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2013
Dec 22, 2013 15:08:30 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 22, 2013 15:08:30 GMT 10
So ... this is random ...
I'm just starting to realise how crummy being a kid was, and just how much impact it's had on the rest of my life. I know, I know, it's a cliche right? Blame everything on our parents. That's the problem ... that's why it's taken me this long to figure it out. All those comedians who created that cliche in the first place - I think those pricks had something to hide.
And wow, has it hit me. It hasn't been a "suddenly everything is obvious" moment. It's more that I've started to find that I can actually think about why I think and feel the way I do about things, and it's sort of more like a building realisation over a period of months, and it's only really just started. And I'm 43. I'm a bit angry at the moment about lost time.
None of it seems very obvious - it's not the stuff that stands out or gets anyone's attention. Just starve a kid of attention, positive emotional feedback, self-esteem, validation, stability. Joke about abandoning them, their appearance, their intelligence, anything else that might otherwise allow them to feel acceptable and human. It doesn't take a lot. Chuck in some permanent financial hardship at home, in a suburb of rising affluence and kids at school will do a lot of the work for free. Throw in some arbitrary physical punishment and random, well-targeted and very personal (and completely bogus, it should be said) criticism, and bob's your uncle. Now, maybe that's a part of every kid's life - but what if there's never anything else? Imagine that being normal.
And that's without even mentioning some of the really, really unfortunate world view issues. They were easy to address using reason, the other stuff not so much.
What started the process (and it's pretty recent) is the most bizarrely tiny thing - I might post about that later. It was very strange, basically set in motion by a crush on a girl.
Meanwhile, well over a decade seeing a therapist missed the point completely - that guy's getting the boot in the new year, and he'll know why. I'm pretty angry about that too. Fucking furious, in fact.
I didn't go home for xmas this year. I postponed it for the time being (on the advice of a friend who could see what state I was in at the prospect), but I still have to work out if or what I'm going to say when I get there. I think it's probably pointless - they're not people who're ever going be able to comprehend what I'm talking about, probably because I don't think they had any better themselves - they've angrily cut ties with their own families, they'll write off friends and family over the slightest disagreement or slight. I don't think I need to guess where that's coming from.
So I've recently become painfully aware of the importance of parents. I'm sorry to say that I treat my pets better than I think some parents treat their kids. A few of years ago I was in the parking lot of a coles, and a complete fuckstick of a father was walking home with his son and the groceries. The kid had his eyes buried in the ground, and didn't see a car reversing out of a park. The car saw him though, stopped, no biggie ... but then dad went off. He screamed the most soul-crushing stream of belittling, emotionally abusive, corrosively personal criticism of his son imaginable ... and kept it up until they'd both disappeared from sight around a corner. He appeared to have the routine worked out, too - he was really into it. A few of us were watching, frozen, just speechless. I felt like crying. That kid is going to grow up to be, at absolute best, an abusive father. At worst, he'll kill himself before he gets that far. Somewhere in between there's the option of crime and a life in prison. Not much else seems very likely, and by now I suspect that there's not a lot that anyone could do to help change that outcome.
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zoot
Junior Member
Posts: 58
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2013
Dec 22, 2013 22:44:37 GMT 10
Post by zoot on Dec 22, 2013 22:44:37 GMT 10
What can I say? Have been through a similar experience and without being condescending, now that you are aware of the causes you have the chance to repair some of the damage. It won't be easy. Best wishes for your journey Matthew; there's people here who care.
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2013
Dec 23, 2013 16:09:08 GMT 10
Post by jack on Dec 23, 2013 16:09:08 GMT 10
I guess I'm at the more fortunate end of the scale, my parents were mostly well-meaning even if they didn't really have much of a clue. Then again, I could afford to be more magnanimous, as it was my brother, the eldest, who suffered most the old man's caprice and occasional fits of rage. I was his favourite of the two boys, while our sister, the youngest, was the apple of the old man's eye and could do nothing that would invoke his wrath. The old man died from cancer when we were in our early 20s/late-teens. He left a lot of unresolved stuff which perhaps can never be resolved now. My brother took his understandable anger with him to the grave just a few years back. But oddly it's been my sister who's uttered some really bitter stuff about the old man in these latter years. I began to piece a few things together over my middle-age years. That would appear to be when these things begin coming home to roost in earnest. So I wish you well with it, MoC. It's certainly very wise to put off spending any time with your family now. You will know if and when the time is right to go back there. Don't know if the following will help cheer you any, but anyway for the record... remember the Time Magazine 100 Most Influential List? Yeah, neither did I until I was reviewing some notes from earlier this year. Well, the results are in... er, have in fact been since April. So, guess who ranked 13th in Teh List? *drum roll* *i know you know what's coming but drum roll* Julia Gillard ...with a total of 54,893 votes. That's comprised of 20,157 For and 34,736 Against her being on the list. Seems the anti-Gillard hate campaign worked a treat. time100.time.com/2013/03/28/time-100-poll/slide/the-results/
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2013
Dec 24, 2013 9:58:16 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 24, 2013 9:58:16 GMT 10
Thanks for your response :-)
"my parents were mostly well-meaning even if they didn't really have much of a clue"
I think mine were (and are) well meaning too. I just wonder if they didn't have great role-models to work with, and I think they'd absorbed some unfortunate ideological positions.
Who here reckons "controlled crying" sounds like complete insanity? A colleague was talking about how awesome it was a few years ago. I was baffled even then - almost as baffled as the time another colleague declared that she refused to allow any gender-specific toys or other trappings in the house because she thought gender roles were completely imposed and she didn't want any of that. I really couldn't think of a response better than "um, ok".
"My brother took his understandable anger with him to the grave just a few years back. But oddly it's been my sister who's uttered some really bitter stuff about the old man in these latter years"
It's interesting to see that reflection in siblings - you know it really isn't just you. In my/our case I think the evidence is pretty clear also.
Try googling this stuff and it's remarkable how little there is to be found on resolving it. The most insightful (but brief) discussions are associated with a thing called "Attachment Therapy", which appears to be a specific "process" offered in the US, but of questionable evidentiary foundation. I had a chat with a friend in a similar situation and she was of the view that you basically just have to re-learn from scratch using ideas from things like CBT.
I'm particularly frustrated that I've been seeing a guy for many years, and that did make things better - mostly thanks do the drugs (SSRIs are brilliant), but for most of the last decade we've just gone around in circles with him wanting to know what I was going to do differently. We skipped over kid-stuff in the first couple of chats and I don't think we ever went back to it. Madness.
"I began to piece a few things together over my middle-age years. That would appear to be when these things begin coming home to roost in earnest"
That's interesting, isn't it? It seems to be universal. I was joking a few months back that I thought I was having a midlife crisis. Maybe I am? I have no particular interest in a sports car, but I AM finding myself slightly smitten by some wonderful girls in their mid-20's. That's actually what got me disgruntled enough about the state that I'm in to start really questioning how I got here. And no, I'm lot leching at anyone :-) Although I am enjoying chatting and bantering with them - I think I'm probably fairly transparent, and they don't seem to mind, so that's nice. I don't think entanglements right now is a good idea, although it would be nice (maybe with somebody a bit older than her 20's ...), so it's perhaps helpful motivation to get cracking and tidy myself up!
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2013
Dec 24, 2013 11:07:57 GMT 10
Post by angra on Dec 24, 2013 11:07:57 GMT 10
MoC - I don't know whether this is useful or relevant, but I have had a long journey to find an identity after being brought up in a strict religious atmosphere by well-meaning but rather short-sighted parents. What I found was surprising. The things only a child knows and remembers about their parents under pressure!
I remember mum and dad having an argument 35 years ago. Mum said "You never do that for my bloody parents!"
I'd never heard her swear, and this cut me to the core. After a few more disagreeable incidents, I plucked up courage and said to my Dad (who I perhaps inadvisedly worshipped) when I was a teenager , "Why don't you leave her?"
Soon after that I was with him when he was driving and we had a car crash. Only the car was damaged. But I think it changed him.
His reply - "That wouldn't solve anything. I love your mum and we have to work things out."
Mum was I believe an (what is the right term?) obsessive-compulsive; Dad was a bit of a "let it all hang out" type of guy. But sure enough they loved each other dearly. And when my mum died of cancer 15 years ago Dad almost had a breakdown.
But he found another woman - an old childhood sweetheart - and remarried within a year. My sister couldn't take this, and at first refused to attend the wedding. I remember spending hours talking to her to try to bring her around, which eventually worked.
To this day I do not know why my sis was so opposed to Dad finding a new love so soon after mum's death, whereas I accepted it as a normal course of events. To be truthful I never really liked it, but pragmatically I thought it was for the best. And so it has proved to be, although both are now in a nursing home and suffering the inevitable ravages of old-age.
Maybe going through a divorce myself at the time (and losing a son) helped put a different perspective on things.
Strangely Dad is the one with dementia, step-mum is disabled but still as bright as a spark, though older.
His only focus now is on the past, good chocolate, and watching old British sit-coms on TV. Not bad for 89 I suppose.
Such is life.
And death.
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2013
Dec 24, 2013 11:21:47 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 24, 2013 11:21:47 GMT 10
"My sister couldn't take this, and at first refused to attend the wedding. I remember spending hours talking to her to try to bring her around, which eventually worked"
Being a girl she probably had a different perspective, and perhaps interpreted it as dad abandoning her mum.
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2013
Dec 24, 2013 11:35:30 GMT 10
Post by angra on Dec 24, 2013 11:35:30 GMT 10
Matt - I don't think being a girl was the reason. I think it was different personalities. This happens.
We both visited Bankok. I thought it was great, and hired a tuk-tuk, saw palaces, rode an elephant and had dinner on a barge on the Chao Phraya, past the floating markets etc. I know - all the usual touristy stuff, but I got stuck into it with a vengeance.
My sister visited Bankok a few years later, and had culture shock. After her first walk outside the hotel she was in a state of terror and refused to take a step outside the hotel. The smells, the sights, the 'other' just frightened her.
Can't explain it. It's not gender though. My present wife could wade into a jungle and cut the head off a wild pig with no problems (and has done!).
People are different, and we just have to acknowledge that.
Maybe that's one reason I have enjoyed living in different countries around the world, but sis never stepped outside of her comfort zone.
Sadly she died 18 months after mum - of the same cancer - so now I'm supposed to be 'worried'. But I say bugger it - give life hell!
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2013
Dec 24, 2013 15:12:18 GMT 10
Post by jack on Dec 24, 2013 15:12:18 GMT 10
Rupert is 'home' for Christmas, announcing on twitter... Just landing in Australia after endless flight. Worth it. What's better than family Xmas, even in heat wave?
It would be churlish to point out that even with 30-odd characters remaining, Rupe still had to abbreviate 'Christmas', but ... oooh ... I did anyway. Rupe tweets sparingly, but within 24 hours came... Australia in deep economic trouble left by last six year wildly incompetent govt. New govt must take quick, painful actions.
I considered tweeting back asking what level of 'pain' he would be willing to tolerate, then saw the editorial in the Oz, which by uncanny coincidence trumpetted... Deep cuts are needed
www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/frank-forecasts-are-great-but-deep-cuts-are-needed/story-e6frg71x-1226788510266 And the following day... A sustainable welfare system
www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/a-sustainable-welfare-system/story-e6frg71x-1226789132741 It's perhaps a non-question as to whether Rupe has been reading the Oz, or his team at the Oz have been 'reading' him. It's pretty clear, however, that they and Tonez are all on the same page. We can only dare hope that together they will prevail over the elites that run this country. Meanwhile, a suggestion for your holiday reading. Not highly recommended, but a novel take. How to read Rupert Murdoch’s Twitter feed neilchenoweth.com/2013/11/19/how-to-read-rupert-murdochs-twitter-feed/
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2013
Dec 24, 2013 15:41:13 GMT 10
Post by jack on Dec 24, 2013 15:41:13 GMT 10
Not long after the old man died, I spent some time with his older brother (i.e., my uncle) in Westfriesland, Netherlands, around about 1980.
He told me, "All your dad's friends who went to Australie were lucky, but your dad was not lucky. He almost died when he was still young and 'though he tried so hard, never really got back on his feet."
I had a sketchy knowledge about some of that, but what my uncle told me gave me an epiphany of sorts. The old man had his first battle with cancer when we kids were babies. His young family was more or less abandoned by the cohort circle of Dutch expatriates he thought were his friends. Over the years I've been advised by some not to leap to judgement, because in those days there was little awareness that most cancers are not communicable diseases.
Well okay, so virtually destitute our family was given refuge by a childless couple - complete strangers, a Dutchman and his Russian wife, who became life-long friends - who gave the 4 of us (sis hadn't arrived yet) the upper level of their relatively modest place in Elsternwick. (How I still love that name, El-stern-wick!) That was the upper level, the old girl still complains, where the roof leaked literally like a sieve.
Obviously the old man recovered to live another almost 20 years, slowly getting back on his feet. My parents reconnected with those fairweather friends but it couldn't ever be the same, could it? Those people were living the Australian Dream, while my father, his body permanently ravaged by his illness, struggled the rest of his remaining years to provide for his family.
After what uncle told me, I remembered the hurt, bitter tones of conversations between my parents half heard from the next room when they thought we kids couldn't hear. And a sense that our family's acceptance in a tight clique of the Nouveau Australian nouveau riche was really rather provisionally given under sufferance of almost grudging obligation.
So to this day I'm still prey to a sense - ingrained in me, I think, particularly by the old girl - that however well things might seem to be going, it's really only hideously provisional.
Objectively that's a truism anyway, but I've learned that the key to living successfully (I don't mean necessarily in a material sense) and happily is kidding yourself that it's possible to prevail. Take that leap of faith, and the universe may well surprise you. At least, while your 'luck' holds out.
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2013
Dec 25, 2013 7:48:50 GMT 10
Post by angra on Dec 25, 2013 7:48:50 GMT 10
Merry Christmas and a great new year to you all!
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jreidy
Junior Member
Posts: 60
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Post by jreidy on Dec 25, 2013 17:04:31 GMT 10
I have started (well 6months ago) for an Aus online video company. We run for one of our Malaysian customers a site like ABCs iview, but for Malaysia. Apparently one Kerry Packer type there owns the equivalent of 7/9 and 10 tv stations. Anyway a couple of weeks ago I had to check some tv shows, one was a series called "Eagle Shooting Heroes" I started to watch episode 14 or 15 and the credits rolled. It appeared to be a bit like "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" a medieval setting with bit of magic, all in Malay. the show started, one of the characters, a hero I guessed based on how one of the girls was looking at him, was on horse. He stood up in the saddle, drew his bow, and pause for dramatic effect, some more dramatic music, then a close up, finally he shot an arrow, up in the sky it went, and shot down an eagle. everyone cheered. Now maybe in Ep 13 they have a story about an evil troublesome eagle, and our hero comes along and solves the problem, but I am not so sure. I thought the series name was a metaphor, but apparently not.
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jreidy
Junior Member
Posts: 60
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Post by jreidy on Dec 25, 2013 17:35:17 GMT 10
MOC and others, I just read from the top of the page. (sorry about my flippant Eagle shooting story). I have been very fortunate, and had a great childhood. Having kids taught me a lot. I can see how there are many reasons why people stuff up parenting and then bring about problems for another generation: Maybe they are resentful for their loss of freedom, Or themselves are immature
I am self conscious about giving any advice to someone from what I see is a fortunate position, I could say look at each day as it comes, forgetting about what happened before.
I will say, it seems that women do have a thing for older guys.
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