i hear you and we could wish it was so but the reality is the same
i've done it before
and it left me each time such a mess for days after
i remember hearing a specialist in trauma say ' priority number one is dont retraumatise'
enjoying his hospitality is one way of seeing it
but the reality is that its not at all experienced that way by us
its a bit like mary antoinette saying if they dont have food let them eat cake
he is so unaware , blind and wanting to be blind to what we go through
we dont feel his joy that his child has come back from overseas when we are going through much more basic pain and he has not shown any care or given releif to us when we have and do still suffer so much for basics.
we just feel pain that he is so out of touch with what we have and are going through and just totally overlooks it all as if its not there.
with someone else maybe we could go and enjoy hospitality
or maybe not, we are overworked, tired, and burdened with the struggle for basics and for whats gone one because of what we go through. in the last 12 months alone we have gone through so much. we need to be around kind compassionate understanding people not people who love to show off how fabulous their life is and have show no care or understanding for us no matter what we are going through. a couple of years ago he had such theories about kids having all their needs taken care of so that they can think of higher things, but did he help us at all with his theories no. My son was so sick at the time and he put on alot of weight from the medication and needed twice to buy entire new clothes , underwear, singlets, paints, tops, school uniform, church clothes, twice twice i had to buy bigger sizes in a small space of time and there were so many other expenses and trauma connected with all this, and i begged my brothe rfor help and he didnt help at all. this is just one of so many needs along the years that pains me so much, - me and my children being for years so traumatised and so sick from not enough funds and the stress it caused on our health together with other traumas, and he just dances his life away with no though to what we go through. for basics.
but visiting h him its so full of emotions and pain not just of past we are still suffering now struggling to keep a food over our head and basics going and dealing with so much we have been through even this year and he is just so so blind to it all and so selfish.
we need comfort on our level and not to be told to come and celebrate with him when we are exhausted and suffering.
it reminds me a bit of a story i once hear of a very rich brother who came to a family wedding in all his splendor leaving another sibling to come to the wedding in their shame and povery and the parents werent happy that one brother could be so blind to the need of the others and the parents did not enjoy the splendor he came to the wedding with, as he didnt assit the brother to come in a reasonable way aswell.
we have tried again and again to go and not feel all the upset, and it has never ever worked. we are never as great a mess as we are after going there as the trauma for us is so huge of what we go through alone without support while he lives it up very nearby showing no compassion care understanding throught or relief for us.
Last edited by sue1386; January 23rd, 2010 at 01:29 PM.
If its leaving you in such a mess, don't go. If you want to someone to tell you what to do, then all you need to read is this: don't go. Make up an excuse if you like, but you can simply say, thanks but no thanks.
It is very hard and your feelings are very legitimate, but why would you keep going to people who don't care about you? I'm sorry, family may be family, but sometimes in name only. Like a previous poster said, it seems you've already made up your mind about how you're going to feel so why make it so hard for yourself.
So you've answered your own question then. If you can't choose to be any other way you are going to be miserable, so why do that to yourself. You can't make him do anything (particularly not in the past), it's only your reactions to what he does that you can choose. It seems you have made that choice, so don't go for both of your sakes.
he doesnt suffer when we go there. he has no clue what we go through and how it trumatises us to be around him.
it is a lovely theory that we choose how we will feel
but with trauma what others dont understand is that there is a whole set of other thigns that happen with the triggering of cortisol and traumatic memories that peole dont often understand. i remember once a psychologist said she wanted me to fill otu a form about ptsd and i could tick every one except one.
I guess every time this comes up i wish it was differnt but the practise shows taht no matter how much i try to have other emotions and keep reactions distant it is nto the way it happens.
i had a relative who was a very positive happy strong person and yet i was surprised by instant tears that would flow when certain memories were triggered. people dont understand the effect of cortisol and trauma.
i need peace time peace and time as much as possible
This is only a suggestion but have you tried to forgive your brother, holding resentment and hurt in your heart is only causing you more pain. I'm not saying you should go to your brothers house as obviously that will cause you trauma but if you want to find peace for yourself you need to forgive him and let go of the resentment you hold towards him. It is obviously not a healthy situation to be in but holding on to the past can cause trauma in itself.
i constnatly work with forgiveness, and trying to give reasons excuses understanding for why perhaps he is the way he is or simply acceptance.
we can live in the present and deal with what we have to deal with
but when we go to his home we cant its just too much trauma from decades and currently is triggered.
forgiveness doesnt mean we can forget or stop the reactions of trauma that it triggers. the less i think about it the better i am. going to his place just retriggeres all the trauma and then we are not able to live in the present and feel some peace and focus on what we need to .
do you have tangible descriptions of what forgiveness means to you and how you think that then this could make the trauma we feel around my brother less?
Hey Sue, ... so sorry if this is going to sound harsh but it doesn't sound like you owe it to your brother to go ... What's the big deal about the son coming back from the overseas trip anyway ?? ... Funny thing i firstly thought " Oh, he must have been a soldier in a war overseas that's why such big hype about him coming home " ... My other question is it cause he has been gone overseas for a long time ??, like a year or something ??
I can hear the stress in your posts Sue, i wouldn't go ... Look after you & your children first as you sound like you know to do and that's clearly one of your reasons of concern in going, you don't need for anymore emotional discomfort ...
I was also wondering is it also worrying you about the outcome with your brother if you don't go ... if his son has been on an overseas holiday for not a very long time i can't see the deep importance of it, but then maybe your brother thinks differently.
thanks for your kind words
i wish it was otherwise so i always think about it. we have an ideal picture of how we wish we could be but the reality is that this is a very toxic situation for me. i have some peace when i am by myself or with people who are on track with me and my life . but around him its just full of pain.
just the thought of my brother raises so much trauma for me and i ahvent forgotten how traumtised i was after last time going there which i beleive was 16 months ago.
and yes its just connected to so so so so so much me and my children went through for many years and still ongoingly and how close he lived and what a lavish lifestyle he has led and yet he has been totally deaf dumb blind to us sstruggling for basics.
Last year i asked if he could help towards a $30 heater my young daugher who has a baby needed and he didnt respond or give any help. he is too busy laughing and dancing and socialising and having a great life to think of a sister and nephews and neices who live right near to him
we are all hard workers that do our best , we are not drunkards or lazy but we have been through so so much and its taken a massive toll on us all.
once one of my kids were at my brothers home and my child thought that certain luxurious expensive foods would be shared out like a special treat like it would be in our home, and found out that they are standard fare there that they can have as much as they want. my child said taht his life is so extremely different to our life that no wonder he has no compassion or understanding. but its not true there are people from all walks who are capable of compassion and care.
i want my brother to have a good life
but our pain is that we suffered so much right next to him and he didnt releive us. it would have meant so much to us if he would have shown some regular care, releif support and caring words
and instead the pain of having a brother so close while we suffered so much, who was living such a lavish luxurious lifestyle is very traumatic for us.
my kids were hospitalised fighting for sanity with trauma we went through, not wanting to live
and his kids could thrive with every luxury and the biggest problem they had was what peice of jewellery to buy on their overseas trips.
how can someone enjoy so much with no though towards a sister and her children drowning so severely for so long for basics
no he wasnt at war overseas. he had a gap year and the 2 parents even went and visited him during that year! we dont have any interest/excitement in his coming back. our thoughts are with much more basic issues of survival. we feel only pain connected with my brother. i kept my pain silently but my kids have made their own conclusions and when i mention my brother they also say how much they hate them because he only cares about himself.
the wife is a good wife and mother but she is high maintenance. she was raised with little in a rich school and grew up wanting wht the other rich kids have. my brother is not the one always pushing for a new and bigger house car overseas trips etc. i dont want my brother to get a divorce but truly his behavoir has been so so so traumatic for us while we have gone through so much for basics.
Hun to answer your question about forgiveness, I also have been through trauma in my life and no forgiving someone doesn't mean you forget what you went through but for me once I forgave these people it brought peace in my heart and I was able to move on in my life and not dwell on the past and what they did to me. It doesn't necessarily mean you need to tell the person you have forgiven them, it really doesn't matter what they think. So I guess what I'm trying to say is if you can forgive your brother and as I said previously it doesn't mean you have to see him, it sounds like your resentment towards him goes back many years but you may be able to find peace in your heart to be able to move on in life. I know that if I hadn't forgiven the people that caused trauma in my life my children would be suffering because of that today. I can still think of what happened to me without hating the person who caused the trauma. I hope this has made some sense.
Sorry just another point I wanted to add, your brother isn't the one who caused your trauma, do you feel the same hatred towards your ex who actually did caused the truama? I presume so and also presume you have nothing more to do with your ex. If you can't get past the fact that your brother didn't help you I would just cut all ties with him, but you still need to find that peace in your heart otherwise you will live the rest of your life this way.
Forgiveness is accepting what the other person has said or done that has hurt you, and choosing to let it go. We can't forgive someone for hurt that we hold on to.
I felt very resentful towards my mother when I was younger because she didn't help me out of a situation I was in as a teenager. Many awful things happened to me because I couldn't get myself out of that situation, and I would often lie awake at night thinking 'why won't she come and save me from this?'. I was very very angry and hurt and I blamed her for so many things that flowed out of that situation, and the years of recovery it took to get my life back to 'normal'.
The hurt and anger stunted me emotionally and made me depressed and kept me from having a relationship with her. Every time I saw her it hurt like hell. There were tears and tears and tears. It wasn't until I stopped holding her accountable for my decisions, choices, situations and experiences, that I could start to heal. Yes, she could have helped me out of that sitation, but until I figured out that it was not her obligation to save me from my own choices in life that I could forgive her for not doing what *I* wanted her to do to make *my* life better. I still do see her as a bit of a selfish person now, but I don't let it hurt me deeply, I just see it as part of her personality. Now we have rekindled our relationship and she is one of my biggest support persons, and I can see that there are many other good qualities to her personality.
Forgiveness is deciding not to persecute someone for what they have or haven't done, and it releases all manner of hurt and trauma. Sometimes, when things are deeply traumatic, you have to make the choice to forgive over and over, whenever those feelings rise up.
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