*helping* nadas, just my opinion..

[Guest guest]

It is hard to watch our parents get older, go through painful life

changes, and yet not 'grow' emotionally. I agree with you and T completely; if

things were better we would want to help our aging BP parents. Some things,

some people, never change.

At 71 my nada no longer bothers to be covert but is smug as she sneers 'that

is what you deserve' when caught carrying out some plot. That smugness is the

look that she tried to conceal for so many decades as she pretended to care;

(eyes squint in anger, mouth set, head thrown back/chin high...like a proud

toddler who knows nothing is going to happen to her, she wins even when she

loses. She cannot see the difference, still.

I'm wrestling with the same 'should...if only I could' things. I can't give

up myself again though, and will not go back. Not content to accept our

'gifts', our nadas want it all to be about them and will pull us back in if we

get

too close. Carol

One day while talking to my T, I told her that I wished things could

be different with nada, that I could help her now that she is a

widow, etc and she said " yeah, that would be great if helping her

really helped her, if things actually got better. " And I realized

when I feel guilty it is because I feel i *should* be " helping her "

in some way, but you can't help someone who doesn't want it. I think

that is why bp's have a hard time being alone. They want someone

around to absorb their pain and fill their emptiness. They are soul

suckers and here I was trying to help her get to the store, or to a

doctors appt. We had two different agendas, I was doing the *right*

thing and hoping she would start doing for herself, and she just

wanted me present, someone upon whom to unload her fear and darkness

and also to suck out my good energy. So, we are trying to give them

something they don't want and can't accept. If I could see her in

energy form, nada would be dark, empty and holding a big suction pump

ready to plug into whomever would let her. I know this sounds harsh

and I wish it were different, but that is how I see her, dangerous

and hungry and desperate. So when I think " I wish I could help her " I

realize, she doesn't want help, she wants much, much more.....

[Guest guest]

One day while talking to my T, I told her that I wished things could

be different with nada, that I could help her now that she is a

widow, etc and she said " yeah, that would be great if helping her

really helped her, if things actually got better. " And I realized

when I feel guilty it is because I feel i *should* be " helping her "

in some way, but you can't help someone who doesn't want it. I think

that is why bp's have a hard time being alone. They want someone

around to absorb their pain and fill their emptiness. They are soul

suckers and here I was trying to help her get to the store, or to a

doctors appt. We had two different agendas, I was doing the *right*

thing and hoping she would start doing for herself, and she just

wanted me present, someone upon whom to unload her fear and darkness

and also to suck out my good energy. So, we are trying to give them

something they don't want and can't accept. If I could see her in

energy form, nada would be dark, empty and holding a big suction pump

ready to plug into whomever would let her. I know this sounds harsh

and I wish it were different, but that is how I see her, dangerous

and hungry and desperate. So when I think " I wish I could help her " I

realize, she doesn't want help, she wants much, much more.....

[Guest guest]

> So when I think " I wish I could help her " I

> realize, she doesn't want help, she wants much, much more.....

,

Yup I think you're right. But I feel like it is very normal for

people who see others, especially their mothers, to have it come

very naturally to want to help. Does anyone think that not being

able to help in a natural (not codependent) way is detrimental?

Maybe that's why so many KOs can develop the codependent traits,

looking for someone who wants help to give it to, even when it's

not a healthy situation (because we were never given a healthy

situation in which to learn the difference between helping and

caretaking). I don't know. I really think though helping comes

naturally and in " normal " relationships, that are healthy, a person

can learn a great deal... and we haven't been able to do that.

Or maybe I'm completely off. I have just found that even when I

have been able to distance myself from my mom, as a child, it was

VERY DIFFICULT for me to resist that urge to help or the feeling

that there had to be something someone could to do make things

better... And it's STILL hard for me to put it into perspective,

that helping vs caretaking thing.

[Guest guest]

It took me a really, really long time to understand this part. I

couldn't understand why my nada would send me letters or email full

of hateful words and accusations (this was of course after I cut off

verbal contact with her, because I couldn't tolerate the poison she

spat at me in person or over the phone), but yet she would ignore any

response I would send her. It hurt more because I just didn't

understand it, but now I do - she doesn't care about how I feel about

it, nor is she interested in what I did or didn't do, or my reasons

or motivations, or what I would say to defend myself. Most of the

time, what she says isn't even remotely true, but it doesn't matter

to her. To her, I'm just a convenient container for her hate and

rage. She throws her darkness at me to make herself feel better.

<-- working on being a much less convenient hate/rage

container

> and she just wanted me present, someone upon whom to unload her

fear and darkness and also to suck out my good energy. If I could see

her in energy form, nada would be dark, empty and holding a big

suction pump ready to plug into whomever would let her. I know this

sounds harsh and I wish it were different, but that is how I see her,

dangerous and hungry and desperate.