overall, pretty good

[jay]

I'm hoarse, my throat is sore, and I'm tipsy. My brother had tickets from work to an NFL game (Falcons vs. Panthers) and we went and screamed ourselves hoarse. patgreene tried to call once, but it was just too loud.

More importantly, I brought up some deep-seated issues with my parents today.



I brought up my past physical and sexual abuse issues, why I hadn't felt I could tell them at the time,and the anger that I had harbored, then and later. It was scary beforehand.

They gave me mixed messages, made it unsafe at home to bring it up when I'd been beaten or abused. Parenting is hard... I'm sure I'm making mistakes too with mine. Hindsight is easy.

Both of my parents were abused as children... my mother was the child of a likely-autistic alcoholic. She tried to make things nice... low stress, low energy so it would feel safe. Counselled me to turn the other cheek. Later beat up on herself for years afterward.

My father... his older brother died (of appendicitis) when he was three, then their father became only partially functional... like patgreene's case, except that instead of being ignored, he became a scapegoat and attracted weekly beatings with a pear branch by his father. He couldn't strike back then, or run away... hence his urging me to strike out at my tormentors. Projection, in opposite directions, from both parents. A cock-up, really...

(In a Hendrixian sense, it is pretty clear where I found some of the things I'm working on in my relationship with Pat...)

No ill intent... it was easier to conpare notes than I'd expected. This afteernoon, I helped with household projects until time to leave for the game... made harder there after Coby lost our tickets (we subsequently got them reissued).

Comments

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

(hug)

I am glad that you got to have the conversation, and that you are now through all of the fears of anticipating/worrying about it.

It sounds like things went better than worst case scenario, but I'm not getting a sense from you of how "well" they went or how you feel about it. In your post, I see "relieved" and some understanding of your parents' failures and where they came from. I don't know what else you might be feeling.

I'm impressed by the strength it took to go there with your parents.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Congratulations for doing some very hard work.

[who-is-she.livejournal.com]

many big hugs to you Brian.
I am so glad you were able to talk with your parents.
Sending you lots of good vibes.
:)

[geekchick]

I'm glad you got to have the conversation with your parents, I hope that it ended up helping you to get to talk about this stuff with them finally.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Things this makes me wonder:

How much of your parents' stories had you known before?
How receptive were they to discussing this with you?
Did you give them any hints ahead of time that you hoped to have this kind of discussion in that short visit?

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Hints... hm. Only to the extent that my mother could read my discussions that were in public LJ entries. I had known that her father was an alcoholic... and that her mother had been beaten at times, not that the kids there were also targets. I had not known about my father's stories, i.e., why he dreaded Fridays as a kid (his father returned home on Fridays) or why he was relieved to leave home when he joined the Air Force.

They were both receptive, my father was pretty relaxed about it. He's always been a good storyteller or narrator, and he is able to distance himself enough to talk about it openly. He was sad and disappointed at some of my revelations, but not surprised.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

It was one of the most emotionally-healthy things I've done in recent history, I think. Possibly for all concerned. =)

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your support Friday night, and for hugs. :)

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

And thanks for your encouragement in going there, over the past few months.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

It was cathartic in its own way, and I understand them (and myself) better, and see where Murphy simply took over at times. The pent-up anger and sadness towards them over these things, by being voiced is much reduced, just a faint shadow of what it was. And I'm sympathetic towards them... they admittedly made decisions that in hindsight weren't the best, but their intentions were good, they loved me, and they reacted as they did in understandable ways given their own upbringings. It wasn't that I didn't deserve love and support, or that it was overlooked... more that my abuse issues as a kid triggered their own deep-seated issues from their own.

Just as I undoubtedly react to say, David's issues with his classmates in ways that reflect my own past pain and fear...

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Okay, that is really amazingly impressive, on your part but especially on your parents' part.

I have a theory that people who are self-aware and courageous end up healthier and happier than their parents, generation by generation. Everything I've read about your son James makes me think he will be a very impressive adult, having benefitted from all your and Pat's personal work.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

My father's father -- who caned him weekly, and once threw him down a stairwell -- himself ran away from the family farm at age 14 with only a 4th-grade education... of the six boys on that farm (in Sanford, NC), four ran away. One can only imagine that it was a harsh place in the early 1900s. Successive generations have arguably been progressively healthier and happier, overall...

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

(hug)

sounds like its is the sort of healing that not only happens a big bit at once, but is likely to continue to heal more, and at a deeper level, as time goes on.