*GRINS*

I got my first support point today. :) You can see for yourself by following this link, my support points are listed right below the number of journal entries I've made: http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=jarindreamsinge&mode=full

Insights

I had an interesting conversation with zaecus today. He made an observation about my situation with my parents that has really opened my eyes about a few things.

My relationship with my parents is backwards. They are dependent on me, and as a result I (the child) am in a position to push them (the parents) towards independence. Weird, yet true. And also rather obvious when you think about it, though I hadn't seen it until zaecus pointed it out.

My father grew up very dependent on his parents. That's the reason why he and my mother moved back in with my father's parents not long before I was born, I feel. My mother, in turn, was very dependent on my father. As the years have passed and my grandfather passed away, my grandmother went senile, and my father developed diabetes, had a heart failure, and has experienced a loss of vision, a power vacuum developed. One which I seem to have stepped into without realizing it until now.

Oddly, this puts me in a very similar situation with my parents to the one I was in living with Adara. The parallels, and there are many, are becoming more and more obvious to me.

So, knowing this, I can see more plainly that I need to continue along a path that I have already started... withdrawing myself as an option that my parents may use to solve their problems. But I need to couple that with teaching them that there are other options, essentially showing my parents how to be independent again. I find that odd, since technically I have never been entirely independent myself, but it is the circumstance that I find myself in and there is really no other choice. Already I have had to put my foot down against some of my parents more recent displays of dependency, ranging from them considering using me to drive my mother's computer and some of her other belongings to Minnesota rather than shipping them or using a moving company all the way to my mother thinking that if she takes another job that might be opening up in Ohio rather than staying at the one in Minnesota that there would then be a chance that I would move with them and continue in the capacity that I have been. I believe I have now managed to dispel all their illusions on those points, but time will tell.

Further Musings

Giving a man a fish is a dangerous thing. It may satisfy his hunger, but it also puts him into a position where he will wonder who might give him his next fish.

I have put myself in the position of regularly providing that proverbial fish at least twice. The first time was with Adara. I have to admit that much of what made that relationship dysfunctional was allowed to continue because of me and my actions. By cooking for her, by cutting firewood, and introducing her to phone cards to avoid unexpectedly high phone bills, and paying some of her bills with my money from the army, and possibly most of all by acting as a diplomat on her behalf to try to mend relations between her and others. None of these things, by itself, is wrongful in any way, but by doing them for her it allowed her to continue wrongful actions which would later come back to hurt both me and others. If I had not done them, and she had been forced to do them herself, I can't help but feel that much of her dysfunction would not have been possible to maintain as there simply would not have been time or the resources for it.

Now, I'm back in a similar position with my parents. My functionality makes their dysfunction possible. As but one example: I agree to watch my grandmother for a few hours, they go out and do errands but also spend a great deal of money on unnecessary things like videos or eating out regularly when there's plenty of food at home. Sometimes they even mask their financial irresponsibility as getting me presents, like videos I might like. I've started dealing with that by selling some of the videos on half.com and once I start getting payments I intend to put the money into a joint account that Dusk and I are maintaining as a means of saving a nest egg for when we can live together. The parallels between these two circumstances are really rather staggering to think about.

And from all of these thoughts, and the stimulation of recent reading in Rialian's journal, a revelation emerges: it is not possible to connect symbiotically with someone who gives nothing in return. To attempt to do so will allow the other to become a parasite, as they will take the things you offer to them in symbiosis and return nothing. The only way to even approach a non-parasitic relationship with such a person, as a naturally symbiotic being yourself, is to offer them only the tools they need to make themselves non-parasitic; giving them the very tools they will need in order to be able to respond symbiotically in turn to yourself or to others. If they do not accept the offering you have lost nothing and may move on, and if they do accept it then they will have taken a significant step away from parasitic behavior.

Amazing how the solution to such a complex situation reduces to the old adage: "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime."