Bus to Blamesville: A Roundtrip

As I’ve mentioned previously, even the most mundane things can trigger all sorts of feelings.  I was on a bus recently. I’ve always been afraid of either missing my stop or pushing the signal too early for my stop. When I was about 4, my mother let me push the signal. You know how kids like to push elevator buttons, ring bells, that sort of thing? But I pushed it too early for our stop. My mother insisted on getting off at that stop and pushed my brother’s stroller home, telling me she was tired and blaming me for having to walk so far. The few times as an adult when I wasn’t familiar with a route and pushed the bell too early, I got off and walked. I didn’t even occur to me to say, “sorry, I meant the next stop.”

Resentment/Poison

The pithy saying I’ll be dealing with today is “resentment is like drinking the poison and hoping the other person dies”.  And yes, I have had this quoted back at me when I’ve tried to set a boundary or express hurt at a past wrong in my Family of Origin.    I say whether that pithy saying is true or not depends on the cause of the resentment and the way we handle it.

You’re Too Good to Me, No Really!

As I was re-reading this post on the Narcissists Suck blog, after referring to it in my previous post, it helped me pull together some thoughts and feelings that had been rolling around in my head. 

The Myth that Women Don’t Abuse People

I was reading a news story when I came across this link of Top Ten signs You’re in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship.  Out of the 10 slides used to illustrate abusive behavior, all either feature an adult man as abuser and/or an adult woman as victim.  It uses masculine nouns/pronouns for the abuser and feminine for the victim.  The NEXT TO LAST slide acknowledges that women might also be abusers. 

One Law for me, for the Cluster B another

As part of healing, I’ve been looking at certain events from a different perspective.  In some cases, for the first time, I’ve been able to feel anger and sadness at the way I was treated.  A friend &  I were discussing the estrangement and he asked me if what I’d said which led to the estrangement was the truth or hurling insults.  I answered honestly that it was both.

Grudges, Forgiveness & Eviction

A good friend of mine posted a photo on Facebook with a sign of that famous saying, “Holding a Grudge is Like Letting Someone Live Rent Free in your head.”  I jokingly replied that some people are harder to evict than others.  Which got me thinking about the expression and all of the area in between it. 

Giraffes, Sheep & Scapegoats

If you haven’t had a chance to read this Psychology Today blog entry by Karyl McBride, it’s well worth a read.  In addition to addressing the grief which can result from estrangements and/or limited contact and/or no contact, she talks about how this shapes the dynamics in families with Cluster B Parents and about the scapegoat’s role.

Wisdom Born of Pain

I wasn’t sure how to title this.  I don’t want to trivialize what scapegoats go through growing up and until we learn healthy boundaries.  So that ruled out things such as “The Brighter Side of Being Scapegoated”, “Strengths of the Scapegoat”.  One of my happier memories is my mother playing Helen Reddy’s Greatest Hits really loud.  So as I was trying to come up with a title, I thought of the song “I Am Woman” and the lyric,  “wisdom born of pain.”  and that seems very fitting.    I’m going to share my own wisdom born of the pain of being scapegoated and encourage you to do the same if you feel comfortable doing so.    And it doesn’t have to be 100% positive.  It can be something which is a double edged sword depending upon the circumstances.

New Addition to Links

I just came across this site.  Haven’t had a chance to review the whole site, but it looks like a lot of helpful information there, so I’ve added it to the links.

Child Abuse Leads to Depression

Not only does abuse as a child lead to depression later in life, it can lead to a form that is  more difficult to treat:

Article.