Act Your Age!

[Terre]

@Ken1171 : Agreed. When it's your own mother it isn't as easy to walk away as some people think it would be. I've had people wonder why my mother is still my friend despite me having grown up feeling like the entire world, including my family, didn't want me around. She is my mother and actually tried to be a good one. She just didn't know that children need personal attention, not just her playing games with us when she felt like it or taking me on hikes and backpacks. As a result I didn't need to leave like you did. She's simply a friend rather than being "Mom".

It is a sad fact that those close to us and have the potential to love so much as the same potential to hurt. I was lucky to have a good family but it was nothing more than that, no one deserves the hurt or the illness discussed here but it happens.

Quite true.

@Faery_Light : My sympathies for all who go through things like that.
At work I'm watching a lady who lives across the street from the store disappear due to Alzheimers and it's quite sad. She has reached the point where I am a familiar/comforting face and the store is familiar but how much longer will that last? They had to take away her truck keys because she kept trying to drive back to homes she had many years ago as those places are where she thinks she should be.

As far as "Acting my age" I don't think I've ever truly grown up. Still a kid at heart in some ways like most people are.

 

[Janet]

It's hard when it's someone you can't just quit caring about, like your own mother. Like yours, mine lived to throw people against each other, and to undermine everyone around her. She wouldn't stop until somebody got hurt, and then feed on the pain she caused. It's a constant need to be always right, to be the center of all attention, and to cause discord. Not to mention the megalomania. Later in life I have found other people with the very same symptoms. My wife has become an expert in identifying these people.

So far I have only found 1 single case where the person could have a "normal" life after taking medication, but the process is brutal, often including shock treatment. That's why dad refused to treat mom. I guess I understand his motives, but everybody else has paid for his decision.

Mental illness is still in it's infancy I think. All organic disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar, are treated with meds and they only way they know if the meds are working is to try them out on the patient. Personality disorders often can't be treated. Therapy helps some but not a lot. A couple times I wanted to just yell "Knock off the crap" to people I was working with. Oh and the meds cause huge side effects. Feelings of being a zombie is one I heard a lot.

My mom had her very own made up stories about people. She used to play everyone. People at the dry cleaner when she picked up her clothes, people at the grocery store, neighbors were all fair game for her games. She was a master at playing victim to made up assaults and got as many people involved as possible. Imagine my shock when I found her lies about me being posted by my brothers on the net. And they stuck up for her but then my brothers have their own demons. One is a complete alcoholic like three bottles of vodka a day alcoholic and the other is a conman. I walked away from it all ten years before my mom died and I'm glad I did. It was a relief when she died. Sad to say but it's true.

Ken, imagine your life if you had been raised by a normal set of parents. How would it be different? I do that sometimes.

As for my age, I'm somewhere between Ken and eclarke.

 

[AlphinaNovaStar]

I think I have something I cannot spell. It is a mixture of bipolar and something else. I get paranoid easily. Sometimes it is not imagined I fear. I am getting better with medicine. I also have ADD when I have no coffee but it can turn to ADHD when I have too much coffee. I do not do well with caffeine pills as it puts me into super ADHD mood with shaking and nothing gets done.
I also deal with insomnia at night but sometimes low energy during the day. I drink coffee and take Ritalin between two and three to help me get through the afternoon. Some people think I am lazy but I have low energy issues in the afternoon.

 

[eclark1894]

Funny thing is, I remember when I turned 21. I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but I did think that turning 21 would make me legally an adult and I thought the my world would change overnight. I thought the differences of me being a minor and an adult would be like night and day. They weren't. In fact, I'd say the experience was similar to my turning 60. I guess what I'm trying to point out to anyone who will listen is that age really is just a number, but don't dismiss it because it really is an important number because it represents the amount of time you've put in living your life. And life, for anyone who doesn't get it, is the accumulation of experiences you have over time. It is the sum total of all those experiences, both good and bad, that define who you are as a person. But you are a living thinking human being and as long as you make an honest effort to do so, you can change that definition. Even if you fail, you cared enough to at least try. And as long as you're alive, you can always keep trying.

 

[Bonnie2001]

...One is a complete alcoholic like three bottles of vodka a day alcoholic...

Surely not three of the big bottles? I wouldn't have thought that was possible to do, at least not for very long. Is your brother still alive?

 

[Janet]

Surely not three of the big bottles? I wouldn't have thought that was possible to do, at least not for very long. Is your brother still alive?

I have no idea. Don't want to know. We were never that close. I've thought about checking on him but always change my mind. If you've seen Leaving Las Vegas - that's him.

My family is my two sons and their families. That's all I need and care about. And my cats!

 

[Bonnie2001]

My family is my two sons and their families. That's all I need and care about. And my cats!

It seems like things worked out well for you eventually.

 

[Ken1171]

Ken, imagine your life if you had been raised by a normal set of parents. How would it be different? I do that sometimes.

Haha I used to do that all the time! I first realized my family wasn't "normal" when I went to study at a friend's house when I was in university. I think I was 19 by then. All it took was to observe normal people relating to each other at the dinner table to realize.... it was "different", pleasant and comforting. Very different from what I was getting at home. My first reaction was awe, followed by envy, and then by plain disappointment. It was inevitable I would occasionally dream about being raised in a normal family, but again, I didn't know exactly what that would be. I could only imagine it would be peaceful. I only know what normal parents are like by looking at other families, but it's easy to idealize things when we don't know what they are. LOL

I am 50 now and I don't do that so much these days. It only makes things more difficult, so I try to put it behind me. Nonetheless, once or twice a year I can't sleep at night when I think of the past. It's something that haunts me, because there is a lot of regrets - things that could had been different. My own family undermined my professional career and made me fail when I was already succeeding with flying colors. Families are supposed to help the kids, so it's hard to get over that.

Funny thing is, I remember when I turned 21. I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but I did think that turning 21 would make me legally an adult and I thought the my world would change overnight.

Don't we all? I had to to grow up too quickly, so I didn't have time to be a stupid teenager like everybody else. When got to 17 I was already on my early 30s, taking a beating from life by living alone in another country, learning my 4th language. A few years later I was moving again, and learning my 5th language. There is a pretty good change I will be moving to Germany soon, so here comes another culture and my 6th language.

Sometimes I wish I were a bored, stupid teenager without a worry in the world, but there was just no time for that. I was always much "older" than other kinds of my age, but not by my own choice. But I keep my mind young, so I don't feel old at all. I feel quite disconnected from my actual numeric age. It doesn't represent me at all.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

Sadly, I spent most of my childhood wanting to be an adult so I could be the boss of me. It's a vastly terrible joke that instead, others were STILL the boss of me even as an adult!

Maybe when I retire, I will finally be able to be the boss of me completely?!? I hope I don't have to wait until I'm 76 though!

Ice-skating babushka is today's moment of zen

 

[Ken1171]

Haha this Babushka of Baikal is the boss of herself!

 

[Terre]

That she is. Thanks for the link.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

When I grow up, I want to be like Babushka of Baikal!

Just in a more moderate climate!

 

[quietrob]

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Even the idiots and stupid people have areas they are not idiotic or stupid about. Why am I picturing Heihei the stupid chicken from Moana has some intelligent ideas to keep it alive somehow I have no clue how.

This stayed on mind so I found Hei Hei. I have a feeling it's something that @Stezza came up with!