February 20

A Trip Down Memory Lane

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A few weeks ago it was going around Facebook that we should change our profile picture to a picture from our youth, I took the bait and started to upload pictures from when I was a kid. What a joy it was to take a trip down memory lane. My father turned 60 a few years ago and I had created a scrapbook for him since he really missed most of our childhood so the pictures were already on my computer. I knew that posting the pictures was going cause a ruckus because my mother. I had that old fear of her well up in me however; I decide to post them anyway.

One of the things my mother told us growing up was that my father burned all of our baby pictures. This was interesting to think about when we were older considering my mother had tons of baby pictures of us they were thrown in a drawer and since we moved around all the time growing up these pictures were getting beaten up pretty heavily. This was very disheartening to see the memories of my youth being treated as if they meant nothing all the while being told how horrible my father was for burning all of these memories. Talk about confusing for a kid.

About 10 years ago before my sister moved East to me near me she took all of the pictures from my mothers house. Most of the pictures were worn and so many were ruined by my mothers many animals and many years of being moved and never being placed into albums for protection. My sister was gracious enough to divide the pictures up between my bother, herself, and me. She made sure that we all had our baby pictures and an equal share of pictures of us together. I am so grateful to have these old photos as they are reminders of times gone by, there are pictures of some of the last trips to dads house that were such faded distant memories after years of being alienated from him. When I look at those pictures I can see and feel the love of my father and this warms my heart.

After many years I am still being blamed for taking those photos even after my sister finally confessed. My mother the severe alienator refuses to see or believe this so she continues to tell the story of how I took these precious memories from her that she so lovingly threw in boxes and drawer to never be looked and or cared for.

When I posted the pictures and I tagged my sister and some of my other relatives on Facebook my sister called me immediately and said ”what are you posting these for take them down mom is going to get mad.” As stated before I had that initial feeling when I was posting and then overcame the fear of what might happen and plunged ahead since they were my baby pictures and I was already being blamed for the crime what did I really care. This anger in my mother really did not have anything to do with the loss of these photos and the memories it had more to do with the loss of control and power she felt by holding them hostage. My treating these photos as if they were nothing yet keeping them from us knowing that we wanted them as if they were gold.

What’s great about the pictures being online is now my mother can also have digital copies of the photos and there is no risk of the animals or lack of a safe place to store these photos.

As a byproduct of drama around the baby pictures growing and I have taken more picture of my two children I could hang all of their photos in my house and cover ever square inch and have massive amounts of pictures leftover. I also became so protective of my photos that no one was allowed to look at the picture when they came back from the printer until they were placed into a photo album in chronological order☺ It humors me now looking back over my past and recognizing where my ridiculous behavior as an adult came from limiting beliefs I created to be truths from decision forming incidents from my youth.

Parental Alienations can be confusing even when we are adults. We slip into old behavior and old patterns even within the dynamics of our sibling relationships. The old fears and feeling of knowing something was not right and yet being totally afraid to express yourself for the fear of what would happen for crossing the alienating parent. My sister still falls prey to this toxic behavior. I feel the old feeling and do as I have always done which is go against the grid for knowing in my intuitive self that what I am doing is loving and also setting the record straight.

There are many things about both of my parents that I love and many things that I could live without. I am happy to be 40 and to have a greater understanding of the journey I have been on and the experiences I have continued to endure at the hands of an alienating parent. I wish for my mother to let go of her years of anger, pain, and hostility, to release her fear of losing control and to allow herself to lien into the abundance of unconditional love the world has to offer.

I am so grateful for technology and the ability to share memories with my family and the world and to know that these old photos can restore to feeling of lost love and realization that my once alienated father always love his children….

Ahhhh now that’s great karma.

Happy Co-Parenting see you next week,

Dorcy Russell
CEO/Founder
Conscious Co-Parenting Institute


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