What Can We Say to Him?

Don't know what his sister could possibly say to make it any better for him. She's been to hell and back with him on the subject. I've had numerous conversations with the both of them and they seem to have different recollections and their own personal perspectives about some of the same events. It hasn't been an easy road for them as siblings. Their mother created animosity between them as children and forced them to have to fight and/or lie on one another for "survival". They've overcome most of that but for a long time when my SD would come home on leave (she's a career soldier), sooner or later before she left, she and her brother would get into a brawl over something from their past. There were and perhaps still are many unresolved issues between the two of them as well.

Eoe--

Announce that there are no Time Machines. Tell your stepson that the only way he is going to get his past properly buried is to hire a competent shrink/undertaker and make it a DIY job.

He isn't weak or unmanly because he wants to come to terms with his unhappy childhood. He's showing strength by taking change of the situation and dealing with his impossible, destructive mother the way that he couldn't when he was a helpless child.

You are concerned for him because his miserable past seems to be getting in the way of happiness in the present and the future.

Can you learn to play, "Ding-dong the Wicked Witch is Dead?" on the Kazoo?

We've done all of that, Noddy. Except playing on the kazoo. I've said all I can think of to say to him, I think his father has been pretty clear as well but, no one can drag him to a counselor so, we're left feeling forced to have to listen.
And I'm so very tired of hearing it.

I will talk to him again about counseling. We've talked about it before, it's time to talk again. Next time I see him, this weekend more than likely, I will definitely bring it up. But if he's still against it, I just thought of a way to maybe stop him from talking about it so often. Turn the counseling advice into a broken record, just like he's done with his past. Something tells me that after awhile, he won't be playing that record so often.

That may sound awful to some but, I can't keep listening, nor should I let him keep telling that same story forever and ever. It's not healthy for any of us.

Eoe--

Amen.

Mr. Noddy's family treasures each and every grievance and trots them out on all festive occasions. Thirty years ago only two generations played that game--now three generations are in the act and the fourth generation is taking notes about Proper Party Conversation.

When there are so many wonderful things in the world, I can't understand choosing to dwell in childhood cesspools--and trying to share them.

I just might take up the kazoo myself.

Hold your dominion.

I remember saying to my mother when I was 16: "I'm all screwed up, nobody loves me and it's all your fault" ...

She replied, "That may be true, but it's YOUR life, so what are you going to do about it?"

That was the single most defining moment of my life... empowerment (oh how I hate that word) and freedom - I realized the truth of what she was saying and immediately set about creating my own life.

By the way, my sisters and I did spend the next ten years discussing, analyzing, discovering... until we were all heartily sick of it. Now we say, "That was then, this is now". End of story.

Maybe this stepson needs to have that (what my mother said to me) said to him in rather blunt terms. Time he grew up, in other words.

noddy...as an outsider, I loved to be a fly on the wall at a family gathering.

I know it's no fun from the inside.

Chai--

I always enjoy the "Getting to Know You" part. Enjoying the fifth and sixth and 20th and up-teenth rehearsal of Life's Unjust Events is the tedious time.

Once the Official Version of the injustice is settled, even the words of the story are the same.

I missed this when it was posted. Noddy, my siblings and I do the same thing whenever we get together. I just emailed them your post. Dwelling in childhood cesspools--and trying to share them, indeed.

Thanks!

Ahhhh, this is bringing back my teen years. We lived at my aunt's after we moved to California. Part of that was because she was sickly, and part of it was because my father got and lost some good jobs. We'd be all excited, say, about his getting to be a VP of RKO, and a month later the studio folded. When things were good, we were going to buy a house, and so on, lots of ups and downs.

So that was the scene for the three years from my freshman yr. in high school (didn't know anyone in California) through my junior year.

Into that scene came the Family Grudge with Evil Brother I and his Witchy Wife, and Evil Brother II, and thus Brother II's wife. Since I went to school a few bus transfers away, and hadn't any neighborhood friends, I spent endless hours, winter and summer, hearing my mother and aunt go on and on and on and on and on.

The good part is that this impelled my advanced rate of reading as a way to bury the sounds of the repetitive complaints. That grudge lasted the rest of my mother's and aunt's lives.

Plus, I was pretty glad to get an afterschool job and find my own interests.



I've since gone through my mother's letters to cousins back east, and vice versa. Hard reading, I didn't really want to, but I saw some of her and my aunt's points, and can grasp the emotion involved. Still, it was endless and bitter and sad during those years to hear them devolve into this tornado of feeling. They both had much else to be sad about, and together they kept it all going.

I've no answers - except that I think the repetitive "see a counsellor" could be a good idea, followed by not feeding by all the listening. But, I'd like to see what a counsellor says about that, re not listening.