Reaching For Help | Five Years a Victim

Firefighting Mode – Chapter 3

Struggles make one reach out for help and guidance, but MM made a mistake. She reached out to women who loved to spend hours cooking and who had submerged themselves in home-management so much that they’d lost themselves. She would see this later.

All of these women had maids who cleaned up after their long cooking sessions, a luxury MM didn’t have. She had difficulty getting a maid who came in at the same time each day, and work from home even part-time, just doesn’t work with a flexi-time maid.

So MM learned all the kitchen short-cuts that create a pile of washing. How to be a perfectionist so that chores never get done. How to immerse herself in chores to the point where they took over her life. She learned to dig her own ditches and then wallow in them. And she started to become a victim.

She learned how to complain constantly, like a couple of women who walked in the park next door, spending their walk grumbling. About badly behaved children, uncaring husbands and difficult in-laws and family dynamics. And the problem is this – if it’s all somebody else’s fault, there’s no solution.

She had to struggle a lot before this truth really hit her. And then, she started searching for solutions. To understand the problem and break out of age old patterns that no longer suit the life of today. And to realize that the younger woman needs to find hope first, before she can help the older woman who lost her way very early on in life.

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Five Years a Victim

The sins of the mother come down to her son
but how long should we blame her for what he’s become?

One year of marriage – a journey together,
a year during which we learn more about each other.

Two years to bend and to meet in the middle.

Three to feel the need to forge new ideas and new traditions.

Four years – Mom is no longer the judge in this court,
and there’s space to find acceptance and respect. And reveal what you are worth.

Five years of marriage – no longer a victim.
It’s enough time to take responsibility and accept the consequences of your own actions and decisions.

So we’ll allow five years to crib, to say she’s to blame

and going on six, you should know it’s not okay.

But you’re still the victim for God’s sake stop!
Take responsibility. Teach your children different.

It’s time to grow up.

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I invite you to read all chapters of Firefighting Mode and think about the kind of society we create when we leave the busy unmoderated, and let it take over our lives.