arfie, yes, you mentioned a while ago in another thread that you'd had a therapy funeral. Your sharing that idea really helped me then. What's confusing for you now?

Thanks, Jen. It is good to know my memory has not completely regressed. Don't ever want to be in that awareness nightmare again. . .

1977 was a substantial length of time ago. For both better and worse, it is long past and executed with my militaristic style. Boot camp was the first taste of stability in my own White Trash Heritage. The mandala has turned and now it is my turn in this place of the family cycle. My turn to be cut off by the current Mom and Dad. Whatever you call this cycle, I believe I have traced it all the way back to the Luther Wars in 16th century Western Germany on my mother's side. I have been told by contemporary West Germans that German culture still honors its shunning traditions. Her clan center is more stable, but far more thorough when the hatchet falls on individual heads. I haven't been brave enough to discover where my father's side evaporated to. Just translating. . . I think. . .

Personally, "Family Estrangement" is my preferred label for it. By whatever name, the cycle remains unbroken in my own family. And life goes on. . .

My bad on the "Landfill" imagery. That one was mine. Just an image that has grown in my own perception as I have watched it slide into the "Toxic People" phase. I have done the graphics for Environmental Engineers trying to find places for the next landfills of the Texas Boom. NIMBY at its finest. . . Don't be late with the trash pickup, but make sure I am clueless where it gets shipped to. NIMBY.

It be a yucky thread to follow, but my personal theory is that it is allot easier to achieve effective healing if you start while the wounds are still fresh. Address the post traumatic stress before it has time to grow its "D."

I still miss my grandson. . .

Still sorting. . . Obviously. . .

This morning I found a local community center where there are meetings every weekday morning. Making plans to be there tomorrow morning. Don't know how long I will be here, but I works with what life sends me for as long as I have it.

Muji, the problem is that the view sure is different from "inside the casket." My turn to get "cremated."

Can't bear to put my grandson or even my adult sons in that visualized casket. It is not feeling sustainable. . .

The in-laws I can visualize on that funeral pyre with the greatest of ease. Why waste even imaginary money on a casket? I want to watch their faces while they burn. . .

Mid-September last year, on a Sunday afternoon, I called my Mother and asked her if she would meet me at the Park so we could just talk. I was amazed that she said ok. So we met and sat at the park bench by the River. It was a beautiful day.

I had my puzzle put together in my head, no notes or notepad was necessary. It was in my bones and in my soul. I started the conversation lightly by asking her what her fondest memories of her children were. It was all about inanimate objects. Bicycles, tricycles, bigwheels, motorbikes, etc. My sister and myself playing on the porch. Nothing where she was a participant . Nothing where we did this and we did that together.

After an hour of presenting to her all of my puzzle pieces, she had enough. Her matter of fact statement was, "Well you know, rapes and things like that just happen in society." I never once mentioned the word rape. Those evil eyes were as red as a firecracker.

That was my therapeutic funeral for her. That was the last time we have and will ever meet or talk again. My father is still a very huge question mark for me, so I am not ready to give him his therapeutic funeral yet. Preparations are underway for it, but the final service has not been planned.

Yea, 52, I don't get to know, but I suspect my son's wife has already held my funeral. Don't know that I will give her husband the opportunity for the last kick to the heart. Go ahead, start without me.

Damn! Got smoke in my evil eyes again. . .

What is the acronym for Maternal Evil?

May the circle one day be broken. I tried but I couldn't do it. No "A" for effort.

As I grieve my place in this cycle, I find myself feeling some consolation that I viewed my family as, "Sick" as I symbolically burned their effigies. I never believed they chose to be sick. Still don't. I know for sure I didn't.

Not sure what I would be feeling today if I believed I really was spawned and nurtured by evil. I want to believe I would not have been evil enough to spawn offspring.

Maybe just grasping for straws? Maybe I really am just evil and my delusions of healing are all a demonic lie.

Artie, my son gave me my therapeutic funeral for having the audacity to believe in a higher power that is rooted in good and love. Some that are given funerals are worthy and some are not.

arfie, ah, yes. It's "your turn," as you put it. Thanks. I get it now. Much support to you, my friend.

I always thought that Free Will was tightly contained within each soul. And I thought each soul was responsible for it's own actions.

Arfie, you are slowly revealing your conclusions ... But you haven't revealed any of what went on between you and your daughter in law. I am not ready to join you in mourning your relationships without more info. I mean, I can understand if it's too painful to rehash. But I am not comfortable attending a funeral when the patient may just need a bit of treatment to spring back to wholesome life.

Most families don't go for irreversible shunning. It doesn't have to happen that way. It's you we're talking about here, not your parents or 52s parents or Muji's. There is no reason to give up on YOU.

((((Healing Hugs To You Arfie))))

Donna,
I do believe I have told the story of the conflict between the DIL and I as it has unfolded over the three years since my youngest son moved her into the homestead 3 years ago, a few months before their wedding, shortly after they formalized their engagement. I am far from certain, but I believe her life story is as tragic as mine. Truth unavailable to this woofey old woman. Condensing and retelling the story isn't feeling like a healthy activity just now. . .

When I give in to the temptation to play Doctor, I diagnose her as, "Agoraphobic." She has even my own mother beat on the number of hours she can spend in a small room with only the smallest of walkways between the dust saturated precious thing piles. I suspect my mother might have had her beat if she had had a laptop and an internet connection. Let's call it, "Progress?" Well. . . I reckon we need to factor in age, as well. My DIL is still younger than my mother was when I was old enough to be growing comprehensive observations. And. . . My mother's 16 anniversary of adult diapers is weeks away. 16 years since the stroke made it physically impossible for her to get her 400 pound (literally) mass out of bed on her own. . . The nursing home staff won't close her door for her, nor will they allow the precious thing piles, but. . . Girl howdy, my obsessive conditioning has me projecting like a Free Law commercial. . .

My conclusion remains the same as it was at that therapy funeral in 1977: closed doors do not offer hope or healing. . .

Well. . . I never drive with my car doors open. I like my closed doors on the open highway. Even my professional therapists have agreed that driving can make good therapy. . . I can spend quite allot of hours, even months behind my preferred closed doors. . . I am every bit as isolated when I do so.

What has happened between the newest in-law and I? Mostly nothing. 3 years of mostly nothing, if we are not counting the toddler crying at a closed door and morbidly obese knees. . . Knowledge of what is going on in the head over the morbidly obese knees unavailable. . . Guesses and conjectures are all I have to work with when I try to be understanding.

Sorry, Arfie - I guess I'm just not able to understand very clearly. I get that she shuts you out, and shuts the baby out, and that is triggering for you. I get that some part of you sees her as your mother. But how that led to this breach and what gives rise to your self-recriminations is not clear to me. However, I am going to back off, as I realize I might not be understanding something I should be understanding, and I don't want to aggravate or anger you.

Thank you, Donna. In my personal beliefs, peer support works best when we take the risk involved in questioning while riding in the eye of the storm.

My PTSD flashbacks are intensely vivid with a full sensory onslaught. Sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Perhaps even some senses science has yet to invent monitoring systems for. The full sense-surround experience Hollywood techs are nowhere near to accomplishing. Perhaps the next generation? Technology is still growing by leaps and bounds.

Sometimes this can be a good thing. Good stories at a campfire. . . Describing the scene of a crime. . . Remembering where I put the freakin' keys this time. . .

Then there are the PTSD flashbacks which have grown their own school of psychology and become a household name over the course of my personal therapy. Under the influence of this class of flashback, I literally cannot separate a baby from 1956 and a baby from 2015. My father's wife and my son's wife are not clearly distinguishable to me during these episodes, no matter how much of my 165 IQ and military discipline gets thrown at it. I have yet to find the magic Just Wand for it. Trust me, I have searched the world for it.

In my inventory of the morning, I believe that separating 1956 from 2015 carries top priority.