This isn't a quite post about remembering Grandma or Grandpa, or about remembering your wedding, first child, cute moments with a loved one, etc. This is about how easy it is to remember something or swear it never happened, or rather you don't remember.
I was reading in the Sun Magazine yesterday a story in which a woman illustrates how her sister taught her certain things about life. What makes this such a wonderful story is the older sister is schizophrenic, thus the things she taught the younger sister weren't what one would expect.
In one part, the author relates there was some sexual abuse going on, and when she told her mom, her mom just said, 'Oh! That is what all the questions were about.' No further explanation, her mother went back to work, and then later in life, never remembered even saying anything about the abuse, or the mention of it to her.
In real life, I have found through stories I have heard from children and adults alike, this lack of memory later in life happens a lot with parents. It is sad, really, as it un-validates the abuse, which was validated when the parent is first told about it. Much of what I hear is in court cases wherein a child will say the father, uncle, mother, brother, sister, neighbor, whoever...abused them to another adult. An adult they felt they could trust, and who would in turn, validate their pain, confusion, and shame at being abused. What happens later, is the adult is asked to appear in court to confirm the allegations of the child, and suddenly the adult doesn't remember the conversation the child is referring to, or is unable to comment. This type of sudden un-remembering hurts...it hurts the child greatly, or in some cases the adult who has memories of abuse and seeks validation from a parent.
In my case, I had sudden memories as an adult sexual abuse had happened to me. I knew, and so did my Mom, there had been physical and emotional abuse by the handfuls, depending upon who she was married to at the time, or dating. When I came home from work and was crying, needing to talk to someone, who would possibly remember something from this time period, who could tell me these memories were either false or real, I called my Mom. We lived across the county from each other at the time, so a cup of tea in the kitchen wasn't going to work!
When I called her, told her about the memories I was having, how they were disturbing my work and life, she responded, "So, that is what all those questions were about when you were five." That was enough for me. Born in '63, making the time the abuse occurred in 1968, and me only five, I apparently, as to what my mother stated in this phone call, had asked lots of questions about sex, penis', touching, and all kinds of stuff. She said she thought it odd I would be asking those sorts of questions at my young age, but she told me, she didn't feel she needed to follow up on why I was asking these sorts of questions. We then cried together on the phone, tears stretching for miles, and somewhere in the Midwest, touching.
Later, I returned back to my home city, which was just one state away from Mom, a five/six hour drive, depending on how fast I drove. I started therapy out there with a very trusted and wonderful counselor. She didn't try to push for more memories, do any hypnosis on me, she just started with where I was at, and worked with me to be able to put these demons behind me. In part of the therapy, she suggested I talk with my Mom more about the questions I asked her, as there were memories which didn't quite make sense to me.
I called my Mom, and started asking about what questions I asked her specifically. Suddenly she had no memory of me asking any type of questions about anything inappropriate for a 5 year old child in 1968. She said she never said she remember me asking questions when I called her from the state I was in before. She remembered the conversation but said it went something to the effect of, "I am having these flashes of these bad things happening to me, do you have any idea of what my step-dad may have done to me?" With her responding, as to her current memory, "No, I have no idea what you are talking about. I was in the house all the time with you girls. I was sleeping in the master bedroom, how could anything have happened? I would have known."
This broke my heart, and threw me backwards in my therapy and life for a while. My therapist finally worked with me and explained how her validation didn't matter that much, as I knew what I remembered and that was truth to me, so we just needed to work with my own truth. But, I have never forgotten this un-validation, and she continues to this day to say the same thing, "I was in the next room: I would have known if something was going on."
I later told her of a story my ex-husband had revealed to me about him with his first wife. He said after his wife had gone to sleep, he would slip out of the house, go to another woman's house, or find a hooker, have sex, and then return home before she ever woke up. I watched my mom's face, wondering if she would see that if my ex could slip in and out of the same bed, how easy would have been for my step-father to slip out of the bed and into my room. She just showed further disgust of my ex, and didn't find any connection.
There have been a few shows on TV which are either real life stories or crime shows, in which a mother is shown to have let abuse go on right under her nose, knowing the whole time what was going on, but never protecting the child. My mom can sit and watch these shows, and verbally condemn the women, whether real or fiction, and state she would never have done that, she did everything in her life to keep her children safe.
Now, she has chosen not to remember a very important issue which happened at her last job. She was caught using the company credit card for personal expenditures, and had been doing this for some time, but had always been able to pay back the card before it was found out. Well, she was finally caught. Her boss tried to stick up for her, but she did end up losing her 401k and had some garnishment of her check for a period, but was allowed to continue working there. She doesn't remember this at all. She claims it was a client of mine, or someone else I know, but this never happened to her.
My therapist at one time stated the reason my mother didn't want to acknowledge the abuse later was she was not able to psychologically able to handle the implications of letting her daughter be abused. She stated this was something she was going to have to come to terms with on her own, and there was nothing I could do to make her see where she failed me. I have friends also who have the same problems with their parents, but as I tell them, they cannot make their parent go back and see what they see, so they have to work on their own issues, just knowing this person may not be a safe one to confide in in latter years.
When one thinks of memory loss, usually Alzheimer's comes to mind, but memory loss can just be selective and subjective as well for the owner of the memories. My mom's memories are not due to a disease, a medication, or anything else except simply uncomfortableness with the memory. It is not cool to remember you might have been sleeping in the next room while your daughter was being felt up; or that while visiting the next husband you will have, another man was touching your daughter (now about 8) in obvious (to an adult) ways a man should not be touching a child; or to remember you almost lost your job due to basically embezzlement. Yeah! These are memories which would be quite subjective and easy to loose since they cause one to be very uncomfortable in their own mind and skin.
Photo by Mikko Lagerstedt/Dark Times
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Tolerance
Tolerance: when most people look at this work the idea of race, ideologies, cultures, etc., come to mind. But, these are not what I wish to elaborate on this evening. I am contemplating tolerance of one's conditions and circumstances.
Currently, I live with my Mother, and I am 47. Now before anybody gets on their soap box and starts preaching to me, take a moment and read what brought me to this fine and wonderful place in my life.
Briefly, I had a very good job, made the money I needed to support myself, in my apartment, paid off vehicle, and had enough money to pay for my insurance needs and to take care of my animals. Due to an illness, I lost my last job, as the illness, as it progresses, makes it hard to concentrate and hard to remember things. In my line of work I had to always know what was going on with each and every client, and I needed this information on the tip of my 'brain' for lack of a better symbolics. I also have very bad knees, and this problem was getting worse and worse each day. In fact, when I was laid off, I took a week of complete relaxation to get my knees to where they didn't hurt all the time, and also to rest from my other disease which was causing me a lot of physical stress as well.
After this small week of recuperation, I went about looking for a job: my usual way of looking in the paper; through temp agencies; and calling people I already knew working in my field and networking. There was nothing out there. I did not deny one single job, there was just nothing offered. I then went on unemployment, and took in a boarder to help pay the costs of the apartment, thinking totally positive that I would get a job soon, and this was just a lull.
After about 5 months, I realized it was not a lull, the whole country was starting to feel it, and I couldn't hold on to my apartment anymore. Thus, I had no option but to move in with my Mom as all my friends are married with families, and most don't even live in the same state. Even after moving in with my Mom, I continued my studies on my Master's degree, continued to work ever harder at finding a job, and finally decided to set up my skills online. I paid all the unemployment money I could get to purchase the web hosting, although I did all the web page design myself, business licenses, and a couple of car magnets for advertising.
Nothing was working. Any calls I would get from my advertising were basically to sell me more expensive advertising or to tell me they could do my web page better. I don't want to seem arrogant, but my site was really pretty impressive.
I finally finished my Master's, and continued to put out feelers for work. Nothing!!! I then went to move with a friend in another state hoping the situation there was different, as all the data I could find said this state hadn't really been affected by the recession. After four months of being there, it was the same thing, and my health was rapidly declining, and my knees were getting worse than ever, now affecting my back and hips.
I finally, at the urging of my friends and Mother and Doctor, started an disability claim. I went to my orthopedist and found out from the x-rays my knees were in worse shape than I thought they were. He was surprised I was able to even walk without assistance at this point. He said I definitely needed knee replacement as soon as possible, and the hips were going to have to have surgery, as well as my ankle.
So, here I am now, at my Mom's, with a Master's degree, working on a Ph.D. Yeah, it sounds pretty pathetic, but even now, when I talk to people at the store or dog park, there is still a crisis in this city, and although people are getting hired, they are getting fired as fast, and employers are definitely not looking for higher priced employees such as myself. I am working on the Ph.D. because I feel I always need to be moving forward, never backward. I also do what little volunteer work I can at this point.
Now, here is where the tolerance comes in...
If anyone has lived on their own for any length of time, established their own way of keeping house, of doing things, of life style, they will understand how moving in with anybody, much less a parent, can be stifling! Here I have moved back in with my Mom, with the original plan for it to be only a few months at the most, but has now gone onto three years. Yes, I am very grateful she took me in. In no way does this mean I haven't paid for this privilege as well.
I am some what OCD, she is somewhat NOT!!! She hates to hear my little dog bark, I love to get him excited, work him out, let him play, and he barks naturally while doing all this. She can smell almost anything from a mile away, I can't smell very well due to a motorcycle accident I had a few years ago which broke my nose. So, she always smells my cats, and never hers. She leaves things, including food which could easily spoil all over the counters, and dirty dishes in the sink sometimes at night, I am like a clean counter freak. She has papers piled all around her chair in the living room, I pick up all my stuff and put it away, or in my room when I leave the living room. She can't figure out how I have so much stuff at the tip of my fingers and live out of such a small room, whereas she looses things all the time, and she has the whole rest of the apartment. I tell her it is organization.
Now we are coming into financial issues: she doesn't know how to stop spending, and then asks me to cover the portion of the rent that is missing, or the Internet she knows I have to have to do my degree work, etc. As I am helping her totally against my will, as the only money I have currently was given to me by a friend for academic purposes only, but since she knows about it, it is all fare game in her book. But, again, as I am helping her by writing out the check, she will get a box or other package of something she has ordered. I just don't see this changing, and don't know what to do about it.
Her plan was to retire and live in San Diego or the like, and not work anymore. When she was offered either a termination of employment at her place she was working or a lower class job, she took the job. Then she didn't work out there, and was let go. So, she decided to retire. At this point I was already living here, so a little fore thought would have been expected on her part. But she didn't think ahead, she continued to order and buy things all the time. Then when she could see things were getting tight, and had told me in no uncertain terms I was not to quit the disability case or my degree at this point, she didn't step-up to the plate and start looking for a job. She even told me she expected something to come around the corner-I am not sure what-but something. Well, something never came around the corner, and now she is in a frenzy, with things being turned off, borrowing from very special funds set aside by a hard working friend for me, and is finding she should have been looking a few months ago, at least that is what she is being told by the temp agencies. She sat around and read book after book after book, or slept all day, never thinking of what was approaching. I pay her what I can, but when I found out that out of $1,000 worth of food stamps which came in my name, but which she also purchased many things just for herself, that she knew I would never eat, and she had never credited my 'tally sheet' for any of this, I had it. I was very upset. She countered with the idea that it wasn't real money, but I countered with 'those are real cream puffs you have been eating..." She got the message, and has now been crediting my portion of the bills.
Then there is tolerance of things I know happened, but which she has conveniently forgotten. One is very serious and close to the surface and that is some child sexual abuse which occurred when I was younger. I had asked her questions which were totally inappropriate for a child of 5 in 1968, and she even admitted one time of remembering these questions, and now the memories I was having made sense. That was the first and last time she ever admitted to the possibility of anything ever happening to me while she was in the same house. Now, there have been two shows in the past month, one a fictional setting, the other a Dr. Phil show, in which the mother is chastised for letting the abuse happen under her nose. Both times my Mom has degraded these women, talked of how bad they were, and all I could do was keep my mouth shut and walk away. I would actually walk into my room, shut the door, and cry. How could she make moral judgment on these women when she did the same thing? Oh, I forgot, she has forgotten all that bad stuff.
Then there was an incident at work in which she had used a company credit card to pay some personal bills; she got called on it; they took most of her 401k, and she also had to pay out of her check for some time. She told me all this, no one else told me this, and now she suddenly doesn't remember, in fact, adamantly and on the verge of hysterics denied it.
In the meantime, I have been diagnosed with a new and wonderful disease which is requiring medication during the day and night. The medication makes me sleepy and also makes it hard to concentrate at times. I am trying to put all my energy into my volunteer work, as a child is at stake, and in my studies. I do not have the strength or the energy to first off, argue with her about who should be handling her money now, and then to keep up on it all the time, and also to make sure she doesn't get on the computer and order things. This last thing she ordered was from Publisher's Clearing House. I can't keep everything away from her, and in my present condition, she has to be the one who goes and does the shopping, thus she has money and often my credit card with her.
I have made it absolutely clear to her that if the bill does not affect me, I don't want to know about it. But, on the other hand, I have to watch out for me, and thus it appears as if I need to pay the AAA bill which is tied to an accidental life policy, which would be my only salvation if something happened to her. I know my friends would step-up and offer me a place to live, but I would need money to take care of Mom's left over stuff, and to move wherever I was going, and deal with all our stuff in storage.
This is a personal tolerance, and at times I think it is harder than any other type of tolerance I have ever encountered.
I am coming to my end on this, and I guess now I am waiting for someone to give me a bright idea, or something to come around the proverbial corner.
I needed to get this out, as I know there are others in my circumstance, and I wanted you to know, You Are Not Alone.
Aubrey
Currently, I live with my Mother, and I am 47. Now before anybody gets on their soap box and starts preaching to me, take a moment and read what brought me to this fine and wonderful place in my life.
Briefly, I had a very good job, made the money I needed to support myself, in my apartment, paid off vehicle, and had enough money to pay for my insurance needs and to take care of my animals. Due to an illness, I lost my last job, as the illness, as it progresses, makes it hard to concentrate and hard to remember things. In my line of work I had to always know what was going on with each and every client, and I needed this information on the tip of my 'brain' for lack of a better symbolics. I also have very bad knees, and this problem was getting worse and worse each day. In fact, when I was laid off, I took a week of complete relaxation to get my knees to where they didn't hurt all the time, and also to rest from my other disease which was causing me a lot of physical stress as well.
After this small week of recuperation, I went about looking for a job: my usual way of looking in the paper; through temp agencies; and calling people I already knew working in my field and networking. There was nothing out there. I did not deny one single job, there was just nothing offered. I then went on unemployment, and took in a boarder to help pay the costs of the apartment, thinking totally positive that I would get a job soon, and this was just a lull.
After about 5 months, I realized it was not a lull, the whole country was starting to feel it, and I couldn't hold on to my apartment anymore. Thus, I had no option but to move in with my Mom as all my friends are married with families, and most don't even live in the same state. Even after moving in with my Mom, I continued my studies on my Master's degree, continued to work ever harder at finding a job, and finally decided to set up my skills online. I paid all the unemployment money I could get to purchase the web hosting, although I did all the web page design myself, business licenses, and a couple of car magnets for advertising.
Nothing was working. Any calls I would get from my advertising were basically to sell me more expensive advertising or to tell me they could do my web page better. I don't want to seem arrogant, but my site was really pretty impressive.
I finally finished my Master's, and continued to put out feelers for work. Nothing!!! I then went to move with a friend in another state hoping the situation there was different, as all the data I could find said this state hadn't really been affected by the recession. After four months of being there, it was the same thing, and my health was rapidly declining, and my knees were getting worse than ever, now affecting my back and hips.
I finally, at the urging of my friends and Mother and Doctor, started an disability claim. I went to my orthopedist and found out from the x-rays my knees were in worse shape than I thought they were. He was surprised I was able to even walk without assistance at this point. He said I definitely needed knee replacement as soon as possible, and the hips were going to have to have surgery, as well as my ankle.
So, here I am now, at my Mom's, with a Master's degree, working on a Ph.D. Yeah, it sounds pretty pathetic, but even now, when I talk to people at the store or dog park, there is still a crisis in this city, and although people are getting hired, they are getting fired as fast, and employers are definitely not looking for higher priced employees such as myself. I am working on the Ph.D. because I feel I always need to be moving forward, never backward. I also do what little volunteer work I can at this point.
Now, here is where the tolerance comes in...
If anyone has lived on their own for any length of time, established their own way of keeping house, of doing things, of life style, they will understand how moving in with anybody, much less a parent, can be stifling! Here I have moved back in with my Mom, with the original plan for it to be only a few months at the most, but has now gone onto three years. Yes, I am very grateful she took me in. In no way does this mean I haven't paid for this privilege as well.
I am some what OCD, she is somewhat NOT!!! She hates to hear my little dog bark, I love to get him excited, work him out, let him play, and he barks naturally while doing all this. She can smell almost anything from a mile away, I can't smell very well due to a motorcycle accident I had a few years ago which broke my nose. So, she always smells my cats, and never hers. She leaves things, including food which could easily spoil all over the counters, and dirty dishes in the sink sometimes at night, I am like a clean counter freak. She has papers piled all around her chair in the living room, I pick up all my stuff and put it away, or in my room when I leave the living room. She can't figure out how I have so much stuff at the tip of my fingers and live out of such a small room, whereas she looses things all the time, and she has the whole rest of the apartment. I tell her it is organization.
Now we are coming into financial issues: she doesn't know how to stop spending, and then asks me to cover the portion of the rent that is missing, or the Internet she knows I have to have to do my degree work, etc. As I am helping her totally against my will, as the only money I have currently was given to me by a friend for academic purposes only, but since she knows about it, it is all fare game in her book. But, again, as I am helping her by writing out the check, she will get a box or other package of something she has ordered. I just don't see this changing, and don't know what to do about it.
Her plan was to retire and live in San Diego or the like, and not work anymore. When she was offered either a termination of employment at her place she was working or a lower class job, she took the job. Then she didn't work out there, and was let go. So, she decided to retire. At this point I was already living here, so a little fore thought would have been expected on her part. But she didn't think ahead, she continued to order and buy things all the time. Then when she could see things were getting tight, and had told me in no uncertain terms I was not to quit the disability case or my degree at this point, she didn't step-up to the plate and start looking for a job. She even told me she expected something to come around the corner-I am not sure what-but something. Well, something never came around the corner, and now she is in a frenzy, with things being turned off, borrowing from very special funds set aside by a hard working friend for me, and is finding she should have been looking a few months ago, at least that is what she is being told by the temp agencies. She sat around and read book after book after book, or slept all day, never thinking of what was approaching. I pay her what I can, but when I found out that out of $1,000 worth of food stamps which came in my name, but which she also purchased many things just for herself, that she knew I would never eat, and she had never credited my 'tally sheet' for any of this, I had it. I was very upset. She countered with the idea that it wasn't real money, but I countered with 'those are real cream puffs you have been eating..." She got the message, and has now been crediting my portion of the bills.
Then there is tolerance of things I know happened, but which she has conveniently forgotten. One is very serious and close to the surface and that is some child sexual abuse which occurred when I was younger. I had asked her questions which were totally inappropriate for a child of 5 in 1968, and she even admitted one time of remembering these questions, and now the memories I was having made sense. That was the first and last time she ever admitted to the possibility of anything ever happening to me while she was in the same house. Now, there have been two shows in the past month, one a fictional setting, the other a Dr. Phil show, in which the mother is chastised for letting the abuse happen under her nose. Both times my Mom has degraded these women, talked of how bad they were, and all I could do was keep my mouth shut and walk away. I would actually walk into my room, shut the door, and cry. How could she make moral judgment on these women when she did the same thing? Oh, I forgot, she has forgotten all that bad stuff.
Then there was an incident at work in which she had used a company credit card to pay some personal bills; she got called on it; they took most of her 401k, and she also had to pay out of her check for some time. She told me all this, no one else told me this, and now she suddenly doesn't remember, in fact, adamantly and on the verge of hysterics denied it.
In the meantime, I have been diagnosed with a new and wonderful disease which is requiring medication during the day and night. The medication makes me sleepy and also makes it hard to concentrate at times. I am trying to put all my energy into my volunteer work, as a child is at stake, and in my studies. I do not have the strength or the energy to first off, argue with her about who should be handling her money now, and then to keep up on it all the time, and also to make sure she doesn't get on the computer and order things. This last thing she ordered was from Publisher's Clearing House. I can't keep everything away from her, and in my present condition, she has to be the one who goes and does the shopping, thus she has money and often my credit card with her.
I have made it absolutely clear to her that if the bill does not affect me, I don't want to know about it. But, on the other hand, I have to watch out for me, and thus it appears as if I need to pay the AAA bill which is tied to an accidental life policy, which would be my only salvation if something happened to her. I know my friends would step-up and offer me a place to live, but I would need money to take care of Mom's left over stuff, and to move wherever I was going, and deal with all our stuff in storage.
This is a personal tolerance, and at times I think it is harder than any other type of tolerance I have ever encountered.
I am coming to my end on this, and I guess now I am waiting for someone to give me a bright idea, or something to come around the proverbial corner.
I needed to get this out, as I know there are others in my circumstance, and I wanted you to know, You Are Not Alone.
Aubrey
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