Growing Fruits and Nuts: Wreckage and Heartache

Just before leaving a friend’s house recently someone picked up a book from the coffee table and read the title aloud: “Growing Fruits and Nuts.”

Since I’m a gardener I naturally replied, “Sounds like a book about raising children.”

Pa dum shush.

Thank you, thank you.

Wreckage. Photo by FEMA.

Not long after that little laugh, I talked with a different friend. I knew this already, but sometimes reality drops a big loud steel I-beam nearby so that you sit up and take notice.

I realized that some people’s children and some people’s relatives really are nuts. Fruitier than a fruit cake. And meaner than a junk yard dog.

Bonkers, out of their minds, bizarre, weird, wired wrong, whacked.

Call me naïve, call me altruistic, but don’t call me Shirley. (The name’s Kami.)

I’ve never understood families that refuse to speak to each other. Or who treat each other with disrespect. Or spouses who keep living in the same house but clearly should not still be married. I can’t figure out how someone can treat a parent with indifference or ingratitude. Abuse of children? Almost unforgivable.

I really really really don’t get meanness. I especially don’t grasp manipulative, cruel, self-centered behavior when it’s aimed like an assault weapon at a direct blood relative.

Psychological abuse at the hands of family seems crueler than any form of physical abuse. But I could be wrong.

Can someone explain this to me? I am confused and mystified.

And my heart tightens up and twists itself into knots for anyone who feels they are stuck living this way.

I’ve tried to laugh it off, but it isn’t working. I don’t think it’s really a joking matter. Do you?

***

Here are a few sources that I researched trying to find some understanding or a way to help:

Band Back Together

Who Are They? Abusive Men and Women

Parental Abuse 

Invisible Victims 

Five Steps to Free Yourself

Tornado aftermath, much like psychological abuse and the damage it does. Photo by John LeGear at TimComm.com with permission via Creative Commons license.