Re: life being fair

January 10, 2010

hi ,

no, life isn't fair...not for any of us. it's more important what you do

with that life ...and not sit there and waste it like 2 of my sibling

did...blaming nada for every bit of trouble and unfairness in their

lives...they never applied themselves, they never tried, they were victims,

and played the victim roll perfectly...helpless, they let life pass them

by...and at the end ( MY brother died in 2004 at age 52, my sister will be

61 next month) they have nothing to show for their time here on

earth...sure, my sister had 2 kids...but she didn't DO anything...never

seems to have any joy in life...how sad...please dont go down that

road...life is a struggle for most everyone on this planet...and we fight

because living IS worth it !

Jackie

Good morning all~

Reading the different emails this morning brought to my mind a few things.

The one about childhood trauma being under recognized in the medical field.

This seems counter-intuitive to me, but then again sometimes scientists can

be so ignorant about things beyond their range of study. Thank goodness for

those who pioneered the work in studying childhood trauma. But it made me

think about my own self; it has been hard for me to connect with the damage

that was done to me from various sources. I have tried in therapy, but

curiously no therapist would really 'go there' with me, because of course I

was resistant, the shame being the hardest thing to overcome.

And now when I think of those things, I just don't feel like I want to get

wrapped up in the sadness and helplessness I felt; the vulnerability. And

that is because my current life situation is just too hard, too close to the

'going down the tubes' feeling. So I struggle to move forward and can't

afford to feel anything but what is going on now. That being said, I have

tried to find a therapist but under my insurance, they are either a distance

away or not taking new clients. One was a psy d (which I wanted this time

around) and she had a social worker call me back. I felt put off and did

not want to see a social worker (no offense to them; but I sort of wanted to

try a new approach: analysis, strengths and weaknesses, tools to overcome

resistance; rather than: oh, that sounds terrible, me: cry cry, feel

ashamed. They did what? and: here's your homework, and so on).

So this is where the comment: Life is not fair comes in. I have been really

tortured the past couple years about how this world is. Not for me, but for

all the destitute and victimized. It makes it hard for me to really feel

that my troubles matter, but it also makes me feel hopeless. My: life is

not fair realization has made me feel a bit despairing. But bits of freedom

are starting to peek in. Because I feel that if life is not fair, then if I

have the power in myself to do better for myself, it is up to me to get

somewhere. I don't have to life poorly because of the despair in the world.

The part about Nada's treating children differently...Well I have always

seen this in my family. And what I can see now (especially with my sister

gone) how this set us up for rivalries and disconnectedness. While my

mother always lamented: why can't you all love each other? When she was the

one who set us apart from each other. She was the one who would let my

brother bully me because she did not want to intervene (don't fight...I

can't take it...I am a mental cripple).

I realize how this set us up (at least I know my sister and I had this

issue) against the issue of " fairness " . Not just between us, but with the

world! My sister really struggled with this. Whereas I felt as I got older

it was immature to think that way, inside, I still sure did. My mother acts

the 'waif' but I noticed long ago what power she wielded with that behavior.

In her 'weak' acting, she got all of us attached to her in various ways. My

brother is so sucked in he gets outraged at anyone who causes her discomfort

or trouble. Her perceptions.

I was raised in what you might call a semi upper middle class white family

in America. My dad was a lawyer, my mom was a stay at home mom. She did

not really take care of us past the age of 12 ( she made dinners), and

emotionally neither ever took care of us. We had a decent lifestyle. So

who can complain, right? People don't see behind the facade. People don't

see the learned helplessness, the struggle to overcome tremendous shame, the

deep deep scars and open wounds from multiple suicide attempts and father's

emotional detachment. We seem like a normal family on the outside.

But..... as time went on, people could see the bad things. Only I think

they don't get where it came from.

I am hoping that understanding Life Is Not Fair really does set me free. I

hope that losing my expectations and idealizations will help me to be free.

And that I can live my life better with heart break and not let it pull me

under.

~patricia

January 10, 2010

Hi Jackie~

You know...I guess what I meant was exactly what you described...that there is

this childish need in us for things to be *fair* and it is a cruel lesson in

life that we all have to learn that life isn't fair. Sometimes we can ease this

for our children by teaching it at a young age, but also giving them fair

treatment just to show them that they deserve it; that people can BE fair, but

*life* itself is not fair. I think I learned it a long time ago, with some

adjustments along the way.

That is probably normal; you know, when you might be sort of kicked out of the

*class* (social/economic) you were in, as happened to me when I got divorced and

became a single mom. Or if you get fired from a job, things that happen to

everybody.

My sister had a 'not fair' thing going on; she felt like she was a good person

and it was 'not fair' that her friends abandoned her after her bad period of

drug use and never came back to her. Or 'not fair' that my father paid for a

'fancy' wedding for me and my ex (waste of money in retrospect, but a fun party

at the time) and not give her one when she got married at 17 when pregnant. She

carried these things, which I understand. They indicated to her some personal

flaw that she couldn't figure out. (She was the baby of the family too).

When my dad died and left us kids nothing, I have carried a big " not fair " since

then. I know I should let it go, and what choice do I have? But I guess it is

because it says something about how he thought of us (or that is what I am

assuming); that his wife wouldn't even give us a token amount or any of his

possessions feels like a theft. And there you go again...theft is another 'not

fair' thing in life. Or murder, or any of the bad things that happen.

I do get it. I was musing on it. I carry it sometimes and put down at others.

But I will tell you, I feel there is some inner spark that is telling me to get

going and live my life in the best way I can. For a while after my dad died, I

sort of felt nihilistic, life was not worth living. But after my sister died, I

began to feel that I needed to go a different way and make my life worth living.

It is not that I never felt good in my life; I used to have adventures and feel

happy; it's just that since my divorce and consequent struggles (with money,

aging, school-kid issues, men issues, death) I've felt beaten down. That spark

sort of got really tiny, so tiny I could not even feel it. Being left with my

BPD mom....*not fair* (that's sort of a joke, on my sister, like: thanks ,

for leaving me with mom!).

So...yeah, sometimes I make progress in big ways, and sometimes not so much.

The last time I felt the joy I was used to was in California, when I looked out

onto the pacific from North Beach at Pt. Reyes. The scene took my breath away;

even though I was in the middle of a bad drama with my boyfriend. And the other

time was at the San Francisco Zoo, when I gazed at the giraffes and was

mesmerized by the sea otters twirling around each other.

Those things make me glad to know that inner spark is still there....it would be

a shame for it to die.