Sleeping too much

Hi @Former-Member Hope kids enjoyed dinner.

@Former-Member I think part of the "mother" issue is that it is also a role and position and we can mix up what is due to be in the position and what is part of our own individuality.

Grief is greedy and exposes wounds so sore that it is really hard to know how to tend them. I used to hate the saying 'time heals", but really for me, the wounds have been so tender, not the most sensitive nurse or kindest spirit could have helped. So that helps me lose my anger at the world for not being able to connect with me in my troubles. Time did heal .. but it was a bloody long time.

Yesterday, I was able to be chatty in choir, when a genuine person asked how I was, (he is a minister but there as an individual, as others run the show for commercial reasons and a love of art.) I could touch on the topic. "About fun at a wedding of the kids of .. My brother, who is long dead ... " There was also a young girl in her 20s in convo, who knows my son .. and I didnt want it to be dramatic and all about me .. so I thing that shows there is healing in me.

@Decadian & @Teeej .. son calls .. singing session .. C U all

I am ok. @Former-Member Nothing direct to you .. I dont really believe in advice or that one person knows better than other .. in these matters of the heart .. Please dont read anything negative into it .. I am catching up after a few days away and keep conversation going in a way that also relates to my present time experience.

I think you expect a great deal from "mother love". We all do. It is set up in mythology as the greatest and most complete of all loves. I did and put myself through the most stringent of interior tests, to prove my love to myself. Maybe inspite of all the little judgements I recieved when the girls were little.

You put in a heap of love for your kids. its difficult as single and divorced mum and your son does you proud but you gave yourself a tough time in guilt for your girl's death. I can never know what you went through. There are only some similarities between our stories, that I cant presume how anything is for you. I was just overjoyed and felt all sorts of complicated rushes of emotion when we first started sharing our stories.

I am so glad you let us know that you managed to get through her birthday without turning grief against yourself. Really Glad. Thank you for sharing that with us.

I dont know about expectations about others .. mine are always too low .. but my expectations of myself are to give my best .. I am pleasantly surpirsed when I have good experiences .. like meeting you .. or feeling genuinely and emotionally included in the rehearsal on Sunday. I knew the organisers were supportive of me musically, but the other parts of me are huge and actually they are all intertwined .. you were a singer .. how can one sing operatic material without touching on those deepest parts of ourself?

Someone once said, "you think its all about you" to me. and that person is a lovely person in his own way .. but has a centre of attention addiction which he frankly admits .. and has apologised for that comment .. but I was probably responding to his taunt when I expressed my conversation in that way. It wasnt reflecting on your family's comment about it being all about you.

I was also walking a bit on eggshells as I did not want to fall apart in a public venue in a social demographic that might influence my son's future life. We get together twice per year for performances in Janurary and February. I was also relating to a grief that was 20 years old .. but still deep with many ramifications .. so felt it important to pat myself on the back for negotiating it at all. it was also just nice .. that the bloke (80s) and young girl (20s) were nice to me .. but because he was a minister I told him last year about bro's death .. which I am sure he remembered. I am sure its becasue he takes christianity seriously that he bothered to speak to me.The girl was talented, grateful for my son's tips, but also very anxious so I didnt want to burden her.

For me it is a healing of MY RAGE AT THE WHOLE WORLD for not caring about us .. so pretty important .. that i can let go of my anger and have a good time.

YOU have cared about me and included me in your internet family .. and me you ..

I cant really relate to your mother .. at all .. maybe she was a bit like one of my fosters .. I did wonder if she was trying to reach out, but dancing around things and not sure how to connect with you ... I dont know why she has been unable to be adequately loving for her children and I'm not interested in justifying her at all.

Expectations and hopes seem interrelated. @Former-Member I am glad you raised it "directly" if the questions occurred to you, but I was not really trying to make a point. Just saying hi.

i do have feelings about people online on the forum. I am not sure that is wrong, but they are not heated feelings .. more warm and mostly comforting.. feeling its my tribe.

Thanks for hug .. @Former-Member GOt it in real time.

I would have been really distressed if you had taken what I said the wrong way.

I hope you find a good musical group too ... it will be good for you and the others .. as voices raised together are inspiring .. but you right about the "inner song" thing ... when I had my episode a month ago .. and started on mood stabiliser I felt my voice drop and found it dificult to speak let alone sing. So I was glad I found a friend in one choir who I had been completely honest with and she knew about incident. She advised me to cancel an auditon and gave me an audition preparation session on Saturday. I really appreciated it as .. I have never felt up to being a soloist in the singing thing .. not had all the extra training that many have done ... I would have fronted up rain or shine .. but it has felt like good self-care to take her advice and buy a bit of time for the audition process for me.

Maybe music will be something for you in the next year .. I am not sure how big a town you live in .. whats available .. or what kind of group you want .. it can be triggering and healing at the same time .. but has been worth it for me.

I was so pleased when @Former-Member inspired me to join the zoo.

Hi @Former-Member

i hope you realise you need a bloody big stick to chase me away 😝 And that's not possible online so I guess you're stuck with me 😁. I know things are still feeling pretty rocky for you at the moment. I agree with @Faith-and-Hope with just go gently at the moment. Just find all the moments of peace and calmness you can and appreciate them to take the presssure of yourself. I kind of get how you feel at the moment trying to process so much all at once when emotions are still running high. I do this all the time and @Faith-and-Hope especially has got good at putting the breaks on me to just breathe. I hope you have a good day tomorrow. Thinking of you💜🤗💐

Oh wow @Former-Member

There is a face in the cloud, a male with a pronouced chin and brow-ridges - he doesns't scare me though - but I must take another look at the original - and how creepy!!

I really understand the emotional abuse of your mother - I had too much of it myself - so I really "get it"

It's still not two years since my mother died - and she really paid for her abuse - I am a forgiving person - it's my nature - I don't want to carry other people's bags of misery around with me - and the last time I saw her I stroked her hand and wiped the tears from her eyes and we did not speak - no words got in the way and as we are both of Irish descent we could understand each other completely and I could see her anguish and sorrow - I am the better sister - the Mary sister - and she chose the daughter like herself - and I keep reminding myself that my mother made her choice about which sister to keep and which to discard and knew she made the wrong choice - actually the choice would have been to have loved both of us - but she was an unhappy woman and it gave me no pleasure to see the spirit that served her - my long inner journey to find her paid off for me.

So I see - and it is good to get feedback too - I write and write - and often wonder if I say too much - but I am sincere in what I write - it comes from my own experience - I have lived it

There are cruel Mums out there - if a person has not had the experience of a cruel mother - even people who share that mother - have not been ill-treated - how can they understand? My mother would needle me to get a reaction and rarely got one - but my ex-boyfriend told me I had a face - I would close him out - and he would see himself - it's called projection . I know when I get that face and I am sure I closed my mother and her wormword and gall out - and she hated me for it - she saw herself - perhaps confused - and hated herself for it

Yes - it was my mother who died last year and my repressed memories came back at her funeral - piece of work - oh yes - I actually have trouble even telling someone what she did - I can't write it down - I think if I did that it would be true - but it is true. We should not speak ill of the dead - and not because they cannot defend themselves but because they might hear us - - - - strange idea that. They can't defend themselves but that doesn't mean that were right - they were wrong

dd is "dear daughter" - ss would be "sweet sister" but my sister is TS. Some people who have been abused abuse their children but I didn't and I doubt you would - the people whose stories I have been reading for years now on line are people who have suffered but have learned and decided to let it stop with them - and I have,

I will call out if I have a bad time with the approaching dates - the harder date is on the 16th Dec when we bought this troubled baby home and he was screaming and rigid - and with what I know now he was in pain and with his sensitive hearing and our polished board floors his voice must have echoes around and around making this worse exponentially - my hearing was damaged a bit in the higher registers at some stage - probably then with a baby whose agony is past description

That pain gets less as the years pass. I guess there is less space for it in a full life - but when it happens it is a major thing - it hit me hard when I woke up in Canberra on the anniversary of his death - I rang Life Line twice just to get out of the hotel room - I was okay after that and from the plane I saw a glorious sunset

He doesn't talk to me anymore - but I believe he sends me messages - he sent me that sunset on the way back from Canberra - I have not seen the sunset from a plane before and it was sensational. Maybe he put that face in the cloud for me too - or maybe for you - considering his mixed race it is a bit like him - he is 15 in the photo I can see from here - by now he would be getting craggy

Yeah - that would be him. Before he came in the dream and told me he was leaving he would be crying for help in my dreams - but I think it was when I got my cat 13 years ago he told me he was leaving - and he has.

Still sometimes I sense a male presence near me - and I turn quickly but there is no one there - so we can see it as a blessing - and with sense after all the years of torment from a suicide - mostly - it has past

My love to you Tawney

Decadian

Dear @Decadian

I keep on looking at your message, it accidently opens when I open my messages, thank you. EAch time I read it it makes me feel good that you have messaged me.

My choise is to have married a man dignosed with Chronic Paranoid Schizophrenia. This was my choice. I had a chance to take back my marriage vows when I left him for 18 months but I got back with him.He doesnt want me to write about our relationship tonight but It is very good, he has crossed turbulant waters where lots wouldnt have.

Enough about him.

Yes, I imagine my life alone...

1. More money.

2. Reading ANY book I want.

3. More money.

4. Watching whatever I want on Tv.

What I wouldnt have:

someone like him to extend my mind in writing this novel.

Because unfortunatly, I am hampered with huge panic attacks even if he isnt here with me.

Thank you for your last comment to me, you are truly a wise and kind lady. You have been through and taken in and learnt much. Unlike a lot of others I know......

PP