My health took another turn for the worst again this past week, so I'm on tenderhooks. We don't exactly know what's wrong yet, but it's something neurological that seems to be affecting a good part of my body and may be connected to the strange headaches I've been getting the past two months. I'm supposed to rest this weekend and then try to get into the neurologist early next week.
HOWEVER (yes, that's a big "however"), I'm also moving this week and am here all alone with no reliable help. So I have to somehow make it through this week without going into a major health crisis (one that puts me completely out of commission). Fortunately, I'm pretty well packed except for the last minute odds and ends so I can afford the luxury of relaxing.
Today I had to be at the condo for the floor cleaners and I laid down in the car the whole time they were working. Monday and Tuesday I have furniture deliveries coming to the condo that I have to be for, and also the telephone company is coming to set things up there, so I have to be at the condo for these things too. Fortunately, Monday the sectional sofa and bed are being delivered, so I can lay down on those if need be and do the minimal of what I need to do for these various things to get done.
Monday could be a real challenge though. I have to try to make it to the neurologist and then a few people from church are coming to take liquid things (soaps, cooking oils, etc.) and the like over to the condo. These are things that mostly the movers don't carry and liquids are heavy, so it would be too much for me to carry all at once. This could be a long day for me.
Wednesday is going to be the killer, however, and I could use mega prayers to make it through that one. While the movers are at my current place the cabinet people will be bringing the new kitchen and bathroom cabinets to the new condo. When we arrive at the condo they'll be installing the cabinets while the movers are moving everything in. I'm going to have them try to put all the boxes in single layers as much as possible to minimize my having to lift boxes to see what's in lower boxes. Unpacking is going to be slow, for sure.
After I move there is still some things that will have to be done, such as some furniture to be assembled, the new steam shower jacuzzi (which I wanted for my fibromyalgia and other health issues and should arrive later this week) has to be installed, etc. But at least I'll be there and if I have to I can drop the moving things and focus on health issues. My health goal for this week is to manage to at least maintain where I am and not get any worse. I hope I succeed.
I told my neighbor here that after I leave she's going to have to resort to soap operas for excitement! In any case, she didn't argue against that suggestion.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
286. Diatribe: Handypersons
Yesterday I had 4 appointments plus had all the regular things to do at home and today I'm wiped out. Someone was supposed to help me get the 8 foot long slatwall to the condo today but I just want to stay home and recuperate. We found out that there's no way to lower the back seat of my car (at least no way short of destroying something or the other). So I have to find some other way to get them there. Not too mention that they're too heavy for me anyway. My church is AWOL - a case, I think, of out of sight out of mind. (I'm not as useful as they'd hoped, I think, in pressuring me to hurry and become a member. Next time I go to church I"m going to wear my "invisible diseases" t-shirt to maybe get them to realize that I might be sicker than I look at first glance.
***
Anyway, that's not why I'm writing here today. The thing is that I just can't believe how wimpy so many women are. So I'm going to write here as if I'm telling a friend in Seattle that I grew up with about women and handy people (not) outside of the pacific northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho and sometimes Alaska and British Columbia). So here's how I imagine myself telling her about these things.
M., I know this may be hard to believe but it seems like everywhere outside of the pacific northwest that I go (except Siberia) it seems that women are wimps! Now if you needed to have a sofa moved any distance, for example, even a strong man would generally not attempt this alone, if nothing else because of the size of the sofa. But two reasonably strong and healthy women could do it too, don't you think? But no, that evidently is not the case. If I need a sofa moved there is no other woman who could do it with me, I guess because they're all wimps (even though at first glance they don't appear to be wimps). So by process of elimination, that means it has to be a man helping me.
But the thing is that in these non pacific northwest (or Siberia) locales my being a woman precludes the possibility of me lifting the sofa alongside a man, so that means that I have to be sidelined while two men do it. Of course, with my current back issues I really can't help lift sofas, but even when I was healthy I found this to be the case all to often. And if my health precludes me helping carry the sofa, what's to stop two other women or a man and a different woman (i.e., not me, say husband and wife team) from carrying it? But no, women en toto are sidelined from such activities and chores.
This makes me think that these people are unfamiliar with pacific northwest (or Siberian) mores and are probably also not from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong and the men are good looking.
In many places, I think, men don't like strong women and so they encourage women to be weak and needy, which makes the men feel all strong and heroic... like rescuing Repunzel from the tower she's locked up in.
But not only this, but I think that men feel intimidated by strong women. If a woman is found to be strong that somehow emasculates men. You can imagine that this would never have worked in pioneer days, but evidently many people find this state of affairs acceptable and amenable, and so it continues unabated from generation to generation (in places outside of the pacific northwest, Siberia and Lake Wobegon in post pioneer days).
Fast forward to today. You may be aware that Amish, Mennonite and Brethren denominations have some similarities and among certain local emanations of any or all of these religious groups the difference can be rather slight. For example, I attended a Mennonite church planting effort in Philadelphia where the missionary Mennonites dressed similar to Amish and preferred simplicity similar to them too. Despite such frequent similarities, my current church is Brethren and I am amazed at the difference between the Amish, who are generally pretty handy and self-sufficient, and this Brethren church. In my church here the men are so totally unhandy that in some cases I know more than they do about handy things, and that's pretty bad, because my handy knowledge is rather limited, despite the fact that I can wield a mean drill, which is packed in an underbed storage bin as I write.
So this raises a bit of a problem because if I am to ask for help, but women aren't allowed to be handy or strong (evident by the lack of women coming forward to offer to help me) while at the same time the men don't really seem to know more than me and in some cases and issues know less than me, I am stuck with potentially inadequate male help . In this scenario I am reticent to ask for help from church because the men will want to leave me out of it altogether (because of the aforementioned male-femaile gender issues), but will also rather go it on their own, even if I have some knowledge they might benefit from. Benefiting from my knowledge would be unmasculine, but doing it alone without me will also (even if they botch it in part or altogether) will boost their male ego and serve to "put me in my place" in relation to the male gender.
The only solution, it seems, is to either seek help outside of church or go it alone, along the lines of the famous Simon & Garfunkel song "I am a rock, I am an island." Of course, this song isn't the final say in things, because it falls somewhere below Scriptural teaching as being the end all and guide for living. Nevertheless, in reality, I am either forced to be a rock and an island or live in a male-dominated world where the men are strong and the women are good looking.
What say you fair sister to these things?
***
Anyway, that's not why I'm writing here today. The thing is that I just can't believe how wimpy so many women are. So I'm going to write here as if I'm telling a friend in Seattle that I grew up with about women and handy people (not) outside of the pacific northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho and sometimes Alaska and British Columbia). So here's how I imagine myself telling her about these things.
M., I know this may be hard to believe but it seems like everywhere outside of the pacific northwest that I go (except Siberia) it seems that women are wimps! Now if you needed to have a sofa moved any distance, for example, even a strong man would generally not attempt this alone, if nothing else because of the size of the sofa. But two reasonably strong and healthy women could do it too, don't you think? But no, that evidently is not the case. If I need a sofa moved there is no other woman who could do it with me, I guess because they're all wimps (even though at first glance they don't appear to be wimps). So by process of elimination, that means it has to be a man helping me.
But the thing is that in these non pacific northwest (or Siberia) locales my being a woman precludes the possibility of me lifting the sofa alongside a man, so that means that I have to be sidelined while two men do it. Of course, with my current back issues I really can't help lift sofas, but even when I was healthy I found this to be the case all to often. And if my health precludes me helping carry the sofa, what's to stop two other women or a man and a different woman (i.e., not me, say husband and wife team) from carrying it? But no, women en toto are sidelined from such activities and chores.
This makes me think that these people are unfamiliar with pacific northwest (or Siberian) mores and are probably also not from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong and the men are good looking.
In many places, I think, men don't like strong women and so they encourage women to be weak and needy, which makes the men feel all strong and heroic... like rescuing Repunzel from the tower she's locked up in.
But not only this, but I think that men feel intimidated by strong women. If a woman is found to be strong that somehow emasculates men. You can imagine that this would never have worked in pioneer days, but evidently many people find this state of affairs acceptable and amenable, and so it continues unabated from generation to generation (in places outside of the pacific northwest, Siberia and Lake Wobegon in post pioneer days).
Fast forward to today. You may be aware that Amish, Mennonite and Brethren denominations have some similarities and among certain local emanations of any or all of these religious groups the difference can be rather slight. For example, I attended a Mennonite church planting effort in Philadelphia where the missionary Mennonites dressed similar to Amish and preferred simplicity similar to them too. Despite such frequent similarities, my current church is Brethren and I am amazed at the difference between the Amish, who are generally pretty handy and self-sufficient, and this Brethren church. In my church here the men are so totally unhandy that in some cases I know more than they do about handy things, and that's pretty bad, because my handy knowledge is rather limited, despite the fact that I can wield a mean drill, which is packed in an underbed storage bin as I write.
So this raises a bit of a problem because if I am to ask for help, but women aren't allowed to be handy or strong (evident by the lack of women coming forward to offer to help me) while at the same time the men don't really seem to know more than me and in some cases and issues know less than me, I am stuck with potentially inadequate male help . In this scenario I am reticent to ask for help from church because the men will want to leave me out of it altogether (because of the aforementioned male-femaile gender issues), but will also rather go it on their own, even if I have some knowledge they might benefit from. Benefiting from my knowledge would be unmasculine, but doing it alone without me will also (even if they botch it in part or altogether) will boost their male ego and serve to "put me in my place" in relation to the male gender.
The only solution, it seems, is to either seek help outside of church or go it alone, along the lines of the famous Simon & Garfunkel song "I am a rock, I am an island." Of course, this song isn't the final say in things, because it falls somewhere below Scriptural teaching as being the end all and guide for living. Nevertheless, in reality, I am either forced to be a rock and an island or live in a male-dominated world where the men are strong and the women are good looking.
What say you fair sister to these things?
Saturday, October 29, 2011
285. No More Promises!
I've decided not to indicate intention to begin writing here, but just to do it. That is, you'll know I'm ready to jump in again on this project when I actually do so, and not in advance.
My health has been a bit up and down, but I've avoided a crisis by putting a moratorium on lifting. That includes bringing in groceries with a cart rather than in my arms. I've been able to significantly lower my pain medicine, except for the neuropathic pain in my feet - which is treated the same way as fibromyalgia pain. But the pain has increased a bit again and my legs/walking are giving me somewhat more trouble again. And to top it off I've been getting headaches for the past 3 days, always later in the day. Laying down helps so I can sleep without the headaches. It feels like flu-type headache.
The really big news, though, is that I found and bought a condo. It's been mine now for just over a week and already the interior decorator has her folk at work on fixing it up. I must say, though, that it's somewhat more expensive than I planned, so I expect my financial planner will not be happy. I need to try to think of a way to earn some extra money (working around my health limitations).
I haven't been to church in ages. The last time I went I sat the whole time and my feet were killing me so I had to leave early. Pastor came by a couple weeks ago and said he might be able to pull together a couple guys to help me move the things that will be installing at the condo (ceiling fans/lights, slatwall, etc.). I've been bringing one or two boxes over each time I stop by the condo. There are a few things that are really too heavy for me to try to maneuver though, such as the 6 foot tall box of slatwall.
I guess that's the main news from here now. I haven't abandoned this project, though; I've just had to put in on hold for a while.
My health has been a bit up and down, but I've avoided a crisis by putting a moratorium on lifting. That includes bringing in groceries with a cart rather than in my arms. I've been able to significantly lower my pain medicine, except for the neuropathic pain in my feet - which is treated the same way as fibromyalgia pain. But the pain has increased a bit again and my legs/walking are giving me somewhat more trouble again. And to top it off I've been getting headaches for the past 3 days, always later in the day. Laying down helps so I can sleep without the headaches. It feels like flu-type headache.
The really big news, though, is that I found and bought a condo. It's been mine now for just over a week and already the interior decorator has her folk at work on fixing it up. I must say, though, that it's somewhat more expensive than I planned, so I expect my financial planner will not be happy. I need to try to think of a way to earn some extra money (working around my health limitations).
I haven't been to church in ages. The last time I went I sat the whole time and my feet were killing me so I had to leave early. Pastor came by a couple weeks ago and said he might be able to pull together a couple guys to help me move the things that will be installing at the condo (ceiling fans/lights, slatwall, etc.). I've been bringing one or two boxes over each time I stop by the condo. There are a few things that are really too heavy for me to try to maneuver though, such as the 6 foot tall box of slatwall.
I guess that's the main news from here now. I haven't abandoned this project, though; I've just had to put in on hold for a while.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
284. Good News!
I didn't start back into the articles yesterday because I began having more pain. My current regimen, as far as tramadol (which treats my back pain) is concerned is I take 50 mg upon awakening, before breakfast, 50 mg. with lunch and 50 mg before bed. This means that the largest gaps are between lunch and bed and between bed and awakening. I've been having more pain in the evenings, bad enough to limit my activity, including anything that requires too much thinking because my pain is a distraction. So I need to go back to taking my dinner dose. I see my primary care doctor tomorrow.
Anyway, I'm in pain now (it's almost 10 pm), but I want to report on the condo issue. After expressing my restlessness regarding the inaction of the bank making the short-sale decision regarding the condo unit I submitted an offer on, my lawyer contacted their lawyer about it and my realtor began looking again at the units available at the complex I'm pretty dead set on (the guards at the gate to the complex don't even ask for my i.d. any more!), and he found a new one, which also happened to be the cheapest (and not a short sale). The pictures looked great and today we went to see it and it would require much less work to fix up.
The asking price still was about $9k more than the short-sale unit, but picking up on some things the selling agent said though that the sellers might take significantly less than they were asking. I offered verbally offered $70k and we agreed on $73, only $3.5k more than the short-sale! And the fix up costs should be much less, so I might be able to afford to do the fancy steam shower jacuzzi in the master bath. Although this is a bit of a luxury, it's also therapeutic for my ailments, so I think it will be an investment well spent. Also, I found a make and model that fits in the usual bathtub sized space, so it should work out without a major bathroom remodel. At least that's what I'm hoping. The steam shower is also cheaper than many others, so it's not as much as what you might find on a quick search online.
I'm really achy now. I was out all afternoon at the condo and with my realtor and was already getting in some pain towards the end. It doesn't help that I haven't been exercising enough for my fibromyalgia, so I have to go exercise to get my fibromyalgia pain more undercontrol. I won't feel the effects of exercising today until tomorrow though. Believe me, though, it's not easy to exercise when your feet hurt and your legs aren't too steady either.
Anyway, I'm in pain now (it's almost 10 pm), but I want to report on the condo issue. After expressing my restlessness regarding the inaction of the bank making the short-sale decision regarding the condo unit I submitted an offer on, my lawyer contacted their lawyer about it and my realtor began looking again at the units available at the complex I'm pretty dead set on (the guards at the gate to the complex don't even ask for my i.d. any more!), and he found a new one, which also happened to be the cheapest (and not a short sale). The pictures looked great and today we went to see it and it would require much less work to fix up.
The asking price still was about $9k more than the short-sale unit, but picking up on some things the selling agent said though that the sellers might take significantly less than they were asking. I offered verbally offered $70k and we agreed on $73, only $3.5k more than the short-sale! And the fix up costs should be much less, so I might be able to afford to do the fancy steam shower jacuzzi in the master bath. Although this is a bit of a luxury, it's also therapeutic for my ailments, so I think it will be an investment well spent. Also, I found a make and model that fits in the usual bathtub sized space, so it should work out without a major bathroom remodel. At least that's what I'm hoping. The steam shower is also cheaper than many others, so it's not as much as what you might find on a quick search online.
I'm really achy now. I was out all afternoon at the condo and with my realtor and was already getting in some pain towards the end. It doesn't help that I haven't been exercising enough for my fibromyalgia, so I have to go exercise to get my fibromyalgia pain more undercontrol. I won't feel the effects of exercising today until tomorrow though. Believe me, though, it's not easy to exercise when your feet hurt and your legs aren't too steady either.
Friday, September 23, 2011
283. Returning to the Swing of Things
Okay, I think I'm about ready to return to discussing the articles again. But first an update on the present situation.
First of all, I'm leaning towards giving up on the short sale offer, which means I'll lose the deposit, which at least is much less than what the sellers initially requested. It turns out that there's a unit at the complex I've decided on that I haven't seen yet, is much less than what others are asking and looks like it will need less work to prepare to move in. For example, it looks like the kitchen cabinets are new (or at least not the original ones in the building, the appliances are newer and also there is all tile floor (I can't have carpet because of the dust mite allergy). So I'm going to see it tomorrow afternoon. Since I'm a cash buyer this could go pretty quickly, so it's possible I'll be interrupted again to get the place fixed up and moved in. (The reason I might be giving up on the short-sale unit is that the bank shouldn't be taking this long for a "pre-approved" short-sale, which is how this unit was advertised. I can't live where I am indefinitely because I no longer meet their requirements, and there's been no evidence for a month now that the bank is doing anything about my offer.)
My health still isn't that great although I'm walking much better - just using a cane when I go out now, instead of a walker. And to get the mail I can even go without the walker. However, the downside is that as my mobility has improved and I'm moving around more my pain has increased in my back. So whereas I had lowered my tramadol, the past few days I've been thinking I may need to increase it again. My prescription is for 40 mg 4 times a day, but I've just been taking it 3 times a day the past 3 weeks or so. I really do try to keep my pain medicine as low as possible and I also try to look for non-medicinal means to manage my pain. Since I have fibromyalgia this is an ongoing effort, irregardless of what might be happening or not happening in my spine.
My latest thing is focusing on Christmas decorations for my new place. This is sort of a conscious compensation for the pain I've felt in recent years from being cut off from my family for holiday celebrations. A couple years ago, when I was living up north with my brother I put on a Thanksgiving dinner and also prepared a lot of Christmas goodies... too much really. But no one ever expressed any concern for how I felt about being left out of Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter celebrations, and by no one, I include my parents. No one ever thought about me or how I felt at all. I bout an artificial Christmas tree and beneath it I'm going to put the large creche I bought from Quelle (the German catalog company) when I was living in Siberia. (I bought a bunch of stuff from Quelle while in Russia, such as the really great sewing machine that I still use with a quite hefty electrical converter and also some baby things such as a car seat.) I'm purposely putting the creche under the tree because it's not like I expect any presents or anything.
I told my cousins in Canada (on mom's side of the family) more details about mom and her death. I left it up to them as to whether they should till their mom any of it. I'd like to talk more to mom's aunt that she was so close to, but I don't want to upset her so I still have to decide what kinds of things I might want to tell her. When I told my cousin in Canada and explained how sick I was of secrecy (which should be no surprise to you if you've been reading this blog at all!) and she agreed at least about the kinds of things I was telling her.
Then I remembered one day that one of the couples I'd called to inform about mom's death had said that I could call any time if I needed someone to talk to. These people had been our pastor (and wife) when I was in junior high - in my early teens - and had left and the husband got his doctorate in psychology and had a nonprofit practice for many years. They're retired now, but my parents had supported them when they were in their counseling ministry and I had spent one night with them on a deputation trip before going to Vienna in the '80 too. I e-mailed them with the details about what had happened in the recent years and my concerns. I chose to e-mail them rather than phone because I thought I could better explain everything that way. They responded that they were shocked and had company but would get in touch with me more after their company left.
I keep trying to think of some kind of work I could do considering my health limitations. It would be nice if my writing at some point could bring in a little income. But I want to continue with my writing here in any case.
Maybe later this evening I'll start back in on my journal comments. But for now I'll just end here.
First of all, I'm leaning towards giving up on the short sale offer, which means I'll lose the deposit, which at least is much less than what the sellers initially requested. It turns out that there's a unit at the complex I've decided on that I haven't seen yet, is much less than what others are asking and looks like it will need less work to prepare to move in. For example, it looks like the kitchen cabinets are new (or at least not the original ones in the building, the appliances are newer and also there is all tile floor (I can't have carpet because of the dust mite allergy). So I'm going to see it tomorrow afternoon. Since I'm a cash buyer this could go pretty quickly, so it's possible I'll be interrupted again to get the place fixed up and moved in. (The reason I might be giving up on the short-sale unit is that the bank shouldn't be taking this long for a "pre-approved" short-sale, which is how this unit was advertised. I can't live where I am indefinitely because I no longer meet their requirements, and there's been no evidence for a month now that the bank is doing anything about my offer.)
My health still isn't that great although I'm walking much better - just using a cane when I go out now, instead of a walker. And to get the mail I can even go without the walker. However, the downside is that as my mobility has improved and I'm moving around more my pain has increased in my back. So whereas I had lowered my tramadol, the past few days I've been thinking I may need to increase it again. My prescription is for 40 mg 4 times a day, but I've just been taking it 3 times a day the past 3 weeks or so. I really do try to keep my pain medicine as low as possible and I also try to look for non-medicinal means to manage my pain. Since I have fibromyalgia this is an ongoing effort, irregardless of what might be happening or not happening in my spine.
My latest thing is focusing on Christmas decorations for my new place. This is sort of a conscious compensation for the pain I've felt in recent years from being cut off from my family for holiday celebrations. A couple years ago, when I was living up north with my brother I put on a Thanksgiving dinner and also prepared a lot of Christmas goodies... too much really. But no one ever expressed any concern for how I felt about being left out of Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter celebrations, and by no one, I include my parents. No one ever thought about me or how I felt at all. I bout an artificial Christmas tree and beneath it I'm going to put the large creche I bought from Quelle (the German catalog company) when I was living in Siberia. (I bought a bunch of stuff from Quelle while in Russia, such as the really great sewing machine that I still use with a quite hefty electrical converter and also some baby things such as a car seat.) I'm purposely putting the creche under the tree because it's not like I expect any presents or anything.
I told my cousins in Canada (on mom's side of the family) more details about mom and her death. I left it up to them as to whether they should till their mom any of it. I'd like to talk more to mom's aunt that she was so close to, but I don't want to upset her so I still have to decide what kinds of things I might want to tell her. When I told my cousin in Canada and explained how sick I was of secrecy (which should be no surprise to you if you've been reading this blog at all!) and she agreed at least about the kinds of things I was telling her.
Then I remembered one day that one of the couples I'd called to inform about mom's death had said that I could call any time if I needed someone to talk to. These people had been our pastor (and wife) when I was in junior high - in my early teens - and had left and the husband got his doctorate in psychology and had a nonprofit practice for many years. They're retired now, but my parents had supported them when they were in their counseling ministry and I had spent one night with them on a deputation trip before going to Vienna in the '80 too. I e-mailed them with the details about what had happened in the recent years and my concerns. I chose to e-mail them rather than phone because I thought I could better explain everything that way. They responded that they were shocked and had company but would get in touch with me more after their company left.
I keep trying to think of some kind of work I could do considering my health limitations. It would be nice if my writing at some point could bring in a little income. But I want to continue with my writing here in any case.
Maybe later this evening I'll start back in on my journal comments. But for now I'll just end here.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
282. Ruminations about Family
Since my cousin called a couple days ago I think I've felt more sadness about mom's death. Maybe her call helped me open up and not be so tense about things related to the family.
I think that both of my parents died unhappy. Dad was pushing himself in the care of mom and it was clearly getting the best of him, even though he was a very strong person. Mom, well, if she weren't sad I don't expect she'd have committed suicide. But it's really sad to me that both of them died unhappy. It seems to me that they deserved better (despite our relational issues over the years). But at least it's better for them now.
Then, regarding the rest of the family that's left behind, namely me and my two brothers and two nephews (who are all but dead to me because of that thing their father, my brother, made me sign a couple years ago). As soon as things stabilize for me (e.g., health, where I'm living, etc.) I've got to figure out how I can make some friends. I wouldn't be surprised if the future holds some more rocky interactions between me and my brothers. So I don't plan on depending on them for my relational needs.
I think that both of my parents died unhappy. Dad was pushing himself in the care of mom and it was clearly getting the best of him, even though he was a very strong person. Mom, well, if she weren't sad I don't expect she'd have committed suicide. But it's really sad to me that both of them died unhappy. It seems to me that they deserved better (despite our relational issues over the years). But at least it's better for them now.
Then, regarding the rest of the family that's left behind, namely me and my two brothers and two nephews (who are all but dead to me because of that thing their father, my brother, made me sign a couple years ago). As soon as things stabilize for me (e.g., health, where I'm living, etc.) I've got to figure out how I can make some friends. I wouldn't be surprised if the future holds some more rocky interactions between me and my brothers. So I don't plan on depending on them for my relational needs.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
281. Blog May Stand Still, But Life Doesn't!
It's hard for me to return to talking about the past when so much is happening in the present! I'm still here at my same address, though (i.e., I haven't moved yet). That's for the most part because I'm still waiting for the bank to decide whether they'll accept my offer (it's for a "short sale," which - for those not versed in U.S. real estate lingo - is a sale of a property with a for less than the going market rate. The bank holding the mortgage has to decide whether it will accept the offer from a potential buyer. In my case, I offered the amount the seller - representatives handling the estate of the now deceased owner - presented as being "pre-authorized" by the bank holding the mortgage. However, I eventually learned that this sale amount wasn't "pre-authorized" in the usual formal sense of the word. Rather, it was the amount that the bank had counter-offered to a potential buyer not long before I came on the scene, so the estate handlers sort of assumed that this amount was "pre-authorized".
Anyway, I've been continuing to work on getting the condo set up, and in any case, I'm going to buy a condo at this complex, whether it's this unit or not. But other than that, my health has provided more fodder for news and excitement than I like. This isn't a case where "no news is good news" can be used. That is, the fact that I haven't written here does not mean that I have nothing of interest to write. Au contraire! No, since the last time I wrote to you I've been in e.r. twice (after consulting with my doctors' and health insurance's after-hours services. And, I've been admitted likewise twice into the hospital. However, they still haven't determined with great certainty what is causing my symptoms. O, yeah, and I also have been walking with a walker since my last week-long hospital stay. And the walker is a whole story in itself!
***
The story of the walker goes like this: on my 5th day in the hospital last time a nurse told me she thought my trouble walking was because I wasn't up and walking around enough. Huh? Armed with that stupidity in mind, I vowed to get up and walk around after having my shower (which I had to take sitting on the floor of the bath tub because their rules disallowed either taking a bath (there was not plug for the drain) or sitting on a chair in the shower and I wasn't stable enough to risk standing to take a shower.
This was mid evening. So true to my word, after the shower I made myself presentable (by hospital standards, which means mostly wearing a bath robe in order to be properly covered up and not displaying ones backside, wear the hospital gown ties up. I should mention that the entire time in the hospital when a physical therapist came s/he'd bring a walker and go with me walking up and down the hall a bit, but then take the walker away when the session ended. So I was left to my own devices when it came to walking in the absence of a physical therapist. So walking after my shower meant trying to walk without the aid of a walker. So I got by by holding on the rail along the hall. I reached a corner in the hallway - like a T-intersection where you have to decide whether to go right or left because straight ahead is not an option - I looked both ways and who should I meet but my rheumatologist! He was doing something at a computer in the hallway maybe 20 feet or so away from me. I had missed an appointment with him because of being in the hospital and had asked for a consult with him. He didn't recognize me at first, which isn't that surprising since he'd never seen me in my bathroom and with my head wrapped up in a towel turban-style. After I told him my name he cam over and I told him why I was walking around - what the nurse had said, and he agreed that my trouble walking was not because of muscular weakness due to lack of use (of the muscle(s)). He also offered to write a prescription for a walker for me.
The next morning I asked the nurse about the walker, and she acknowledged having seen the script for the walker in my chart but told me that I wouldn't be given the walker until discharge from the hospital. So based on this information I didn't ask about it again until I was being discharged.
Upon learning I was being discharged I had to arrange for follow up appointments for the following week, figure out how I was getting home (I'd come via ambulance), and otherwise go through the usual discharge routine. However, this was being done by nurses at the same time they were taking care of their other patients too. So somewhere in there I inquired about the promised walker... only to learn that there evidently wasn't a script for it. I insisted that there was a script and the nurse checked and double checked, and it wasn't in my records. So then the nurse said that the doctor would have to physically come in to sign the script. I told them that my rheumatologist had already written the script, and I was told that he wasn't my doctor while in the hospital (?!). I eventually understood that the script had either been either intentionally taken out of my records or accidentally misplaced. I said I wouldn't leave without the walker so I had to say another night. The next morning I was told the script was signed and I'd get the walker Monday at home. Satisfied with that (oh foolish me!), I agreed to be discharged.
Upon arrival at home my neighbor lent me her walker on the assumption that it would be only 2 days, until Monday. I waited... and waited... finally by Tuesday mid-day with no word about the phantom walker I was to receive, I called my doctor's office, the rheumatologist and also my primary care doctor, and I also mentioned it to the neurosurgeon, whom I saw on Monday. So at that point both the rheumatologist and neurosurgeon were working on the walker, but my primary care seemed to be AWOL (absent without leave, a military crime worthy of court martial). Finally, by Thursday I got a call from a company arranging to bring me a walker. The next day someone else came by with a walker, which I did not accept. It turns out that that second walker was from the rheumatologist, so I guess I got the walker the neurosurgeon prescribed. Anyway, I'm still walking with a walker, although the physical therapist is helping me and sometimes I'm able to use just a cane.
***
And this brings me to another point... when I was discharged from the hospital I was sent home with a script for physical therapy at home and a home health aid. A nurse comes by from time to time too.
And what are my symptoms? It quite possibly might be easier to answer that are NOT my symptoms, but I'll try my best to answer what ARE my symptoms: weakness and poor control in the legs, tingling and sometimes pain in my feet, cold feet, poor balance, acting up of my autoimmune allergic reaction (specifically redness in the upper chest and facial swelling), tingling in the face accompanied by fatigue, pain in the mid back and also in the gut, g.i. system slow down/malfunction, loss of feeling in my feet (not good for driving a stick shift/automatic transmission car). So now I have increased medications, have dizziness excercises tacked on to my usual heath routine, have to keep my legs elevated to minimize foot pain, tingling and lack of sensation, have to pay more attention to my g.i. system, etc., etc.
***
At the same time I'm working on getting set up in the new condo and hoping against hope that my general contractor is honest, because I just can't deal with problems on that front on top of everything else. But now I'm living in a personal canyon of boxes in my dinky little apartment. Part of the boxes are from packing up, but a good chunk of them are things I've ordered for the new apartment when I find things I've liked at good prices. I'm having to be my own interior decorator, because even if I could afford an interior decorator, noone will work for you until you own the place. But knowing my health I feel like I have to do as much as I can while I'm reasonably able, because I never know when my health will "head south" as they say (i.e., worsen). And, as a bit of insurance against contractor problems, I'm buying most of the things that they have to install. But things are starting to slow down regarding condo set up, at least as far as what can be done before I actually own the unit.
I must say, however, that my health and the condo prep has been a good diversion from thinking about mom and family. There's no getting around the idea that she's happier where she is now (from a Christian standpoint), but it's hard to deal with all the suffering she'd gone through prior to her death. Lately I've thought about it a bit as things otherwise slow down for me some.
***
Here's the real trigger to my writing today, though. I got a call from a cousin, who's a Christian and has spent some time with mom and my brother in recent years, after dad's death 5 years ago in particular. She called yesterday to ask my forgiveness for her not believing me about my concerns about how my brother there was treating mom. It turns out that since mom's death she's seen the angry side of him that she hadn't seen before, and now one of this cousin's brothers (who isn't a Christian) doesn't want anything to do with my brother because of his anger.
In these kinds of things it's not really appropriate to gloat about being right, because it would be better if I hadn't have been right, and mom's the one that suffered. I've told you here how I've been stymied at ways to help mom, but that mom and dad had things set up so that my influence in family matters was negligible, but my brothers played a major role also in making sure things were set up that way. Still, I'm sorry that mom had to suffer in this way - from my brother. But I hope that you will also see that people eventually come to recognize that I'm right in many of my interpretations of events and people. While it would probably be foolish to claim to be right all the time, I hope you can see that at the very least my perspectives on things probably should not be dismissed lightly. My family had build up an informal mechanism for keeping family issues secret and this mechanism could even fool people close to them, but I saw it for something otherwise (than what they wanted people to believe) and stuck to my beliefs with the conviction that I had enough to go on that I was convinced I was right. One other thing you can learn about me from this is that I don't change convictions easily and also I'm not afraid of going against the flow in my thinking.
It's hard, really, to deal with getting this confirmation that mom was abused by my brother (emotionally and verbally if not physically). The fact that I did as much as I could to try to help maybe alleviates any guilt feeling I might have, but it doesn't help the sorrow of this confirmation that she experienced this kind of treatment. You can see from other things I've written here that my relationship with mom has sometimes been rocky, but in all actuality, I think the ultimate cause of this goes back to the men in our family and the fact that mom was so dependent on them and they were so "persuasive" in affecting her views on things.
In the weeks or couple months before mom's death she had told me that she and dad didn't know about the things I'm writing here. But the thing is that they couldn't have known because I didn't trust dad enough to tell them. If dad had found out I was thinking or experiencing these things he would have very convincingly dismissed them and mom would have believed him and disbelieved me. It would have been very difficult for me to write some of these things things when dad was still alive.
***
I still have a couple more things I need to get done before I return to this blog in full force.
***
P.S. I got to thinking that there is one time when I messed up when I might have been able to maybe help mom. That was when I was living in New York and my brother and mom came out to visit me and my other brother and his boys (mom and brother in Pacific N.W. and other brother with his boys in New England; I was living in an apartment owned by my brother in New England, since I'd lost my second job for health reasons.
The scenario was that I hadn't had a holiday with the family in years so I went overboard on preparations. I should have spent more time with mom, but the thing is that after she left from that visit things would be exactly like they were before and it wasn't like she was going to start let me help her apart from my brothers' efforts. So these kinds of things felt to me manipulative ways to try to sort of suck me into the family "game playing" (in the socio-psychological sense of the term; other members of the family would undoubtedly deny there was any "game playing" going on). The last thing anyone in my family was ever going to do was let me have independent relations with mom. While dad was alive, he could maintain direct relations with me because he was astute at some of the familial issues and had clout enough to keep the upper hand. In any regard, no one in the family but me had any realistic potential of countering him. Dad, for example, was where the buck stopped as far as framing (of issues, individuals, events, etc.) went. I was the only one who questioned him with any conviction. I think I was able to do this because of things I'd experienced apart from the family, but also because of certain knowledge I'd gained and also because of my personality. My experiences independent from the family led to independence of judgement and change in some of my values and opinions. Under the purview of my family it would have been more difficult to come to these divergent perspectives, so the geographic and attitudinal distance combined with certain personality traits provided the opportunity to diverge from our family mindset. One of the personality traits that allowed me this opportunity was that of being independent in nature, which dad blamed for my problems in Vienna with the mission. I will remind you, however, that independent of thought is a well-known American value, which Alexis de Tocqueville in his famous book "Democracy in America" noted in the 19th century. Americans valued independence so much that they speer-headed the unfettered free trade movement in the 20th century. I mean the kind of free trade that is unencumbered with legal limitations and lets the market go where it will. Let's just say that I'm the embodiment of that value and Americans should recognize me as their true child that I am, independent spirit and all. (I hope you understand I'm speaking tongue in cheek here.) And dad, who was quite politicized, held to republican hands-off rule, where the rights individuals and businesses aren't encroached upon by big government. In other words, he valued independence... except, it would appear, in me. Or maybe it wasn't so much that I was the problem as it was that there were limitations to his valuing of independence and I fit into one of these exceptions to the right-of-freedom belief. Or possibly, he was just acknowledging how in reality things worked, but in any case, I felt that he agreed with the limitations of freedom thrust on me (by the mission in Vienna, etc.), so my independence in this particular situation was out of line, and those attempting to limit my independence were right in limiting me. In this case, however, one must try to disentangle what was independence acceptable and when wasn't it, or what kind of independence was acceptable and what kind wasn't.
Anyway, this is all to say that I might have helped mom during her visit to New England, when I was living there. But since I wasn't going to join in the family relations as they were, this help would just have been a short-lived event, until they returned back home and my brother there would once again be the one to come between me and any help mom might get. The only way my help could have been more enduring would have been if she would have stepped in so that I could on an ongoing basis have direct access to her to help her. That wasn't going to happen, because doing this was beyond what she could accept emotionally. Giving me that kind of access to her would be tacitly (if not actively) acknowledging that our family was something other than idyllic.
Anyway, I've been continuing to work on getting the condo set up, and in any case, I'm going to buy a condo at this complex, whether it's this unit or not. But other than that, my health has provided more fodder for news and excitement than I like. This isn't a case where "no news is good news" can be used. That is, the fact that I haven't written here does not mean that I have nothing of interest to write. Au contraire! No, since the last time I wrote to you I've been in e.r. twice (after consulting with my doctors' and health insurance's after-hours services. And, I've been admitted likewise twice into the hospital. However, they still haven't determined with great certainty what is causing my symptoms. O, yeah, and I also have been walking with a walker since my last week-long hospital stay. And the walker is a whole story in itself!
***
The story of the walker goes like this: on my 5th day in the hospital last time a nurse told me she thought my trouble walking was because I wasn't up and walking around enough. Huh? Armed with that stupidity in mind, I vowed to get up and walk around after having my shower (which I had to take sitting on the floor of the bath tub because their rules disallowed either taking a bath (there was not plug for the drain) or sitting on a chair in the shower and I wasn't stable enough to risk standing to take a shower.
This was mid evening. So true to my word, after the shower I made myself presentable (by hospital standards, which means mostly wearing a bath robe in order to be properly covered up and not displaying ones backside, wear the hospital gown ties up. I should mention that the entire time in the hospital when a physical therapist came s/he'd bring a walker and go with me walking up and down the hall a bit, but then take the walker away when the session ended. So I was left to my own devices when it came to walking in the absence of a physical therapist. So walking after my shower meant trying to walk without the aid of a walker. So I got by by holding on the rail along the hall. I reached a corner in the hallway - like a T-intersection where you have to decide whether to go right or left because straight ahead is not an option - I looked both ways and who should I meet but my rheumatologist! He was doing something at a computer in the hallway maybe 20 feet or so away from me. I had missed an appointment with him because of being in the hospital and had asked for a consult with him. He didn't recognize me at first, which isn't that surprising since he'd never seen me in my bathroom and with my head wrapped up in a towel turban-style. After I told him my name he cam over and I told him why I was walking around - what the nurse had said, and he agreed that my trouble walking was not because of muscular weakness due to lack of use (of the muscle(s)). He also offered to write a prescription for a walker for me.
The next morning I asked the nurse about the walker, and she acknowledged having seen the script for the walker in my chart but told me that I wouldn't be given the walker until discharge from the hospital. So based on this information I didn't ask about it again until I was being discharged.
Upon learning I was being discharged I had to arrange for follow up appointments for the following week, figure out how I was getting home (I'd come via ambulance), and otherwise go through the usual discharge routine. However, this was being done by nurses at the same time they were taking care of their other patients too. So somewhere in there I inquired about the promised walker... only to learn that there evidently wasn't a script for it. I insisted that there was a script and the nurse checked and double checked, and it wasn't in my records. So then the nurse said that the doctor would have to physically come in to sign the script. I told them that my rheumatologist had already written the script, and I was told that he wasn't my doctor while in the hospital (?!). I eventually understood that the script had either been either intentionally taken out of my records or accidentally misplaced. I said I wouldn't leave without the walker so I had to say another night. The next morning I was told the script was signed and I'd get the walker Monday at home. Satisfied with that (oh foolish me!), I agreed to be discharged.
Upon arrival at home my neighbor lent me her walker on the assumption that it would be only 2 days, until Monday. I waited... and waited... finally by Tuesday mid-day with no word about the phantom walker I was to receive, I called my doctor's office, the rheumatologist and also my primary care doctor, and I also mentioned it to the neurosurgeon, whom I saw on Monday. So at that point both the rheumatologist and neurosurgeon were working on the walker, but my primary care seemed to be AWOL (absent without leave, a military crime worthy of court martial). Finally, by Thursday I got a call from a company arranging to bring me a walker. The next day someone else came by with a walker, which I did not accept. It turns out that that second walker was from the rheumatologist, so I guess I got the walker the neurosurgeon prescribed. Anyway, I'm still walking with a walker, although the physical therapist is helping me and sometimes I'm able to use just a cane.
***
And this brings me to another point... when I was discharged from the hospital I was sent home with a script for physical therapy at home and a home health aid. A nurse comes by from time to time too.
And what are my symptoms? It quite possibly might be easier to answer that are NOT my symptoms, but I'll try my best to answer what ARE my symptoms: weakness and poor control in the legs, tingling and sometimes pain in my feet, cold feet, poor balance, acting up of my autoimmune allergic reaction (specifically redness in the upper chest and facial swelling), tingling in the face accompanied by fatigue, pain in the mid back and also in the gut, g.i. system slow down/malfunction, loss of feeling in my feet (not good for driving a stick shift/automatic transmission car). So now I have increased medications, have dizziness excercises tacked on to my usual heath routine, have to keep my legs elevated to minimize foot pain, tingling and lack of sensation, have to pay more attention to my g.i. system, etc., etc.
***
At the same time I'm working on getting set up in the new condo and hoping against hope that my general contractor is honest, because I just can't deal with problems on that front on top of everything else. But now I'm living in a personal canyon of boxes in my dinky little apartment. Part of the boxes are from packing up, but a good chunk of them are things I've ordered for the new apartment when I find things I've liked at good prices. I'm having to be my own interior decorator, because even if I could afford an interior decorator, noone will work for you until you own the place. But knowing my health I feel like I have to do as much as I can while I'm reasonably able, because I never know when my health will "head south" as they say (i.e., worsen). And, as a bit of insurance against contractor problems, I'm buying most of the things that they have to install. But things are starting to slow down regarding condo set up, at least as far as what can be done before I actually own the unit.
I must say, however, that my health and the condo prep has been a good diversion from thinking about mom and family. There's no getting around the idea that she's happier where she is now (from a Christian standpoint), but it's hard to deal with all the suffering she'd gone through prior to her death. Lately I've thought about it a bit as things otherwise slow down for me some.
***
Here's the real trigger to my writing today, though. I got a call from a cousin, who's a Christian and has spent some time with mom and my brother in recent years, after dad's death 5 years ago in particular. She called yesterday to ask my forgiveness for her not believing me about my concerns about how my brother there was treating mom. It turns out that since mom's death she's seen the angry side of him that she hadn't seen before, and now one of this cousin's brothers (who isn't a Christian) doesn't want anything to do with my brother because of his anger.
In these kinds of things it's not really appropriate to gloat about being right, because it would be better if I hadn't have been right, and mom's the one that suffered. I've told you here how I've been stymied at ways to help mom, but that mom and dad had things set up so that my influence in family matters was negligible, but my brothers played a major role also in making sure things were set up that way. Still, I'm sorry that mom had to suffer in this way - from my brother. But I hope that you will also see that people eventually come to recognize that I'm right in many of my interpretations of events and people. While it would probably be foolish to claim to be right all the time, I hope you can see that at the very least my perspectives on things probably should not be dismissed lightly. My family had build up an informal mechanism for keeping family issues secret and this mechanism could even fool people close to them, but I saw it for something otherwise (than what they wanted people to believe) and stuck to my beliefs with the conviction that I had enough to go on that I was convinced I was right. One other thing you can learn about me from this is that I don't change convictions easily and also I'm not afraid of going against the flow in my thinking.
It's hard, really, to deal with getting this confirmation that mom was abused by my brother (emotionally and verbally if not physically). The fact that I did as much as I could to try to help maybe alleviates any guilt feeling I might have, but it doesn't help the sorrow of this confirmation that she experienced this kind of treatment. You can see from other things I've written here that my relationship with mom has sometimes been rocky, but in all actuality, I think the ultimate cause of this goes back to the men in our family and the fact that mom was so dependent on them and they were so "persuasive" in affecting her views on things.
In the weeks or couple months before mom's death she had told me that she and dad didn't know about the things I'm writing here. But the thing is that they couldn't have known because I didn't trust dad enough to tell them. If dad had found out I was thinking or experiencing these things he would have very convincingly dismissed them and mom would have believed him and disbelieved me. It would have been very difficult for me to write some of these things things when dad was still alive.
***
I still have a couple more things I need to get done before I return to this blog in full force.
***
P.S. I got to thinking that there is one time when I messed up when I might have been able to maybe help mom. That was when I was living in New York and my brother and mom came out to visit me and my other brother and his boys (mom and brother in Pacific N.W. and other brother with his boys in New England; I was living in an apartment owned by my brother in New England, since I'd lost my second job for health reasons.
The scenario was that I hadn't had a holiday with the family in years so I went overboard on preparations. I should have spent more time with mom, but the thing is that after she left from that visit things would be exactly like they were before and it wasn't like she was going to start let me help her apart from my brothers' efforts. So these kinds of things felt to me manipulative ways to try to sort of suck me into the family "game playing" (in the socio-psychological sense of the term; other members of the family would undoubtedly deny there was any "game playing" going on). The last thing anyone in my family was ever going to do was let me have independent relations with mom. While dad was alive, he could maintain direct relations with me because he was astute at some of the familial issues and had clout enough to keep the upper hand. In any regard, no one in the family but me had any realistic potential of countering him. Dad, for example, was where the buck stopped as far as framing (of issues, individuals, events, etc.) went. I was the only one who questioned him with any conviction. I think I was able to do this because of things I'd experienced apart from the family, but also because of certain knowledge I'd gained and also because of my personality. My experiences independent from the family led to independence of judgement and change in some of my values and opinions. Under the purview of my family it would have been more difficult to come to these divergent perspectives, so the geographic and attitudinal distance combined with certain personality traits provided the opportunity to diverge from our family mindset. One of the personality traits that allowed me this opportunity was that of being independent in nature, which dad blamed for my problems in Vienna with the mission. I will remind you, however, that independent of thought is a well-known American value, which Alexis de Tocqueville in his famous book "Democracy in America" noted in the 19th century. Americans valued independence so much that they speer-headed the unfettered free trade movement in the 20th century. I mean the kind of free trade that is unencumbered with legal limitations and lets the market go where it will. Let's just say that I'm the embodiment of that value and Americans should recognize me as their true child that I am, independent spirit and all. (I hope you understand I'm speaking tongue in cheek here.) And dad, who was quite politicized, held to republican hands-off rule, where the rights individuals and businesses aren't encroached upon by big government. In other words, he valued independence... except, it would appear, in me. Or maybe it wasn't so much that I was the problem as it was that there were limitations to his valuing of independence and I fit into one of these exceptions to the right-of-freedom belief. Or possibly, he was just acknowledging how in reality things worked, but in any case, I felt that he agreed with the limitations of freedom thrust on me (by the mission in Vienna, etc.), so my independence in this particular situation was out of line, and those attempting to limit my independence were right in limiting me. In this case, however, one must try to disentangle what was independence acceptable and when wasn't it, or what kind of independence was acceptable and what kind wasn't.
Anyway, this is all to say that I might have helped mom during her visit to New England, when I was living there. But since I wasn't going to join in the family relations as they were, this help would just have been a short-lived event, until they returned back home and my brother there would once again be the one to come between me and any help mom might get. The only way my help could have been more enduring would have been if she would have stepped in so that I could on an ongoing basis have direct access to her to help her. That wasn't going to happen, because doing this was beyond what she could accept emotionally. Giving me that kind of access to her would be tacitly (if not actively) acknowledging that our family was something other than idyllic.
Friday, August 5, 2011
280. Still Another Reprieve
I can't believe it's been so long since I've written here. In one sense a lot has happened since I last wrote here, but in another sense not much has happened.
Regarding the "not much" perspective, I've been mainly on a mad pursuit to get the condo set up before my spinal problem (identified as being at T11-T12, where my first spinal surgery was in 2008) took over and I couldn't work on it any more. I was also trying to get it how I wanted it and keep on budget, which was somewhat of a tall order, but now I'm pretty sure I can do it. The thing is, though, that I've been doing like 99% of this sitting at the computer because I didn't feel up to driving around town, although early on I visited 3 or 4 stores, including the local Ikea. All this while I've been keeping dilligent records and I have an Excel workbook populated with many spreadsheets and links and notes too many to count (well, I guess I could if I really wanted to, which I don't).
Another aspect of the "not much" part of my recent life, is that because of my health I've pretty much been limited to medical appointments, the grocery store and drug store. I think it's safe to say that everyone at the drugstore knows me by face and go fetch my prescriptions without my having to identify myself, although they make me cite my address because that's a store policy. Also, the physical therapy people all know me quite well too. I think we're coming upon a full 12-month run of non-stop physical therapy, interrupted only by my cervical surgery in January.
My offer on the condo is still with the bank and last I heard they wanted to do another property assessment, although my lawyer and realtor both think this is just routine and nothing to get concerned about.
This week my health took a dive for the worst but I think we've got all the imaging, nerve conduction tests, etc. done now. I'm having to be ultra careful about twisting, turning or lifting because my legs are much worse and my g.i. system is taking a hit, so it's nothing to mess around with. I have to at least maintain my current status until Aug. 23 when I see the neurosurgeon after he returns from vacation. I want to try to have continuity of care and not jump around from doctor to doctor, although there reaches a point where if I woke up one morning completely paralyzed from the waist down I wouldn't hesitate to call 9-1-1 (the aid care) and could end out with a different neurosurgeon.
Another way in which some things have happened since I last wrote is that my relationship with one of my brothers seems to have taken a dive for the worst also. That is, I came out with some recent things that really made me mad (including something from this winter that mom told me and which put new light on him). I haven't heard since from him, so I assume that's not good. He's got lots of support where he is so I'm sure he can get along quite well without me. He's the one that is still where we were all raised, so there's church, family and long-time friends there. Of course, the fact that he didn't want to answer my accusations makes me all the more think there really is something to it. I don't think I need to go into the details right now though.
I've packed a few things away and some people from church came and helped move things around so we could pile boxes that would be out of the way. I'm not doing much more box filling right now, though, partly because of my back, but also because I don't have many more boxes and am not up to scrounging around for more. But I don't think I should be doing that kind of thing (and it was, I think, my moving boxes of books out of a wardrobe-type container that I'm getting rid of and am going to need the space for more furniture coming, which will have to be moved eventually to the new place) which is responsible for the downturn in my health.
I packed up all the materials I was using for this blog, except for the current file. Maybe in my health-related inactivity I'll be able to work a little more on it again soon. But I still haven't sent out thank you notes to those who sent in donations in mom's name to the church. I was going to do that last Tuesday when I woke up so much worse (after moving boxes of books).
One of the things mom said the last few months of her life was that some of the things I've been writing here she and dad weren't aware of. Part of the reason for that was that, starting in the mid '80s when I was in Chicago I began to have a hunch that dad's work was affecting me and I began to lose trust in him. He was always "right" and I think it would have been foolish for me to just come up to him and tell him what I was thinking. I learned by experience after my return from Russia that he would agree with me on these kinds of things only if it would publicly make him look bad not to. I don't think mom understood these things, just like she didn't understand she shouldn't have told my brother about my concern about seeing him hit his son. So even if I had told her and dad, dad would have convinced her I was wrong.
Anyway, I'm still in the land of the living, albeit not in the best of health, and I haven't forgotten this blog. My current dilemma I'm trying to resolve is how to carry dirty laundry across the hall to my storage/laundry room (each unit in the complex has such a room external to the unit itself) and then bring the clean laundry back. What I would like is a 3 part sorting cart with a lid on it and a rack for hanging clean clothes and linens and a compartment for clean folded items. I want it to be easy to use and discrete so the whole world doesn't see my dirty laundry (they see enough of it here on this blog - sorry, I couldn't resist that one). It appears that such an item does not exist, or at least has evaded me in my Google searches to date. I think I'm going to have to have separate carts, one for bringing dirty things to the laundry machine and the other for bringing clean things back into the apartment.
Regarding the "not much" perspective, I've been mainly on a mad pursuit to get the condo set up before my spinal problem (identified as being at T11-T12, where my first spinal surgery was in 2008) took over and I couldn't work on it any more. I was also trying to get it how I wanted it and keep on budget, which was somewhat of a tall order, but now I'm pretty sure I can do it. The thing is, though, that I've been doing like 99% of this sitting at the computer because I didn't feel up to driving around town, although early on I visited 3 or 4 stores, including the local Ikea. All this while I've been keeping dilligent records and I have an Excel workbook populated with many spreadsheets and links and notes too many to count (well, I guess I could if I really wanted to, which I don't).
Another aspect of the "not much" part of my recent life, is that because of my health I've pretty much been limited to medical appointments, the grocery store and drug store. I think it's safe to say that everyone at the drugstore knows me by face and go fetch my prescriptions without my having to identify myself, although they make me cite my address because that's a store policy. Also, the physical therapy people all know me quite well too. I think we're coming upon a full 12-month run of non-stop physical therapy, interrupted only by my cervical surgery in January.
My offer on the condo is still with the bank and last I heard they wanted to do another property assessment, although my lawyer and realtor both think this is just routine and nothing to get concerned about.
This week my health took a dive for the worst but I think we've got all the imaging, nerve conduction tests, etc. done now. I'm having to be ultra careful about twisting, turning or lifting because my legs are much worse and my g.i. system is taking a hit, so it's nothing to mess around with. I have to at least maintain my current status until Aug. 23 when I see the neurosurgeon after he returns from vacation. I want to try to have continuity of care and not jump around from doctor to doctor, although there reaches a point where if I woke up one morning completely paralyzed from the waist down I wouldn't hesitate to call 9-1-1 (the aid care) and could end out with a different neurosurgeon.
Another way in which some things have happened since I last wrote is that my relationship with one of my brothers seems to have taken a dive for the worst also. That is, I came out with some recent things that really made me mad (including something from this winter that mom told me and which put new light on him). I haven't heard since from him, so I assume that's not good. He's got lots of support where he is so I'm sure he can get along quite well without me. He's the one that is still where we were all raised, so there's church, family and long-time friends there. Of course, the fact that he didn't want to answer my accusations makes me all the more think there really is something to it. I don't think I need to go into the details right now though.
I've packed a few things away and some people from church came and helped move things around so we could pile boxes that would be out of the way. I'm not doing much more box filling right now, though, partly because of my back, but also because I don't have many more boxes and am not up to scrounging around for more. But I don't think I should be doing that kind of thing (and it was, I think, my moving boxes of books out of a wardrobe-type container that I'm getting rid of and am going to need the space for more furniture coming, which will have to be moved eventually to the new place) which is responsible for the downturn in my health.
I packed up all the materials I was using for this blog, except for the current file. Maybe in my health-related inactivity I'll be able to work a little more on it again soon. But I still haven't sent out thank you notes to those who sent in donations in mom's name to the church. I was going to do that last Tuesday when I woke up so much worse (after moving boxes of books).
One of the things mom said the last few months of her life was that some of the things I've been writing here she and dad weren't aware of. Part of the reason for that was that, starting in the mid '80s when I was in Chicago I began to have a hunch that dad's work was affecting me and I began to lose trust in him. He was always "right" and I think it would have been foolish for me to just come up to him and tell him what I was thinking. I learned by experience after my return from Russia that he would agree with me on these kinds of things only if it would publicly make him look bad not to. I don't think mom understood these things, just like she didn't understand she shouldn't have told my brother about my concern about seeing him hit his son. So even if I had told her and dad, dad would have convinced her I was wrong.
Anyway, I'm still in the land of the living, albeit not in the best of health, and I haven't forgotten this blog. My current dilemma I'm trying to resolve is how to carry dirty laundry across the hall to my storage/laundry room (each unit in the complex has such a room external to the unit itself) and then bring the clean laundry back. What I would like is a 3 part sorting cart with a lid on it and a rack for hanging clean clothes and linens and a compartment for clean folded items. I want it to be easy to use and discrete so the whole world doesn't see my dirty laundry (they see enough of it here on this blog - sorry, I couldn't resist that one). It appears that such an item does not exist, or at least has evaded me in my Google searches to date. I think I'm going to have to have separate carts, one for bringing dirty things to the laundry machine and the other for bringing clean things back into the apartment.
Monday, June 20, 2011
279: Reprieve: God is like...
In my furniture search on-line I found this that I thought was pretty good... worth repeating:
***
Source: http://www.waxhawfurniture.com/ffow/41_0_0.cfm
[No, they didn't pay me to post this...]
***
God is Like...
A fifth grade teacher in a Christian school asked her class to look at the TV commercials and see if they could use them in some way to communicate ideas about God. Here are some of them:
- God is like Bayer aspirin ~ He works miracles
- God is like a Ford ~ He's got a better idea
- God is like Coca Cola ~ He's the real thing
- God is like Hallmark Cards ~ He cares enough to send His very best
- God is like Tide ~ He gets the stains out that others leave behind.
- God is like General Electric ~ He brings out the good things to life
- God is like Sears ~ He has everything
- God is like Alka Seltzer ~ Try Him you will like Him
- God is like Scotch tape ~ You can't see Him but you know He's there.
- God is like Delta ~ He's ready when you are
- God is like Allstate ~ You're in good hands with Him
- God is like VO 5 Hair Spray ~ He holds in all kinds of weather
- God is like Dial Soap ~ Aren't you glad you have Him and Don't you wish everybody else did
Source: http://www.waxhawfurniture.com/ffow/41_0_0.cfm
[No, they didn't pay me to post this...]
Sunday, June 19, 2011
278. Reprieve: Anger
I'm sure even the casual reader has picked up that I have a fair amount of anger built up. It's just that my whole life since about 1987 (or earlier) has more or less been like what I've been describing the past year's events. The people, places and specific issues have changed, but it boils down to one set of crises followed by another just like you see here. It would be foolish to claim that my decisions, actions and words never played a part, but a lot of it was out of my control, like what you see here. Just in the past year, the examples include:
1) Losing 2 good career jobs due to health that was basically outside of my control.
2) Egregious (I think) medical care/blundering (at times)
3) Difficult family (and other) relationships
I don't think I tend towards anger, except when I feel like I'm not being taken seriously, being (what appears to be) intentionally misunderstood, and being mistreated, especially in relation to those who I think should know better and are being the problem through some kind of self-interest and/or ill-intent and it is regarding something that has a major impact on me. Then when I feel helpless in such situations I might turn to anger. But, as has been pointed out, absent a direct means of expressing my anger that I feel might be affective, I turn to passive aggression. This, of course, is not healthy, and I know it. So my response tends to be to retreat in to myself so that I can limit these kinds of interactions, especially when I feel otherwise vulnerable for some reason (such as too many of these things going on at once, no support network, precarious finances, etc.).
I think after I graduated from college (undergraduate) I started taking more initiative at coming to my own understanding of the world (at least the parts of it that were relevant to me), and I haven't been satisfied with letting others take over that task for me. This can lead to difficulties, however. For example, over time I have developed strong views about the Church, politics, culture, etc. and these views don't easily mesh with any particular group I might find myself a part of. Also, if I find myself in situations and/or relationships where I feel like someone (or some group) is trying (consciously or otherwise, directly or otherwise) to change me (especially forcefully), I set up my defenses against that effort. And if I feel that there isn't a way to correct such efforts in relation to me, then I might develop some anger about it.
In the situation with the brother about the condo reserves, I think there were probably several things going on. One is that he may well have wanted (consciously or otherwise) to feel useful and even important. But he is probably also trying to find a way to deal with his grief about the loss of mom, and he may well need to feel useful, at least. Also, I think he really does want the best for me because he knows that I don't have many options and resources open to me and so he doesn't want me to get into a mess and have everything crash around me if the condo association has problems.
Despite all that, however, there really was, as far as I'm concerned no need for him to send that report to me because I had already made clear that my former condo complex had a lot of money (although I no longer have the records and so don't know the exact figures) and I understood what the risk was. The thing is that I don't expect him to understand what I want and need and that I have found no other complex in the area that would work for me.
Also, this is how I predict things could happen:
1. I buy a unit in this complex (with practically no reserves), and my brothers might not visit me (because it is a nice complex and the sibling rivalry would kick in and it would not be in their positional advantage to visit me).
2. I buy something cheaper where the complex has more reserves, and my brothers might visit me and treat me patronizingly because they know they are in a superior position housing-wise, so it is their advantage to visit me to rub that in.
In neither situation, however, will my brothers truly help me, or they will only help me in such a way as to undermine my independence, and perhaps in a way that is not necessarily in my best interests. That is, they might help me only in a way that benefits them.
I'm 51 years old and the oldest of the 3 of us, and I am speaking this way from all these years og experience in this birth family.
1) Losing 2 good career jobs due to health that was basically outside of my control.
2) Egregious (I think) medical care/blundering (at times)
3) Difficult family (and other) relationships
I don't think I tend towards anger, except when I feel like I'm not being taken seriously, being (what appears to be) intentionally misunderstood, and being mistreated, especially in relation to those who I think should know better and are being the problem through some kind of self-interest and/or ill-intent and it is regarding something that has a major impact on me. Then when I feel helpless in such situations I might turn to anger. But, as has been pointed out, absent a direct means of expressing my anger that I feel might be affective, I turn to passive aggression. This, of course, is not healthy, and I know it. So my response tends to be to retreat in to myself so that I can limit these kinds of interactions, especially when I feel otherwise vulnerable for some reason (such as too many of these things going on at once, no support network, precarious finances, etc.).
I think after I graduated from college (undergraduate) I started taking more initiative at coming to my own understanding of the world (at least the parts of it that were relevant to me), and I haven't been satisfied with letting others take over that task for me. This can lead to difficulties, however. For example, over time I have developed strong views about the Church, politics, culture, etc. and these views don't easily mesh with any particular group I might find myself a part of. Also, if I find myself in situations and/or relationships where I feel like someone (or some group) is trying (consciously or otherwise, directly or otherwise) to change me (especially forcefully), I set up my defenses against that effort. And if I feel that there isn't a way to correct such efforts in relation to me, then I might develop some anger about it.
In the situation with the brother about the condo reserves, I think there were probably several things going on. One is that he may well have wanted (consciously or otherwise) to feel useful and even important. But he is probably also trying to find a way to deal with his grief about the loss of mom, and he may well need to feel useful, at least. Also, I think he really does want the best for me because he knows that I don't have many options and resources open to me and so he doesn't want me to get into a mess and have everything crash around me if the condo association has problems.
Despite all that, however, there really was, as far as I'm concerned no need for him to send that report to me because I had already made clear that my former condo complex had a lot of money (although I no longer have the records and so don't know the exact figures) and I understood what the risk was. The thing is that I don't expect him to understand what I want and need and that I have found no other complex in the area that would work for me.
Also, this is how I predict things could happen:
1. I buy a unit in this complex (with practically no reserves), and my brothers might not visit me (because it is a nice complex and the sibling rivalry would kick in and it would not be in their positional advantage to visit me).
2. I buy something cheaper where the complex has more reserves, and my brothers might visit me and treat me patronizingly because they know they are in a superior position housing-wise, so it is their advantage to visit me to rub that in.
In neither situation, however, will my brothers truly help me, or they will only help me in such a way as to undermine my independence, and perhaps in a way that is not necessarily in my best interests. That is, they might help me only in a way that benefits them.
I'm 51 years old and the oldest of the 3 of us, and I am speaking this way from all these years og experience in this birth family.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
277. Reprieve: Family (What's Left of It)
My stimulator finished and I've finished breakfast and I've been tryi
ng to pen an e-mail to one of my brothers. Should I send it or not? The thing is, it will probably backfire, he will probably deny everything, but I'd like to think we can be open about our thoughts and have an "adult" relationship. My sense is we can't.
Using Transactional Analysis as a framework, this is how adult (age-wise) relationships between my (birth) family have worked:
1. Women are "children" in the transactional analysis sense, both abolutely and in relation to men.
2. Men are "adults" in absolute terms, and "parents" in relation to women.
3. The men like this relation vis a vis women, and might even feel less "manly" if the relationship were otherwise (e.g., "adult" to "adult").
4. I think my mother liked her position (although it's possible she didn't always like it).
5. I (a female) don't like it.
6. Growing up I didn't understand that women were supposed to be like "children," in relation to men especially.
Here's the e-mail so far (name's omitted):
***
I just wanted to say something in follow up to yesterday's interactions. I understand that you only want to help and you think you have my best interests in mind, but I really want to live my own life. You didn't need to send me your reserves study, because I already understood the issues and I really can take care of things on my own here. I don't want you and [our other brother] to be so intimately involved in my life. I'm an adult and I really can make decisions on my own.
I think this family is sort of too insular and dependent on each other. In situations like this you only need to express the basic issues and then you can step back. I don't want you to try to keep harping at this kind of thing, because it's my life and I'm going to live it as I see fit. Again, you are not my husband and don't need to keep at it and at it and at it trying to muscle your way into my life - that's how it feels, so no matter what your intentions, so please step back. If you don't know how to relate to me in any way other than trying to always help me, then I'm going to have to limit our relations, meaning limiting interactions between us, which I don't really want to do.
After so many years, I hope you understand my personality enough to know that I like my independence. If you don't know how to give advice and then let me make my own decision (that is not harp on it) and can't find some other way to relate to me other than on the basis of always just wanting to "help" me, then our relationship is going to be very rocky. I need to be very blunt about this to make sure you understand, and to be very honest with you I'm not sure you'll understand anyway.
In the current situation I have issues to keep in mind that I don't expect you to understand and it may not even be any of your business what some of the issues are. I don't agree with everything you've done, but I don't keep harping at it. I don't even go around saying that you made your bed now sleep in it, although there are things I could say that about both you and [our other brother] in that regard (as well as both of you being able to say that about me too). But do I go around butting into your business saying, oh, no you need to do thus and so? No, I don't, I let you live your own lives. If I disagree strongly enough with either of you, I just step back and let you live your own life.
As far as I see it, trying to help me can have different purposes, as to why you might want to keep helping me. Besides the possibility of just plain and simple trying to help me, taking a helping role might help bolster your self esteem or perhaps increase your standing in the family. But this basically is happening by trying to make me look somehow less than you in one way or another. That is, your self esteem is bolstered so long as your relationship with (certain?) others is a certain way, and/or your view of ideal family relations is hierarchical, so you have a need to position yourself so you don't come out at the bottom.
This ignores the male-female issue. You, [our other brother and his sons] can go ahead and have our male bonding thing, that's fine with me. But you leave it there. I am not accepting your attributions of female expectations, and if your bonding explicitly or implicitly means that there are different expectations for me as a woman and/or my role in the family is defined mainly (or completely) by my gender, then I opt out. So now is the time to make these things clear.
And before you get all huffy about these things, you should just know that there some people who understand the gendered aspects of our family relationships, people who have come to this understanding on their own.
It's been quite a while since I've dated much and my health precludes the likelihood of this happening much in the future (not that I necessarily want to date anyway, because I'm rather happily single), but my experience is that many men don't understand a middle ground; either they want an all-out relationship with a woman (i.e., dating vs. friend; "going together" vs. casual dating, etc. ), or they want no relationship at all with her. In our case, it would be something like, you-the-helper and me-the-needy or no relationship at all. You have to come out on top or there's no relationship at all. That's how it feels at this end of the relationship.
This is how I foresee the future relationship between me and you and [our other brother] : The only way I will see you again is by my coming to Seattle. It's possible I could never see [our other brother] and the boys again, but if I do or if I see you in a situation other than my coming to Seattle it will be under the circumstances that you are more powerful than me, such as in a situation where you are "helping" me. This is unacceptable, and as things stand, I see my options as either opting out of the family or accepting being strong-armed into a "needy" position vis a vis you and/or [our other brother].
I should send this to [our other brother] too, but the context is yesterday's interactions about the condo. I'm not going to tell you all the issues involved in my decision making about the condo, because I don't expect you to understand and also because I want to live my life. I appreciate your advice about the condo, but you've started overstepping your bounds. There's nothing more I need from you regarding the condo, including setting things up. You've got a lot of good skills and knowledge, and you shouldn't need me to tell you that... unless you're insecure. So, let me be and if you want to help someone, go find a place to volunteer your services. I'm putting it like this because 1) you don't seem to know your bounds as to how much help might be appropriate, and 2) I think you don't know how to relate to me apart from "helping" me.
Before yesterday's interactions, I was sort of thinking that you could come down here at some point to just relax. But now I'm thinking that might be a pipe dream, for several reasons. 1) You're more likely to go to New York, where you'll have more fun and it would be better for you in the long run to maintain those relations, and 2) if you came down here it would not be to relax but to help me and maybe also relax some. In any case, you don't need me, although you might need [our other brother] and the boys. The need between you and [our other brother] is probably mutual.
***
He won't be able to accept this. He will protest vehemently about my assertions here and he will only be able to accept an all or nothing relationship - meaning our relationship is parent-child (with him as the "parent") or we don't have a relationship. The same is probably true for my other brother, mainly because of his vulnerability with his boys and living on his ex-wife's turf in small town America. Otherwise the other brother would be more able to have an adult to adult relationship with me. Also, we have major disagreements that he can't risk blowing up through closer contact.
Should I send this e-mail or not? Or should communicate these sentiments but in a different way? If I don't communicate them things will just go on as they are, which I can't accept either. If I just step back he may well not let the issue drop and insist on continuing to play the "parent" role, especially since this is an area where he is knowledgeable (it's his profession, after all). I don't know what to do, so I think I'll sit on it. If it persists, maybe I'll send it.
***
Post Script:
This is what happened yesterday: In the morning my brother e-mailed me a copy of the reserve study where he works. Later, after work, he called me en route to an appointment to discuss it and also, apparently, to underline that the information in the report is confidential.
First of all, we'd already hashed this out and I had told him (more than once, I believe) that my last condo had a lot in reserve, although I no longer have copies of those summaries we got at our annual business meeting. I had absolutely no need to have that information from my brother as I already understood and had people (a lawyer, financial adviser) here who were likewise concerned and we didn't need his involvement at all.
I hope you see how degrading this could be - it's basically telling me that he doesn't think I can make a decision like this on my own.
First of all, it's my life and I'm an adult and able to make my own decisions. My value structure and priorities are also my own and I am under no obligation to divulge them to my brothers. While the financial considerations in my decision are important, there are also other issues at stake, and whenever my brothers weigh in on anything it is actually, as it always turns out, more for their benefit - to serve their interests - than it is for my benefit and to serve my interests. For the immediate time it may look like it's for my interests, but it always turns out otherwise, and I've been down that road too many times with my family.
But usually if I stand my ground, that means I'll just be isolated, although dad was probably the one who was least likely to act this way in the family. Dad's helping me might have included a desire to minimize fallout from anything to do with his work affecting me, but he wouldn't isolate me. Mom could isolate me, but this was probably at least in part due to being in a weak position herself and not knowing who to believe or if she believed me there would be a great response from the other family member (depending on what the issue was).
I hope you can begin to see how I'm in a dilemma about who to name as benefactor(s), who to have power of attorney (in case I become incapacitated), etc. I just would like to have straight adult-to-adult relationships with family members, but the more of these things you add to the mix, the more there is the problem of inequality of power and if power is a significant issue in relations, than these issues (naming of benefactors, etc.) are not an insignificant ones. Also, I think in this kind of scenario - how my birth family functions - naming someone a benefactor is tantamount to saying I'm willing to play the child in a parent-child relationship with the person named my benefactor. I would also add that I am no one's benefactor, power of attorney, etc. So it's very much stacked against me, and virtually my only recourse is getting out or just accepting it and somehow playing along. This is what I did in Vienna and was told at the end my my main mentor that I was like the little school boy who, when he was sitting down in response to the teacher's demand, said that he was standing up on the inside. I think it's hard to keep this conflict up indefinitely, though (disagreeing but going along anyway).
So then my choices, basically, are 1) to opt out of the family (maintaining my beliefs & values and have thought-action congruity), 2) maintain relations and continue to deal with these issues but try to maintain my independence of thought (maintaining my beliefs & values and have thought-action incongruity), or 3) just give in (adapting my beliefs and values and have thought- action congruity).
I can think of a myriad ways any of these could play out and it might be possible to partially do any of them, but that's dependent on whether my brothers (the other parties remaining in the family) agree, because relationships are usually not unilateral ones. I'm skeptical that there's anyway to combine these 3 options, as I'm having a tough time thinking of how that could happen. The place where there might involve some variance is when you consider that the other party(-ies) could also opt for either 1, 2 or 3. In this case if we all went for option 3, we'd all be willing to relate to each other as adults and deal with these things on equal terms and in a respectful way. Respect, I should mention, disallows bullying, use of any type of putdowns, inequality in relations, not taking the other person seriously, etc. Let's just say that it would be a major miracle (think parting of the Red Sea) for all parties to take the third option in relation to each other. Maybe my brothers relate to each other this way, but they don't relate to me this way... which I theorize is because I have a vagina. (Sorry to be crude, but that's really what it comes down to, although that's not to say that's the only difference between us.)
ng to pen an e-mail to one of my brothers. Should I send it or not? The thing is, it will probably backfire, he will probably deny everything, but I'd like to think we can be open about our thoughts and have an "adult" relationship. My sense is we can't.Using Transactional Analysis as a framework, this is how adult (age-wise) relationships between my (birth) family have worked:
1. Women are "children" in the transactional analysis sense, both abolutely and in relation to men.
2. Men are "adults" in absolute terms, and "parents" in relation to women.
3. The men like this relation vis a vis women, and might even feel less "manly" if the relationship were otherwise (e.g., "adult" to "adult").
4. I think my mother liked her position (although it's possible she didn't always like it).
5. I (a female) don't like it.
6. Growing up I didn't understand that women were supposed to be like "children," in relation to men especially.
Here's the e-mail so far (name's omitted):
***
I just wanted to say something in follow up to yesterday's interactions. I understand that you only want to help and you think you have my best interests in mind, but I really want to live my own life. You didn't need to send me your reserves study, because I already understood the issues and I really can take care of things on my own here. I don't want you and [our other brother] to be so intimately involved in my life. I'm an adult and I really can make decisions on my own.
I think this family is sort of too insular and dependent on each other. In situations like this you only need to express the basic issues and then you can step back. I don't want you to try to keep harping at this kind of thing, because it's my life and I'm going to live it as I see fit. Again, you are not my husband and don't need to keep at it and at it and at it trying to muscle your way into my life - that's how it feels, so no matter what your intentions, so please step back. If you don't know how to relate to me in any way other than trying to always help me, then I'm going to have to limit our relations, meaning limiting interactions between us, which I don't really want to do.
After so many years, I hope you understand my personality enough to know that I like my independence. If you don't know how to give advice and then let me make my own decision (that is not harp on it) and can't find some other way to relate to me other than on the basis of always just wanting to "help" me, then our relationship is going to be very rocky. I need to be very blunt about this to make sure you understand, and to be very honest with you I'm not sure you'll understand anyway.
In the current situation I have issues to keep in mind that I don't expect you to understand and it may not even be any of your business what some of the issues are. I don't agree with everything you've done, but I don't keep harping at it. I don't even go around saying that you made your bed now sleep in it, although there are things I could say that about both you and [our other brother] in that regard (as well as both of you being able to say that about me too). But do I go around butting into your business saying, oh, no you need to do thus and so? No, I don't, I let you live your own lives. If I disagree strongly enough with either of you, I just step back and let you live your own life.
As far as I see it, trying to help me can have different purposes, as to why you might want to keep helping me. Besides the possibility of just plain and simple trying to help me, taking a helping role might help bolster your self esteem or perhaps increase your standing in the family. But this basically is happening by trying to make me look somehow less than you in one way or another. That is, your self esteem is bolstered so long as your relationship with (certain?) others is a certain way, and/or your view of ideal family relations is hierarchical, so you have a need to position yourself so you don't come out at the bottom.
This ignores the male-female issue. You, [our other brother and his sons] can go ahead and have our male bonding thing, that's fine with me. But you leave it there. I am not accepting your attributions of female expectations, and if your bonding explicitly or implicitly means that there are different expectations for me as a woman and/or my role in the family is defined mainly (or completely) by my gender, then I opt out. So now is the time to make these things clear.
And before you get all huffy about these things, you should just know that there some people who understand the gendered aspects of our family relationships, people who have come to this understanding on their own.
It's been quite a while since I've dated much and my health precludes the likelihood of this happening much in the future (not that I necessarily want to date anyway, because I'm rather happily single), but my experience is that many men don't understand a middle ground; either they want an all-out relationship with a woman (i.e., dating vs. friend; "going together" vs. casual dating, etc. ), or they want no relationship at all with her. In our case, it would be something like, you-the-helper and me-the-needy or no relationship at all. You have to come out on top or there's no relationship at all. That's how it feels at this end of the relationship.
This is how I foresee the future relationship between me and you and [our other brother] : The only way I will see you again is by my coming to Seattle. It's possible I could never see [our other brother] and the boys again, but if I do or if I see you in a situation other than my coming to Seattle it will be under the circumstances that you are more powerful than me, such as in a situation where you are "helping" me. This is unacceptable, and as things stand, I see my options as either opting out of the family or accepting being strong-armed into a "needy" position vis a vis you and/or [our other brother].
I should send this to [our other brother] too, but the context is yesterday's interactions about the condo. I'm not going to tell you all the issues involved in my decision making about the condo, because I don't expect you to understand and also because I want to live my life. I appreciate your advice about the condo, but you've started overstepping your bounds. There's nothing more I need from you regarding the condo, including setting things up. You've got a lot of good skills and knowledge, and you shouldn't need me to tell you that... unless you're insecure. So, let me be and if you want to help someone, go find a place to volunteer your services. I'm putting it like this because 1) you don't seem to know your bounds as to how much help might be appropriate, and 2) I think you don't know how to relate to me apart from "helping" me.
Before yesterday's interactions, I was sort of thinking that you could come down here at some point to just relax. But now I'm thinking that might be a pipe dream, for several reasons. 1) You're more likely to go to New York, where you'll have more fun and it would be better for you in the long run to maintain those relations, and 2) if you came down here it would not be to relax but to help me and maybe also relax some. In any case, you don't need me, although you might need [our other brother] and the boys. The need between you and [our other brother] is probably mutual.
***
He won't be able to accept this. He will protest vehemently about my assertions here and he will only be able to accept an all or nothing relationship - meaning our relationship is parent-child (with him as the "parent") or we don't have a relationship. The same is probably true for my other brother, mainly because of his vulnerability with his boys and living on his ex-wife's turf in small town America. Otherwise the other brother would be more able to have an adult to adult relationship with me. Also, we have major disagreements that he can't risk blowing up through closer contact.
Should I send this e-mail or not? Or should communicate these sentiments but in a different way? If I don't communicate them things will just go on as they are, which I can't accept either. If I just step back he may well not let the issue drop and insist on continuing to play the "parent" role, especially since this is an area where he is knowledgeable (it's his profession, after all). I don't know what to do, so I think I'll sit on it. If it persists, maybe I'll send it.
***
Post Script:
This is what happened yesterday: In the morning my brother e-mailed me a copy of the reserve study where he works. Later, after work, he called me en route to an appointment to discuss it and also, apparently, to underline that the information in the report is confidential.
First of all, we'd already hashed this out and I had told him (more than once, I believe) that my last condo had a lot in reserve, although I no longer have copies of those summaries we got at our annual business meeting. I had absolutely no need to have that information from my brother as I already understood and had people (a lawyer, financial adviser) here who were likewise concerned and we didn't need his involvement at all.
I hope you see how degrading this could be - it's basically telling me that he doesn't think I can make a decision like this on my own.
First of all, it's my life and I'm an adult and able to make my own decisions. My value structure and priorities are also my own and I am under no obligation to divulge them to my brothers. While the financial considerations in my decision are important, there are also other issues at stake, and whenever my brothers weigh in on anything it is actually, as it always turns out, more for their benefit - to serve their interests - than it is for my benefit and to serve my interests. For the immediate time it may look like it's for my interests, but it always turns out otherwise, and I've been down that road too many times with my family.
But usually if I stand my ground, that means I'll just be isolated, although dad was probably the one who was least likely to act this way in the family. Dad's helping me might have included a desire to minimize fallout from anything to do with his work affecting me, but he wouldn't isolate me. Mom could isolate me, but this was probably at least in part due to being in a weak position herself and not knowing who to believe or if she believed me there would be a great response from the other family member (depending on what the issue was).
I hope you can begin to see how I'm in a dilemma about who to name as benefactor(s), who to have power of attorney (in case I become incapacitated), etc. I just would like to have straight adult-to-adult relationships with family members, but the more of these things you add to the mix, the more there is the problem of inequality of power and if power is a significant issue in relations, than these issues (naming of benefactors, etc.) are not an insignificant ones. Also, I think in this kind of scenario - how my birth family functions - naming someone a benefactor is tantamount to saying I'm willing to play the child in a parent-child relationship with the person named my benefactor. I would also add that I am no one's benefactor, power of attorney, etc. So it's very much stacked against me, and virtually my only recourse is getting out or just accepting it and somehow playing along. This is what I did in Vienna and was told at the end my my main mentor that I was like the little school boy who, when he was sitting down in response to the teacher's demand, said that he was standing up on the inside. I think it's hard to keep this conflict up indefinitely, though (disagreeing but going along anyway).
So then my choices, basically, are 1) to opt out of the family (maintaining my beliefs & values and have thought-action congruity), 2) maintain relations and continue to deal with these issues but try to maintain my independence of thought (maintaining my beliefs & values and have thought-action incongruity), or 3) just give in (adapting my beliefs and values and have thought- action congruity).
I can think of a myriad ways any of these could play out and it might be possible to partially do any of them, but that's dependent on whether my brothers (the other parties remaining in the family) agree, because relationships are usually not unilateral ones. I'm skeptical that there's anyway to combine these 3 options, as I'm having a tough time thinking of how that could happen. The place where there might involve some variance is when you consider that the other party(-ies) could also opt for either 1, 2 or 3. In this case if we all went for option 3, we'd all be willing to relate to each other as adults and deal with these things on equal terms and in a respectful way. Respect, I should mention, disallows bullying, use of any type of putdowns, inequality in relations, not taking the other person seriously, etc. Let's just say that it would be a major miracle (think parting of the Red Sea) for all parties to take the third option in relation to each other. Maybe my brothers relate to each other this way, but they don't relate to me this way... which I theorize is because I have a vagina. (Sorry to be crude, but that's really what it comes down to, although that's not to say that's the only difference between us.)
Friday, June 17, 2011
276. Reprieve (Various)
My back pain still isn't too bad since having the epidural last Thursday (a week ago), but I've been taking 50 mg. tramadol at lunch, and I think it's affecting my fibromyalgia. The thing, is that pain isn't the only thing that affects fibromyalgia; for example, if I caught the flu (even without achiness that sometimes accompanies the flu) it could still affect the fibromyalgia. So I'm beginning to think that maybe things like my legs and g.i. system being affected by the stenosis is affecting the fibromyalgia, and those symptoms continue even if the back pain is taken care of or otherwise absent. Maybe that's why I'm getting a bit of the fibrofog and some elevated fibromyalgia pain too. So I'm going to have to augment my Lyrica dose, which is what I have an emergency 25 mg prescription for - to use in the event of a fibromyalgia flare. And I always tell my doctors if I've had to increase my dose, especially if it's more than once. Usually I have my fibromyalgia pretty well under control, although it does take work and money (vitamins aren't covered by insurance and aren't even tax-deductible in the U.S.).
Anyone who has a chronic condition like fibromyalgia can relate to going through this process to try to figure out what's going on with one's symptoms.
So now my options, vis a vis medications look like this:
1. If my back is hurting more than it should (either bad enough by itself to affect my functionality or bad enough to affect my fibromyalgia - these aren't the same thing, because for me the fibromyalgia-affecting threshold us usually lower than the pain-tolerance threshold - then I would take tramadol. This means that if I didn't have fibromyalgia I might not take tramadol for back pain as quickly as I do because of the risk of the back pain affecting fibromyalgia.
2. If my back pain isn't minimal but my fibromyalgia is acting up, I may need to take Lyrica instead of tramadol because something other than the back pain might be causing the fibromyalgia flare. My null hypothesis (that inclement weather was causing my fibrofog) was not supported by my informal
The thing is, regarding fibromyalgia and my back pain, the tramadol only indirectly helps my fibromyalgia, but if the back pain isn't the main cause of the fibromyalgia flare, than taking tramadol might not be very affective in getting my fibromyalgia under control, because tramadol doesn't directly help my fibromyalgia pain (although I understand it does help many people with fibromyalgia). But if the back pain seems to be the cause of my fibromyalgia flare, then it might be more affective to take the tramadol to help the fibromyalgia by decreasing the back pain that is causing the fibromyalgia flare.
It's trial and error as to how exactly these things work as it's a bit different for everyone with fibromyalgia, but this is my current theory regarding my own health situation. That is, I'm reneging on the weather theory. My null hypothesis (that inclement weather was the cause of my fibro flare) was informally proven wrong.
***
I'm waiting with baited breath to hear from the general contractor. I left a voicemail message for him.
Meanwhile, yesterday I looked online at kitchen cabinet features, and today I tried to decide other things I could cut out that I wanted to do, such as replacing some of my current furniture. So I think I've sort of decided that I should focus, besides the things the general contractor would be doing, on the kitchen and living/dining room. My bedroom furniture could suffice and I do have a desk and file cabinets to be more or less functional in the second bedroom. I have a couch, and matching end table/coffee table, but I really should switch to leather overstuffed furniture as it's better than cloth for dust mite allergies (although I'm otherwise rather ambivalent about leather). I also have a dining room table and chairs, but I'd need a small dinette for the eat-in kitchen. I could also pass up getting things for the balcony if I have to. I also probably am more-or-less okay regarding lamps, although I was wanting to get a floor lamp for the living room.
So if the contractor's figures were pushing what I could do, at least I'd only have to get living room seating and a dinette set, as far as furniture is concerned, although I also want to get some pictures (mostly paintings) framed, which I'll still do. So I might be able to do that on $2500 if I do a good job of bargain shopping.
***
There are other things I could say, but I think that's enough for now.
Anyone who has a chronic condition like fibromyalgia can relate to going through this process to try to figure out what's going on with one's symptoms.
So now my options, vis a vis medications look like this:
1. If my back is hurting more than it should (either bad enough by itself to affect my functionality or bad enough to affect my fibromyalgia - these aren't the same thing, because for me the fibromyalgia-affecting threshold us usually lower than the pain-tolerance threshold - then I would take tramadol. This means that if I didn't have fibromyalgia I might not take tramadol for back pain as quickly as I do because of the risk of the back pain affecting fibromyalgia.
2. If my back pain isn't minimal but my fibromyalgia is acting up, I may need to take Lyrica instead of tramadol because something other than the back pain might be causing the fibromyalgia flare. My null hypothesis (that inclement weather was causing my fibrofog) was not supported by my informal
The thing is, regarding fibromyalgia and my back pain, the tramadol only indirectly helps my fibromyalgia, but if the back pain isn't the main cause of the fibromyalgia flare, than taking tramadol might not be very affective in getting my fibromyalgia under control, because tramadol doesn't directly help my fibromyalgia pain (although I understand it does help many people with fibromyalgia). But if the back pain seems to be the cause of my fibromyalgia flare, then it might be more affective to take the tramadol to help the fibromyalgia by decreasing the back pain that is causing the fibromyalgia flare.
It's trial and error as to how exactly these things work as it's a bit different for everyone with fibromyalgia, but this is my current theory regarding my own health situation. That is, I'm reneging on the weather theory. My null hypothesis (that inclement weather was the cause of my fibro flare) was informally proven wrong.
***
I'm waiting with baited breath to hear from the general contractor. I left a voicemail message for him.
Meanwhile, yesterday I looked online at kitchen cabinet features, and today I tried to decide other things I could cut out that I wanted to do, such as replacing some of my current furniture. So I think I've sort of decided that I should focus, besides the things the general contractor would be doing, on the kitchen and living/dining room. My bedroom furniture could suffice and I do have a desk and file cabinets to be more or less functional in the second bedroom. I have a couch, and matching end table/coffee table, but I really should switch to leather overstuffed furniture as it's better than cloth for dust mite allergies (although I'm otherwise rather ambivalent about leather). I also have a dining room table and chairs, but I'd need a small dinette for the eat-in kitchen. I could also pass up getting things for the balcony if I have to. I also probably am more-or-less okay regarding lamps, although I was wanting to get a floor lamp for the living room.
So if the contractor's figures were pushing what I could do, at least I'd only have to get living room seating and a dinette set, as far as furniture is concerned, although I also want to get some pictures (mostly paintings) framed, which I'll still do. So I might be able to do that on $2500 if I do a good job of bargain shopping.
***
There are other things I could say, but I think that's enough for now.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
275. Reprieve: Fibrofog
The last half hour I've been feeling myself going into a fibrofog. The thing is that for me when there is rain and it's cool outside there's absolutely nothing I can do about it, I'm going to get fibrofog. Unfortunately, it's 78 degrees according to NOAA and Weather.com. So then I don't know why I would be going into a fog.
I can feel it because I get tingling in my head and then I get so that I can sort of stare out in space and not remember what I was doing and things like that. I'm just glad that I didn't have it earlier today when I met with my realtor, the listing realtor and the general contractor.
I just went off into my staring into space, but I'll try to keep my thoughts together enough to finish this very brief post. The contractor should have his estimate to me by the end of the week (day after tomorrow) and then I should know pretty well whether I can afford this unit or whether it would be more feasible to buy another unit in the same complex that it more than I wanted to spend but in move-in conditions and includes nice furniture (about one-third to a half of which I wouldn't keep). My legs weren't that great today and my pain is getting a little worse too, so I was pretty wiped out afterwards, especially since the a/c isn't working (another thing to replace, including condenser unit) in the unit.
I came home and just got to laying down with my electric heated throw (heat helps my pain, even if I'm not really cold), and that's when my brother called to find out how things went. The reserves for the complex aren't very good - it's as if the complex was living from paycheck to paycheck, with not backup monies. So I have to be prepared for a sizable special assessment if a hurricane should hit. This is the only complex that I've found that I like here, but the two drawbacks are the reserves and no pets allowed (except birds and fish).
Also, yesterday an interior decorator called me back and I think she might be a good fit to help me, although we didn't go into details about her set up. I could have asked her to come in today, but I thought that would be too much going on with the general contractor and the listing agent both. But before I have any work done I would want her help, at the very least in advising as to how to best get things coordinated, which would undoubtedly mean some change to what the general contractor is putting together, but I suspect the main changes would be in the bathrooms, since we're basically redoing the sink, vanity, mirror, and medicine cabinets in both bathrooms, and also possibly the design of the kitchen cabinets, which we didn't go into too much today, except the basic layout. Other than that, since I found out that laminate flooring gets torn up by wheel chairs (and I'm having my 3rd spinal stenosis in 3 years currently, which I expect to lead to another surgery shortly), so I have to go with either hardwood or ceramic tiles in the areas that currently have carpet, which is a no go with dust mite allergies (not to mention I don't like the carpet anyway). So I found bamboo flooring online at Lumber Liquidator and I think we can get vertical blinds & horizontal blinds (for the sliding glass doors to the balcony) and also floor board to all match, which I think would be a nice way to tie the unit together. Since the flooring and floorboards wouldn't be coming out everywhere it would just be the blinds that would be a common feature, but still, it might have some uniting affect.
I've been researching these things the past month or so and found different furniture and the like that I like for fairly reasonable prices. So I have an idea of what I like and what I'm thinking of in the various rooms.
I also met with my financial adviser yesterday, so he and the lawyer as well as my condo manager brother in Seattle all had pertinent questions for the listing agent regarding reserves and special assessments in particular. I think having all those interested parties sort of pulled the rug out from the listing agent who seemed to be using intimidation tactics (via e-mail to my realtor). I also wore a suit (the most comfortable one I have considering anything around my waist hurts) in order to increase my "I mean business" and "I'm not some dumb blond that you can just push around" impression on him.
There are other people looking at the unit and it's still on the market, since I haven't signed the addendum yet, which needs to be amended, per discussions between my lawyer and the seller's lawyer. If the general contractor's estimate comes back at all doable we'll then put together the contract and I'll sign it and put my money in escrow. I still would like to have an inspector, but at this point that would mainly be for my own information because the whole reason we did this today is that the seller wants to know that I am for sure planning to buy the unit if the bank approves it because the bank is evidently difficult to work with - this is a short sale unit and the amount I'm offered is what was listed as it being pre-approved for, but it's not technically pre-approved, it's just that the bank recently made a counter-offer for this amount, so the seller is assuming that the bank will accept this amount. They're also paying the title fees, which cuts out some of my closing costs.
I think that's all for now.
That's all for now.
I can feel it because I get tingling in my head and then I get so that I can sort of stare out in space and not remember what I was doing and things like that. I'm just glad that I didn't have it earlier today when I met with my realtor, the listing realtor and the general contractor.
I just went off into my staring into space, but I'll try to keep my thoughts together enough to finish this very brief post. The contractor should have his estimate to me by the end of the week (day after tomorrow) and then I should know pretty well whether I can afford this unit or whether it would be more feasible to buy another unit in the same complex that it more than I wanted to spend but in move-in conditions and includes nice furniture (about one-third to a half of which I wouldn't keep). My legs weren't that great today and my pain is getting a little worse too, so I was pretty wiped out afterwards, especially since the a/c isn't working (another thing to replace, including condenser unit) in the unit.
I came home and just got to laying down with my electric heated throw (heat helps my pain, even if I'm not really cold), and that's when my brother called to find out how things went. The reserves for the complex aren't very good - it's as if the complex was living from paycheck to paycheck, with not backup monies. So I have to be prepared for a sizable special assessment if a hurricane should hit. This is the only complex that I've found that I like here, but the two drawbacks are the reserves and no pets allowed (except birds and fish).
Also, yesterday an interior decorator called me back and I think she might be a good fit to help me, although we didn't go into details about her set up. I could have asked her to come in today, but I thought that would be too much going on with the general contractor and the listing agent both. But before I have any work done I would want her help, at the very least in advising as to how to best get things coordinated, which would undoubtedly mean some change to what the general contractor is putting together, but I suspect the main changes would be in the bathrooms, since we're basically redoing the sink, vanity, mirror, and medicine cabinets in both bathrooms, and also possibly the design of the kitchen cabinets, which we didn't go into too much today, except the basic layout. Other than that, since I found out that laminate flooring gets torn up by wheel chairs (and I'm having my 3rd spinal stenosis in 3 years currently, which I expect to lead to another surgery shortly), so I have to go with either hardwood or ceramic tiles in the areas that currently have carpet, which is a no go with dust mite allergies (not to mention I don't like the carpet anyway). So I found bamboo flooring online at Lumber Liquidator and I think we can get vertical blinds & horizontal blinds (for the sliding glass doors to the balcony) and also floor board to all match, which I think would be a nice way to tie the unit together. Since the flooring and floorboards wouldn't be coming out everywhere it would just be the blinds that would be a common feature, but still, it might have some uniting affect.
I've been researching these things the past month or so and found different furniture and the like that I like for fairly reasonable prices. So I have an idea of what I like and what I'm thinking of in the various rooms.
I also met with my financial adviser yesterday, so he and the lawyer as well as my condo manager brother in Seattle all had pertinent questions for the listing agent regarding reserves and special assessments in particular. I think having all those interested parties sort of pulled the rug out from the listing agent who seemed to be using intimidation tactics (via e-mail to my realtor). I also wore a suit (the most comfortable one I have considering anything around my waist hurts) in order to increase my "I mean business" and "I'm not some dumb blond that you can just push around" impression on him.
There are other people looking at the unit and it's still on the market, since I haven't signed the addendum yet, which needs to be amended, per discussions between my lawyer and the seller's lawyer. If the general contractor's estimate comes back at all doable we'll then put together the contract and I'll sign it and put my money in escrow. I still would like to have an inspector, but at this point that would mainly be for my own information because the whole reason we did this today is that the seller wants to know that I am for sure planning to buy the unit if the bank approves it because the bank is evidently difficult to work with - this is a short sale unit and the amount I'm offered is what was listed as it being pre-approved for, but it's not technically pre-approved, it's just that the bank recently made a counter-offer for this amount, so the seller is assuming that the bank will accept this amount. They're also paying the title fees, which cuts out some of my closing costs.
I think that's all for now.
That's all for now.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
274. Continued Reprieve
I suppose I should be numbering these "reprieve" entries. I want to continue calling them reprieves, though, because they are interruptions from my regular posting about my history, which currently means the "organizational behavior" file article comments.
There are a few things that have happened that I would like to comment on here. One involves family and the other is regarding church. These are the main things I want to discuss here.
Regarding family, I decided about a week ago I wanted a break from the close communications with my brothers. At the end of my phone conversation with one of my brothers saying how I couldn't believe I'd forgotten my physical therapy appointment, he made a comment comparing me to mom but saying at least I didn't do it repeatedly (that was the gist of his comment). This made me thing that he (if not both of my brothers) were going to look for chances to find me with emotional problems similar to mom. This I understand to be because that's the script the family has for me (which I think was laid out by dad years ago, which may have served, at least in part, to let dad off the hook for the impact his work has had on me. It also undoubtedly served to keep the male and female distinction all that much clearer in the family, regarding roles, stereotypical characteristics and expectations by other members of the family.)
This brief comment had several implications for me. One was that it demonstrated that nothing had changed with mom's death, and that they were still going to look for ways that I am like mom. I attribute this to being at least in part because they have a vested interest in maintaining their privileged position in the family, where the men "where the pants" so to speak. But, as I told my brothers a few weeks ago in an e-mail, I am not their wife and they are not my "head" (I Cor. 11: 3ff). That is, if they want to wear the pants in reference to a woman they are going to have to find themselves wives, because I'm not going to let them play this role vis a vis myself. I understand that rejecting this type of relationship opens myself to being left completely alone, however, because I don't know that they know any other way to relate to women, so if they can't relate to me in this way they aren't going to relate to me in any way at all.
So anyway, the long and the short of it is that I haven't had contact with my brothers for a week or so now. I just told them in an e-mail that I needed some space, but I did comment about how I didn't want to be compared to mom. The fact that I missed one appointment does not make me like mom, it only means that I'm frazzled and at my limits as to how much I can take... which I hope the reader can understand if you've followed how much I've been through just in this one year alone, let alone what immediately preceded this year (i.e., before I started writing this blog). It's not like I am just laying down in bed depressed and not doing anything. Rather, my being at my limits (including declining health from the new stenosis) has resulted in me making errors on various fronts as I try to keep up with everything, but am not so successful at it despite my best efforts.
One thing I will say is that it's possible my brothers might not be completely conscious of doing this or taking this position, but, if I may, I'd like to make a comparison to another social reality that I learned about while in my doctoral studies (which I left before completing). That is, regarding white people's "superiority" as far as social positioning in U.S. culture is concerned. That is, being white has it's advantages here. As far as an individual white person's belief about this in regards to his or her self is concerned, they may deny this as being true, and really believe that there is no difference, at least as far as he or she is concerned. But for the people on the other end of the stick - the non-whites - they feel it more clearly and are more sensitive to this kind of thing because they know they have to overcome this social inequality to be able to function on an even keel with whites. The advantaged party in this kind of relationship is more or less blind to inequalities, but the less advantaged party experiences it more clearly. This is the case with being woman in relation to men in many contexts too.
But my brothers may also be more aware of this relationship with women, and maybe with me in particular, than I give them credit for, in as much as they may realize their is sibling rivalry going on and they understand that the male card is one way they can try to maintain or gain superiority over me (or at least equality with me if they feel like they are disadvantaged in some other non-gender-related way). Also, they may have this image of maleness that disallows for a woman being strong. Having a strong woman, I suspect, can have at least two implications. One is that the woman could be labeled a "feminist," which is a bad thing. The other is that the existence of a strong woman could mean that they are emasculated, failing in their manliness whereby they should be the caretaker and authority over women (or at least women they have close relations with).
It may seem like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, that is, reading more into a passing comment than is warranted. But I've been in this family 51 years now and my experience and understanding leads me to understand that this comment rests on an underlying pathological (in my opinion) mental construct.
The other thing I'd like to bring out from this brief exchange is how it exemplifies that men (cp. In the Company of Women) don't reveal their weaknesses and to do so is seen as weakness. The context of my admission of having forgotten that physical therapy appointment was in my explaining how I was getting overwhelmed and not keeping up with things very well - that there are just too many things going on in my life. The fact that that brother should verbally compare me to mom (who missed several appointments in the past several months, often for very real physical problems that had nothing to do with her emotional health), is somewhat ironic, however, because the paperwork he sent me regarding the estate had a few pages stapled out of order and one page in duplicate. So he is also having trouble keeping up with things and, if the golden rule is in play here, how he treated me is how he himself would like to be treated. In this case, I would say that when dad died they found his then recent affairs uncharacteristically not in as good an order as one would think considering he was a program manager in the control of very expensive military contract programs. That is, towards the end of his life he wasn't doing so well. I'm not sure how I can compare my brother to him in this situation, however. Might it mean that my brother will die shortly? Or maybe he is becoming overwhelmed with the care of his handicapped son similar to how dad was becoming overwhelmed with the care for mom, especially after she had attempted suicide that winter. This is the kind of thinking that one might expect in a tit for tat comparison of weakness of (adult) children following the weakness of a same-gendered parent. The logic, I think, is rather faulty, but this is how my brother apparently thinks. Or maybe he doesn't want a tit for tat (or "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" thought process.
***
The other thing that I would like to discuss here involves church. Months ago pastor decided to have a membership class with me and another person who'd indicated an interest in joining the church. To accommodate me with my health limitations, he'd offered to have the 3 orientation sessions at my place and even brought the other person here. From the beginning he set timelines so that we could be brought into the church at such and such a specific Sunday. There were a couple delays because of the other person or him. And then somewhere along the line they decided to have refreshments after church on the day were were publicly admitted as members. Towards the end, though, as I was feeling worse and worse and not attending church regularly (first because of being away when mom died and then not wanting to try to attend the Mother's Day service, followed by declining health.
The week before the service he said that he might have us both share our testimony and do something during the service, and asked me to read Scripture. The middle of the week before the induction I e-mailed him that I was getting worse and didn't want to be asked to do anything extra besides just doing the vows, but later that day he called to ask me to read Scripture, saying he was also asking the other person to do something. It seemed to me that he hadn't read my e-mail yet; otherwise, if he was intentionally ignoring it, that would have worse implications as to what was going on. He was so enthusiastic and made it difficult to opt out, so I rather reluctantly agreed to do it. In the above discussed conversation with my brother I told him about what was going on and he said to just say no.
Meanwhile, I was keeping him and the church updated as to my health issues and finally late last weak I e-mailed him saying I was feeling pressured and "railroaded" into doing more than I could and I said I couldn't promise I would be at church on Sunday because I was feeling so badly. Rather in alarm the pastor called me and said that people were bringing refreshments and making rather a big effort to...
June 14, 2011
I can't remember what interrupted me when I started this post, but I'll try to pick up where I left off.
... celebrate the entrance of 3 new members to the church. He suggested someone drive me to church, so I agreed and a while later he called to let me know about the arrangements to get me to church... but we'd find someone at the time to take me home.
I was feeling so crummy that I didn't even stand for any of the singing and they even had to bring a chair up for me to sit on when taking the vows. I stayed long enough to get just enough refreshments to take my noon meds & supplements, which included pain medicine. One couple had kindly prepared cards to welcome each of us, which was a nice gesture. Otherwise, me and the other gal who had gone through the orientation classes together sat at a small table alone and I was really feeling so badly that I even forgot her name, if you can imagine that! I was so bad off that I should not have been there and I think everyone recognized that and it was pretty awkward.
It would have been better to just say that I was ill and couldn't make it, instead of going through all that to get me there. I felt like I was sort of an object, something to add to someone's trophy case. To make it worse, no one from church has even contacted me since.
***
Well, I'll leave that subject for now.
The past couple of weeks have been a wild roller coaster of crises regarding my health and/or the condo search. I asked for some space from my brothers, which allowed me to sort of shelve the whole family thing, including dealing with mom's death. I was in survival mode, which is something, in case you haven't figured that out yet, that I'm quite familiar with. At least my doctors this time around have been on the ball and everyone's doing what they're supposed to be doing, which is a tremendous relief, to say the least. What I went through with the cervical thing this past fall and winter is something that was mostly avoidable... that is, my symptoms should have been dealt with quicker and better. Well, eventually they were handled well, once I found someone who was willing and able to do something about the problem.
This condo thing has been pretty stressful at times, though, and I think my realtor and I have at times had a bit of a love-hate relationship. Well, both of those terms (love and hate) actually exaggerate things, but you get the idea (I hope).
Today and tomorrow could potentially be watersheds in my living situation. This afternoon I meet with my financial adviser and hopefully things will begin to solidify in that regard, although it's still not 100% what my ongoing housing costs will be. Then tomorrow me, my realtor, the listing agent and a general contractor are all convening at the current unit of interest. This should lead to a pretty good estimate of what it would cost from the repair and renovation standpoint (i.e., not counting furniture). I'm trying to stay within a certain amount and I've been spending a lot of time on line trying to realistically figure things out.
For example, I've found various on-line venders that sell everything from furniture (general or specialized), blinds, flooring, paint, blinds, etc. I found 6 venders that have at least one option for each of my main needs (such as dinette set, patio furniture, etc.). Then I went through and selected the best in each category from each vender. The total costs range from about $13k to about $22k. But that's not counting shipping. I've found that most venders have free "curb side shipping," which means they delivery truck will park in front of the building. Beyond that, it's up to you to take it off the truck, bring it inside, bring it in the room of choice, unpack it, and assemble it (if necessary). That is, if you want those things you can have them... for a price. To learn the price for a particular item you usually have to call to ask about it. However, several venders to offer free "white glove" service on specific items, usually the more expensive ones, like large wall sets or china cabinets. Nevertheless, going through this process has let me know what might be reasonable to expect as far as how much to spend on furniture and what types of things are out there to choose between. I've been hampered by my health in doing much running around to local stores, though.
But beyond that I've turned to focus more on preparations for tomorrow's meeting with the general contractor. If the contractor is going to give me a useful and more accurate estimate, I have to provide certain information. For example, cabinet refacing, which this unit needs in the kitchen and also both bathrooms. It would be helpful if I suggested what type of cabinetry I'd like, including hardware. And the flooring and blinds/shades are even more important, because what type of flooring and blinds affect the installation process which directly affects the cost of installation. So I have to have these things reasonably decided upon.
The emotional part of all this has involved things like my realtor getting impatient with me, the interface between me, my lawyer, the realtor, the selling agent, the selling agent's lawyer, the seller, etc. And these communciations are generally not direct but funneled through someone else. Sometimes time has been of the essence. Sometimes it seems as if there has been some miscommunication, etc.
***
As to my health, I had an epidural shot last Thursday for the lumbar. The neuro-surgeon thinks it's lumbar, but the neurologist suspects it's thoracic. I don't have the results of the thoracic MRI yet, although I have the images themselves, which they gave me right afterwards. The thoracic MRI was problematic because hardware from my first spinal diskectomy & fusion (T11-L1) interfered with the imaging, so I had to re-schedule at another location (same company) where they had an open MRI.
Having the epidural allowed me to stop the tramadol, as I was up to 100 mg four times a day. But yesterday and today I've taken 50 mg at lunch.
The past week and a half my legs have been bothering me more, meaning it's become harder to walk. I had a couple good days in there, but it seems to be getting more constant. So whereas the epidural can help the pain, it can't necessarily help the other neurological symptoms, such as muscle weakness. Also, my gastrointestinal system has been affected and a few weeks ago I was prescribed this stuff you drink before having a colonoscopy. Then I was told I could increase my genrlac to 30 ml twice a day (up from once a day). The increased genrlac has helped a lot.
***
Last weekend I started getting caught up on some things so that I didn't feel so all over the place and focused only on whatever was happening at the moment. I hadn't had any contact with my brothers until yesterday and I think that was good, to have that break. Also, having so much to do with such urgency has helped keep my mind of mom and the family. Eventually that will catch up with me, but hopefully by then it will be more manageable to deal with constructively. In this regard, I've been more fortunate than my brothers because they've been working all this time on things regarding mom and even if they've been busy they haven't had the benefit of being able to step back from it. I did scan in and e-mail them a few more sympathy cards I received from the notices I sent out (from all of us). When I get the list, I will likewise send out thank you notes to those who made donations to the church in mom's name. But this is a lot less intense and demanding then the kind of things my brothers have been doing.
***
Well, this is a long enough post, so I'm going to end here. Can you believe my life? If I told you I feel like my whole life has been like this since more or less 1987 would you believe me? I won't make firm statements about whether or not I'm sane or how sane I might be, but I do think that altogether I've dealt reasonably well with everything I've faced. That doesn't mean I've always done everything right though (who has?), or that I haven't had my moments when things got to me. But I think all in all I'm a pretty strong person and fairly observant. I may be too analytical for my own good, but sometimes I feel like I'm treated like a "dumb blond" or "just a woman" or "an easy push over", and I think being observant and intentionally reflective has been one way to deal with these attitudes from others. I'm not saying it's the best way, just that it's something I do and I think it's at least a fairly good approach, especially within my personality.
***
One more thing: I know it may seem like I'll never get back to the chronology, but that's how I've felt about a good part of my life for years now. I'm always thinking things will normalize and then when it appears they are I start to take advantage of that and WHAM! something throws everything out of kilter again and off I go on another crisis and/or tangent...
There are a few things that have happened that I would like to comment on here. One involves family and the other is regarding church. These are the main things I want to discuss here.
Regarding family, I decided about a week ago I wanted a break from the close communications with my brothers. At the end of my phone conversation with one of my brothers saying how I couldn't believe I'd forgotten my physical therapy appointment, he made a comment comparing me to mom but saying at least I didn't do it repeatedly (that was the gist of his comment). This made me thing that he (if not both of my brothers) were going to look for chances to find me with emotional problems similar to mom. This I understand to be because that's the script the family has for me (which I think was laid out by dad years ago, which may have served, at least in part, to let dad off the hook for the impact his work has had on me. It also undoubtedly served to keep the male and female distinction all that much clearer in the family, regarding roles, stereotypical characteristics and expectations by other members of the family.)
This brief comment had several implications for me. One was that it demonstrated that nothing had changed with mom's death, and that they were still going to look for ways that I am like mom. I attribute this to being at least in part because they have a vested interest in maintaining their privileged position in the family, where the men "where the pants" so to speak. But, as I told my brothers a few weeks ago in an e-mail, I am not their wife and they are not my "head" (I Cor. 11: 3ff). That is, if they want to wear the pants in reference to a woman they are going to have to find themselves wives, because I'm not going to let them play this role vis a vis myself. I understand that rejecting this type of relationship opens myself to being left completely alone, however, because I don't know that they know any other way to relate to women, so if they can't relate to me in this way they aren't going to relate to me in any way at all.
So anyway, the long and the short of it is that I haven't had contact with my brothers for a week or so now. I just told them in an e-mail that I needed some space, but I did comment about how I didn't want to be compared to mom. The fact that I missed one appointment does not make me like mom, it only means that I'm frazzled and at my limits as to how much I can take... which I hope the reader can understand if you've followed how much I've been through just in this one year alone, let alone what immediately preceded this year (i.e., before I started writing this blog). It's not like I am just laying down in bed depressed and not doing anything. Rather, my being at my limits (including declining health from the new stenosis) has resulted in me making errors on various fronts as I try to keep up with everything, but am not so successful at it despite my best efforts.
One thing I will say is that it's possible my brothers might not be completely conscious of doing this or taking this position, but, if I may, I'd like to make a comparison to another social reality that I learned about while in my doctoral studies (which I left before completing). That is, regarding white people's "superiority" as far as social positioning in U.S. culture is concerned. That is, being white has it's advantages here. As far as an individual white person's belief about this in regards to his or her self is concerned, they may deny this as being true, and really believe that there is no difference, at least as far as he or she is concerned. But for the people on the other end of the stick - the non-whites - they feel it more clearly and are more sensitive to this kind of thing because they know they have to overcome this social inequality to be able to function on an even keel with whites. The advantaged party in this kind of relationship is more or less blind to inequalities, but the less advantaged party experiences it more clearly. This is the case with being woman in relation to men in many contexts too.
But my brothers may also be more aware of this relationship with women, and maybe with me in particular, than I give them credit for, in as much as they may realize their is sibling rivalry going on and they understand that the male card is one way they can try to maintain or gain superiority over me (or at least equality with me if they feel like they are disadvantaged in some other non-gender-related way). Also, they may have this image of maleness that disallows for a woman being strong. Having a strong woman, I suspect, can have at least two implications. One is that the woman could be labeled a "feminist," which is a bad thing. The other is that the existence of a strong woman could mean that they are emasculated, failing in their manliness whereby they should be the caretaker and authority over women (or at least women they have close relations with).
It may seem like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, that is, reading more into a passing comment than is warranted. But I've been in this family 51 years now and my experience and understanding leads me to understand that this comment rests on an underlying pathological (in my opinion) mental construct.
The other thing I'd like to bring out from this brief exchange is how it exemplifies that men (cp. In the Company of Women) don't reveal their weaknesses and to do so is seen as weakness. The context of my admission of having forgotten that physical therapy appointment was in my explaining how I was getting overwhelmed and not keeping up with things very well - that there are just too many things going on in my life. The fact that that brother should verbally compare me to mom (who missed several appointments in the past several months, often for very real physical problems that had nothing to do with her emotional health), is somewhat ironic, however, because the paperwork he sent me regarding the estate had a few pages stapled out of order and one page in duplicate. So he is also having trouble keeping up with things and, if the golden rule is in play here, how he treated me is how he himself would like to be treated. In this case, I would say that when dad died they found his then recent affairs uncharacteristically not in as good an order as one would think considering he was a program manager in the control of very expensive military contract programs. That is, towards the end of his life he wasn't doing so well. I'm not sure how I can compare my brother to him in this situation, however. Might it mean that my brother will die shortly? Or maybe he is becoming overwhelmed with the care of his handicapped son similar to how dad was becoming overwhelmed with the care for mom, especially after she had attempted suicide that winter. This is the kind of thinking that one might expect in a tit for tat comparison of weakness of (adult) children following the weakness of a same-gendered parent. The logic, I think, is rather faulty, but this is how my brother apparently thinks. Or maybe he doesn't want a tit for tat (or "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" thought process.
***
The other thing that I would like to discuss here involves church. Months ago pastor decided to have a membership class with me and another person who'd indicated an interest in joining the church. To accommodate me with my health limitations, he'd offered to have the 3 orientation sessions at my place and even brought the other person here. From the beginning he set timelines so that we could be brought into the church at such and such a specific Sunday. There were a couple delays because of the other person or him. And then somewhere along the line they decided to have refreshments after church on the day were were publicly admitted as members. Towards the end, though, as I was feeling worse and worse and not attending church regularly (first because of being away when mom died and then not wanting to try to attend the Mother's Day service, followed by declining health.
The week before the service he said that he might have us both share our testimony and do something during the service, and asked me to read Scripture. The middle of the week before the induction I e-mailed him that I was getting worse and didn't want to be asked to do anything extra besides just doing the vows, but later that day he called to ask me to read Scripture, saying he was also asking the other person to do something. It seemed to me that he hadn't read my e-mail yet; otherwise, if he was intentionally ignoring it, that would have worse implications as to what was going on. He was so enthusiastic and made it difficult to opt out, so I rather reluctantly agreed to do it. In the above discussed conversation with my brother I told him about what was going on and he said to just say no.
Meanwhile, I was keeping him and the church updated as to my health issues and finally late last weak I e-mailed him saying I was feeling pressured and "railroaded" into doing more than I could and I said I couldn't promise I would be at church on Sunday because I was feeling so badly. Rather in alarm the pastor called me and said that people were bringing refreshments and making rather a big effort to...
June 14, 2011
I can't remember what interrupted me when I started this post, but I'll try to pick up where I left off.
... celebrate the entrance of 3 new members to the church. He suggested someone drive me to church, so I agreed and a while later he called to let me know about the arrangements to get me to church... but we'd find someone at the time to take me home.
I was feeling so crummy that I didn't even stand for any of the singing and they even had to bring a chair up for me to sit on when taking the vows. I stayed long enough to get just enough refreshments to take my noon meds & supplements, which included pain medicine. One couple had kindly prepared cards to welcome each of us, which was a nice gesture. Otherwise, me and the other gal who had gone through the orientation classes together sat at a small table alone and I was really feeling so badly that I even forgot her name, if you can imagine that! I was so bad off that I should not have been there and I think everyone recognized that and it was pretty awkward.
It would have been better to just say that I was ill and couldn't make it, instead of going through all that to get me there. I felt like I was sort of an object, something to add to someone's trophy case. To make it worse, no one from church has even contacted me since.
***
Well, I'll leave that subject for now.
The past couple of weeks have been a wild roller coaster of crises regarding my health and/or the condo search. I asked for some space from my brothers, which allowed me to sort of shelve the whole family thing, including dealing with mom's death. I was in survival mode, which is something, in case you haven't figured that out yet, that I'm quite familiar with. At least my doctors this time around have been on the ball and everyone's doing what they're supposed to be doing, which is a tremendous relief, to say the least. What I went through with the cervical thing this past fall and winter is something that was mostly avoidable... that is, my symptoms should have been dealt with quicker and better. Well, eventually they were handled well, once I found someone who was willing and able to do something about the problem.
This condo thing has been pretty stressful at times, though, and I think my realtor and I have at times had a bit of a love-hate relationship. Well, both of those terms (love and hate) actually exaggerate things, but you get the idea (I hope).
Today and tomorrow could potentially be watersheds in my living situation. This afternoon I meet with my financial adviser and hopefully things will begin to solidify in that regard, although it's still not 100% what my ongoing housing costs will be. Then tomorrow me, my realtor, the listing agent and a general contractor are all convening at the current unit of interest. This should lead to a pretty good estimate of what it would cost from the repair and renovation standpoint (i.e., not counting furniture). I'm trying to stay within a certain amount and I've been spending a lot of time on line trying to realistically figure things out.
For example, I've found various on-line venders that sell everything from furniture (general or specialized), blinds, flooring, paint, blinds, etc. I found 6 venders that have at least one option for each of my main needs (such as dinette set, patio furniture, etc.). Then I went through and selected the best in each category from each vender. The total costs range from about $13k to about $22k. But that's not counting shipping. I've found that most venders have free "curb side shipping," which means they delivery truck will park in front of the building. Beyond that, it's up to you to take it off the truck, bring it inside, bring it in the room of choice, unpack it, and assemble it (if necessary). That is, if you want those things you can have them... for a price. To learn the price for a particular item you usually have to call to ask about it. However, several venders to offer free "white glove" service on specific items, usually the more expensive ones, like large wall sets or china cabinets. Nevertheless, going through this process has let me know what might be reasonable to expect as far as how much to spend on furniture and what types of things are out there to choose between. I've been hampered by my health in doing much running around to local stores, though.
But beyond that I've turned to focus more on preparations for tomorrow's meeting with the general contractor. If the contractor is going to give me a useful and more accurate estimate, I have to provide certain information. For example, cabinet refacing, which this unit needs in the kitchen and also both bathrooms. It would be helpful if I suggested what type of cabinetry I'd like, including hardware. And the flooring and blinds/shades are even more important, because what type of flooring and blinds affect the installation process which directly affects the cost of installation. So I have to have these things reasonably decided upon.
The emotional part of all this has involved things like my realtor getting impatient with me, the interface between me, my lawyer, the realtor, the selling agent, the selling agent's lawyer, the seller, etc. And these communciations are generally not direct but funneled through someone else. Sometimes time has been of the essence. Sometimes it seems as if there has been some miscommunication, etc.
***
As to my health, I had an epidural shot last Thursday for the lumbar. The neuro-surgeon thinks it's lumbar, but the neurologist suspects it's thoracic. I don't have the results of the thoracic MRI yet, although I have the images themselves, which they gave me right afterwards. The thoracic MRI was problematic because hardware from my first spinal diskectomy & fusion (T11-L1) interfered with the imaging, so I had to re-schedule at another location (same company) where they had an open MRI.
Having the epidural allowed me to stop the tramadol, as I was up to 100 mg four times a day. But yesterday and today I've taken 50 mg at lunch.
The past week and a half my legs have been bothering me more, meaning it's become harder to walk. I had a couple good days in there, but it seems to be getting more constant. So whereas the epidural can help the pain, it can't necessarily help the other neurological symptoms, such as muscle weakness. Also, my gastrointestinal system has been affected and a few weeks ago I was prescribed this stuff you drink before having a colonoscopy. Then I was told I could increase my genrlac to 30 ml twice a day (up from once a day). The increased genrlac has helped a lot.
***
Last weekend I started getting caught up on some things so that I didn't feel so all over the place and focused only on whatever was happening at the moment. I hadn't had any contact with my brothers until yesterday and I think that was good, to have that break. Also, having so much to do with such urgency has helped keep my mind of mom and the family. Eventually that will catch up with me, but hopefully by then it will be more manageable to deal with constructively. In this regard, I've been more fortunate than my brothers because they've been working all this time on things regarding mom and even if they've been busy they haven't had the benefit of being able to step back from it. I did scan in and e-mail them a few more sympathy cards I received from the notices I sent out (from all of us). When I get the list, I will likewise send out thank you notes to those who made donations to the church in mom's name. But this is a lot less intense and demanding then the kind of things my brothers have been doing.
***
Well, this is a long enough post, so I'm going to end here. Can you believe my life? If I told you I feel like my whole life has been like this since more or less 1987 would you believe me? I won't make firm statements about whether or not I'm sane or how sane I might be, but I do think that altogether I've dealt reasonably well with everything I've faced. That doesn't mean I've always done everything right though (who has?), or that I haven't had my moments when things got to me. But I think all in all I'm a pretty strong person and fairly observant. I may be too analytical for my own good, but sometimes I feel like I'm treated like a "dumb blond" or "just a woman" or "an easy push over", and I think being observant and intentionally reflective has been one way to deal with these attitudes from others. I'm not saying it's the best way, just that it's something I do and I think it's at least a fairly good approach, especially within my personality.
***
One more thing: I know it may seem like I'll never get back to the chronology, but that's how I've felt about a good part of my life for years now. I'm always thinking things will normalize and then when it appears they are I start to take advantage of that and WHAM! something throws everything out of kilter again and off I go on another crisis and/or tangent...
Thursday, June 2, 2011
273. Family-Related Reprieve
I believe I've discussed the issue of power in my family, but, as you can well imagine, the death of our last parent changes the dynamics. However, I don't think the rules have really changed. I may not like what I'm going to talk about here, but it's the way things are.
Mom's power was based on her financial resources.
One thing that I've had thrown at me from time to time since I returned to the States from Russia in 1997 is the idea that I'm selfish because I only have myself to worry about. Until now my brother in Seattle had one or both of our parents to care for, and my other brother has his two boys.
The options for me, as far as how things could acceptably be different, putting me in a position of having someone else to care for are basically limited to getting married and having a husband to care for. I can't have children at this point in my life, so that possibility is out. So how would the power distribution look if I got married? A lot, of course, depends on how I might marry, but if the power issues if I were to marry were to remain as they currently are in the family I would be under my husband and the family would be run by a cabal of men. My brothers would quickly latch on to my husband to ensure that the family values and modus operandi remain as they are, which is heavily biased in favor of men's superiority of position and power. Male manliness would be in question if anything but male domination were to play out in family relations.
The power of my brother in Seattle is also, however, also affected by mom's death. Now the same accusation of having only himself to care for can also be used against him too. So he has to now secure his power footing in the family in the new configuration sans mom. He has some power in his stability and also his not having so many problems as me and our other brother. That is, he is not very vulnerable in comparison to us. My vulnerability is based on my health and also my poverty as well as the basic vulnerability that comes with being female in this family. Our other brother's vulnerability is based on his familial problems, being divorced, his having a handicapped child, and his being on his ex-wife's turf in a semi-rural area where she and her birth family have some clout. The brother in Seattle also has power in the form of close contact with other family members, since he's living where we were raised, and also the church we were raised in. Church-related clout doesn't affect the other brother because he's settled enough in his church and also friends elsewhere he went to Bible school with.
My brother in Seattle will want to secure his standing in the family by confirming his manliness. This might be acted out in strengthening male bonding with the other brother and our nephews. It could also affect his relationship with me if he tries to take a male dominant relationship with me. To a certain extent I have some power to avoid this happening, but that depends on my health too, which I don't have so much control over. So if my health deteriorates and he steps in to help me and I accept his help, the price for accepting that help will be (tacitly) agreeing to his male dominance over me, with all the nuances that includes. He could also try to shore up his local relations, with family and church, to limit his vulnerability and provide a buffer against any weakness he might have vis a vis our other brother and me.
The brother in New England, on the other hand, has lost a grandmother to his two boys. And mom did cherish her grandsons and went to great lengths to send personalized gifts, including some heirloom and written things. This was a boon to my brother as a buffer against his ex-wife's family's influence on his sons. However because of our falling out that landed me back in Florida a year ago, he will be reticent to let me fill in any gap left by mom. If he were to allow me any contact with his boys it would be highly regulated by him and I would make myself quite vulnerable to him opening myself up to the same kind of thing that I witnessed and experienced living in his apartment (above his office).
As to myself, I have to decide whether any of the male scripting is going to change in the family. If not, should I open myself up to closer ties with my brothers I am putting myself at risk for falling into the same male dominated relations that existed before mom died. My cousin (the one who agreed that my family - and hers too - operate on a survival of the fittest basis) thinks I shouldn't have signed the document my brother with the two sons had me sign before I returned here to Miami. She said she thought my nephews acted like they were abused and she was concerned that I had agreed, by signing the document, to forego contact with my nephews. However, she doesn't appreciate how vulnerable I was, living in his apartment free of charge on his turf, and being sick myself. I'm not sure I am strong enough to be able to deal with any gaff from my brother and be any help to my nephews. Instead, I may actually strengthen my brother's hold on them by opening myself up to my brother to have contact with them. My brother's position vis a vis his boys could be strengthened because of his confirmation of his manliness through his relations with me, but also serve as an excuse to further tighten his control over his boys to protect them from such mal-intentioned individuals as myself (that is, that's how he would describe me, at least in part).
So what can or should I do under such circumstances? I don't think either of my brothers are malicious, but "just" want to maintain the power-holds that they think they "should" have and maintain the public image they want to have. But the potential end result of this is, I think, not dissimilar to what it would be if they were just plain malicious. Because of my health and poverty I don't think that I can expect to have much influence on my nephews, so I think that that's pretty much a moot issue. So then it just has to do with
These are some of the things I and my brothers have to deal with regarding our relations with one another as also in adjusting to our new lives without mom.
Mom's power was based on her financial resources.
One thing that I've had thrown at me from time to time since I returned to the States from Russia in 1997 is the idea that I'm selfish because I only have myself to worry about. Until now my brother in Seattle had one or both of our parents to care for, and my other brother has his two boys.
The options for me, as far as how things could acceptably be different, putting me in a position of having someone else to care for are basically limited to getting married and having a husband to care for. I can't have children at this point in my life, so that possibility is out. So how would the power distribution look if I got married? A lot, of course, depends on how I might marry, but if the power issues if I were to marry were to remain as they currently are in the family I would be under my husband and the family would be run by a cabal of men. My brothers would quickly latch on to my husband to ensure that the family values and modus operandi remain as they are, which is heavily biased in favor of men's superiority of position and power. Male manliness would be in question if anything but male domination were to play out in family relations.
The power of my brother in Seattle is also, however, also affected by mom's death. Now the same accusation of having only himself to care for can also be used against him too. So he has to now secure his power footing in the family in the new configuration sans mom. He has some power in his stability and also his not having so many problems as me and our other brother. That is, he is not very vulnerable in comparison to us. My vulnerability is based on my health and also my poverty as well as the basic vulnerability that comes with being female in this family. Our other brother's vulnerability is based on his familial problems, being divorced, his having a handicapped child, and his being on his ex-wife's turf in a semi-rural area where she and her birth family have some clout. The brother in Seattle also has power in the form of close contact with other family members, since he's living where we were raised, and also the church we were raised in. Church-related clout doesn't affect the other brother because he's settled enough in his church and also friends elsewhere he went to Bible school with.
My brother in Seattle will want to secure his standing in the family by confirming his manliness. This might be acted out in strengthening male bonding with the other brother and our nephews. It could also affect his relationship with me if he tries to take a male dominant relationship with me. To a certain extent I have some power to avoid this happening, but that depends on my health too, which I don't have so much control over. So if my health deteriorates and he steps in to help me and I accept his help, the price for accepting that help will be (tacitly) agreeing to his male dominance over me, with all the nuances that includes. He could also try to shore up his local relations, with family and church, to limit his vulnerability and provide a buffer against any weakness he might have vis a vis our other brother and me.
The brother in New England, on the other hand, has lost a grandmother to his two boys. And mom did cherish her grandsons and went to great lengths to send personalized gifts, including some heirloom and written things. This was a boon to my brother as a buffer against his ex-wife's family's influence on his sons. However because of our falling out that landed me back in Florida a year ago, he will be reticent to let me fill in any gap left by mom. If he were to allow me any contact with his boys it would be highly regulated by him and I would make myself quite vulnerable to him opening myself up to the same kind of thing that I witnessed and experienced living in his apartment (above his office).
As to myself, I have to decide whether any of the male scripting is going to change in the family. If not, should I open myself up to closer ties with my brothers I am putting myself at risk for falling into the same male dominated relations that existed before mom died. My cousin (the one who agreed that my family - and hers too - operate on a survival of the fittest basis) thinks I shouldn't have signed the document my brother with the two sons had me sign before I returned here to Miami. She said she thought my nephews acted like they were abused and she was concerned that I had agreed, by signing the document, to forego contact with my nephews. However, she doesn't appreciate how vulnerable I was, living in his apartment free of charge on his turf, and being sick myself. I'm not sure I am strong enough to be able to deal with any gaff from my brother and be any help to my nephews. Instead, I may actually strengthen my brother's hold on them by opening myself up to my brother to have contact with them. My brother's position vis a vis his boys could be strengthened because of his confirmation of his manliness through his relations with me, but also serve as an excuse to further tighten his control over his boys to protect them from such mal-intentioned individuals as myself (that is, that's how he would describe me, at least in part).
So what can or should I do under such circumstances? I don't think either of my brothers are malicious, but "just" want to maintain the power-holds that they think they "should" have and maintain the public image they want to have. But the potential end result of this is, I think, not dissimilar to what it would be if they were just plain malicious. Because of my health and poverty I don't think that I can expect to have much influence on my nephews, so I think that that's pretty much a moot issue. So then it just has to do with
- whether I agree with my brothers on how things should be and what they want out of the relationship,
- how much I disagree with them, and
- what I'm willing to accept as consequences of holding my ground on areas we might disagree on.
These are some of the things I and my brothers have to deal with regarding our relations with one another as also in adjusting to our new lives without mom.
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