I recently realized what the "bad heart" my father's family suffered from meant.
I'd worried I'd inherit their cardiology issues - my N Grandma, SG aunt, and NF all had "bad hearts."
Except that my N Grandma spent several decades trying to fill the black hole in her heart with junk food, alcohol, and cigarettes and died of a fourth heart attack, after she had used her "bad heart" to manipulate her husband and children into quivering obedience.
Except that my aunt never had heart issues - when she claimed she did, she was just blind drunk. When she claimed she couldn't have kids because of her "bad heart," she just meant that her evil mother had forbidden her to have any other children to care for but her and that she had made her abort the child she'd conceived with the man she loved but wasn't allowed to marry. She died of cirrhosis of the liver after several decades of trying to fill the black hole in her heart with alcohol and cigarettes on an empty stomach.
Except that my NF just suffers from manageable high blood pressure after several decades of trying to fill the black hole in his heart with junk food, alcohol, and cigarettes. He's actually surprisingly healthy for his age, activity level, and diet.
The bad heart transmitted in my family is a metaphor. It's the heartlessness of the parents and the broken hearts of the children. None acknowledged, none made conscious, none properly mourned.
HI PA!
ReplyDeleteFollowing along with you on your journey is just wonderful. I remember coming to the almost exact same realization about my Nparents: that NF wuold quit having heart attacks if he would stop smoking, drinking and frying ground beef in butter to lose the extra hundred pounds and that NM would need to stop doctor shopping for double narcotic prescriptions if she wanted to continue living.
Somehow, though, they'd make it so that they were at the top of the victim pyramid (even though that victimization was self inflicted CHOICE,) and then make me out to the be the bad guy for asking them to consider choosing differently in the future.
How eff'd up can they get?
Sheesh.
Love,
Vanci
Thanks, Vanci. Didn't you realize you were the one making them make their bad choices by your cruelty? or some similar piece of nonsense? my grandmother would totally have said that to her children.
DeleteHa! Isn't the "heart" symbolism so interesting! In my family, I'm always accused of "breaking my NM's/NParent's heart(s)". Always heartbreak. Always mentioning the heart. NEVER the soul. I don't know if that's significant, but the "soul" doesn't get mentioned in places where I think you could use it as you would 'heart'.
ReplyDeleteHow very interesting. Thought-provoking post!!!
You have such power, to break your mother's heart. You're a super-cactus-girl!
DeleteFor us it was allergies and asthma, I realized that it conveniently flared up when my mother didn't want to do something.
ReplyDeleteI hear you. My father also had bad lungs and I was supposed to, as well. It went away as soon as I was ignored, not engulfed.
DeleteMy mother has an enlarged heart bi think that's the epitome of irony.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but think of the Grinch when I read this post.
Ha! Enlarged heart! There's a laugh!
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