I should have the next oart of the story up within the next week. School is crazy with prepping for finals and packing for summer. I'm going to spend two days with the family that I'm nannying for next weekend. I really feel bad for neglecting this blog but I have been doing my private entries for therapy. Therapy is intense as we are starting to deal with my feelings about being neglected by BOTH parents. Yes, I am starting to have anger toward my mom and that results in guilt. My brother is coming out to see me in two weeks and has agreed to see the therapist with me.
One of my brothers got married last week. His bride is just eighteen. She's from a fully QF/ATI family. I can't believe he's married. They had wedding guests donate money towards expanding the house my brother built for a nursery. I can't, but I can, believe it.
Good to hear you are doing well, if swamped with the details of a busy life. I'm glad that your brother is going to therapy with you. It will give your therapist more insight and might help your bro too.
ReplyDeleteThings sound exciting for you! Reading about your brother marrying a near child, I'm glad that I'm single and packing away money for my retirement fund and not for a nursery!
Have a good finals week!
Never apologize for living your life. Do what you have to do and come back and see us when you have time.
ReplyDeleteSchool and finals are always a crazy time. Be of good cheer. Getting to spend time with your brother and having him go to therapy with you is priceless, enjoy!
ReplyDeleteAs to your other brother's wedding, may God grant them the wisdom to make the marriage successful.
Get back to us when things are a little less hectic. We understand.
Susan
susan-potpouri.blogspot.com
Take care, Ruth, and good luck with your finals. I have recently read your entire blog, and I'm so happy that you've risen above such a frightening situation. No one deserves to be treated like that, and I simply cannot understand how a man can need to exert so much control over his wife and family. Bill Gothard feels rather like a top schoolyard bully, or a leader of a streetgang, than a true religious leader, and your father seems to be a mere member of his Gothards gang who needs to control those he perceives to be lower ranking members. I cannot even conceive of treating my wife or son like that. Gothard and your father are just bullies, perhaps that is why Gothard and the men in his flock do what they do. I wonder if they could not otherwise earn respect from other men, so they have to turn into utter bullies to get it.
ReplyDeleteRuth's father, forgive me for being so crass, but please do the world a favour and grow a real pair of testicles! Just being able to engender children and control them by force does not a man make! You need not prove that to the world that you're a man by being violent towards those who have less physical strength than you. That does not make you more of a man, that makes you less than human. A real man supports his daughter, endeavors to help her achieve her goals, reach her full potential in whatever she decides to do, and to find true love in the world. I repeat again, you are not a man, Ruth's Father, you're something less than human!
Never feel pressured to stop posting, Ruth! I believe this journal is a godsend, especially to all the other children of brainwashed parents who need to know that their way of live is not the only way. Take care, Ruth!
As Amulbunny says - don't apologise for living your life. You don't owe us your blog entries - you owe yourself a life. And speaking as someone who has done both therapy and finals - I admire your ability to cope with both together.
ReplyDeleteThere are several things that I want to say:
ReplyDelete1) Good luck with your finals!!!
2) Enjoyed the weekend with the family that you will be nanning for.
3) Do not feel bad about neglating the blog finals are a hard thing to deal with. I can't beleive that your brother married an 18 year old although from what you have said about your family I can see it as well. also if you don not mind me asking how old is your brother? I am happy to read that you are starting to show a breakthrough in Therapy and that your brother is willing to go to a sesson with you.
Ruth, blog when you have time. Finals are absolutely more important!
ReplyDeleteTake care, Jean
Hi Ruth:
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that all is well and that you are moving along with your therapy and healing. I'm also very happy to hear that your brother is coming out to see you and that you both will be together in your healing process.
While it is hard for you to start putting accountability on your mom, it probably is the next step in healing. You have come a long, long way since your started your blog. If private entries is what it takes, then so be it. We are all here to support you. You have been through a lot, Ruth, all your siblings have.
As far as your brother marrying an 18 year-old bride, what can you do or say. People make their own choices and they live with the consequences, whether they be good or bad. It is too early to tell which it will be, but know 100% that we are all masters of our own destiny to a large degree. Sure, things sometimes happen that are out of our hands or control, but even then, we have the power to make the best of things. He is still your brother and I know you love him; it's almost inevitable that he (and his bride who grew up 100% ATI) would follow the same model at some point. That's how life is. I'm 47 and even though there's only me and my brother, we have both chosen two different lives even though we grew up with the same family. We are all individuals who choose our own path. I sincerely wish all of you peace in your choices.
Ruth, take care of yourself (as always) and stay safe, happy, and best of luck with everything. I look forward to contuining to read your blog. You are truly an inspiration to all of us, no matter our age or other status. You are a winner, Ruth. :)
(((Hugs))))
Donna
Dear Ruth,
ReplyDeleteNo apologies! A blog is necessarily going to take a back seat to important life events like finals! I hope that you do well --- no, I KNOW that you'll do well!
I'm praying for you as you walk through the next portion of your journey to healing. It's hard on us girls when we have to admit that our moms contributed to our pain and suffering. I think some of it is feeling our own mom's pain, and some of it is wondering how a person lets themself believe that it's okay for them to be treated badly -- and then, how can someone who is being treated badly turn around and inflict the same cruelty on someone else?
You will work through this, though, as you have worked through other issues. Stay strong!
The blog is YOURS--not ours! :) Don't feel guilty--Gothard gave you enough guilt. Post when you can and know that we're here pulling for you and even praying for you--for YOUR life not for the life your parents tried to force on you!
ReplyDeleteCurious to hear more about your new s-i-l.....
I would be careful about any therapist that tries to get you to feel anger for both your parents. There are a lot of therapists who manipulate their clients emotions so that they walk away hating their parents and are in constant need of more therapy. I don't suggest that this is necessarily the case with you but you should at least be on guard about it. Maybe a second opinion wouldn't be such a bad idea.
ReplyDeleteAt some point you have to recognize (all of us do in fact) that there isn't anything you can do about the past. You can't change what your father did or didn't do when you were a kid. You can't change what your mother did or didn't do. All you can do is move forward and live your life for the glory of God. Lot's of people have rotten childhoods, some much worse than yours. They can't change it, all they can do is move forward and work at living for Christ and work at not repeating whatever error their folks made.
Publius -
ReplyDeleteYou also can't short-circuit the process of dealing with the past and it is a process. It doesn't happen overnight. I'm pretty sure that Ruth didn't leave home and say, "Woooo-wee... glad that's over! Now, to get on with my life!" It doesn't work that way. While it is true that you should avoid a therapist who doesn't eventually want to kick you out of the nest, a good one takes the necessary time to work through what needs to be worked through.
I suppose it's true that a lot of people had crappier childhood experiences than Ruth had. Lydia Schatz's parents weren't exactly a stellar example of decent parenting (RIP in the arms of Jesus, sweetheart) and people long ago made their children pass through fire and sacrificed them to Molech. Something tells me, though, that if we intend to be any type of encouragement to Ruth, we aren't going to say things like, "Well Ruth, at least your parents didn't eat you!" I wonder if one of the most frustrating aspects of this experience for Ruth is going to be having gone through all of that stuff and then having armchair quarterbacks tell her that it wasn't that bad, that it's water over the dam and that she somehow doesn't have a right to walk through the healing process.
Ever see Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Remember the knight who kept getting limbs whacked off in battle and saying, "Oh, it's just a flesh wound!"? Is that how Ruth should be approaching this experience? Hacked up emotionally and spiritually and ignoring the reality of the wounds, forging ahead anyway until there's nothing left? I think not.
Jim K.
I've had anger toward my father, who had been there since my adoption, to all 3 of my legal mothers, the one who gave me life, the alcoholic one who died when I was ten (and whose life I saved before 911 was instituted...you called the operator) and my father's second wife, who legally adopted my brother and me, but projected her crappy childhood onto us, even though we were an upper middle class family. Therapy helped me get through not blaming the women and realizing the role my dad had in allowing the chaos and control to happen while we was out making a living. And these were people who went Dutch Reformed when I was a teen.
ReplyDeleteEnywho, the issues of my last mother prevented me from even knowing HOW to apply for colleges, even though I was an excellent student. But once I realized they didn't care, I had to find my own motivation (senior in HS) but by then it was too late and a week after I graduated from HS, I was given luggage for my 18th birthday and the ultimatum to pay nominal rent and follow their rules (while attempting to attend a JC...they refused to pay for my SAT's) or strike out on my own. I found a fulltime job the day after my graduation and moved out a month later.
When I decided I wanted to get a college degree (at age 40), I had to start from scratch; HS records are only accepted for 7 years, except, strangely, for foreign language. I'm finishing up my junior year at a prestigious university on the west coast... public school...I'm paying for it, ironically, out of my dad's inheritance; he died right before I got the acceptance to his alma mater.
Enywho, I want you to know that abuse happens in all forms and it doesn't have to be physical, but working out those issues with BOTH parents and how they failed you in your growth is so essential to making peace with them, as I was able to do before they died.
I had a rough final this morning and am taking the night off; my final final is FRIDAY NIGHT (thanks, tax cuts!), so I have plenty of time to study for an easy class and a classmate with even more time to spare who is compiling notes into a study guide for those of us in the BACK ROW!
It's so cool to have people young enough to be your kids treat you with respect and not ask questions. I know they're curious and open doors with common interests. Your age gap is NOTHING, but I sometimes resent some 26 year old rich kid who had all the breaks grading my papers and snickering as they do so *not every case...I've been lucky enough to have some PhD candidates who are peers*
All this to say good luck with finals, hope the foot is better and all the best with your family. I'm still among those who believe you need to keep this blog private from them until after you leave. If you're on the computer, it's easy to say you're in therapy and this is your outlet, etc. But a lesson I learned after my drunk mother had an accident with me in the car when I was about 6; keep your guard up at all times. People can be accepting, but they can also be horseshit to innocent people, no matter how old they are.
<3
This Saturday my 22 year old son graduates from one of the Cal State Universities. It has been a family "collaboration"...he stayed with grandparents who lived 5 miles from his school during the week (to save on boarding) and he worked seasonally for the State of California Parks to help with costs and of course, we pitched in to fund tuition much as we could to see he leaves school debt free. We are a Christian family...but my son is finding his own way right now and I pray it leads him to the God who loves him. My point here is just this; none of this would have been possible if our family had not worked in collaboration to help him on his journey. My mother called me yesterday as he left her house for a final exam for the last time. It made her feel like one of us leaving the nest! I pray for you daily...you need a loving and safe "village" of folks to help you on your journey. My son is very fortunate to have it in family, but that doesn't have to be the case. That will continue to be my prayers for you...that people with goodness, kindness and pure motives reach out to you and help you along the way. You have a gift for writing empathetically. I just know that the Creator of all things has great things in store for you.
ReplyDeleteGod Bless You Richly...hey you are a solid "Sophomore" now!
(((hugs)))
Sue
You can, yes you can ...
ReplyDeleteI believe you can :)
I hope your exams are going well. Good luck this summer with the nanny gig.
ReplyDeleteHope that you're doing well, Ruth. Check in when you get some time. Otherwise, wishing you the best with your exams as well as your transition to your new nannying position. You've come a long way, Ruth. Wishing you a terrific summer! :)
ReplyDeleteMaybe the nursery is for his wife. Seems like he is cradle robbing, given her age and all.
ReplyDeleteCome back when you can, Ruth. Good luck with finals!
-Jenny