Through the World Barefooted -- Gerda's LBS Guide

[Gerda]

I posted this in DnJ's thread but was thinking it should maybe go in mine for anyone who has thoughts.

Originally Posted by DnJ
D11 will get there too. Right now she is caught up in her new Disney Dad. Paradise, shinny, fun, ponies and unicorns. She is 11, it’s ok. She is a child, she is supposed to live somewhat in a make-believe world. However, one cannot eat sugar everyday; they will get sick of it. D11 will see through Dad’s hollow and insincere attempts to buy her love, respect, and friendship. She will rebel. Teenage years are coming.



I am not sure about this happening. D11 has a lot of learning disabilities and I am sometimes not sure she can understand what is really happening if H feeds her enough lies and manipulates her as he has done the past few years, once he started taking an interest in her.


Originally Posted by DnJ
I do remember feeling betrayed by D15 after BD. Perhaps it is a lot like your feelings towards D11. D15 and D11 didn’t and aren’t betraying us. It only feels that way.

You know me and my encouragement to rationalize and implement mental assertiveness. Look at D11’s behaviour as a good thing. D11 trusts you enough, loves you enough, has faith in you enough - to take you for granted a bit, ignore you a bit, while she reaches out towards her Dad. You are the strong and stable parent. D11 sees this, it shows in her behaviour.


I do agree with you, and I hope I can see things this way at least most of the time. BUT -- Here is the thing, my friend. I don't know if you see yourself as someone who was abused. But I know can look back at the last seven or more years and see that I was truly abused -- not physically, though that would make things much clearer in a way. Emotionally, verbally, financially and in some intimacy ways -- again, via mind games and withholding, not active physical abuse. I have a sort of PTSD from it now, and it's very real. I can stop and breathe and look at it and see that it is anxiety and that my fears are not real, but there is most definitely a physiological reaction that I have to manage. And yes, it is not just H but some things left over from older wounds, but definitely, seven years of H's spiral -- maybe more like nine years if you count the earlier intimations -- have not been good for Gerda's cortisol supply chain. And what I am trying to say is that I have had H's love, and it is toxic. It is a poison love. I do not want him to love D11 because I do not want her to drink poison. Having time off from her for the weekend is amazing for me on a selfish level. I can finally get some work done, have some head space, go sit outside a cafe (all still closed) by myself reading for work, not hear D and S fighting, etc. But I am terrified the whole time she is gone about what damage that man is inflicting on her deepest soul. The damage that could lead her into relationships like I had before H and with H, continuing the cycle.

And even as I say that and think it,there is still a part of me that is still Gerda making her way north to love the frozen glass shards off of Kay's heart. I still can't believe that H could have always been as evil as he seems to be now. I am not talking about trying to take his half, or more than his half, I am talking about actively doing extremely nefarious things, false documents, etc., to destroy my life. But in some weird way, I still hold out hope that someday he would wake up from this nightmare and be more like what I knew before, I just can't believe that he was carrying this level of darkness that whole time. I am just hoping that he will become a monk if that ever happens so that I never have to consider him being my H again. (I know that sounds rather crazy but that's the truth, just between you and me. : ) )

I know she is not me, she has her own journey, etc. But every mother's instinct I have, to keep her from drinking poison, I have to put aside and surrender because I have no choice. I can't protect her. I know, I can only be there for her when she returns, even though she usually hates me a little bit when she returns, and lately hates me more often, as H is always texting her, calling her, pulling on her.... But still, it is hard, as a mom who is so devoted to that vocation, it is very hard to surrender.


Originally Posted by DnJ
I don’t really know what to say regarding my non-wrestling. I kind of feel bad in not being able to reach you. I do remember my dark struggles. I had some horrible battles with my own thoughts and feelings and fears. I can speak about them, they hold no power over me anymore, they just aren’t current or alive, a memory.


It sounds nice to be detached on one level, but it also seems risky to be too detached lest you implode.... If I felt nothing at all in such a moment (re: DnJ's exW coming to his yard for an event) I would see that as disassociation, which was the tool I used to make it through my teen years during my mother's MLC and the total breakdown of my family that included violence, drugs, alcohol, etc., while brave Gerda disassociated, got straight A's and woke up ten years later.

Anyway, I would like to hear more about your dark days sometimes as a way of normalizing all of our dark days. But at minimum I do want to know, and I have asked you this before -- looking back now, from this point of your journey, can you still say that W turned into someone else, and not that you can now see that this was there all along? I have been looking back and seeing things more clearly about H. I think he was winning a battle over this part of him, and that is a good thing, but I no longer think this wasn't in him before. I think MLC ended his ability to battle it. So I do wonder about this for you, if you do not mind looking at the memory more directly.