Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Yet another shining example of the beauty of organized religion & its propensity to create discord and paranoia...Hope you two can work this out peacefully.

major fan of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"

Have just been watching the coverage of the Columbia space shuttle explosion--7 on board, including the first Israeli astronaut. Although I am not religious, I can't help but pray that they somehow were able to comfort one another in those last moments. So many lives lost...

  Underscoring this tragedy is a bittersweet irony. The parents of the Israeli astronaut were both Auschwitz survivors. They endured the most heinous atrocity of the 20th century, yet lost their precious son to one of humankind's greatest achievements. May their tears supplant our own suffering with lust for life...

Right about what?

I actually misbehaved for a few days on 1st phase (age 19). This was when Alicia Crabtree and Stacey were misbehaving. During one open meeting, Alicia and I were crawling around on the floor in the very back row, singing "Paranoid" and "Iron Man". Surprise, surprise, I didn't earn talk that night. I got stood up at the end of that evening, but was not confronted. I think the staff were disgusted or something.

I went through the same thing with my younger brother. He got hooked on crack, and ended up serving a couple of years in prison. It was heartbreaking for my family. I was really angry with him at first. He'd get bailed out of trouble again and again, and then screw it all up. I started wondering if he was a sociopath. What I've realized is that somewhere between being a Straight sibling and becoming an adult, my brother's self esteem got squashed. The emotional boundaries in my family were so screwed up that forming an adult identity was next to impossible. He never experienced the consequences of his actions because my well-meaning parents were always bailing him out.
  Unfortunately, treatment did him no good. He spent close to 2 years in prison, worked hard in there, and got out about a year and a half ago. Today, he is doing really well. He is involved in AA and NA and has been clean for several years. He's working and supporting himself. I'm really proud of him. I don't think anything I could have said or done would have made a difference back then. I wrote him letters and visited him in prison. I think he had to figure things out for himself.
  I understand a lot of the feelings you're having. I don't know if there is anything you could say or do to help your brother. In my case, my brother had my quiet support (after I got over being angry with him) and that did seem to help. I wish you and your brother well.

When I found this site, I was in shock for a few days. Seeing all the names and reading about things that happened was what I needed to wake my memory up. The best thing has been reuniting with my old friend, Cecile (Majik). I lost interest when everything became so political and militant. We've all suffered, and we deal with our grief in different ways. There are those of us who want to "fight the good fight" and those of us who simply wish to go on with our lives. I suppose there's no right or wrong. I think this site could really be helpful to new people if there was more discussion about group (like it was when I first came here). Thanks, Bill, for your post.