Hanging In Here...

I've written posts, mainly about my grandmother... Since it seems this might take a legal route, I'm kind of hesitant to post them.  I've been going back and forth. There's nothing wrong in them. In fact they would probably be great documentation. I just worry if those "who are out to get her" stumble here and find out our next move and try to stop us.  Sheesh, who needs enemies when you have family like this?  Ya know?

I have a lot of catching up to do around this little part of my internet, many new chapters happening in our lives right now.  So many changes since the last time I posted.

GOOD CHANGES!

Thank God, I am finally on the right track and seeing the rewards of it.  All these years that people have told me that I would be rewarded for my deeds, I didn't want any stupid reward.  I didn't realize what reward meant.  I guess I thought it was something grand, I didn't realize it was the simple things in life.  Crazy me.

So for now, I have some homeschool stuff to ready for the week so this will be short. Thank you, my readers, for your patience.  I'm so excited knowing there are others out there who understand and care.

Here's a treat I left for my kids at the lunch table.  I love this and it comes from the "God wants you to know..." app on FB.

 I think it's a great message.

Hope all is well with everyone and that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Validation vs. Reflection

I 've been thinking a lot about validation. I hate it. I don't want my children looking to other people to validate them. Unfortunately, CDQ looks to everyone to validate her and also unfortunately, that is what her therapist does, validate her I mean... 

I am fully aware that CDQs self esteem and confidence is non existent.  I've been working on my kids confidence issues. Some of them are slowly budding and others, like the boy, don't believe me when I tell him he's awesome. 

CDQ has come to me and told me that she loves herself, her lips, etc... I told her that was great and that was not the answer she wanted. I could see on her face that she wanted me to parrot back to her what she had just said. I wouldn't do it. I told her if that is how she felt, that is all that matters and God made her just the way she is on purpose. It tears me apart because I don't want to hurt her but I want HER to KNOW  about herself and not to look to others. Does that make sense? 

An awful family cycle we have has to do with the women seeking validation from men and the men verbally and physically abusing them and tearing them down. It has stopped with me. But now I need it to stop with them.  I can even see the boy getting into a relationship where a woman mistreats him. 

I was upset with the therapist because I explained to her that CDQ was upset with me because I told her she couldn't wear her purple dress anymore.  You see, like 4 months ago or so, the therapist (AT) told her she looked so pretty in it.  Since then she has tried to wear it every single time to therapy.  I had already pointed this out to AT.  So, once again, I thought I would point it out. 

This is what I got...

AT: So she's mad at you?

ME: Yes. 

Silence. 

AT: Well, the way I see it, you can let her wear it until it is so tight it is uncomfortable and she won't wear it anymore (me- thinking it's already at that point-- we can see her nipples it's so tight) or she can be mad at you. 

Ok, I was thinking not nice things...like "sure, I can be the bitch and you can be her savior." 

I just stared at the AT. 

She told me that she also commented (that day) on a bracelet CDQ was wearing and she told her the bracelet was valuable. Just like CDQ was. The AT told me that I should tell her things like that too. 

Um... *sigh* I just want to scream NOOOOOOOOOOO!

I'm not sure what she was talking about but my daughter was wearing a plastic beaded bracelet that she had made in therapy that might be worth a dollar or so. That's my daughter's value? But more importantly- WHY THE HELL ARE YOU OBJECTIFYING MY DAUGHTER AND TEACHING HER TO DO IT TO HERSELF?!?

I had to stop typing to wring my hands just now.  I know I lean on the side of feminists but I do not think I am going overboard with this. What she is trying to accomplish and what she is actually doing are two different things. 

I don't drop her at this point because CDQ is attached to her. This should not have happened.  But CDQ cannot take another loss.  She's way too fragile.  I'm just working extra hard on my end to undo the wrong things that come up and hopefully as CDQ gets stronger, we can pull away from the AT. 

One thing that has inspired me is Donetta's post.  In her post she talks about creating a list of 100 things that you love about those you love to remind you of what is special about them. 

More specifically she says: "What matters most is how we see our self. So it is new eyes that the kids need to look into the reflection of who they are. I must be a mirror for them."

The first thought that came to mind was the type of mother I was to them before I got sick. I showed them I cared by doing for them. I slipped little notes in their backpacks or wrote on random pages in their spiral notebooks telling them they were special or smart or that I was thankful for them or something they had done.  I'd even leave little notecards with Hershey's kisses taped to them on their beds waiting for them when they came home from school.  All that stopped when I got sick.  I had even forgotten about it. 

I was being a mirror for them without even knowing it  and it just stopped. That must have hurt them so much.  Made them think it was about them when it was about me. I was broken into shards and reflecting myself to them. 

I'm going to change that. I am going to start surprising them again.  I'm going to be a mirror and show them how to find the best parts of them from within themselves WITHOUT teaching them to go to someone (anyone) for validation. 

We want our kids to know that we love them. But isn't that what we are all trying to do in some way or another- teach our kids to love and know themselves unconditionally?

My first Reiki experience...

I had my first Reiki experience a week and a half ago.  I wasn't nervous or anything like that. I trust the person who was doing it. I just wasn't prepared for what happened.

I stretched out on her couch and she told me that I should have an intent. She said it could be to be pain- free or to release negativity. Stuff like that... since I had just come from acupuncture, I was feeling great. So I said why not do releasing negativity.

So after she found her center.  She started by lightly touching my face and moved down behind my head, heart, etc...This continues until she reaches my feet. That is how she explained it to me.

I started focusing on CDQ figuring that's where most of my negativity probably was at.  So I told myself to let go of the ways she's hurt me and the other kids and all the things from the past, etc... it sounded way better in my head. Then I thought it flowed so well I should try Hubbins.  I actually had no negativity for him but there were people who had abused him in his past who apparently I was still angry about because they floated into my mind and surprised me.  I started to think about how I didn't know that those people were still an after thought in my mind.

I wondered what else was lingering there when my mind like a door, literally just slammed shut and it was total darkness. I checked out right in the middle of the session. I came back to the room when I felt a vibration on my feet.  Literally minutes before she told me it was over.

The thing was, even though I checked out. I likened the experience to a ride at Disneyland. You know when you're floating in the boat and they show you a scene then you float through darkness and come upon another scene. That's what it was like, but I didn't see the scenes, I felt them.  So, I actually recalled the last "scene" I was given before my mind took me away.

The "scene" was the formal living room. I was 19 years old.  Somehow, my stepfather had me pinned to the floor. I don't know how I got there. I wasn't one to play the "wrestling game" so that means I must've been caught coming in the front door or something because I didn't hang out either.  Anyhow,  what I felt was me fighting, biting with all my might and scratching and digging my nails into him.  But it did no good. I know my sisters were in the other room and so were my nieces and nephew (previous set, not the one's I'm raising now.)  I was screaming HELP! between biting him.  Nothing...

I checked out at that point. I don't ever remember getting out of that situation.  Like how it ended, I've remembered it before. But I never thought about how it ended. When I left the office, I was a little devastated.

I don't know how it ended. But I do know that my sister T told me if something happened between me and her father, she would take her father's side no matter what.  At the time I was seriously hurt and scared because I didn't know what she was talking about.  I moved out the very next week.  That's when I left the other kids behind.  I was feeling devastated because now I was seeing T's comment in a different context.

What if I checked out and she saw something and thought I was actually participating in something?  What if that's what she was telling me? I know I had woken up on different occasions where he was sitting on the edge of my bed. Up until this session, I had thought I had woken up because he sat on my bed. Now I don't know.

I just don't know.

There's another part to this that I am just not ready to share yet.  I don't know if I'll ever be.                                            

The things I don't say...

I've kept quite a bit to myself since my mother moved here.  I don't want to appear ungrateful, which when I type it, it sounds so stupid.

What it boils down to is my mom fed me a crock of it and I believed it, yet again.

Believe it or not, as I am typing now, I am feeling very factual and not the least bit angry.

The only support that I know I have for sure is that if someone needs to go to the hospital, I have an adult present in my home.

I pay my mother half my paycheck to live here and take care of my grandmother mainly.  Yep.  That's how that went down.  I had to persuade her to take CDQ to therapy so I could do a procedure on Hubbins today.  She'll say BS to this but I know the truth.

Meanwhile, there's been so much crap and drama revolving around my grandmother it's soooo pathetic.  My grandmother ended up asking me to be her Power of Attorney, because the short story is they tried to declare her incompetent in her state. By they, I mean her crazy stupid children (2 of them, who ironically are JUST LIKE their abusive father) and her abusive husband. So I'm just waiting for that circus car to come and unload here.

Speaking of circus cars unloading, I think my mom is trying to move my sisters here, in which case I will go into financial ruin to move and leave yet again. I already told her no. But my words fall on deaf ears. So I've given it to God and asked him to please have some consideration (I know, it's like a kid trying to tell the parent what to do.)

In the meantime, My grandmother has lost 26 lbs, her blood sugar is finally regulated, she's going regularly to the senior center to exercise and eat lunch with her friends and she even attended her first Halloween Party in a costume this year!  She enjoys shopping for new clothes- everything is pink and purple! Plus, she has money to go shopping now. She even has savings again!  She's saving for new bottom teeth where she is missing three. lol!

She's also off the bad soda habit. Let me tell you though, get her anywhere near a soda case and she's like a football player. She almost knocked me over racing to the soda case and then I had to wrestle the soda out of her hand and pass her the diet green tea. Sheesh!

So, I've gained two more people to stress over, but I am staying positive.  For some reason, it seems God has deemed our house as a safe haven. I try to keep sight of that. But I can't save them all.  (This is where my mom would interject that she's not asking me to...but we already see where that has gone with my grandmother, right?)

I'm getting stronger. My acupuncture has been decreased to twice a week, my sinus problem is almost completely cleared and at the risk of tempting the RA Monster (and I only do this because I have acupuncture tomorrow. lol) I have had no significant flares.  Some stiffness here and there but a few hours after I take my herbs seems to help. The most helpful is getting a good nights sleep though.  Which I am so happy my day and nights aren't flipped anymore.

Oh, before I forget...I'm still reading blogs but having some problems on commenting. Sometimes blogger already has me logged in, other times, it won't accept my password and then other times it takes my password just fine.  I'm not sure what to do about that.

I think my next post is going to be about my first Reiki experience. I will tell you it was unsettling and left me a little shaken. But I'm ok now.