I did not tell my mother, who is 84 years old.
> 
> My grandmother was vicar's daughter so her premarital sexual relations disgraced her. It was at the end of the First World War.* I know that she did not get along with my grandfather in later years. He was a scoundrel. Stole all the inheritance, shafting all his siblings. He crossed the ocean and spend a few years in Chicago. The money did not last. He almost certainly spend it on drink, women and horses. Someone said he left Chicago because people were after him. So, if in later years my grandmother cheated on him, that was probably because she was completely fed up with his pub habit. Divorce was not done in those days.
> *
> Both of my grandparents were cheaters. They started their relationship in the presence of my grandfather's dying first wife. She left him 5 children.


Sounds like _The Tin Drum.

_


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## Lilac23

LongWalk said:


> When I was about 14 or 15 my father, a board certified psychiatrist/neurologist, said that I suffered an Oedipal complex. I knew what an Oedipal complex was because Freudian psychology was in the media in the early 70s. But he had to spell it out.
> 
> "It means you want to murder your father so that you can marry your mother," he explained. He face was dark with rage, normal in our father son conversations.
> 
> I am now 54 years old and have two daughters (18 and 15). Their mother and I divorced around 9 years ago. We live in Europe. My parents in the States. We try to visit as often as possible because my parents are in their 80s. My father, 83, has Alzheimer's and my mother, 81, is doing a great job taking care of him. However, he is getting weaker and weaker. It is likely that he will not survive many more months.
> 
> Thoughts of my childhood are actually becoming more and more disturbing to me. The Oedipal complex accusation was simply a particularly memorable and disturbing example of the emotional abuse to which he subjected me.
> 
> In my sophomore year of highschool my mother suggested that I be sent away to a boarding school on the East coast. My father agreed. The ostensible reason was to get me to take school more seriously. I think my parents wanted to reduce the conflict between me and my father.
> 
> Now my father is at the end of life, I will sooner or later have to go back and bury or cremate him... maybe he donated his body to his medical school. Is that a kind of rug sweeping, to not want a grave? Dumping out ashes, isn’t that just a way of getting rid of the memories and putting zinc and mercury into the air?
> 
> I once tried to talk to my mother about her role in failing to defend me from his rage but she didn't want to talk about it, although she was also given some terrible emotional drubbings. She was disturbed about what I said because one of my brothers mentioned the conversation and that she had not liked where it was going.
> 
> I am considering telling my brothers about my feelings about my/our childhood. One is a surgeon, the other a telecom business executive. Both of them make more money than I do. Their wives have actively shunned my daughters when we've have opportunities to visit in the States. Is costs a lot of money to get together and they sabotage the family reunions.
> 
> I don't care if my SIL don't want to hang out with me. But my daughters are very nice and it hurts them to rejected.
> 
> The surgeon brother and I are closer. He just shrugs his shoulders and asks me to be patient and humor his wife. I feel like I am walking eggshells to not offend her. She is very smart. Graduated from the same medical school as my brother but has been a SAHM.
> 
> My other brother is a very straight uptight guy. He loved my dad and always sided with him in all the family fights. We used to have Saturday family meetings in which the abuse was dealt out, mainly to me, the eldest son. My father insisted that we follow Roberts Rules. So there were always motions. So and so would move that X child be criticised for Y. All those in favor raise your right hand. So the whole family would condemn X.
> 
> My youngest brother sometime raised his arm slowly and reluctantly. My telecom exec brother always condemned quickly. He could not see that our dad had Alzheimer's. He refused to use the word. Today my father can recognize many people. He has even had a bad morning when he did not know our mother, with whom he has lived for over 50 years.
> 
> There is more to say, but to me the watershed has been reading TAM. Denying problems and rug-sweeping just makes things worse. However, is bring stuff up now appropriate. Maybe I should just accept that I suffered emotional abuse and let it drop.
> 
> I do not have money for psychotherapy and I do not like psychiatrists or psychologists all that much. My father used to drag me to psychiatric conventions around the US and even other countries to stand in his scientific booth as a representative of his exhibition.
> 
> I had to work in his office every summer... fvck I am so angry about this stuff. Why when I have so much else to do in life does this stuff float to the surface?


IMO, the Oedipus reference says more about your father than it does about you. A lot of times, people in the mental health are some of the most f***ed people you will ever meet. They go into it trying to figure themselves out and many fail. We are all screwed up to a certain point by our parents, it's inevitable. It is sad to think you might never get closure or fully understand why a parent treated you the way they did. Parents are just humans who are just as f$$$ed up as the rest of us. If you can begin to understand how his treatment affected you and continues to, that is the beginning of it losing its power over you. Once you identify, you can begin to change it.

(P.S. I totally realize this is an old thread but I just started reading it.)


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## LongWalk

Well, my father died in late July. i had figured out many things before he passed away but I could never discuss it with him because he had Alzheimer's. My mother is 85. She still thinks quite clearly but I cannot hassle her. We are playing Words with Friends right now.


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