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Tuesday, October 5, 2010

To Helene

Helene, I wasn't going to write anything tonight because I don't have a lot of time but I wanted to write back to you.

When I said that SHari's daughters were enjoying the new peace I really meant it. Lauren and Hannah have said that a lot. I'm not sure how to explain it but I get it. I was so used to a family meaning fights all the time that it was weird to be with this family where no one fights. The thing was that what I had at home was so bad that I didn't notice that as nice it was here it was still stressed all the time with drama from Shari.

When Shari left things got rough for a while and then they got better. We are not doing so well with money anymore but it is soooo calm here now. Shari was not like some awful person but she was always saying...shit to everyone and you'd just feel like crap after she said this things to you that were not so bad you could just tell her off but they were bad enough you felt it. Does that make sense?

She always said shit to her girls that made them feel like they were failing in some ways and she did it to everyone else too. It doesn't mean she was bad all the time but she was the unhappy person in the family and without her around it just got better is all. Lauren and Hannah are pretty honest with us (me, Macy, and Christie) and if they were not happy they would say so. It still upsets them their mom left like she did and they miss her. I do too! But now that her stress is not in the house we all noticed it being gone. If she was to come back that stress would have to stay gone. I don't think she is coming back but still.

One thing I REALLY hate about women is how some of them make shitty comments to people but they do it in a way that if you say something back YOU are the one everyone thinks is wrong. )-:

I don't know what you think of all that but what I think is that I didn't see the problems with Shari before but when the problems went away is when I noticed them. Same with everyone else. And all that doesn't mean we don't miss Shari, we just don't miss the drama.

4 comments:

  1. Makes sense to me. sometimes you don't realize how crappy a situation is until you aren't in it anymore. It makes me wonder if Sheri was ever ok with having more wives at all, but she wanted more babies b/c she couldn't have any so she just accepted it. Sounds like she had a lot of personal stuff to deal with that she took out on everyone else. Its good that things have gotten better though, I hope the money situation gets better.

    I know how those underhanded comments work, i have an ex boyfriend who used to do that, or he would give me dirty looks and try to make me feel bad about stuff.

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  2. Dear Megan,
    Thank you very much for your response. You said several things that resonated very strongly with my own experience. You said:

    "She always said shit to her girls that made them feel like they were failing in some ways"

    and also:

    "how some of them make shitty comments to people but they do it in a way that if you say something back YOU are the one everyone thinks is wrong"

    Just reading those words brought back so many memories for me of the "civilized meanness" in my own family. And I agree, the person on the receiving end feels shitty and doesn't know why, and is also made to feel badly when they do react, just because they reacted.

    A mother can be a drug taking violent abusive liar, and her children will still be very attached. As we get older, we discover feelings and perspectives we did not know we had. The children may someday say things that sound contradictory to what you are hearing now, and behave in ways that you are not expecting. But if you are prepared for that contradictory reality, they will still feel that they can communicate with you, and that you are still there for them.

    Thank you again for taking the time to help me understand. Best.

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  3. It reminds me of the story of the frog in boiling water. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he will jump out of course. If you put a frog in cold water and slowly heat it up, the frog will boil to death because it doesnt notice its environment getting worse and worse until it croaks.

    Such are peoples lives. You dont notice how bad a situation is when you are in the thick of it because you have just gotten so used to it. When its gone, its like "Holy cow! how could i have put up with that?"

    (this is Yaliths from Imp, by the way)

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