Category: Family Obligates

Episode linkVideo linkI know I keep doing this thing where I’m like “OH! One more point!” But. I have about three more points.  First: I would be remiss not to revisit the Filial Piety debate We touched, just briefly, at the end of episode four on the fact that those with strong filial piety don’t necessarily have differing frequency or severity of depression symptoms during caregiving than those who do not. That is, those who subscribe to the “live life to honor your parents and expect to care for them like they’re children when they age because it’s the correct thing to do,” may not personally have an easier time with fulfilling those expectations.  This was deduced via analyzing caregiving depression reports cross-culturally and finding that Eastern and Western results were not significantly different. So, clearly, belief that you’re becoming a better person by meeting your parents needs doesn’t make much of an improvement for us children, right? According to some, right.  HOWEVER.  I would be a...

We first talked about the topic in 2022. So what inspired this FilOb review and reassessment in 2024? I didn't really get into personal matters on the show, but I'll tell you in the community sphere. Past: It was Filial Duty - my grandmother undergoing medical treatments - that brought me back into family contact end of 2022. Spoilers: this was leveraged as a manipulative ploy. Present: Since being back in the family circle, it's obvious that Filial Piety is the name of the maternal (Narc) expectation game. Future: Throughout observing my mother's abusive habits, I have been churning many thoughts about her imminent eldercare. And so, the Filial Morality conversation was reopened. First lesson: Filial Modeling and 'Emergency' Response My brain has been spun out about FilOb since close to the holidays, 2022. Suddenly my mother (who I was NC with) reached out to tell me that my grandmother had been suffering from several issues. First up: bladder cancer. A few months later:...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/finale-six-of-to-98099477 So in all this Filial talk, the real question that I keep bringing up may be…. Why bother discussing it? We can run ourselves mentally and emotionally ragged trying to weigh the pros and cons… and that’s before the spiritual and physical tolls hit us, probably, in large part, no matter what we decide to do.  And at the beginning, middle, and end of the day, the truth is, (as I keep saying) there’s no right answer. It’s a personal decision. Oftentimes “decision” is an exaggerated term for what’s happening. There are infinite differing factors for each of us. Surely, with the people in question, no one can say there’s a correct option or a sense of having full freedom of choice.  Plus, with our over analytical and often obsessive thinktanks, it’s hard to believe that all the philosophical debates will lead any one of us big thinkers or feelers to rest confidently on our laurels and say “Yep, that’s the perspective...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/one-scrambling-97788801 Okay Fuckers. Welcome to a short episode today. Rather than giving you ALL the information like last time(s), we’re keeping this short and simple. For good reason. Because it’s dense enough in the conversations it can catalyze for each of us, individually, to inspire several weeks of inner work.  We’re coming in today and leaving you with one single thought on FIlial Obligation. From an Eastern perspective. From the Confucian belief system.  To say that my previously demonstrated attitude towards Filial Obligation in the context of this population of people is generally “pissy” and “exhausted” is an understatement. My basic instinct is “we come from dangerous people who were too self-absorbed in their untreated illness to be very positive influences or wells of care in our lives…… but we’re supposed to handle them with kid gloves for their entire lives, crescendoing in elder age, which they’ve had entire lifetimes to prepare themselves for? Bitch, you nuts.” But, I also acknowledge, it’s never this...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/yer-subconscious-97415673 So, Fuckers, we’re here to keep talking about Filial Obligation; the Philosophy and Morality of.  And let’s talk rationale.  WHY? Why drudge up these bitter thoughts? What’s the purpose of this conversation about the thing we all feel frustratingly out of control of? Well… a lot of it goes back to the Guilt vs Shame conversation from the end of last year. And the prevalence of unknown, previously, societally-injected narratives that we carry in our SUB-C which drives those emotional events.  We KNOW from prior research that filial obligation is linked to feelings of anxiety, depression, incapacity, helplessness, and entrapment. And this often eventually leads to suicidality.  We realize that engaging with our families in any prolonged or meaningful way is the destruction of our own psyches, and everything spirals out from there.  We’re certain that these people are damaging to be around and always have been.  AND YET. So many of us find ourselves embroiled in the “do I or don’t I,” “what would a good person...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/filial-revisited-96878831 The Eastern Perspective  If you read the little bloggy post I put out on MLK day… well, thanks for the extra effort you put in, first of all. I truly have learned not to expect that people will READ, and I appreciate the work that goes into it.  Second of all, let’s revisit that idea as we move into our next - highly related - one.  We learned from our prior article on Narcissus, trapped in time, that Vulnerable Narcissism is intertwined with a negative past time orientation in which the sufferer ruminates on early traumatic events and generally shitty happenings.  From the events, they have low esteem, they socially withdraw, they turn up the dial on their alchemization of sadness into anger, and they become hostile to the point of antagonism.  Folks in their trauma throes - or, PTSD - sound a lot like this. And those of us who have gone through our own trauma battles often say “we have parts that we...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/tw-entrapment-pt-70111950 Okay my friends, very glad to be back and back on this topic today.  But also… Bear with me, as we’re going to take our material from last week, make a bit of a leap, and streeeetch it into a new conversation.  So, to keep in line with what we’ve been talking about, I’m going to say that we’re looking at the link between unfulfilling, obligatory-defined, exhausting, relationships that seem to be going a whole lot of nowhere… and our PTSD propensity for negative self-appraisal, comorbid depression, and suicidality when we feel like we have no other choice.  But, in reality, this conversation is applicable to our post-traumatic experiences, across the board. What we’re covering here today is NOT necessarily about relationships. At all. That’s just the direction I’m taking it in, in the context of what started this series… which was me trying to write about feeling stuck in a particular interpersonal dynamic and noticing that I’m being a reactive, catastrophizing, overly-enmeshed...