Re: home--Laurel and Ivy

[Guest guest]

Dear Laurel, I have even more ideas for you. First I want to say Ivy, that is

adorable about

the trees and the rocks! Did your trees have names? Priceless! Also helps

explain my very

emotional relationship with the radio.

But I digress. Laurel, I know that whenever I have traumatic memories involved,

especially

when they revolve around a theme, that when one thing happens, I don't feel the

pain of

that one arrow, but instead of the thousands that were cast at me. You may be

tapping in

to the pain of a lifetime of nada denying you any material symbols that would

acknowledge you as a person. The home you would be attached to is of course the

greatest of these.

My nada was and is obsessed with obliterating anything that could remind her

that I

existed, and of the way she treated me. My trophies, report cards or

photographs were

never featured around the house. Before I even moved away from home, she gave

away

my beloved canopy bed to her best friend's young daughter--without even asking

me, of

course. Just after I moved away from home (I was still in high school, and

returned

summers), she had a big joint garage sale with the neighbors, and she sold off

some of my

prize possessions--including my stereo. Of course w/out asking me or

compensating me.

When I went away to college it became clear that high school was not just an

abberration,

that I was really gone--that's when she decided to sell the house. After that I

was never

allotted my own room (and never have been). There is now a room where I stay

when I'm

there, but it's not MY room. There are none of my things in it. My sister and

I have some

childhood things in the closets and attic, but she is also obsessed with

obliterating those.

A few months ago, after threatening to do so for years, she combed through all

of our

things, under the guise of 'organizing' them in boxes. What she was really

doing was

trying to take control over them, possession of them as her own, and to

obliterate (ie,

throw away) any of them that might cause her to actually see herself, and split

herself

black. I had long since taken away the things that were of most meaning to me.

Likely similar things have happened to you. This home sale is only a grand

symbol of a

lifetime of being systematically annihilated. That is why it's a big deal to

you. Take

heart--you did not fire those thousand arrows, and you are not 'messed up' for

feeling

them. Take some time to deal with the traumatic memories that put you here.

Hope this

helps a little? Now I happened to have a similar thing I needed to post about

today, so I'm

off to do that in a bit.

All the best,

Charlie

>

> Laurel --

>

> I don't know whether this is true of you, but I know that I, being sort

> of cut off from bonding with people in my early environment by the

> crazy foo dynamics, bonded intensely with... cats, trees, rocks,

> weather patterns, ideas, authors, songs... the list goes on, I

> suppose. But to put it briefly, I was probably more attached to the

> trees at my FOO's house than a 'normal' kid would be, because those

> trees were doing more to nurture me than my mother was.

>

> If something like this happened with you, maybe that's part of the

> intensity you're now experiencing?

>

> Ivy

>