Friday, August 10, 2007
I have two very close friends who are worried about losing their parents. We're at that age, so they're at that age. Roman lost both his parents within four days of each other last January.
People assume that I would understand their feelings, because both of my parents are gone. I've been through it.
Actually, maybe I don't understand fully. I didn't have the relationship with my parents that most people have.
When my father died, thirty years ago, the "on top" reaction was merely relief. I wouldn't have to be afraid of him any more, and I wouldn't have to worry about my younger siblings any more. (Which actually was wrong, because the damage done lingered for decades.) I thought we were all finally released.
That was on top, the rational part. Deep down was different.
I never saw him dead, so deep in the dark places I didn't believe he was dead. Daughter was very sick and in the hospital when he died, so I wasn't able to go to the funeral (which was moot anyway, since no one told me he had died until a week later. I don't know why).
Deep in the dark places in my mind, I was convinced that people were just telling me he was dead that so I wouldn't try to kill him. That he was hiding, and would come after me or Little Brother as soon as I got comfortable. I had nightmares for over a year in which I was hiding Little Brother from him, and he kept finding him and beating him. I'd wake up screaming and shaking. During the day, any unexpected movement glimpsed from the corner of my eye would have me shaking. It took a few years before the dark places relaxed.
My mother died seventeen years ago. I was holding her hand when she died. At first, for maybe two days, I felt like an orphan. Like my safety and support were gone, and I was alone. And then that dissipated, and I felt nothing. It took another five years for me to realize that I felt nothing not because of depression, but because there was simply nothing to feel.
She was never our safety and support. She made no effort to protect us (other than shouting "Not the head! Not the head!" when we were being beaten). She never gave us any advice or guidance. No praise or encouragement. She pretty much ignored us. We kids grew up competing for our mother's attention, and learning to deflect our father's anger away from ourselves and onto each other, which doesn't lead to good sibling relations. Our mother was really nothing more to us than the quartermaster, the person we went to for necessities.
We wanted to love our parents, we tried very hard, we wanted them to love us, we tried very hard, we convinced ourselves there was some connection, but it in actual fact, it just wasn't there. If my parents had been rich, we kids would probably have been in year-round boarding school from the age of five. That might have been better.
So, no, I probably don't fully understand how my friends feel when they lose their parents, certainly not the depth and breadth.
I wish I did.
.
Showing posts with label Father. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Father. Show all posts
Friday, August 10, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
1249 Mind and Morality
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
At http://wjh1.wjh.harvard.edu/~moral/index.html, you can take a test on moral choices. Be careful not to add possibilities to the descriptions, like "Well, I could call 911." You have to go with the situation exactly as described.
Taking that first test opens the portal to a flock of other tests you can choose.
My taking the tests and examining the results helped to explain to me why I find most other people to be too judgemental, too ready to punish mere thoughts, and too ready to ascribe "bad" thoughts and motives to others.
Because they mostly do.
Have fun. (You probably will not get the same questions I did.)
--------------------------------
Not really related to the above, a separate thought engendered by the court case on TV at the moment:
I am always amazed when someone is accused of something heinous, and friends and relatives respond to the charges with, "Oh, that's impossible. I know her, and she couldn't possibly do anything like that! She's such a nice person!" And they rally 'round, and defend, and raise money for defense, and spit vitriol and throw rocks at the accusers, and accuse them of lying - all based on their belief that the accusation doesn't fit with what they know of the person.
"I know she didn't do it because I know her and I know she couldn't have done it."
Bullpoopy.
Unless they witnessed the actual act, and saw someone else do it, they don't really know! Everyone has parts to them that no one knows. It always pisses me off when people act like they know another that well, because they don't. We mostly don't even know ourselves that well. It bugs me when people ignore facts in favor of loyalty.
It works the other way, too - when someone suggests that someone else could have done something nasty, and another says, "Oh, yes, I know her and she's quite capable of it", and next thing you know, she did do it, regardless of the lack of any evidence that anything of the kind had ever actually happened!
I don't understand either bunch. I don't understand why it's so difficult to reserve judgement until the facts are in. I'll decide something is likely or unlikely, but not with the passionate sureness of those others.
----------------------------------
This has personal application. An old friend was recently accused of a serious crime. The friend and I had only shortly before reestablished contact - I hadn't seen or heard from him in 40 years. I knew him as a nice and thoughtful guy, and in the forty years since we had been acquainted he had established himself as a pillar of his church and community. The accusation almost destroyed his life, costing him his job just before retirement. (The charges have since been dropped, but his record has not been expunged. This will hang over him for the rest of his life.)
I reserved judgement. I actually felt guilty doing so. He's an old friend. I should stand by him, right? I should have written letters to the court praising him, shouldn't I? That's what everyone expected me to do, wanted me to do. Along with everyone else who wrote letters saying he couldn't possibly have done it because they know him as ... blah blah ... and therefore he couldn't have.
But I really truly don't know him now. I have no basis for judgement whatsoever. I was given some of the facts in the case, which seem to absolve him, but I am too aware that I don't have all the facts.
I don't know what happened, and I have no basis on which to form an opinion or take a stance, and for that, I feel guilty.
-----------------------------------
Perhaps this all goes back to our frustration when we kids tried to tell teachers, councilors, doctors, policemen, neighbors about our father and what he did to us, and we got laughed at and pushed away and ignored, because "I know your father, and he's a nice guy. He wouldn't do that. You must have just made him mad."
Anger had nothing to do with it. And he wasn't a nice guy. Not really. He was insane.
.
At http://wjh1.wjh.harvard.edu/~moral/index.html, you can take a test on moral choices. Be careful not to add possibilities to the descriptions, like "Well, I could call 911." You have to go with the situation exactly as described.
Taking that first test opens the portal to a flock of other tests you can choose.
My taking the tests and examining the results helped to explain to me why I find most other people to be too judgemental, too ready to punish mere thoughts, and too ready to ascribe "bad" thoughts and motives to others.
Because they mostly do.
Have fun. (You probably will not get the same questions I did.)
--------------------------------
Not really related to the above, a separate thought engendered by the court case on TV at the moment:
I am always amazed when someone is accused of something heinous, and friends and relatives respond to the charges with, "Oh, that's impossible. I know her, and she couldn't possibly do anything like that! She's such a nice person!" And they rally 'round, and defend, and raise money for defense, and spit vitriol and throw rocks at the accusers, and accuse them of lying - all based on their belief that the accusation doesn't fit with what they know of the person.
"I know she didn't do it because I know her and I know she couldn't have done it."
Bullpoopy.
Unless they witnessed the actual act, and saw someone else do it, they don't really know! Everyone has parts to them that no one knows. It always pisses me off when people act like they know another that well, because they don't. We mostly don't even know ourselves that well. It bugs me when people ignore facts in favor of loyalty.
It works the other way, too - when someone suggests that someone else could have done something nasty, and another says, "Oh, yes, I know her and she's quite capable of it", and next thing you know, she did do it, regardless of the lack of any evidence that anything of the kind had ever actually happened!
I don't understand either bunch. I don't understand why it's so difficult to reserve judgement until the facts are in. I'll decide something is likely or unlikely, but not with the passionate sureness of those others.
----------------------------------
This has personal application. An old friend was recently accused of a serious crime. The friend and I had only shortly before reestablished contact - I hadn't seen or heard from him in 40 years. I knew him as a nice and thoughtful guy, and in the forty years since we had been acquainted he had established himself as a pillar of his church and community. The accusation almost destroyed his life, costing him his job just before retirement. (The charges have since been dropped, but his record has not been expunged. This will hang over him for the rest of his life.)
I reserved judgement. I actually felt guilty doing so. He's an old friend. I should stand by him, right? I should have written letters to the court praising him, shouldn't I? That's what everyone expected me to do, wanted me to do. Along with everyone else who wrote letters saying he couldn't possibly have done it because they know him as ... blah blah ... and therefore he couldn't have.
But I really truly don't know him now. I have no basis for judgement whatsoever. I was given some of the facts in the case, which seem to absolve him, but I am too aware that I don't have all the facts.
I don't know what happened, and I have no basis on which to form an opinion or take a stance, and for that, I feel guilty.
-----------------------------------
Perhaps this all goes back to our frustration when we kids tried to tell teachers, councilors, doctors, policemen, neighbors about our father and what he did to us, and we got laughed at and pushed away and ignored, because "I know your father, and he's a nice guy. He wouldn't do that. You must have just made him mad."
Anger had nothing to do with it. And he wasn't a nice guy. Not really. He was insane.
.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)