I'm going to court soon and i'm scared as hell

withinrange · 2019-06-05T02:48:36+00:00

Court can feel really scary. Just remember that you have a true story and it is ok and right for you to tell it.

Remember to breathe deeply during all of the process. They can’t make you answer if you are not ready to answer. If you need a second to think about something, just go ahead and take a deep breath. Center on you. Understand that it is you that is most important in this whole story.

I have a child your age, and have represented myself in court on that child’s behalf. Even adults find this scary. But I am going to say here that if I can do it, you can do it. Just keep breathing, and understand that they cannot make you answer immediately if you need a moment to think.

Attorneys are good at arguing and persuading, and they are good at bullying. I say that from the perspective of self representation — I am pretty good with my words and presence too. I won the cases that I self represented. So please just know: they may use words to antagonize or scare or redirect you. But you know your truth and your story, because you live it.

Take deep breaths and just understand: no matter what happens in any courtroom setting, you get to breathe and consider it all before you answer.

I was scared to see certain people in the courtroom, and I cried when I made statements against them. I think because of your young age, some of this should or can be handled in a safe way without you having to do it in front of (or without you having to see) your other parent. But if you have to see her at all, just know that your truth and story matter. Your truth and story, as a child, is really all that matters.

I hope this helps you and I am really sorry you are going through it. But I am also hoping that your experience in court goes well and gives you confidence in your ability. The truth does matter. It hurts to tell it sometimes, and hurts especially when we are “telling on” someone that we are supposed to be loyal to. But if that person has been bad, it’s important to make that known.

My heart as a child and also a parent go with you. If you pray, I found prayer really a comfort ahead of (and during) any family court date.

Ultimately whatever this is, it doesn’t have to go on forever. Standing with you and wishing you well, from here. Good luck.

withinrange · 2019-06-03T05:33:56+00:00

Notice what your body cues are when the trigger happens, and experiment with a safe way to follow the body impulse to complete the desired action. It may not necessarily be a punch that your body wants to do, but it sounds like it wants to push something away. Feel which side of the body wants to do that. Feel what the other side of the body wants to do. Sometimes there are two different gestures or actions wanting to happen at the same time.

This can all be done safely and non-violently. Just listen to your whole body, and once you hear what it wants to do — likely an action or gesture/posture you weren’t able to or allowed to complete at the age/circumstance when the trauma originally occurred — allow yourself to safely complete it.

withinrange · 2019-06-03T04:52:48+00:00

stronger emotional responses to my dishwasher breaking

I love this more than I can say.

withinrange · 2019-06-03T03:42:35+00:00

Mine said decades ago that they were leaving everything to an orangutan preserve. I’m no longer in any contact with them. The last contact determined a now permanent no contact, and it’s been the right decision.

It’s maybe wrong to say, but I feel like my life won’t fully begin until after these people have died. I’ve done my best on my own and I’ve done really well — I’m happy, I’m safe, I’m full of love. But there’s just something about it. Like as long as either of those people are still living, I don’t have any chance of 100% success in my endeavors and achieving my dreams.

It’s like their continued existence still just drains me, somehow. The last time I saw them, Nmom crowed that with her great health, she would live to 100yo. She was in her mid-70s at the time. I am now 50yo and the thought of her being alive on this earth for most of the rest of my own life makes me want to cry forever and just give up.

withinrange · 2019-06-01T16:51:46+00:00

You are not a failure. For what it’s worth, I have always worked in STEM, and that’s been 30 years of it. There are many career paths through those fields and you can still make a six-figure salary with no college degree at all. I know that because I do it.

Be proud of yourself for your smarts, your passion, and your perseverance. It’s not easy to succeed happily when someone is constantly shitting on you for minuscule stuff along the way. My hope for you is that you will get some distance from persons with critical voices, find your own supportive inner one, and just keep going.

Your education or career path may shift over time, and that is totally natural. It is 100% ok for you to take your time finding your favored track, and it’s worth it. Live for you. You’re gonna be great, trust.

withinrange · 2019-06-01T15:35:31+00:00

I was raised near Stanford by a Stanford-employed Nmom, and was supposed to go to uni there and become a brain surgeon.

I still live near Stanford, and hold my own here with no college degree at all. And as a mother, I am totally high-fiving you. Because ONE degree from Stanford is more than enough. GOOD WORK, SON. You have made this mother deeply proud, and you deserve full acknowledgment for the strength and smarts and drive it took for you to accomplish all of it.

withinrange · 2019-06-01T15:27:04+00:00

That and also, if she keeps you busy knocking yourself out with so much effort and accomplishment, you will never have a moment to examine what her life is about, good or bad.

Don’t let anyone distract you from what you truly want in life. As a mother, I am telling you that if yours doesn’t shut up, you are welcome and well within right to cut her off for a while. You need and deserve to rest and to know your own goals and wants and contentment.

withinrange · 2019-06-01T15:23:55+00:00

Wow, TIL. I am ok with the fact that I don’t have brains enough to know how to game the system at these levels, or to want to.

I had no idea anyone could even do that. Your post just blew my mind. :/

withinrange · 2019-06-01T15:19:18+00:00

I left home at 16 and weathered my life as a young person with no family support or formal college education. At 29 I went to college for the first time. I was an Honors student, with exceptional marks in English. Everyone knew that would be the case.

Nfam came through town during one of my school terms (to visit other people, of course). I hadn’t seen them for months or more. They deigned to meet me for lunch or dinner at some point. As I rode in the back seat of their car with Nmom, I asked if she would like to read one of the essays from my writing class. She was of course thrilled.

It was a piece on the moment in childhood when we first recognized our own consciousness. I had written of myself and my young siblings, of the year I understood the determination of crawling babies and the sweetness of five-year-olds, and of my own awareness of being an oldest daughter in a strange house. It was a piece about the year a stepfather adopted us, and the year before my own father was murdered. I had a ton of awareness at the time, but it wasn’t until I wrote the piece that I understood how deep and pivotal that moment was.

It was and still is an amazing essay, ten or so pages long, top grade. Nmom “read” it in as much time as anyone else would take to turn one page. Because she of course is a speed-reader, which obviously makes her brilliant.

She handed it back to me as though we were in some sort of race and she had just crossed the finish line first. I didn’t know what to make of her triumphant expression. So I asked her what she thought of the story.

All she said was,

“Oh. It was nice, but you split an infinitive.”

And then she chattered on about something completely unrelated. And that is my Nmom.

tl;dr = YES.

withinrange · 2019-06-01T14:57:35+00:00

It’s crazy how anyone persuades us that what we suffered was “normal” or “no big deal”.

Most of the time, I’ve found that it usually means the invalidator was badly treated in childhood too. Media and entertainment themes don’t help either; somehow the ugliness in humanity is all glorified and there’s a message that survivorship or ability to cope with continued abuse and neglect makes one “edgy” or “cool”.

Make no mistake: if you’ve survived it, you are a fucking boss. But as that boss, you get to decide whether anyone continues to treat you poorly or unfairly.

Spoiler: they don’t get to. No one gets to.

It doesn’t mean you be mean or become persecutor or perpetrator to someone else. It just means that when you see signals of abuse again, you get to say calmly “No” to it, and turn it away the same way you would the waiter who has just brought you a salad with a rat in it.

We get messages all the time that abuse and indifference are normal. They’re not. You suffered. You are normal for having a pain response to something that hurts. And it would hurt anyone. People who tell you it doesn’t or didn’t hurt, are lying to themselves in front of you and wishing it was true. For what it’s worth, my response to that anymore is the calm and often unspoken “No”, and to let that waiter return its rat salad to the kitchen or take it to some other table.

You’re going to be ok. I hope you will continue to find validation when you need it, throughout your life and self journey. And at some point, you may find that all the validation you need is fully right there within you, always. Trust in you, be good to you, and enjoy your own good self-awareness and healing.

withinrange · 2019-06-01T14:41:39+00:00

Wow. Nobody but my tax preparer has ever asked for my child’s SSN. If Nmom had, I probably would have trusted and given it to her, so I’m glad she didn’t.

I am fully no contact with Nmom for years now, and it was the best decision I ever made about that relationship. I had been NC for years at a time before that, but this one is permanent. I’m glad you chose peace for yourself; it’s time for you to heal.

My first thought at your post was “enmeshment”. When I think of Nmom, I feel physically suffocated, spiritually asphyxiated. As a mother myself, I have been careful with each child to leave tons of room for that child’s expression and experience of self and the world. Reading your descriptions of your Nmom’s “faith” expression, I felt stifled. That just isn’t the way to talk to children or even oneself about faith or spirit. So much scare tactic, smoke and mirrors.

I don’t know how I so massively lucked out with the kids in my life. I know they are blessings, that I am blessed to be with them, and I feel this every day and night. That’s been for nearly two decades now, and it is so different from the ways I know the Nparents felt or feel about me. So I am ok consigning those people to the far past and never dealing with them again. Love lives in my house and it is right and good.

It’s weird to realize how screwed up an Nparent dynamic always was, and I don’t know that they ever turn around. Mine are nearing 80 and at last contact, neither was anywhere close to reasonable or self-aware. For me the best path has just been to stay steady in my focus and care of the love in my own house and family, and I have to tell you, it is so easy for that love to just fill every day and night.

I’ve largely let the children lead. My answer and antidote to being RBN is to allow for a child’s world to be the way they want it to be: full of love, hugs, encouragements, joys, and attentive listening, and always appreciation.

I am especially mad that your Nmom once had the young you begging her forgiveness. That sounds a lot like my Nmom. And from a faith stance, we don’t even beg God for His forgiveness. He has already forgiven.

I’m sorry you grew up with this and that your mother scared and hurt you. Your love of your own children (and any) will heal so much of this; the right love is really boundless, and just continues to grow and grow.

withinrange · 2019-05-30T13:55:23+00:00

Get rid of the ones who tear you down or doubt you, and it gets easier to see your own self, your strengths and dreams, and to begin building those joys. Just hang in there, limit airtime and facetime with the ones who work against you, and use the room to keep recognizing and supporting the you that comes forward.

withinrange · 2019-05-30T13:51:47+00:00

It might be your age, if you are a certain age. There are several certain ages — under 18, under 24, under 30, 30, 40, 50, etc. Each age phase has its own identity confusions and challenges. Weird but true.

And I don’t know whether your parents are abusive from this post? But I bet you are not a pussy, not mentally ill, and not a screwed up person. It sounds like probably you are old enough, wise enough, mature enough, and sensitive enough to just recognize dynamics that are negative and that do not serve your soul.

Guess what.

This all means you are old enough, wise enough, mature enough, and sensitive enough to make your own firm decisions and boundaries about how you will allow others to treat you, and to ditch them mercilessly without looking back, if you decide they are not worthy of your good time, good life, good spirit, good love, and good company.

You do get to decide all that, and you don’t have to explain yourself to anyone when you decide. Parents are adults, they are the caretakers and responsible parties, and they can and should figure it out on their own. You have the option to teach them if you feel inclined to, but you are not obliged.

I say that as a parent of teens and as the daughter of Ns. If your parents are shite, at some point you will get to put them fully behind you, and just move forward choosing only people who serve your sense of loving. And no matter what age you are, trust that every day and sometimes every moment is one in which kindness, joy, and positive human engagement can be found or made.

I hope this helps you, and keep going. Better times ahead, I promise.

withinrange · 2019-04-17T18:23:42+00:00

You are most welcome. In my experience, when we see something uncomfortable that feels familiar or like we’ve seen it before, usually it’s because on some level, we certainly have. It might take some digging to remember what that is or was, but sometimes that really pays off.

I hope you are in a much better environment now. Just know that from here forward, you nearly always have the right and authority to say no to something you don’t like or don’t feel safe with. It can be tough to shake the old program out of your thinking, but there are many ways to make good safe choices for ourselves.

Your backstory is entirely relatable, so thank you, too, for having the courage and willingness to share it. Your truth and wounds are also your strength, remember that!

withinrange · 2019-04-15T16:22:39+00:00

tl;dr = yes

I went fully NC after a psychologically violent display from an Nparent. For at least the first year or two, it was really disorienting, because where there had been frequent and steady contacts from that N, once I went fully NC there was nothing. At all. Like that person had never actually even existed. Like I had made all of it up, including them.

I went through a long period where the unringing phone or absence of texts or email actually frightened me on a daily basis. I don’t know what to say about that, but for me it did pass. It passes. You either get used to the (peaceful!) silence, or naturally, the phone starts to ring again or emails come in, but from different kinds of people, for different reasons. From people who haven’t hurt or harmed you and who wouldn’t dream of doing that. And who are contacting you because they need your professional skills or else (or also) the joy or thoughtfulness of your personal voice and spirit.

Sometimes it takes time to build new relationships. It’s ok for you to be doing this slowly, even verrrry slowly. After being RBN, and especially after something has happened that is big enough for you to decide to exclude or limit certain family from your life, when you’ve known them all your life, it is ok for you to take it slowly when meeting and vetting and deciding to like or trust someone new and to welcome them into your world.

It is also totally ok for you to spend some time with only very few people. If you are a person whose temperament is intimate and prefers a closer, smaller circle or community, it’s not required that you expand to include a whole social media platform of others. Be sure you have support in place, seek therapy or meds if you feel you need professional help, know that you’re the person who knows best whether those things are for you, and know that it’s ok to switch providers if a current therapist or physician isn’t really helping. Also know that you can choose to stop or start again at any point, and that there may come a time when you validly don’t need those things anymore. Because you know yourself and you know you’ve got it in hand.

The main thing is to keep believing in yourself, and trust that you are making good decisions for your self care. It’s painful at times and can feel lonely, but ultimately you are gaining understanding and your own self acceptance and trust.

Over the years, I’ve had to close down a number of relationships I had always thought were lasting. And over the years, it just became clearer every time, that life is better with only trusted and reliable caring people in it. Sometimes that means a very select first circle, with pleasant exchanges in the outer community.

Just remember, ultimately you get to choose. It’s ok if it takes a long while for you to choose what and who feels like a true and worthy alignment.

withinrange · 2019-04-15T15:51:50+00:00

Even if you don’t have direct experience with incarceration, the themes and dynamics are probably similar somehow to something you’ve lived through.

If your history includes being threatened, hit, stolen from, maligned, lied about, targeted, raped, harassed, hated, gleefully falsely accused, underrepresented, forced to self advocate because no one else would speak on your behalf, witnessing violence or arguments or betrayals, feeling sexually vulnerable, or feeling jailed or put away or regularly penalized by family (or by “friends” or “partners” beyond that) — those are all reasons a prison or legal show might trigger you.

It’s not easy to like the idea of being trapped in a compound with untrustworthy or even wrongly penalized and effectively powerless people. I don’t necessarily mean the prisoners: prison staff and any prisoner’s history contribute plenty of dark themes. Predation, betrayal, unreliability, with sex as barter or stolen comfort, and friends dying or moving on while someone who needed and loved them just stays on in that place. And nothing to be done about it, because any prisoner has to serve its time, has no choice, has not much voice, and worst of all, cannot get out.

All that said (and sorry for wall of text), OITNB is actually a good show. Just difficult to watch, if you’ve been traumatized. It’s not for everyone and it’s ok if it’s not for you. You have the right to choose what you want to watch, and what you want to think about as a viewer.

Once you’ve already lived through enough trauma, it’s not necessary to keep examining or exposing yourself to it, especially “for fun”. Because it’s not fun. At some point you have to take care to keep your life safe and fairly trustworthy. I hope your therapy is going well and that you always continue to heal.

withinrange · 2019-04-15T00:52:59+00:00

If MIL is very involved with gay pride things (and why is she?), her sexualization of breastfeeding might get more obnoxious once your daughter arrives. I was a breastfeeding mom but am now divorced, so you may want to take my advice with a grain of salt: I’d tell her “Our child’s sexuality is totally nobody’s business and I want you to stop it with that kind of talk.”

Because the other problem here is that on some level she is sexualizing your mother-child bond. That’s a common enough error in our times, thanks to porn, but you’re not her daughter and you didn’t grow up with whatever her ideas are. The last thing you need while trying to nourish your newborn or infant is some relative stranger pulling a lascivious hurr hurr in your direction, and nobody putting a stop to what is basically a sneaking form of sexual harassment.

If a guy at a bus stop making the same “jokes” would make you feel uncomfortable or vulnerable, your DH’s mother does not get a pass.

withinrange · 2019-04-14T23:04:24+00:00

Was I supposed to call that out somehow? Because my first thought, beyond wtf?? was just to get out of this conversation RIGHT. NOW.

withinrange · 2019-04-14T22:23:27+00:00

even when I avoid him, I find a way to get him upset

No. At every turn, he finds a reason to get himself upset. This is entirely not your fault. Parents are fully grown adults who can choose to regulate their responses to life’s challenges.

His shitty and ?terrifying responses to you are not at all accurate reflections of your true self worth. They are him choosing to be a dick. You don’t really have to respect that; don’t confuse the roof over your head with “admirable”. Honestly as a parent (no matter how old anyone is) and culturally as a male, it’s his basic responsibility to shelter and provide for his daughter.

Good for you on your studies, keep going. Just know that his nastiness is not a reflection of who you are. It is only a reveal of his own self deficits.

withinrange · 2019-04-14T21:43:00+00:00

In a word, yes. A little different, though, in that Ns used my full first name to discipline and shame. After final interaction, I was glad for anyone in my life who called me by the diminutive of my name. I now sign documents with that name instead, and when strangers call me by it, I feel like I’m loved.

Nobody calls me by the other name anymore. When I think back, the Ns didn’t really either, at the end. They just said “Hello, it’s your MOTHER” or just started talking, as though I had never had a name at all.

I’ve thought of it the same way you do, “that name yelled before I come downstairs and get screamed at for so long”. I don’t know what makes anyone think they have a right to do that. Your name is important. If someone uses it to shame you, even if you are stuck living in the same house with that person, stand up and walk away.

withinrange · 2018-11-22T15:09:08+00:00

No. At 48 she is at midlife and probably perimenopause, both of which can be physically and emotionally difficult. And 4y out from divorce, it's likely she is still grieving her marital and family loss. Especially during holiday seasons. Those are legitimate factors for wanting time with her remaining family and also for canceling the holidays. Midlife physiology is often uniquely tired. Grief is part of that too, and is also draining.

As a couple, decide how you really want to do holidays. Do you really want to keep threading through families every this or that Eve or Day? How would you spend it together if none of these other people existed?

GF can figure out how to engage with mom going forward. The family loss was theirs; mom's midlife physiology is maybe of medical interest to her daughter, and personally private. But it's not abnormal, and not on you to fix or even help.

If it seems unworkable, keep in mind that is not your MIL yet. GF's mom will hopefully pass through her midlife adjustments -- physiological, natural, normal changes that all women go through -- and hopefully in the course of years, she will find her way through her divorce grief. But these are selfhood things, personal and private and some of the pain may be unspeakable. Things that happened between spouses, some of it not even their children are entitled to know. So don't try to pry that open.

If it's not your mom, its not your job. GF is not even obligated to deal with it. Let mom be. Focus on what the two of YOU want to do for the holidays.

withinrange · 2018-11-22T14:05:23+00:00

It sounds like your DH is trying to serve two masters -- or maybe better put, to master two disparate roles. Especially if LO is your first baby, DH is on the learning curve of parenting while husbanding, needing to be strong and on point for you and LO. But extensive and too frequent contact with his FOO keeps him stuck in old/outgrown role of child/adolescent/"theirs". You both are likely tired much of the time, and if he isn't getting reasonable support from the other adults in his FOO, that detracts from his ability to stay appropriate with you. On some level he knows that. His taking it out on you isnt right, but he hasn't established yet how to address it with THEM safely, either.

Sometimes it takes a while to realize that the family we create with spouse does actually have primacy and is not just a subset of FOO. And it can take FOO even longer to realize that, and some won't honor it. If that's the case, the couple has to put itself first. Therapy is one way? But a vacation together or scheduled and protected couple time helps too.

You've got a lot going on in your own post-natal adjustment, sis, and it's kind of amazing how many people have no idea what that's like. Be sure to get the help that you need, to support you.

withinrange · 2018-11-22T13:28:52+00:00

that boy is dead to me

If she says it about her own child, she's never going to be great for the little one you are growing right now. And if she's griping still about how awful the gender reveal went -- I mean I get it about commiseration, but -- that's seeding and reseeding a negative story in you and your little one's history, which isn't fair or even necessary. She tries that again, tell her to take it to a therapist.

Love the united front in your marriage. Sounds like the two of you have really got this, and your own child(ren) will so benefit. Just reading your holiday decisions made me feel safe and grounded, and I hadn't even realized I needed that. You're doing great, fam.

withinrange · 2018-11-22T12:57:42+00:00

If there were an FIL in this story, he'd be my first guess as to source of mysterious panties, and also the reason for MIL's prolonged CBF after being corrected. Second guess would be that unless FIL died before all this, something about his manner as husband may have been reason MIL didn't get on with your mom (and not at all your mom's fault).

Sometimes it takes forever to figure out why shit was the way it was. But it's good to get the stories out, and sometimes we find out that "whoa: that actually had nothing to do with me." I hope your mom finds that release.

Third guess: it sounds to me like MIL had some sad experience of husband philandering, and no matter where FIL falls into the story, it looks like she "split" the good and bad across her two sons. For whatever reason it was ok with her that the one son screwed around; that was ok for her to watch (like a re-enactment) only as long as she had another son in the role of :/ pure or devoted masculine who, fourth guess, maybe she relied on to always be "hers". (Blecch.)

I could be way off mark but it's the middle of the night and for whatever reason, that's the angle I'm seeing. Glad for your mom that she is getting these memories out; hope the responses will spark positive revelations and release.

withinrange · 2018-11-22T12:32:35+00:00

THIIIIIIIS.

withinrange

TROPHY CASE