Wol's Riverbank tales: Part 3 Restoration

ZTD

Wol2 wrote: »

sorry Z..and thanx for tryng :kisses3:

I'm sure you are making good points.....But unfortunately I have completely lost the plot tonight(booger ..what the 88ck .....where is that confused smiley when you need them :rotfl:)

They're everywhere...

Wol2 wrote: »

Thanx sweetheart - bit diff atm IYSWIM

xxxx

Diff?

taxi73

Just sending hugs as I seriously can't think of what to say.
I'm speechless.

taka

Oh my god! How painfully insensitive is she?? :mad: I can't believe it! :mad: She sounds the absolute opposite of empathic...

Whether your brain tumour is or isn't cancerous isn't really the point... A tumour of any kind somewhere so delicate as the brain has the potential to cause all sorts of problems - some of which can definitely be life threatening even if the tumour is benign and hence non-cancerous. By the sounds of it your meds are preventing it from being a problem for you now, but its still there and as such deserves a huge dose of respect and a massive chunk of empathy and understanding from those who are part of your life. It must be difficult to live with...

I've had a benign tumour in my foot for several few years now and I sometimes think about it and worry about it even though I know it will not become cancerous, just has the potential to cause pain. My mum just feels guilty about it - she has the hand version of it (its appears to be heretidary to some extent). :undecided

((((Hugs)))) Its not the status of your tumour that is important, or even that you have one... its that your mum needs a sizable kick up the bahookie (preferably into outer space where she can't cause you pain ) and to learn the true meaning of empathy and quite honestly to not be so bloody rude and horrendously insensitive! This is her problem... not yours. You are unlikely to be able to change her... :wall: Your can only change your response to her. Its not easy to do though...

((((hugs)))) again. :kisses3:

Karmacat

Oh Wol, I am *so* sorry you're going through this. I can't believe your mother's actually coming out and saying this stuff to you. Z has some great points in his posts, and sadly Taka has too - that you can't change her, you can only change your response to her.

Parents, even elderly parents, *do* change in some ways - my mum has several times admitted to me that she's learned about interpersonal relationships from me, and that I know more than she does about such things (aargh! which creates a frustration all its own). But she can still hurt me with various things she says, or simply by the way she talks, or the importance she puts on things when she's talking about people *to* me. I know how much I get hurt about simple things like that. But your situation is much, much worse than that - I can't imagine how I'd feel if I were to be discounted and belittled by my mum like that.

Z mentioned control. Maybe it is - I can certainly apply that to my mum. She had very young, very charismatic parents, a mouthy sister who was only 11 months younger than her, and she was an evacuee from when she was 12 years old, as well as being a child from a very poor family who got a scholarship to a grammar school - snidey control may have been the only way she could get any semblance of control in her life, since she was "the quiet one". Can you see anything similar as a mechanism in your mum's life? It doesn't **stop** it hurting, unfortunately, but it can help you distance yourself from that pain after a little while - its not about you, its about how powerless she feels deep down.

On the present day level, of course, its exactly as Taka puts it - bloody rude, bloody insensitive. Hugs and hugs and hugs again to you, Wol.

Wol2

ZTD wrote: »

They're everywhere...



Diff?

Difficult.... to think straight....at least it was last night

Wol2

taxi73 wrote: »

Don't mind spiders myself as they eat the horrible flies.

Me too taxi - last year had an outbreak of the biting cattle flies that kept coming into the house. Think the spiders must have made themselves scarce then as I got through several cans of flyspray:D

taxi73 wrote: »

Just sending hugs as I seriously can't think of what to say.
I'm speechless.

Thank you - I was up most of the night worried i was over-reacting or had missed something.........

During my late night googling is appears that a tumour is not classified as cancer uness malignant invasive cells are identified so strictly speaking my mum was right

Wol2

taka wrote: »

Oh my god! How painfully insensitive is she?? :mad: I can't believe it! :mad: She sounds the absolute opposite of empathic...

Whether your brain tumour is or isn't cancerous isn't really the point... A tumour of any kind somewhere so delicate as the brain has the potential to cause all sorts of problems - some of which can definitely be life threatening even if the tumour is benign and hence non-cancerous. By the sounds of it your meds are preventing it from being a problem for you now, but its still there and as such deserves a huge dose of respect and a massive chunk of empathy and understanding from those who are part of your life. It must be difficult to live with...

I've had a benign tumour in my foot for several few years now and I sometimes think about it and worry about it even though I know it will not become cancerous, just has the potential to cause pain. My mum just feels guilty about it - she has the hand version of it (its appears to be heretidary to some extent). :undecided

((((Hugs)))) Its not the status of your tumour that is important, or even that you have one... its that your mum needs a sizable kick up the bahookie (preferably into outer space where she can't cause you pain ) and to learn the true meaning of empathy and quite honestly to not be so bloody rude and horrendously insensitive! This is her problem... not yours. You are unlikely to be able to change her... :wall: Your can only change your response to her. Its not easy to do though...

((((hugs)))) again. :kisses3:

This is a great post Taka - thank you as I think you;ve really hit the nail on the head....
Early this morning I had thought about deleting my post and just ringing my mother to apologise for over-reacting and then I read your post.

Whether or not it is classified as cancer now, at the time all I knew was that I had a tumour in the pituitary gland at the front of the brain that had remained undiagnosed for several years (not for want of trying, but GP didn;t want to know) and that until I got sent for a scan, they didn;t know how big it was or if it would need to be removed. I had to wait three weeks for the results so I blew a considerable amount of my savings on the holiday of lifetime in Mauritius . I had already had to cope that year with the horrendous upheaval of losing my house and my partner to a younger piece of totty (wasn't worried about the partner but was peeed off about losing the house ) and starting my life from scratch in the house I am currently in.

Luckily it was found to be the size of a small pea and the medication actually not only stops it growing but shrinks it so hopefully it is now the size of a puy lentil.:D. The hormone effects (elevated prolactin ....and low oestrogen...see its all about low oestrogen again) can have a knock on effect on the thyroid (mine underperforms ) adrenals etc and can also lead to early osteoporosis. If it gets bigger, it starts to press on the optic nerve and you start to lose your sight. A that point they will take it out. These days they have perfected a new technique of accessing via the nose :eek: - but at that time it could have meant opening up the skull which I really couldn;t get my head around (sorry for the pun ) at all.

It is about showing empathy and emotional support for the other person -and respect for their situation and I think that's what upset me - it was the complete dismissal (however factually correct) of what I had to go through so many years ago (and subsequently following the flood in 2007); when I had to make some of those "life changing decisions" that people have to make when their health is at risk (which is what we were actually discussing at the time). Luckily my mum has never had to face this situation and my guess is she was feeling left out and emotionally insecure because of it and responded the way she did to neutralise the impact of what I was saying.

Hugs (and piggie kisses:)) to you too -:grouphug: you're so right - just because it's benign it doesn;t stop us worrying about it - it can still grow - just thankfully can't spread to other areas of the body . It's always there and an occasional cause for concern, as we never know if or when it is suddenly going to start to cause us a problem.

I do hope yours carries on behaving itself properly.

xxxxx

ZTD

Wol2 wrote: »

During my late night googling is appears that a tumour is not classified as cancer uness malignant invasive cells are identified so strictly speaking my mum was right

Yours is kept under control by tablets. If it isn't kept under control, then it will invade your "brain space". Does that mean that if you take your tablets at 2pm, then by 2:30, it's no longer a cancer? And when the tablets wear off, it's a cancer again?

Occam's razor applies here I think...

Wol2

Karmacat wrote: »

Oh Wol, I am *so* sorry you're going through this. I can't believe your mother's actually coming out and saying this stuff to you. Z has some great points in his posts, and sadly Taka has too - that you can't change her, you can only change your response to her.


On the present day level, of course, its exactly as Taka puts it - bloody rude, bloody insensitive. Hugs and hugs and hugs again to you, Wol.

Hi KC -
Another great post - thank you Hun :kisses3:

"SNAP" seems most appropriate here - quite spooky our mums are so similar. And you;re aboslutely right that it's about her disempowerment and the responses she has developed in order to cope with that.

Over the last two years i have been mentally adjusting to how I respond to the arrows and indeed how to protect myself but I guess the events of the last few weeks left me rather vulnerable and a direct hit was scored last night because I stupidly opened the door :doh:so it really is my own stupid fault :o

I feel much better today having read and thought about all your posts this morning - Thank you all for posting.........:A:A (and thank you Auntie Smashed for the phone calls last night:A)

Actually writing all this down now has really helped to put it back into perspective. (I'm also remembering the "stop wasting your money on the guinea pigs and let them die" fiasco a few weeks ago which, incidentally, happened before the family member got the diagnosis but after they had told mum there might be a problem and "not to tell anyone else yet").

The bottom line is that I am having far more contact with my family atm owing to current cirucmstances and in view of the heightened emotions, there are far more opportunities and reasons for her to lash out when I don;t "buy in" or agree with all her emotional drama (as Z says its a control method to get me to behave in an "acceptable" way and if/when I don;t give the correct responses, I get "neutralised" :rotfl:)

So I will try and make peace - but also I will have to devise a new strategy in how to do that and also to deal with the current situation. I'm sure part of what happened yesterday was me reverting to old behaviour and sub-consciously trying to divert any negative stuff away from the family member concerned by setting myself up as the target (something I have always done since childhood as that would appear to be my "role" within the family )....But this is in response to what I think is the other issue - that my mum views anyone else as a threat if they have emotional needs that require the family's attention and support to be diverted away from her By creating an emotional scene by whatever arrows are deemed appropriate, she neutralises them, and gains the attention back for herself. Last night I didn;t play the "aint it awful for you mum" game and instead helped create what she obviously felt was a threatening situation for her....so she lashed out.

Over the last year or so, I have been trying to find ways to interact in a less self-destructive way but this has also included a much reduced level of contact which might not be an option at present.

I have booked in with the psychotherapist for an additional appointment on tuesday and we will see where we go from there.

Thanx once again for your post - it's really helped clarify things in my mind and I feel much more positive again today......spiders beware :T:T

Wol2

Of couse the final "dynamic" is that I am now trying to keep my perspective on feeling incredibly guilty and disloyal about all the "fuss" and upset I caused her last night..and as you can see from my above posts I am starting to put myself in the frame as the only guilty party due to myself being a self-centred drama queen .:(:rotfl:. i.e. It's not her fault and I should've known better and been more supportive:o

I might delete some of my posts later

xxxxx