sounds like you found a doozy. How awful for your step daughter...

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    sounds like you found a doozy. How awful for your step daughter too I think having a parent suicide is probably one of the most dreadful things that can happen to someone. even if you don’t know them that well. She’s lucky if you gave her a stable male figure in her life (assuming you aren’t stable a la trump)


    yeah Shazam is right a lot of it is how you react. But in a way that’s a double edged sword. If you focus on what is good or better then you can put aside the worst. That’s not always sensible.

    but I still think life is a thing that unfolds. You do one thing and it leads somewhere else. I had an example recently. I rang someone I knew, though not well, to offer them a bit of practical help while Covid lock down was affecting them. Anyway I found out that his life had started falling apart - and his 42 year relationship for reasons slightly unknown. I spent hours on the phone trying to help him piece things back together. He’s back with his wife and relieved and I have a deeper friendship as a result. That could lead to different adventures. I seem to be a pretty ok host mum to the students who live with me. That gives me opportunities to go places and have experiences I wouldn’t otherwise have. I don’t pick the students and I’m not particularly picking how I am with them. I’m doing what’s natural

    you do one thing. But has consequences - good or bad - and it leads to other events and circumstances. And so it goes. The thing is while I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now or even living as I am now where I am if I hadn’t had the previous part there is always some good to come out of anything. I can find plenty of outcomes that are fine or better. Being content with myself is one of those things. And being content is as well.

    There’s plenty to be grateful about. There’s plenty of insights and learning. There’s more friends made and opportunities. Not every moment was agony or scary and I did things I might not otherwise have done. I wouldn’t have found paper art for my self expression. I wouldn’t be involved in a current project that has the potential to be a ground breaking and inspiring. Lol I wouldn’t have been writing on hotcopper having woken at a stupid hour after a sleep so deep I feel I’ve been asleep for a day.

    The experience has also allowed me to help others. I think no matter how empathetic you are unless you’ve actually experienced abuse you can’t begin to understand the mind f involved. (He once told his own daughter that the reason he left her mother was because she (the daughter ) cried and he couldn’t stand it and he was worried he’d kill her. What sort of a person says that to their own daughter. It took him six months for him to actually write and apologise. Interesting he never rang to say it though. I suspect he didn’t actually understand what he’d done).

    What is not worth it is to feel grumpy and resentful and to hold anger. What happened happened. One can’t deny it but it doesn’t need to be a deep unhealed wound. It shapes us but doesn’t need to define us.



 
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