I like your questions Rapunzel-- they get the mind sprockets to start turning.-- they are hard questions....

It's a hard notion to grasp that-- I CAN'T change my mother now or ever....... I have always wanted her to love me like her "golden daughter" that she has always done so much for and the handful of neighbor girls she had such patience with in teaching them homemaker things...... see, I know and everyone else knows, she has it in her-- just NOT for me! or for the children she abused as a daycare provider.

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Would it have been worth it to act like your sister did?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> I think, just maybe, it would have made me even worse -- as acting rebellious was totally out of character for me. so I postulate that doing such things would have spun me even further into my quagmire but then-- I'm not sure..... maybe letting others know I existed and was not down to such treatment-- would have given me stronger integrity.....?? I just don't know.....

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Would it have been worth it to act like your sister did?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> Well, I have to say I am most relieved that I am not her-- as I don't have to look back and feel bad about how I treated anyone else-- so in that regard I would rather be me-- but on the other hand-- to this day-- she is "golden", the valued one of the family-- all other siblings cherish her along with mother. They all like her ability to degrade with wit, her sense of entitlement and her confidence that towers above the rest of us.

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You don't have to be a victim anymore

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> You are right about that-- though-- when gathering with my birth family-- it is nearly impossible-- or is-- impossible-- to not feel those powerless, devalued feelings. And in a similar situation even not around my family-- those feelings take over before I even notice. (maybe that's part of a whole other subject-- personality disorder??... *sigh*...)

Well, thanks for replying to me-- you get me to think and I appreciate that--- I'm trying to not stay captive anymore in the "box" that was created for me in my childhood and that, as an adult, I've held myself in..... trying and trying.......

Rapunzel--

mandy