Does respect still exist in families?

I've been deliberating for a few days about where I was going to put this post but actually I think it belongs here rather than my more "littles" blog.

As most of you are aware I lost my mother a while back leaving Dad and Myself as surviving household members, other immediate siblings being in relationships apart from us.

Dad has some mobility problems coming through the impact of cancer on his kidneys making its way into breathing apart from sciatica and likes to visit Mom's grave where whilst cremated there lies a headstone a couple of miles away.

Unexpectedly my younger brothers wife rung following her much delayed operation for Carpal Tunnel and he spoke with her and in the course of which he asked if they, the next time they were going could take him to the grave.

They would have to past the turning to us to get to it from where they live and she agreed with dad saying should they want a quiet moment then he'd step away.

Come Sunday, they turn up and indeed they do take him but he only finds they elect to stay in the car while he goes down a pathway rather than all walking with them pausing near the adjacent church.

They also reject any and all attempts to open a conversation about where he'd been, how they find it, or even ask him how he was feeling afterwards.

It was as if they just wouldn't speak to him as his sons father and a fellow family member even on the face of it another fellow human being where many of us just would even to those we don't know well.

We have empathy and yet there was none showing, leaving him feeling he was being deliberately ignored.

He was very emotional upon his return to which I got the full blast of -and although I could use not being the sole dumping ground of his emotions you couldn't help wondering just what my brother and wife were really playing at treating him more like ghost.

Working through things redux

It's weird really as this week goes through at what most probably a period of relationship  reset following recent events from the mundane like talking through things like menus for evening meals with all the planning that takes like what comes out of the freezer to what we're planning to watch on tv as for so long Mom had the last say over much of that.

When it came to the tv often she'd be sat in front room picking off all the major soaps  she followed so in practice you tended to watch your stuff elsewhere but during this period of ill health that often worked that you needed to be where she was to look after her having to see and hear them just to do what rightly you'd say was your duty.

That also meant the stereo unit - separates didn't get used much simply cos that would be where was and most times she didn't want "your" music on anyway so you'd go upstairs to play a cd or record.

Anyway we're starting to get things connected with the formal bits around a death resolved with information transferred and appointments scheduled between the many cards and visits in person.

I was out yesterday taking a breather as I was beckoned by a "aunt figure" for coffee and biscuits along the way just talking over things in her life before resuming a stroll.

It just takes a lot out of you

A short reflection on Mom

 

This post is short but to the point.

In a week that saw my Mom become very unwell with at least one possible emergency admittance hospital after a period of increasing ill health it is with much regret I have to announce her death at 5:15pm.

A women who saw herself as the centre of the family, aunt to the street,  a constant help to us as children, a devoted wife to dad I'm saddened by this turn of events.

R.I.P. Mom.

A complicated weekend

You know something in life are 'complicated', they just are and sometimes several of them just come together as one it's much more harder going.

Take Grumpy whose 'Grumpy' day was Sunday for instance and my feelings are very complex because he's a character of extremes, of being capable of being understanding and prepared to do lots of things and yet a person who says hurtful things without thinking, has through his behaviour in the past brought us to point police calls were being threatened  growing up when he'd hurl items across rooms getting really aggressive and yes actually committed ABH on my younger brother cos he come home from work, mom was in bed and because he was expected to make tea but having a severe migraine was in the rest room, came in and got the fists out.
But then, what of that brother himself?
He stole money from me, intimidated and told blatant lies about me exploiting my vulnerabilities as a then disabled child because I wasn't prepared to lie because he was committing fraud against Mom stealing from  her, and not attending classes.
Today he refuses at times to speak to me and as like this Saturday just totally ignored me as if I'm worthless trash to which my folks won't call him out over.
So when think about it, you see what I mean about being complicated and how plays on my anxieties.

Chaos inc!

Ooo er, If I tried that around around here I'd be in some serious trouble for sitting on top the table although to be honest I am a  bit prone to plonking myself on anything flat and convenient if truth be told.
The full account will be told on another blog but one thing I do find is I get very anxious especially when it doesn't appear anything is really anchored because I struggle without being given the ropes of structure and this easily feeds into my behaviour at times.
I was supposed to be attending a wedding social get together  this weekend gone and believe me given the lack of clear information about what was happening, when it was and the overall picture you'd of thought it was covered by the Official Secrets Act as I was told next to nothing and attempts to try and get any further information just hit a brick wall.
First we had a communication saying in effect keep the day clear then an official invite for a social gathering from around two to eleven pm so having checked during the week I was to for around six pm making arrangements for my food as in cooking a joint only to find on the Sunday in a phone call all that was off - the planned wedding elsewhere was called off - and it was going to happen in two hours time.
A Quick phone call to the grooms father established that even he knew nothing until the middle of the day before and he was to witness it!!!
This meant some rushing about trying to get changed quickly and reorganizing my transport to get there as I was told I needed to attend.
Well, I was nervous before we started as I find being with people, being able to 'read' their clues and that difficult as I didn't want to mess up socially and this didn't really help any so I made of point in keeping a couple of things in my trouser pocket to use to 'stim' with if needed but I managed to steady my nerves so I could interact a bit with people although it was funny when someone said who's the school girl in her uniform!
I also played a bit with fluorescent pink and green sticks as everything had a spooky theme.
I think I did okay coping with the chaos surrounding event  which goes to show I'm getting betterer at this than I used to be.
Like I did end up on a good set of notes not least attending on my terms and showing many difficulties aside I can be far more responsible than my younger brother when it comes to dealing with changed circumstances and focusing on what really matters. I think cuteness comes from within  actually, not that cannot look attractive and dress in a cute way if that's you because it's how you see things and act upon them and for me there's a direct practically child like way of doing this which isn't studied or otherwise affected. That's the thing with me, you don't get 'adult' games going on because they aren't in me and moreover I don't even understand how you might even play them so in 'adult' situations I am a 'innocent abroad' and am actually a lot more vulnerable than you may think. You may call that 'cute'. It's just me being me!

Unexpected gifts

Monday, it had to be said was different not least for being my birthday the bulk of which is written about elsewhere really but in a number of ways, one totally unpredictably this does seem on reflection to have felt different.
Generally birthdays and me are not particularly grown up affairs both from the way in which I approach them with a very child-like sense of anticipation and excitement, the sort that keeps you awake   and also from the point that what I get in the way of presents is also more child-like to the point this year of including a girls  colouring book. We go out but it feels more like taking a child out for its birthday treat minus the balloons and pink icing cake, overseen by parents cos we're not nor never have been exactly equals.
The initiated know the issues within the immediate family, not least my treated as not a relativeness by my younger brother and indeed when he came at a time totally of his choosing and for a matter of minutes although he was last here only  just under three months ago being totally ignored as usual.
The other thing was my older brother came, who hadn't been since November last so if you work that out meant both we'd not seen him for Christmas AND his Christmas gifts (and his to us) hadn't been exchanged!
Well, he'd been invited to lunch and was supposed to have arrived around Eleven but had turned up at half Ten instead with just myself in the house thinking "crumbs what are going to talk about" as unfortunately he's the type of male that talks work and technical stuff that frankly bores the pants off me.
Anyway he comes in and it's obvious from the get go he wants to talk and I really mean talk as if it's been bottled up inside of him for like ages so I sit opposite him, listening more or less three parts to every one contribution, remembering to keep some eye contact.
It's obvious he's the adult here from how he addresses me, more like a teen in the room in many ways reminiscent of how things were when he lived with us as he had authority over me (and my younger brother) when they were not in and he leaps into a conversation that was in part quite a revelation and actually a conversation about in the wider sense, discipline.
He opens the topic with an apology for mentioning it  but starts an ensconced discussion of my brothers attitude to both people in general, to being a part of a family and to how I am treated, parts of which I am familiar with what he at length eloquently described as his  childish lack of maturity-going to sulks for several weeks, refusing to help when people need it, preferring to make kits all weekend instead, looking for arguments with anybody who doesn't just meet his wants and so on. He says it's because he's not grown up.
He pauses, talking to me about what I think about that and how I would deal with such  situations as if he actually cares about my attitudes and behaviour almost like sticking a thermometer in to take a reading as he resumes.
Then he drops a bombshell that part explained part of a visit late last year by my younger brother and his partner where redacting the substance, my younger brother had really lambasted her on a well known social media site and this had gone back and forth with increasing anger and bitterness in full public view with him mentioned.
He asks me what I think of this, he tells me how upset and angry about it he was that he intervened insisting they stopped and removed it all before telephoning each scolding them especially my younger brother, making him apologize not just to him but to his partner making it plain the consequences if either of them do it again.

He repeats that bit three times to me.
I say in quirky humorous way "That's very Big Brother" and he just laughs as he realizes something.
He's reconnected to a more tween-like me as an authority figure who isn't afraid to discipline having set out what he expects and most people do.
The most unexpected gift of all turns out to be the return of him and his fair minded firmness in my life, the one who would say NO to Jo and did spank me growing up.
This is one awesome present.

Families

Somedays things just come crashing to you,  a bit of the past that jolts you as if a meteor struck you as you were just walking on down the sidewalk.

It was really about some thoughts that I had with my second best friend at high school at the time, she faced a lot of physical challenges in her life but she had hours of time to try to understand me and we were chatting would of been early 1982 about tv and what we saw mattered to us.
You know, the kind of totally random teen stuff that actually in hindsight was really pretty significant for how I saw and felt.
Let me explain. On commercial tv there was a long running American tv show about family life across the decades called The Waltons that featured this extended family sharing lifes ups and down together in rural Virginia, and the head of the family John Walton Snr, operated a lumber mill and supplemented their income with a small-scale farming. They took in people and shared a lot as a family united, attending church on Sundays.
That's probably was much as I need to say for the purposes of this entry as I'm not writing a essay on the series or anything as it's what's in more modern parlance a "Slice of life" series seeing the family grow and change over time in accordance with events such as the Great Depression, WW2, the Great Society and Civil Rights  era and so on.
The thing Linda and I were discussing was Family: what it means to be in a family, our involvement or interaction if you like with with Mom and Dad, your immediate siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. The extent it is a 'unit' and all that.
We were also comparing and contrasting our own relationships  with our families to what we had been watching.
In a lot of ways she saw many parallels  between that of how she cared for them as much as they had to do quite a lot for her and the fictional family we saw.
I once said half joking to Denise one recess If it was like mine, then everybody would be off doing totally their own thing, with Mom trying to hold the thing together and me behind a chair on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
That may sound kinda melodramatic but there was and still is the lack of bonds between everybody, no real sense of feeling for one another, for me it wasn't a place of safety with one sibling who'd think nothing of verbally and financially abusing me which wasn't really helped by my being able to spot in seconds any outright lies he was telling to get more for himself as he felt hard done to and obliged to report it.
That's before you bring in Pop who'd explode at the slightest thing, throwing stuff across the room, propelling me in a chair into corners like trash, threatening to burn down the house.
You see, that's the big comparison  between what family was like for her and for me and to open about this really hurt.
This whole experience left a big legacy with me, not least a very strong feeling of longing, almost desperation to loved and cared for.
What I wanted so much was physical and emotional intimacy, a feeling beyond mere words of what it means to 'belong', to be bonded and have bonds that outlast their very beginnings, that provide emotional comfort promoting personal confidence and development.
A relationship that would teach me what I needed to know to get by with people, to be able contribute to it, helping me to stand on my own two feet as a grounded individual within the wider unit.
A wider unit that shared a common purpose, the raising of and looking after that family that was prepared discipline me in a loving, structured, affectionate way so fulfilled my role and expectations within it and our wider community.
I wanted to be...in the Waltons family.

Bonds and emotions of a little

It's not that often I talk about emotions least of all what feels to be me  but there are times when I think it makes sense to not least for everything really comes together for me and this whole journey I've been through so far in. One thing is a childhood routed in fear, fear of how other kids could and did ill treat me from 'being sent to Coventry' though bullying, of a homelife where domestic tension to the point of things being thrown and calls to the police being made lead to me being at times even now feeling gripped by crippling anxiety. 

The problems I have with my disabilities as much as admit to using them as an excuse to be lazy and for adults to allow that to happen, compounded it with difficulties in making myself understood, difficulties in understanding others, in having a understood secure sense of place that I had a working knowledge of 'The Rules'. 

The whole thing leads to a "crippling terror of existence" for me so it's hardly surprising that a protective practically Child to Adult relationship is where I find myself in where the physical expression of affection in the way of cuddles and hugs, the love that is shown in overseeing, guiding me anew and the loving hands that have me at my most vulnerable over their lap spanking me feels so good.

Repairing the damage

This entry is really the companion entry to this weeks on my main littles blog a link of which is on the “About” page.

One big problem area in my life is Authority and specifically around male authority figures that like much the rest of my issue goes back to my upbringing.

The first thing to say is although Daddy always tried to provide for everyone's needs and would go out of his way to get you things he had a darker side such as he'd hit you for being unwell if he needed you do something you were no longer capable of, he often throw things across the room when he was angry, sometimes your own things in a childish paddy, was very abusive toward Mommy, screaming and shouting to the point the police were threatened with being called.

He's gotten a very controlling streak in him and also never lets anything go for weeks on end.

It's not an exaggeration to say my upbringing deeply effected me, feeling scared around males, hiding under chairs the second a loud voice came out and was a contributory factor in me adopting disturbed behaviour that alarmed child welfare people although naturally my family didn't tell them what had been going on.

He also has a terminal illness which presently leads to him tired and part of my role is helping him and Mommy out which adds an extra lay emotionally to how I see him and by extension other males.

For a very long time I felt distrustful of males, fearing the emotional and physical pain he dished out would by by them, I had no trust or respect for them, calling them nasty names under my breath.

If any man tried to tell me what to do, I'd give them a strong piece of my mind cos I had no respect for them and any authority they were given which usually led to a battle of wills.

My attitude around him not surprisingly has been very trying been torn between feeling like saying **** *** for how he's left me and a more maturer one centred on meeting current needs.

The one thing that was different when I was with him on this occasion was although nothing takes away from how I feel about past events and some of his current issues he projects toward me, I felt able to respect his authority as a father, contributing an idea while with him rather than wanting to lay one over him because of past events.

Part of this has come about because I've learnt to trust a very important male in my life, my Mentor for a number things such as listening and understanding my needs and wishes in his relationship with me.

I have learned to appreciate that men can love and care for me in a way that's not about baser instincts nor about just domination and control for itself as well as learning to accept his loving authority, that I accept in my life helping me and he has the right to exercise it with and even where needed over me.

Equally, I accept his fatherly disciplining of the adult-child me without question because it comes from his love and his corrections have helped me grow, being more responsible and mature.

This is helped me in replacing much of the negative aggression I felt toward males, especially in positions of authority with a lesson confrontational and more respectful view of the qualities and values males have and how they fit into my life.

It was that I noticed so much on Saturday dealing as I had to not only with Daddy but people like male security guards and the like.

For the first time in my life I felt respect for these men.

Attitude in the home to be worked on

I was talking with my Caregiver this week and he started to talk about something that kind of shocked me, like he asked what do I do around the house. Actually that's so off of the radar with me I'm like thinking whaddya mean but in a way that underscore one of big problems in my life which is actually I'm not really being responsible for it.
He's saying to me this has to change but at least a part of the problem is that other people seem so reluctant to move out of  doing something they see as their role not least with my folks feeling in some ways guilty for the disabilities I have.
It's easy to find excuses for excusing me but outside of you doing things that actually most people are expected to the other side of this  that it encourages me to feel other people should just do this for me too.
He's agreed a change I'm to work toward around this: Chores and I have to do them.
Chores
Own area
Making own bed
Getting clothes out for the next day
Hanging up own clothes neatly after wearing/washing
Making sure worn clothes are available for washing
Keeping own spaces tidy
Helping in the home 
Fixing own breakfast
Setting tables with cutlery, mats, glasses and cold refreshing drink
Clearing away and washing up afterward
Tidying away in other spaces after you
Helping with vacuuming
Feeding pets

In our regular communication around me and how I'm being helped, I have to talk with total honesty about how much of this I am doing.
I felt rather like this:

 It says a lot that my reaction is just like a teen, rather pouty as if you're gonna make me, huh?
Well, if I don't I'm going to get a spanking as this is going to be  part of my agreement which is probably what I need although the biggest irony in all this is teen me need this why back then.

Help from the screen

Tv shows like The Little House on the Prairie  were more than just time sinks for some of us growing up as they showed people keeping going in the most difficult of situations, holding the family unit together as they learned their roles.
Those families may of had hard times but cared for each other, were structured and that care showed in how the children were also disciplined.
It was the kind of family living in  a broken one I so wanted to be in and kept me going even in the darkest of times.