Back again

There's a lot to blog about, and perhaps we'll get to it, or perhaps we won't. I don't know. Lots of parts, the littles especially, were worried about blogging while on the road, so we didn't do much of it.

But now we're back, so maybe we'll get some writing done.

One thing that came about from this trip is that the visit with family was actually a good thing. For some people, this would mean, "not triggering" or something like that. And, honestly, nothing was so out of my experience and preparation that I couldn't cope with it.

But, really, what was helpful was this: my family was just like they were when I was growing up. And with many different parts observing, what became most clear is that they were both abusive and loving in this weird mixture where you can't really separate the good and the bad. So, in the end, we came to an agreement in our system here. We each should decide for ourselves how to interact with family. Those who don't want to don't have to, but those who want to can keep up a relationship.

Because it's really absolutely mixed together, and it's also really clear that the kinds of things I automatically do to protect myself around them keep me insulated from the worst of things.... So I'm not especially in emotional danger, and certainly not in physical danger. Thus, whatever relationship a part wants to have, that will work for that part, but there's no all or nothing solution.

I don't know if I'm making sense. I've been thinking about this for a while. Mostly, it's that those who doubted the abuse could tell that it had really happened (my siblings talking about it, my mother denying and minimizing things that, even at the level she admitted to, were just plain messed up; lack of body boundaries and weird interactions between people). And those who doubted the love could tell that was also there (harder to quantify, but it was there).

So mostly what I got out of that part of the visit was confirmation that the decisions I/we have made about coping with the family were the right ones. And we don't need to push for confrontation, because those responsible for stuff will deny it up and down--watched a couple of siblings going down that path.

I guess that's about it for right now.

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