Riding a wave

@Faith-and-Hope will you be around for a little while? I'm in chaos now, but ok chaos. I'm ready to dump it all out.

I am hearing you @Phoenix_Rising ....

We are paddling all around you, and with so many wise minds in one place, we will get it sorted out and the boundaries stabilised again. I am sorry you have been flooded in the meantime, but keep baling as much as you can, and we will bale along with you.

I saw that @Former-Member responded after you logged out ..... she is good at baling too ..... let’s set a target for very soon tomorrow to hopefully have it sorted, or at least looking far less scary than today .....

We all don’t get answers sometimes when we need them @Phoenix_Rising. I have been knocking on doors for 8 years now ..... and sometimes the wrong ones have opened ..... or slammed in my face ..... and I got my fingers jammed in another one as recently as two weeks ago ..... and I’m still hurting .....

But I am also still knocking on doors .....

💕🐢🌷☔️

🌿 << green leaf in drought = remain hopeful as much as you can ...... wise mind tells us to .....

Edited ..... although the thought of us all baking, and Rockpool along with us, was pretty funny ❣️

Gotta love Autocorrect .....

Still here for you @Phoenix_Rising ......

@Faith-and-Hope

This way in which the moderators seem to have suddenly become so much more distant in Forum Land is a direct replication of this...

I think I've mentioned before that the minister at the church I used to attend was/is my father figure. We were super super close - as in, I would be at his house or on the phone to him every day. He held the value that he should never be too busy to spend time talking with someone. We became SO close. He used to call me "kiddo" and he promised me that I would always be his kid. In my brain, for all intents and purposes, he is my dad.

In April, 1996, he went on a holiday with a bunch of other ministers for a month. I missed him SO much, but it was only for a month, and then he would be home. The first time I went to spend time with him after he came home, he told me he was busy and that I should go and spend time with his wife. This was odd, but ok. The next time I went to spend time with him, the same thing happened. And so I asked him what was going on.

It turned out that while he was away, he had been talking with the other ministers about me and they pointed out that even though there was nothing inappropriate in our relationship, it might be perceived as inappropriate because of how much time we spent together. And that is why he was pushing me away.

And that was the beginning of my utter chaos. The more he pushed me away, the more I clung and the more chaotic I became. Within six weeks of him coming home from that holiday, I had had my first psychiatric admission and earned the label of BPD. A year later he took out the first restraining order and I made an extremely serious suicide attempt the following month.

Do you see, @Faith-and-Hope? Do you SEE???? Do you see how this bizarre shift of the moderators suddenly going from being so present, to being so absent, is a direct replication? Just random, out of the blue, with no discussion or explanation.

(E) never sat down and talked to me about what happened on that holiday, he just started pushing me away. I could never ever understand that. It was like he thought I wouldn't notice. And that is exactly what is happening now, here.

I feel connected to SO FEW people, and some of the moderators are amongst those people. And they've simply vanished. It takes me SO LONG to trust anyone because I have such a very long history of people leaving. Since (E), there has been a whole train of people who have left my world. I know it is because they can't cope with the intensity of me. The massive grief around (E) has never been resolved, and realistically, it never will be now.

But do you see @Faith-and-Hope? I don't mean to be bad - honest. I simply don't know how to cope with such a terrifyingly intense replication of what happened all those years ago and the massive grief of people who I feel a connection with, suddenly vanishing. I don't know what to do @Faith-and-Hope. This is massive. It is SO massive.

@Faith-and-Hope My entire social network was at the church. E's daughter was my best friend. I had been at the church since I was 3 years old. But as everything started happening with E, the entire congregation turned against me. So very VERY many bad memories of that. Such awful AWFUL memories. And they are all pouring in now @Faith-and-Hope. So very very very many memories of people I had known my whole life turning their backs on me.

@Faith-and-Hope and everywhere I turned, the message was that I just had to accept it. The grief was totally pathologised.

The way Jay is begging everyone to contact RO is EXACTLY what I used to do. There were times where I would just start randomly calling churches all across Sydney, telling the story and begging the minister to speak to E. And sometimes they would. But he never shifted. His attitude was always that the psychiatrists etc. had said that if he severed all contact, the "fixation" would fade away. Next month I will send him a Christmas card. The psychiatrists were wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!! And everything I now know about attachment theory tells me that the mental health professionals (and thus E under their direction) really couldn't have caused me more harm if they had tried.

I'm GOOD at boundaries @Faith-and-Hope, SO LONG AS THEY DON'T CHANGE. E used to have a 10pm curfew for everybody. That is, his house was next to the church and a bunch of us would always hang out there after youth group etc. 10pm was curfew and we would all leave. This was never an issue at all.

Years later I found out that the reason the 10pm curfew was introduced was because E and his wife felt they couldn't get me out of their house. I NEVER KNEW THEY WERE TRYING TO GET ME OUT OF THEIR HOUSE. I realise now that because of their values around having an open house etc. it never occurred to them to just say "Phoenix_Rising, go home."

I'm GOOD with boundaries SO LONG AS THEY DON'T CHANGE...and so long as I know what the hell the boundary is in the first place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@Phoenix_Rising

I think you can gather I have strong feeling about the pathologising of grief and have been posting to that effect for over 2 years here on the forum.

You are not alone in the foam ... quote F&H

I love your photos. SO evocative.

Your poem is sad but I respect it as a slice of reality but not necessarily the whole truth.

and I do wish I could help relieve some of your loneliness. You know I also have experience with Royal Comission and Church issues and I have done LIFE reeeeeeelly hard.

Your quirky humour and wild imagination has to have a place on the planet or its the planets loss.

I dont want to interfere with you relating @Faith-and-Hope You is a gem and an angel.

You are a COmmunity Guide now @Phoenix_Rising and actually YOU Are bloody good at it.

Trust you more than the mods.

I need to log off and do irl stuff tomorrow.

Good Night Ladies.

I do care Phoenix.

@Appleblossom This story isn't even anything to do with my Royal Commission story. THAT story pertains to the fact that this same man who I see as my dad, is the man who failed to respond when I disclosed the abuse to him. He is NOT the abuser...but he is the person I went on to sue when I sued the church. That is a whooooooole other story. Do you see a muddle here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But that is not tonight's muddle.