posted May 14, 2009 11:07 AM            

my father had "rage" problems. he was raised by a sweet father and a mother who had narrowly escaped the cossacks in russia after they destroyed her village and dragged the rest of her family to their bloody death behind their horses. she never recovered and in those days there was not much counseling available and no meds for the kind of psychosis she carried for the rest of her days.

she obviously had her good moments but being russian she was prone anyway to lavish displays of emotion, and apparently my dad, her favourite and her baby, took the brunt of her uncontrollable temper, often in public; as an adult he was prone to outbursts - a notoriously sweet-tempered taurus with mars conj venus in aries which conjuncted my mom's heavily controlled (repressed?) aries sun. a wrong word from her could set off one of those infamous bull-in-a-china-shop taurus rages.

i have three sisters. i was lucky to be born at the right time...so though the sheer volume of my dad's tirades was intimidating, i was lucky enough to be the right age to understand when HE had achieved enough understanding of his anger to explain to me that it wasn't aimed at me at all, it was his own regret and anger which was triggered by various things. my older sisters were already out of the house by then, and my younger sister was too young to have that conversation. his blood pressure killed him at a very early age.

i learned to mentally walk away from him even when i had to be in the same room with his anger. and after living with him few of my peers could ever intimidate me!!

as a result my self-image was not particularly disturbed by his own. but my sisters in their various ways were stamped by it. two are very shy and the other married a man who literally threw her down the stairs (she was pregnant at the time) and got involved with drugs later. still she managed, largely because she had kids to raise on her own, to work through it and has come to terms with it all. AND she is a hepC survivor.

were we abused or did we achieve our strength through adversity? to me it's an open question. i don't think there will ever be a perfect relationship. but i watched my father erupting then apologizing for many years before my mom decided it wasn't good for us kids or her and asked him to leave.

i was spanked only once and i never forgot the lesson, which was about blaming other people to keep myself out of trouble. my dad never raised a hand to any of us at any other time that i know of. he was a basically peace-loving man. but his kind of rollercoaster emotions are frequently the early signs of battering. and at the very least they are dangerous to their owner.

so it's good to get some self-awareness as early as possible. mars in 12 is hard for its owner to understand, and opposing pluto it can be "volatile" to say the least. one can't be triggered without the other. and if you can find out where you are hooked by that, you may both come out stronger.

but patience is not the solution to emotional abuse. if you are truly patient you may learn not to "set off" his triggers. but do you know how many women have been maimed or killed trying to save their man from themselves? please be careful!

posted May 14, 2009 11:24 AM            

yes lambchop was cute AND it rhymes with jwhop. i have a white streak running through the middle of my hair (a birthmark) and i have been called

flicka
kate smith
skunk
badger

just for that one feature. i always suggested "flower" (as in bambi) as an alternate. only my husband ever took that one up!!

also as a sturdy, closing on fat, teen i was honoured with the nickname "mack truck". the boy who thought that one up came near to losing his eye when i threw my biggest book at him at point-blank range.

in grade school the school bully broke a couple of ribs when i pushed back. i was nearly suspended (at 8) for "unladylike behaviour". my mother, who no one ever by any stretch of the imagination could call unladylike, pointed out that this kid had intimidated half the school and i was acting in self-defense. end of suspension.

the definition i was taught of the word "lady" - someone who never UNintentionally hurts ANYone's feelings, no matter the provocation.

posted May 14, 2009 08:54 PM            

quote:

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but patience is not the solution to emotional abuse. if you are truly patient you may learn not to "set off" his triggers. but do you know how many women have been maimed or killed trying to save their man from themselves? please be careful!

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posted May 15, 2009 03:31 PM            

i suspect there are all levels of evolvement on the earth right now, from people who are still in complete survival mode to "helpers" who are only here to lead us further on - and that maybe that has always been the case!

posted May 17, 2009 01:32 PM            

a funny observation i came across somewhere was that it takes, say, a hundred million years to become truly "enlightened"...so another definition of "old soul" is "slow learner"!

i think there have been evolved souls in every age here, but we ALL have to deal with life as it is defined by this planet/ environment...