My thoughts ...
This is interesting to me as I can see the 'big picture' unfolding yet can also see that some of the pieces for some of us (me included) just don't 'fit'!
So we can either keep trying to squash a square 'view/perspective/attitude whatever' into a round piece of MLC/Life Crisis or we can see how lucky and fortunate we ALL are to have this forum/& the people we meet from this forum etc to help us work through this indescribable situation and support ourself getting clearer perspectives; because we are in regard to our own situation emotionally too attached (You don't say?) and like any decision ever made in life emotions are attached to them.
From Banker's to CEO's of large conglomerate's armed with facts. figures and expert advice STILL
make decisions based on emotions.
I have studied 'emotional economics' in relation to my work and the workplace and in my job as a consultant I can see how the theory makes sense as I can actually see it in practice .... unfolding and happening right before my eyes ... stupid decisions made based on personal hidden emotions/feelings.
MLC has opened my eyes in relation to my work life in how destructive it is to hide how you feel about ?? Not put your head above the parapet etc. (NO One is doing this at the moment and its understandable - recession etc. but so destructive) emotions and feelings discussed in a controlled way can be assist towards a good outcome BUT
More important is if you don't admit it to your colleagues then the consequences can be costly, cause bad moral etc but not admitting it to yourself puts you into a spiral downwards at some later date when you can see that if you had said what you felt you may have made a change for the better and even if ignored you would feel at least you tried - but the emotions and feelings need control over them and at work this can be done if you train how you communicate it?
Accountability is invisible in the workplace .. these days .. its head down and maybe I wont be noticed and blamed if it goes wrong and I can pop up if it goes right and smile as if I was involved ??
SO ..
RE: Our MLC ers issues we need to (IMO) approach it a similar way .. use our intuition, listen to advice and have an open mind Why because all we can only do is work this out by having first a flexible mindset, then use our own experiences - good and bad and read others perceptions, experiences and that includes articles/books.
I am seeing daily more clearly (via the forum/friends of the forums) through the dissection of MLC that whilst each MLC er is different the pain is the same and to emerge from this whole you need to determine for you what is acceptable behaviours and do not compromise.
Accountability is important to me but so is actions that show an appreciation of the pain the MLC er has put the family through.
I know from experience - with my sister - now doing what she has done in the past again .. because I had not addressed her bad behaviours, as my Mother would no let me - in fact no one ever has she was a sickly child and my mother let her get away with every and anything and she still is .. but to her detriment whilst I was always learning to cope - lots of love in my childhood but by a mother who wasn't like me in anyway and didn't get me (anti me going to University, working abroad, living in big cities blah blah so I learnt to have to be strong and force my wishes without compromise but with kindness if possible to be me.
My sister blames my mother for her missed chances/opportunities ... has never once seen it as being in her control to have made changes/taken opportunities like I did ... she has reinvented history and its centred around how hard done to she was but if you talked to anyone in our family she had it everything she wanted .. but is not happy .. pretends to be but?
the book they F*** YOU UP (
http://www.selfishcapitalist.com/they_f_you_extract.html)
extract below; is great and says so much about childhood and how it can stop developmental issues in one child and not the others in a family etc A perfectly happy childhood abundence of love and attention can still cause developmental issues - unless your parents are perfect!! And we all know that is not the case ...
Half the battle is acceptance that your parents are not always great, right, perfect and as you get older they need to treat you as an equal?
Whilst schizophrenia is not the main focus of this book, it is a cause célèbre in the nature—nurture debate. My answer to this specific question is distributed throughout the book. Towards the end of Chapter 2 I present a wide variety of evidence that the role in which we are cast within our family drama can be highly influential. In later chapters, I show how early infantile experiences may create a potential for the illness. Whether this potential is realized may depend on subsequent childcare, in particular whether our parents give mixed messages and are unsupportive, and whether they are abusive. Only in some cases are genes the main reason; in others it may be largely or wholly environment, and in others still it may include elements of both nature and nurture — and schizophrenia is one of the most genetic human characteristics there is.
As this book proceeds, you will see that the real tension in explaining why we are as we are in most respects is between past and present, not nature and nurture.
My principal question is this: to what extent is the way we were cared for during our first six years more influential on the kind of adult we have become, compared with the second or third period of six years, or present-day adult experiences such as unemployment or divorce? In particular, how is the kind of care received during different periods within the first six years linked to specific adult outcomes?
I think HB is right when she councils that the time taken is important to get the MLC er through their issues and to quote RCR: which fits in to the above books views -
Childhood seems to be a loaded term. MLC is rooted in unresolved developmental pieces. Age is not a root—it’s the present, so it’s a branch of the tree, not a root. The tree is made up of the roots, the trunk and the branches. MLC is a factor of all of those pieces of the tree, not just one. Suppose childhood was perfect and somethin g triggers a person into MLC. It doesn’t mean their childhood caused MLC, but it created who they are and thus can influence how they handle—coping skills—the crisis. A positive childhood can help a person metter navigate through a midlife transition even a transition that becomes a crisis.
and a Philip Larkin Poem .......
They firetruck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were firetrucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.”
This is the best way to see the issues of the MLC er as pieces of a much bigger picture .. we learn and hope they can too and then just see what can be achieved .. if they can't work it out for themselves they can't ever be accountable to us IMO as they can never understand what they have learnt from this crisis .. so accountability should be an evolving process and if you have to wear yourself out demanding it then maybe its not worth it ....
Love B x
Author
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MLC & Experts