Your life didn't mean nothing Teacake, you raised a son and made sure he had what you didn't have.

I get tired of saying what I know to be true, being ignored and denied and constantly seeing the unhappy or sad consequences. When that happens people don't want to admit it but have chosen to instead hurt me and deny me even more.

People do not like to be "told what to do" either Teacake. That is yet another message that was expressed in Good Will Hunting, the question people want to hear, need to hear, is "what do you want?". People who are accomplished or "gifted" tend to intimidate others unknowlingly because of how they can "take away or threaten a want". For example, if someone "wants" to be a dancer and these accomplished dancers come on to the scene, yes, they can be intimidating because they "know" whatever has not yet been accomplished by the one who is trying to learn and improve their own attempt to "learn and do and be".

That is what I hated about that yuppie neighborhood I built a house in. The people that were there were too busy with the mindset of "who had what and was it good enough, or did it fit into what their standards were". These different people were so miserable and while from the outside looking in, driving into that small neighborhood, it was so pretty, but the people living there were not happy. I thought it was terrible that these people could not just "respect" that different people had different tastes and were mostly young couples that just built what they could afford to build. So what if something was not some kind of "designer" label. People do not know "how" to be original, they need society to define what is "acceptable or respectable or worthy". No one is perfect, it is just that simple, it is insane to "need to be perfect" or "try to be what society deems perfect".

That is why you did not get your needs met, that is what sets "anyone" up to experience "trauma" too. You have hurt people who love you because you feel they can't see you the way "you" wanted them to, they are offended by you because you don't see them they way they wanted you to either. Your mother got stuck in "the image" and she didn't really do well with that, she could not see you, because she didn't know how to be seen herself.

That is exactly what my sister does and doesn't realize she hurts people and they don't enjoy her company. My sister has everyone labeled, but she doesn't really see their "good parts, their gifts, or that child in them that just wanted to be who they wanted to be". No, you have to play by "her" rules and it always had to be in "her" sandbox too. Oh, I have to give her credit, she can throw a celebration Martha Stewart perfect, no one can do it as good as she can. Oh, she just knows others better than they know themselves too and she lines them all up and puts them in boxes in "their place" too. God forbid they don't stay in that place too, then she gets "mad" and feels "violated" somehow. I will give her credit though, she was always gifted.

Yes, you were very bright, yet innocent too, and you were not expecting college to be a place where others around you would have ways of "trying to be heard" that were "extremes". You were looking for a safer "structure" that you could harness your gifts in too, unfortunately, that was not the reality of that kind of institution.

But, you at least knew that so when it came time to helping your son with that reality, you did. You mourn, 'if only I had someone like me to help me when I needed it".

We live in a world where people just don't know how to "listen", and because of that we have a lot of "dysfuctional" people walking around and they don't know how to listen or be heard. Therefore "genuine trust" remains elusive.

OE