Eating disorder and more - need a shoulder ......

A few weeks ago @Faith-and-Hope I began reading a book called, 'What Happened To You?' Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey.....I'm taking it slow to get through because it does make me sad now Mum has died and it is triggering. Persistent & chronic dissociation protected me, but stole my life at the same time. I've just been an observer of life, I never really felt right here.

I'm not mentioning this book so you go looking into your exes past, that is his job and responsibility as an adult who brought children into this world if he wishes to change, but more that something I read that I think says a lot about adult relationships too.

I went back trying to find the quote but couldn't see it.

It went something like this - Behaviour is love.

There is so much truth in your husbands behaviour. His behaviour is revealing what he doesn't have the balls to say. We so often get caught up in the words that people say to us, but they can be so fabricated. It's such a simple observation, but so true.

I just wanted to share that with you @Faith-and-Hope going forward in case he tries to manipulate you with hollow words to get what he wants in the courts, but also to protect your disabled child.

Corny

Hi @Corny

I just wanted to reach out to say that I’m so deeply sorry to hear about the sudden death of your mum and my heart goes out to you

Please know that I’m thinking of you at such a difficult time and sending you some very gentle and caring hugs

Take care of yourself,

ShiningStar

Thank you so kindly @ShiningStar. Mum Died suddenly last Monday the 9th. I'm in hard lock down in inner Sydney. My lil sib is my singles bubble buddy and my other sib is within 5km so I can exercise with her.

My longest relationship is over, the person I grew inside of is gone.

It was a very long and complicated journey with Mum. I am not romanticising her, or idolising her, but I guess that's why clinical psychologist's call it 'complex grief', there is deep love & mother/daughter bond, and incomprehensible rage due to DV & CSA and her not accepting my homosexuality. Of course I also adored her and tried my best to protect her for most of my life from my father and the judgment and ridicule of an ignorant society.

It will take me a long time to process all the different layers and complexity. I am worried about my family.

Maybe I hijacked @Faith-and-Hope because I know she is such a warm and snuggly Mum who would give a bear hug. I just jumped in her lap, I never really gave her any choice. My Aunt said that my sibs and I would body slam and kick our grandparents bedroom door down when we were little to jump into bed with Ma and Pop for kisses and cuddles. My grandfather who was very aloof and detached at times from his own trauma didn't know what to make of it....I think we softened him in his later life.

Thanks again for your support, Corny

❤️ @Corny .....

Morning @Corny @Zoe7 @Smc .... anyone else around .... 👋💕☕️

I am heading into online classes this morning, then supporting my three dependent ones this afternoon ..... I will check in for tags when I can. Hope y'all have an okay day.

You're such a great Mum @Faith-and-Hope supporting your 3 cubs.

I don't read many threads so don't know what part of Oz you are in, west or east. But I hope you that you enjoy your classes this semester and that you are enjoying the medium or subject matter you are studying at present. Have you had a favourite so far? Bloody irritates me knowing Uni's are online, was I really asking that much of The Institution I was at to let a chick with a disability study from home but join in via Zoom at the timetabled time, humph! Should have left when I changed degrees, they don't even mention the Disability Discrimination Act on their website.

I hope you have a nice background picture for your Zoom video, I never figured that out, I just had my mug shot, Corny

@Corny @Faith-and-Hope

Thanks @outlander 💞🌷

I have started responding to you twice over the last two days @Corny, and got waylaid with life-stuff suddenly dropping in, so my response timed out, but I thought I had sent it .....

Take 3 🎬

I am easterly at the moment.

No Zoom background ..... my OC doesn't have a camera and J won't buy a desktop one ..... had cameras in the house, phone and car stalling, emails hacked, texts and images 'shared', with ex ..... all too triggering.

I am sorry online sitting in on classes wasn't available to you when you wanted to study @Corny. Covid has brought it all in big-time, and now the facility is here I reckon it won't be gotten rid of easily even when we do go back face-to-face. It's allowing me to ping back to the west on occasion, and bring baby dragons together as much as I can.

More hugs incoming ..... 💜🌻

Thank you @outlander that is very sweet of you. We can't have Mum's funeral until next week as everything is booked out. There aren't many options in lock down as to where to have a funeral, even parks and gardens wouldn't let us so we just have to wait our turn with the delays. I took my PRN last night and slept 11hours, I really needed it. I hope that you are going well

@Faith-and-Hope I am so, so, so relieved this marriage is over. Take it from kids of DV....stalking online, surveillance, reading your personal conversations and breaching your privacy would escalate to physical violence eventually. And even if this seems weird to people who have never lived it, I am also so relieved his poodle stayed with him and didn't leave him. If she had, his ego could not handle it, and things at home for you would have exponentially exploded. My father knew that no one else would have him. He had no friends, and this just made his controlling behaviours go off the charts because as I have said to you many many times, abusive people cannot be on their own. They do not have the capacity. To feel powerful and strong they need someone to control. They are pathetic that way, they truly are.

There's never any pressure to reply @Faith-and-Hope that's not what the forums are about. I have been proactive in getting face-to-face support so never worry that I am on my own. I have Dr K, my Clin-Psych whose known me for about 13 years, the NDIS support workers and a Community Mental Health nurse I was linked in when I was discharged from hospital said I can contact her anytime.

Big warm Mumma Bear hugs to you Faith, I teared up reading your post out of relief and sadness......if only Mum had found the strength to leave him, but she just wans't built like that. Bowing to the patriarchy was modelled to her as a child and her low self esteem meant she had little chance, he had to die for us to be free of the ahole. Corny

While I didn't 'leave' my ahole @Corny, he left, but not intending it to be far, or for long. He moved his 'poodle' and her pups back into our condensed living complex when I didn't follow instructions and move out of the bigger living space and into the smaller one as he intended - the one they ended up living in ..... and I didn't toe the line by accepting an allowance to live in the smaller space in the shadow of their life as they paraded themselves all over our family spaces and family history ...... so I have little respect for her either. She may be controlled, but she had choices within tbat bubble, and she chose to be vindictive and obnoxious of her own accord.

I would be very happy to learn that she was one as well, and not a co-dependent as one might imagine, but only time will tell. I have heard her referred to as 'the gold-digger' by some who have met her, so that is coming from somewhere, and that also doesn't typify a co-dependent, so this could get very interesting yet ..... but not yet ..... so there is more time to swim as far away from that ship as possible, if I can just untangle enough of the ghost net it dropped when it left our shores ......

I didn't do anything I was ordered to do, not by him at least, but there are boundaries I have to observe from legal perspectives, but they can be a safe-harbour of sorts too ..... double-edged sometimes ...... but what about my situation isn't ? Just gotta keep paddling for now regardless.

I am so glad you have the supports around you that you do. And I am sorry you can't have the funeral in parks or gardens as well, but you will be able to hold ongoing memorial events in those settings in the years ahead. I mark my Mum's occasions with a base of flowers, candles, cooking dishes that she cooked for us growing up ...... remember her, honour her, within your life happenings, and she will 'be there' with you.

Hugs ❣️

Hugs to gorgeous @Zoe7 too, who has been walking along with me, and others, for a long time now, and who is taking a self-care time out ...... 💜