My daughter and I...( If you don't like long posts,please don't read.)
had a breakthrough in understanding ourselves today. She is my adoptive daughter (my biological granddaughter) and the only one I have ever, in my entire life, met like me. This is something that makes me both very happy, because I am no longer alone ( because no one else is like me) and vey very sad, because I wouldn't wish being like me on anyone.❤😔
I was made to be responsible for my sibling at 2 years old. If he cried for any reason, I was beaten. Although my daughter was never beaten, she was made responsible for her siblings. I was raised ( as was my Husband) that the oldest always helped with the youngest, and got in trouble ( because you weren't watching them close enough) if something bad happened with the siblings.😔
My daughter is not the oldest of her siblings, but her older brother has cognitive issues, which made the responsibility fall on her shoulders. She is also very sensitive to criticism, and has an avoidant personality disorder, which kinda put her at the same level I was at after being beaten into being responsible for my sibling.😔
As I became a mother, the idea that I had to be responsible for my children was well ingrained in my mind. Then we adopted four of our grandchildren, and this became even more important because 3 of them had mild disabilities. The idea that if I wasn't a perfect mother in every way I could think of, someone might take my kids from me was an ever-present fear that consumed my mind and drove everything.🫤
I was also abandoned by my mother over and over, as were the four biological grandchildren we adopted and raised. Our oldest daughter( their mom) kept trying to be involved in their lives, and when it didn't work out (because she and I would fight a lot) she would leave, or I would make her leave. It was a very difficult situation, and my oldest daughter and I did the best we could, but a mess was made of the whole thing anyway.😔
Well, fast forward to now, and all the kids are grown. The kids with mild disabilities have outgrown them and/or learned to cope with life with very very minor leftover disabilities. Our oldest daughter is in our lives, and we are once again a family. The need to be responsible for our (my adoptive daughter and I) siblings or children is gone, but the whole process made my daughter and me feel responsible for the emotions of EVERYONE else in our family. It made us have to worry all day everyday about one person in the family or another.😔
It made us hypervigilant in that we would see the mistakes other family members might make because we could envision many possible outcomes of their behavior and interactions with others, and this filled us with fear and made us pick up the emotions of those we felt responsible for. We never saw possible positive outcomes because we were trying to protect them( and protect ourselves from failing them), so positive outcomes were not on the radar.😔
Well, we recently figured out that my daughter has Cushing syndrome, and I am having some sort of cognitive issues, although I am unsure if this is permanent or not. What we do know is that we must lower our stress levels greatly. So, as we always do, we talked to each other until we started to gain a better understanding of ourselves and why we are the way we are. ❤
My daughter is really the one who figured it out. She said we worry about them and try to keep them from trouble because when we were kids, we got in trouble when they got hurt or did something wrong. That is so extremely profound to me. I mean, both she and I have known we worry way too much, but we had never been able to figure out why or how to fix it. When this idea, this truth, grew and took shape in our minds, it was like the weight of the world was lifted off our shoulders.🙂
Now we understand why we behaved as we did. We understand that everyone is an adult now, and mostly we realized that we will not get in trouble for what happens with them anymore. The decisions they make are their own decisions. We realize that they are going to fall and get hurt sometimes, and they are going to make mistakes, and we will be here to help dust them off and work through what they have to work through, but we don't have to take their emotions inside our bodies and minds and make them our own. This doesn't help them and only hurts us. This probably seems so simple to see for other people, but it was hard for us.🤔
I have hope now that my daughter and I might actually be able to achieve some level of good health because understanding this has already dropped our stress levels to something she and I have never known before. Today is a good day.❤
No more overwhelmed Luisa. Maybe it is time for joy..❤
[media=https://youtu.be/tQwVKr8rCYw]
I was made to be responsible for my sibling at 2 years old. If he cried for any reason, I was beaten. Although my daughter was never beaten, she was made responsible for her siblings. I was raised ( as was my Husband) that the oldest always helped with the youngest, and got in trouble ( because you weren't watching them close enough) if something bad happened with the siblings.😔
My daughter is not the oldest of her siblings, but her older brother has cognitive issues, which made the responsibility fall on her shoulders. She is also very sensitive to criticism, and has an avoidant personality disorder, which kinda put her at the same level I was at after being beaten into being responsible for my sibling.😔
As I became a mother, the idea that I had to be responsible for my children was well ingrained in my mind. Then we adopted four of our grandchildren, and this became even more important because 3 of them had mild disabilities. The idea that if I wasn't a perfect mother in every way I could think of, someone might take my kids from me was an ever-present fear that consumed my mind and drove everything.🫤
I was also abandoned by my mother over and over, as were the four biological grandchildren we adopted and raised. Our oldest daughter( their mom) kept trying to be involved in their lives, and when it didn't work out (because she and I would fight a lot) she would leave, or I would make her leave. It was a very difficult situation, and my oldest daughter and I did the best we could, but a mess was made of the whole thing anyway.😔
Well, fast forward to now, and all the kids are grown. The kids with mild disabilities have outgrown them and/or learned to cope with life with very very minor leftover disabilities. Our oldest daughter is in our lives, and we are once again a family. The need to be responsible for our (my adoptive daughter and I) siblings or children is gone, but the whole process made my daughter and me feel responsible for the emotions of EVERYONE else in our family. It made us have to worry all day everyday about one person in the family or another.😔
It made us hypervigilant in that we would see the mistakes other family members might make because we could envision many possible outcomes of their behavior and interactions with others, and this filled us with fear and made us pick up the emotions of those we felt responsible for. We never saw possible positive outcomes because we were trying to protect them( and protect ourselves from failing them), so positive outcomes were not on the radar.😔
Well, we recently figured out that my daughter has Cushing syndrome, and I am having some sort of cognitive issues, although I am unsure if this is permanent or not. What we do know is that we must lower our stress levels greatly. So, as we always do, we talked to each other until we started to gain a better understanding of ourselves and why we are the way we are. ❤
My daughter is really the one who figured it out. She said we worry about them and try to keep them from trouble because when we were kids, we got in trouble when they got hurt or did something wrong. That is so extremely profound to me. I mean, both she and I have known we worry way too much, but we had never been able to figure out why or how to fix it. When this idea, this truth, grew and took shape in our minds, it was like the weight of the world was lifted off our shoulders.🙂
Now we understand why we behaved as we did. We understand that everyone is an adult now, and mostly we realized that we will not get in trouble for what happens with them anymore. The decisions they make are their own decisions. We realize that they are going to fall and get hurt sometimes, and they are going to make mistakes, and we will be here to help dust them off and work through what they have to work through, but we don't have to take their emotions inside our bodies and minds and make them our own. This doesn't help them and only hurts us. This probably seems so simple to see for other people, but it was hard for us.🤔
I have hope now that my daughter and I might actually be able to achieve some level of good health because understanding this has already dropped our stress levels to something she and I have never known before. Today is a good day.❤
No more overwhelmed Luisa. Maybe it is time for joy..❤
[media=https://youtu.be/tQwVKr8rCYw]
