Poll | 11/20/2008 12:00 am

What causes you the most stress lately?

Read more about: Love, Money, Psychology, Relationships, Stress

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Suzanne, I don’t know what I was doing when it happened but haven’t had an appropriate moment since to say anything to you about it. I’m so sorry for you and your family. I suggest a book call When Bad Things Happen to Good people as a source of perspective. I just lost a dear friend of forty years to liver failure but I also believe she gave up. She’d been ill for five years and refused a liver transplant, so we had talked about death since she knew that death would be the result. Her life had changed and the prospects in front her were ones she didn’t wish to deal with. I believe she quit. Just quit. I can respect that. I have to respect that. I have to remember that it isn’t about me but about my respect for her right to make her choices. I wish you recovery, and hope that in time you mom and dad can talk about it but know they have to deal with it their way too. Good wishes. Bev.

By beverly linens on 11/20/2008 7:05 am

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So sorry to hear about your brother and his suicide. we just never know what going Thur a person mind. in 1972 my husband committed suicide leaving me with two daughters 3 and 6 years old to fend for ourselves, was not easy me working two jobs, it was a hard road and all he missed, his daughters growing up and now his 4-grandchildren. we just never know where life will take us, all we can do is a day at a time. he will always leave a empty hole in you, when we lose someone we love it hurts forever. every valentine day i still think of him after all these years. and i think parents feel its there fault in some way, and its not; sometime people just have enough!

By shirley adams on 11/20/2008 7:55 am

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For Suzanne REQUIEM for a FRIEND (excerpts) I have my dead, and I have let them go, and was amazed to see them so contented, so soon at home in being dead, so cheerful, so unlike their reputation. Only you return; brush past me, loiter, try to knock against something, so that the sound reveals your presence. Oh don’t take from me what I am slowly learning— For this is wrong, if anything is wrong: not to enlarge the freedom of a love with all the inner freedom one can summon. We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it. For somewhere there is an ancient enmity between our daily life and the great work. Help me, in saying it, to understand it. Do not return. If you can bear to, stay dead with the dead. The dead have their own tasks… ________The quotes are from Stephen Mitchell’, to be found in Ahead of All Parting: the Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke (Modern Library, 1995)

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 11/20/2008 8:29 am

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Phyllis, Love Rilke….have never read that…thank you. “The dead have their own tasks.” Very wise line. Favorite Rilke lines today from Torso of an Archaic Apollo “…nor would this star have shaken the shackles off, bursting with light, until there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life.”

By Delete This on 11/20/2008 2:44 pm

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And you’ll do just fine–––I see a lot of light in you.

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 11/20/2008 6:00 pm

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Just do anything you can to get through this time … anything as long as it does not harm you. Does it help to know that others react as you have done? I do know “the elephant in the room” thing, but I also know that we don’t know others as well as we think we do or did. Yet, I still know what it’s like to shut down because it’s impossible to move out of the pain, and the undertow is real, so very real … Write down 5 things several times a day that will help you carry on, even it’s just for a few minutes. I had to do that one, and found I had to write my “goals” for the next 15 minutes for over 7 weeks, not for just the next day! Shakti Gawain helped me a lot then. Not much else has in life’s most cruel times, not much else. How we let others into our somatic selves is beyond me — they hurt us. I remember losing both my young brother and sister, we were abused, and people telling me I’d forget - but, now, 48 years later, I realize I don’t have a brother, and can only imagine what my life would be like, now, if he was alive (a wise analyst told me that even if I could have done as I planned in my little girl heart [get us out] ” … it may not have made any difference.”) On and on … Nothing will replace him, but you must dig deep, and find yourself, once again. Nothing is worth losing you! No one, and nothing. Remember that! Not even your brother, or your parents. No one.

By C jay on 11/20/2008 9:07 am

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Suzanne, after Bill died of his brain aneurysm, I ended up at my counselor/good friend/psychologist, and she said Grief Work. It is Work, and it will take as long as it will take. And, our friends all want us to be the way we were before the sudden shock of this kind of loss. Hard to tell them that things will never be the same again. And, there is so much to work through. And, the shock is like having a body blow; it hurts. That is the first thing I remember—the physical pain of it all. For me, it’s 10 years later, and I am still working, although it is far more positive than so long ago because I did learn to talk and write about it, and get it out in the open. I remember after the death, my masseuse, at no charge (she loved Bill and was his masseuse for years), made me come in to her facility and she would do the long massage with hot(!)stones on certain parts of my back. It was as though all of the pain and tears were being sucked out of my body, and she would quietly leave the room and tell me to take as much time as I wished. I would sob and then I realized it was as though I was leaving all the tears behind. Draining, but I credit Cindy for helping me take my first steps towards re-inventing myself and creating a totally new life for myself. I don’t know if I’ve said anything to help you. I think you are remarkable, and I was amazed at the fact you walked the whole 17 miles, what with your injury and all. Somehow, I know that is part of your healing process and your grief work. And, I sense that you are doing much better than you realize. I wish I could meet you face to face, I really do….

By Diana T on 11/20/2008 10:07 am

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Oh, Diana I went right with you through the physical aspects of grief - and dissenters say the psychological doesn’t affect our bodies! For years, if I could beg, borrow, or steal (or pay) someone to literally scratch my back, it felt like little openings were created that let pain out. Whatever “it” did, it helped; no qualifying oneself when in need. To this day, I have never had photos of my brother or sister in my home, or my best friend of died in 1993 - just too much pain. After my brother died in ‘65, with a newborn myself and in grad school, after my crying was stifled by our abusive mother, once back on the east coast in school, I only noticed horrific, gruesome nightmares, the likes of which I could not ever imagine thinking much less experiencing. They were terrible - I thought I was losing my mind and had no idea the cause. One that repeatedly occurred was dreaming that I was walking our little ones (2 under 2) in the pram near Brighton Square, and a high-speed truck careened out of control and crushed us against a building. Eventually, I sought the help of my internist in Boston - he listened, and then casually asked how my family was doing - “your folks back in … ., and siblings …?” Whereupon I told him - he told me to go home and let him think about things, but he also wanted to talk to my husband, if that was all right - “about the dreams.” It was fine with me. I didn’t know it at the time, but he contacted him at the lab right after I left his office, and told him to go home and get every photo of my brother that he could find, and go through them with me. That night, as we went through the photos, I started crying right where I left off in the funeral home - and I didn’t stop sobbing for over 9 hours. My next isit to my internist was for an unbelievable sinus infection - but the pain from grief and the nightmares were over with. Frankly, too, as a friend and I were just talking about long distance for hours, it’s not being dead that I don’t like, it’s getting there.

By C jay on 11/20/2008 10:59 am

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Carol, I come from an abusive, narcisstic mother myself. And, thank god, I found my way to a wonderful therapist over 30 years ago, and to him I give tribute for saving my life. And, he is still practicing; my best friend is in his office as I write this. One thing I have learned over the years is the Buddhist practice of facing the pain, fear or whatever, and letting it go through you and feeling and acknowledging it. For, when a person does this, much as wind goes through the windowscreen, the pain will be broken and it will dissipate. Pain and suffering are aspects of our human condition, and if we can learn to confront them, our bodies will be much healthier. Even if my parents were terribly co-dependent long before the term was invented, I did learn from them a good sense of humor. I attribute humor to my healing experiences also. When my dear husband died, my youngest granddaughter was approaching her 9th month, and she was a funny baby. So, when Miss Emily was around the house, it was hard to be sad.

By Diana T on 11/20/2008 11:56 am

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Diana, I have walked with Pema Chodron since the memories came out (after my first mastectomy for bc)… believe me, I ran not walked to a psycho-therapist. That was terrible. It all came back in virtually replicating nightmares of events in childhood. Amazing what the mind does to enable us to survive; I’m the eldest and had the worst aspects of their combined abuse, but I’m also the only one who lived. I credit that to the fact that my extended family was still able, then, to be around me now and then. By the time the siblings came along, our parents had self-isolated and they didn’t even go to school regularly - I insisted on going, my teachers expected me to be there, I remember thinking, and it drove them nuts that I would go. In truth, as you reflected, much of my innocent adherence to rules, enabled me to later “just work through it.” It cost me my retirement savings, but it was worth every cent. I’ve just been “found” by a 93 yo aunt who knew what was going on - but she had been given away at the age of 2. Most recently, the times she tried to spend time with my mother, whom I didn’t know was living (she’s 96 of course!) she had to leave to get away from her violent outbursts. Sheesh, I know what those are like! It’s amazing - she’s sitting there with a ton of money, and no one - having inherited 4 men’s estates, and outliving everyone, but herself.

By C jay on 11/20/2008 12:18 pm

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Forgot to add - this aunt has meant so very much to me; no one can imagine how incredible its been to talk to her and hear about myself as a little one in a positive vein. In fact, she told me that she and my uncle, a Methodist minister, used to pray for another child, and “that is was a girl just like you …” Now, that’s worth surviving for. We live so far now, though, and she can’t travel. But, I phone her weekly, and we email!!!

By C jay on 11/20/2008 12:21 pm

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You are so very fortunate, Carol, to have found your aunt. The more you understand what happened and why, the more empowerment you will have for yourself. And, you will think I’m nuts when I say that you are also fortunate to have access to your memories of the events, terrible as they were. That way you can deal with each one of them and discover that is another way to get your power back. My sister has done this over a period of years. My problem is that, whatever happened, I have almost total amnesia, and so I have triggers, but don’t know their origin. One of my biggest aids this year is discovering the books and CDs of David Richo, a well know psychotherapist. His book on How To Be An Adult has meant so much to me, as well as his CDs on Adult Relationships. His discussion of narcissists was a turning point for me because it described Mother to a T, and when I shared it with my sister last week when we were together, we both felt as if a lot of questions were answered for us.

By Diana T on 11/20/2008 12:35 pm

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Diana, Yes, I am, very fortunate. It’s like truth personified, but also, I’ve noticed without mention it to her, that the shock of my mother’s violence against her in the past 5 years, her only living original family member, my mother, has left a mark on her, and she needs to talk it out. It’s truly PTSD, and at her age grossly unfair, but at least she has a loving son who interceded for her and flew her home immediately (1400 miles). Amazingly, she was adopted out because my grandfather died in the flu epidemic, and left my grandmother with a dry goods store, and no family around, so in the long tun, my aunt has found that she is now grateful she wasn’t raised “with the family,” and now there is me, wishing as long as I can remember that I could fine “new parents… ” (I knew from day1). ;-)) We’ve had many a good chuckle about it. In all those years in MI, she ‘heard’ what was happening to me, and they often thought of how they could get to me, and take me into their home. That was important for me to hear - so important. Yes, I’ve heard of Richo. As of about 18 months ago, when the breakthrough completed there is no more pain when memories surface openly now, none at all. Before, I literally felt the impacts, physical and emotional, just as when they originally happened; now, I feel quite capable of taking care of that child, and I see things differently. Needless to say, that took 10 years of analysis! Believe me, when it started, I jumped in with both feet - those darned nightmares terrorized me. Lastly to move on, what really piqued my interest was when the nightmares began I consulted our local breastcancer support group about the nightmares, and the director told me “those nightmares aren’t unusual - many women have them after their mastectomies, and we call them black dreams…” Great Scott, I later learned that the mutilatory aspects of such surgery, and the stress surrounding breast cancer and the fight to live often brings out repressed memories of serious child abuse in all forms. I have 4 CDRWs of my journaling during those years - I was going to write a book about it and was told by the regional APA it was one of the worst cases they’d heard of - “a Bonnie & Clyde toxic relationship” where both parents became involved. but, truly I fought as hard to get passed that revelation as I did as a child to live - when I’ve visited those essays, I realize how much I have accomplished, privately, for myself.

By C jay on 11/20/2008 3:35 pm

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Your story sounds a lot like my sister’s. As we both have learned, PTSD is the actual emotion you would have felt as a small child when you were being traumatized. That fear feeling—-that is what little ones are feeling—-. She has always had nightmares and wild dreams, to the point that now at her age (soon to be 72) we all laugh about them. David Richo’s CD on Adult Relationships is the best $75 I’ve spent all year. Go to his website.

By Diana T on 11/20/2008 5:14 pm

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Di, the words you have just spoken about facing the pain in our lives and learning to let go is one of the most important things for each of us to acknowledge and deal with. I agree that humor is the best tool in keeping our lives completely adjusted and running smoothly. I come from narcisstic parents…both mother and father…and, their abuse, however unintended, was there because of their lifestyle which was full of sound and fury and all about themselves. It took many years for me to fully understand this all and deal with it with everything in the correct perpective. Indeed, we are becoming and “band of sisters” on this site and learning from each other as well as depending on the fact that there is so much knowledge to share among us! Cheers……………………………………………

By Agyness O on 11/20/2008 4:57 pm