The Caregiver & Dysfunctional Families: How are you doing?

Within the last week or took, an experience reminded me of an important lesson when it comes to listening and wanting to be heard.

I have learned that sometimes, people might inadvertently invalidate what another person is going through in their effort to be helpful.

"If I had to choose, though, I’d prefer that to the people who feel like we’re in competition and they need to one-up me all the time.

Your pain is yours. It’s personally tailored to you. And while our respective life tapestries might have threads from the same place, the designs are vastly different and can’t be compared."

Alva, have a great trip , I will try to live up to your expectations! My jehdi master. 😊 Namastay 🙏🙂‍↕️

Beatty, my mom's been controlling me or trying to with her anxiety my whole life.

So to explain better, my x and brother have been best friends since I left the ex. They are pretty much tougher every weekend, they bought a boat together. They go on road trips once a month, to Maine or wherever. Large trips 2xs a year.

A couple im friends with went to a brewery and they where there. My ex commented about a hot girl , I guess my brother was noticable upset, and mad and stormed off to the bathroom.

Also my brother has never had a girlfriend at 50 years old has never dated.

So I don't know what's going on but your right Beatty this is G,O.T disfunktion

Yoda, I have so enjoyed this morning, your disscussions on listening. What amazing insight & observations! I wish to re-read to let that all sink in.

Alva, one coffin at a time! 🤣
But NOT yours YET. Take your break if you want (I should too). Come back revived 🥰

Nacy, ex & bro? That's like Game of Thrones messed up! 🫨

Now what you said here:
"I also feel like people with high anxiety can use it to control people".

THIS is EXACTLY what is happening in my family! Covers what I meant in my 'pedantic habit' comment.

As for dysfunctional family's I'm pretty sure my ex and my brother are more than just friends. Doesn't get much more dysfunctional than that. 😂

I've always suspected, but hearing rumors.

😉 today’s wisdom quote:

“Therapy is helpful…But screaming obscenities is faster and cheaper.”

🥰 today’s final wisdom quote:

“Friendship is a widely underrated medication.”

Mammabeans, you sound very stressed and down, tired , burntout. Is there anyway for you to get help?

You profile doesn't say anything so hard to help you , but just to let you know vent anytime

I'm carrying it all in my shoulders. My head is heavy. I want to sleep for four days.

today's wisdom quote #2

“We don’t devote enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.”

🙂🙂 today’s wisdom quote:

“It isn’t the ups and downs that make life difficult. It’s the jerks.”

sorry repeat. Time to get off line.

Gershun,

I suspect that I will get quieter as more years go by for I've already announced to immediate and extended family members that I'm no longer attending large gatherings of people where there will be a lot of noise and when someone is up to speak, I can't hear even with my hearing aids on. It's not worth it.

Depending on who outlives who, I can see myself and whoever is still alive being able to just sit and enjoy each other's presence for however long and however often, speaking very few words given how much we have talked in the past. If my wife dies first, I will not marry despite her claim that I will marry her twin who with me finds that idea laughable. We are too much alike and thus, would destroy each other as a married couple. Neither of us will have any of this future casting.

Margaret,

Thanks!

I'd also add this.

2. No matter how much your wife, current or ex, criticizes you, avoid doing the same to them, particularly in front of the children. My dad lived by this one as a single-parent dad. If you are able, help the child validate and work through their emotions to give them some emotional freedom. Your children might thank you for that much later, but they often will with ways that don't always use those exact words, but you will get it.

Margaret,

Thanks!

I'd just add this. Dad's need to play with their children, boys and girls, from when they are very young on. In return, your adult children, will make time for you. This was my dad's philosophy and approach.

One doesn't always have to be doing the same game, but being there, showing interest, supporting them and afterwards take them out to eat and share a bit. And I might add, when a medical need comes up or even something as simple as discovering the need for eyeglasses at the Lion's Club bus, be the one who either takes care of it or takes the lead in making sure it is resolved.

Yoda, you have great insight. Very well expressed.

I am an introvert. I used to use humor as my ice breaker. But since my mom died and all I went through with my family I find my humor has gone the way of the dodo bird. I just feel sad all the time lately. My mom has been gone 9 years and yet it still feels like yesterday.

Wanting to get out and be around people would help but when I'm in new situations I can't fit in with humor anymore so I end up just feeling awkward and misunderstood. Lately I've been feeling like my adolescent self. I wasn't a happy kid. Just awkward and self conscious. I managed to conquer this in my late twenties and right up to my fifties. Now in my sixties I'm back to feeling lost and alone. I'm not saying all introverts feel lonely but I bet a lot of them do.

I've tried counselling. It just doesn't work for me. Maybe I haven't found the right person. But I get what you say when you say this world is not your home. Not exactly how you expressed it but it's how I feel.

Notry, I’m sure you were a fantastic father, and turned out wonderful sons. Perhaps you should write a list of instructions for fathers generally?

AlvaDeer,

While their are some clergy who are awesome listeners, I've met non clergy who are as well with some of the best coming from the most horrid backgrounds that will surprise you, if they tell you which they don't often do for they have learned the hard way, that with many, it is not a safe thing to do.

Being a good listener is not the be all end all. It is a start, an important start where a sense of connection, trust and openness to the deeper more substitive issues are which do require questions.

As a dad, I have learned that each of my sons communicates very differently, but it is important for me to listen first to get a handle on where they are and what is going on. When we reach that point where they feel that I'm really hearing them, that is when progress begins. Up until then, particularly if I've heard this same kind of issue from others, I hold back.

The son who is an introvert requires a bit more time and patience for him to stop swallowing his feelings and clearing his throat to eliminate a first idea or sentence. I respect that he's an introvert and go from there. We have in better times discussed how his being an introvert impacts how he communicates and affirmed that is ok. He replied that I was correct about his swallowing and clearing his throat. Another thing that is true of many introverts, with my oldest son or my SIL, it is not wise to underestimate them. You will not when it happens because they will suddenly become very extroverted and just tell it all just the way reality is because they can't keep it inside anymore and wow can they give a speech. After one critical situation, he told me that he was about to say something when I just stopped the verbal abuser in their tracks. I've told him that I wish he would have delivered his speech at some point.

The extroverted son is very different. He is extroverted and like extroverts talking is his means of thinking. However, put on your Teflon suit because one must plunge below the extroverted pain words to what is really bothering him deep inside. Why have I learned this? Because a crisis in our lives as a family demanded this of me as a dad.

I will add this from my own life's experience as an extrovert, sometimes we change as my SIL pointed out over Christmas. We become less extroverted. Why? Well not for all, but for some of us, it is because the "safe people" we could talk to are starting to die out and thus we save our talking for the safe people who remain. It is possible, this part of my being an introvert is just me. Like, the elderly Luke skywalker in the movie, I'm exhausted but not depressed like he was. I live with a sense of detachment that more and more this world is not my home. My detachment is compassionate, but not driven to fix or heal everyone. BTW, only as an illustration do I dare compare myself to skywalker. I'm just saying don't be surprised when and if your extrovert suddenly becomes more of an introvert.


Was I able to maintain this amount of depth and intensity with my boys for very long? No. I was able to maintain it for almost 2 years before getting each of them plus myself to a therapist. Would I do or recommend doing this again? No, I would have gotten them and me to a therapist earlier. However, the reason why I didn't was that this emergency also required the utmost privacy possible.

I'll close with this about saints. They are found in unlikely places. They are often from extremely painful backgrounds and they don't talk about it much. They are like deep, slow-moving rivers, not like splashy streams rolling up and down over the rocks. They can stop and listen without the noise of their pain in the background leading them to one-upmanship another's pain. Sometimes, they have some education, but not always. These good souls are the salt of the earth.

ok, that's more than enough

Very interesting Alva, I agree we often get lost like a broken record in are own head, and sometimes you need to turn the record over ( an analogy younger people won't get)

I also feel like people with high anxiety can use it to control people. And that's a bit of a delicate subject that makes people mad when I say it. I'm not saying people don't have anxiety but when you baby a person with it they can actually use it to control you. Or try to anyways.

Just was thinking about what Anna was saying about OCD

Wow, Yoda's "Being a good listener" thing?
I would say that's being a good "Priest", "Clergy", maybe even a good Saint.
(Bad job descriptions, all, imho)

But even my psychologist (the one who REALLY helped) said to me first session "You will not find me to sit by silently listening to the same story over and over again while my hand reaches for your cash. I WILL be a participant in our sessions".
And was she EVER.
She shook my world.
She picked me up and gave me a good shaking and set me back down to think about it for a week.
I got told "You have told me that story. I don't want to hear about R______, again. (My ex, who was the person I THOUGHT I was there about). I want to know what's your PLAN".
She confused me. She angered me.
SHE MADE ME THINK.

I honestly don't think that we do people any favor listening to the same stories over and over, giving validation (and for WHAT), giving our sympathy? They might as well be talking to the WALL. And I am often certain that they DO. They MARINATE in it, to use Dr. Laura's phrase--and lordy, I wouldn't tell that good woman not to be judgemental.

I am the mean girl here I guess. I honestly think the only way to make us THINK is to rattle us a bit, get us shaken out of the same old HABITS and paths that lead us inexorably to our doom over and over and over again. Notice some women choose the same abuser over and over and over again? Just in a different skin? There's a reason for that. And they get a payoff for it as well. They remain the victim. People don't request strength from them. They are sheltered and slathered with our sympathy. They have to take no risks. They decide on the punishment-reward quotients and make their choices.
WE ALL MAKE OUR CHOICES.

I am NOT nonjudgemental. In fact I judge EVERYTHING from what to wear as a sweater to when to cross the street to whether someone is a bad person, a good person, a needy person, a dangerous person. I use my judgement every single day in every single way.
Can I be wrong? Oh! You BETCHA. I can be real wrong. And when I realize I am I own it. And hopefully I learn from it. And when I don't recognize it, then I guess that's a shame. Life's full of tragedy. It isn't all about our happiness. Some of it is about how tough it can be.

Truth is I don't do the buzzword--to my mind-- of "don't be judgmental". I just heard two women walking together down Sanchez yesterday, one saying "Well..............we don't want to be judgeMENTal". What does that MEAN? A way of say "That's messed up but we shouldn't say so?".
I Just need an interpretation app on my phone anymore to try to figure out what anyone is trying to say about anything. Alas. Getting old. 81. As the old Irish nurse said "Things change one coffin at a time". Mine's popping up here anytime now.

I’d interpret a “pedantic habit” as “my way or the highway” about how things are done, down to minor (even inconsequential) details. Example: You put the pepper on my eggs, then salt. I will only my eat eggs if you put the salt on first, then pepper.

Controlling behaviour, OCD, maybe gaslighting to keep others on shifting ground and undermine their confidence.

Notrydoyoda, you respond in your own comments any way you wish. Your post was a set of instructions about how you think it should be done by the rest of us. Of course I did not say "to drill them on why they did not handle it differently". Don't twist the gist of other people's words or motivation. It achieves nothing.

MargaretMcKen,

So in the context of that quote, are you saying to drill them on why they did not handle it differently?

Ever hear "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care"?

Anyhow, I wrote about listening to understand first, not what to do after listening. Most of us don't listen to understand, we listen to respond.

NotryYoda, not sure about your list of ‘do and don’t do’ for this site. “Empathy and validation are far more important to the person talking” – well sometimes. Sometimes empathy and validation get you and them absolutely nowhere.

Beatty, I can’t really imagine ‘a pedantic habit’, as most pedantry is about rules, written communication etc. Anyone who can cope with the spelling and grammar on this site, has overcome any obsession about pedantry! Can you elaborate, please?

Is there a word or term for when someone with a pedantic habit (due to delusion, obsession or fixation) convinces others to act that way?

For another to do more than tolerate it. More that enable it.
To believe it. Then try to convince others too.

*Flying monkey* I suppose..?
Shared delusions??

🥰 today's wisdom quote #2

“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” 

🥰 today’s wisdom quote:

“Size isn’t everything. The whale is endangered, while the ant continues to do just fine.”

🥰 today’s wisdom quote: 

“Enjoy life. There’s plenty of time to be dead.”