Quote: W was also constantly put down by her mother. Even though her mother went to work and W took over all of the household duties (cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.) when she was ten, nothing was ever done well enough to suit her mother. There’s a lot of hostility there still today.
Same here and I saw some of the things that were not good enough for her mother according to BB. BB's mother was not that hard on BB and rarely said something negative, but to BB it was frequent.
Quote: I also know that she has told me that she likes dogs better than people.
Make mine 'she has told me that she likes dogs better than *SOME* people.
Quote: The sister was always trying to change her appearance and was always telling her how ugly she was. The sister was always trying to change her hair, her clothes, and whatever she could. She used to complain that W was too dirty (running barefoot and playing on the farm) and would put her into the bathtub and scrub her with a scrub brush and bleach.
Wow that had to hurt mentaly and physically.
The bleach part implies getting rid of some potential disease! or being too unclean to touch!
Quote: My personal opinion is that while a lot of that may very well have been bad, it was a long time ago and she’s supposed to be an adult now......But I think all of us here know that that isn’t going to happen until she wants it to
Right on ZB.
Quote: Maybe I’m an enabler who is allowing her to continue to live in that world? I don’t know.
cough, cough, um, you said it ZB. List possible ways you enable just for your own list. I did it ( went along with the extra animals) for a while, hoping BB would work through some of her childhood animal issues to resolution.
The resolutions never came on their own. I had to wait for 3 cats to die of old age and one cat peed on all of the carpets, ruined them and the sub-flooor until it became a me ot it situation. BB agreed the cat had to go but left it up to me to find it a home, hopefully with no other cats. (marking territory problems)
I did it (enabeling) too, but am trying not to by saying to myself, "would most reasonable people put up with this?" along with "I don't like the way things are going, I won't live like this for much longer, "do I end/stop the behavior now or do I end the R later?"
Even when I have things go my way (end the crazy behaviors) there is payback I deal with. So get ready for that too.
I have been watching the hurricane reports on FOX News. Hope you guys don't get too much damage.
