A personal and worry question

[Angrboda]

Helping other people is a lot like sex. It's okay to make the overture, but it should stop with the word, "no."

Your story tends to underscore a Buddhist point that harm doesn't end with one act or one person, but ripples outward like ripples on a pond. As a Taoist, I would likely do things differently than you would, but I'll try to offer what I can. They say that sometimes the best way to help others is to help yourself. While I don't agree with corny sentiments that you can't love others until you love yourself, there's some truth to the notion about helping yourself first. And if you can't help either yourself, or your mom, or whomever, help other people. Volunteer. Volunteering and helping others, whether helping the sick or simply carrying an elderly person's groceries, helping others helps us grow, feel better, and gain more perspective about both other people's issues and our own.

I understand the situation somewhat. As noted in another thread, my mother was a hoarder, and I didn't even feel comfortable having friends for fear they'd eventually see inside our house. This behavior, and the piles and piles of junk, disturbed me, more than anyone else in the family, it seemed. And copying my older brother by moving into the basement at 12 only left me more vulnerable and affected by it. At one point in my early adulthood, a close friend remarked on the difference between my being hospitalized for mental illness by remarking that it made sense given how much pain I was in when I was growing up. I don't remember it that way, but I was constantly fighting my mom's tendencies and the complacency of my dad. After I had gone on past high school, I found that my judgement of my father was a bit too harsh, as in a conversation with him as a young adult, he broke down in tears talking about my mother's traits and habits, and his helplessness to do anything about them. Somewhere along the way in high school, probably before I became a Taoist, I just decided I'd had enough of my own behavior and swore that I wouldn't cause anymore pain because of my issues with my mom's behavior. It was an enormous weight lifted off my chest. I'm not saying the way I dealt with it is right or good, just that's what happened with me. That is, perhaps a bad habit of mine; if I don't like a feeling, I just shut it off. After college, I found that my radical feminism would send me off in a fit of rage at the slightest injustice. I would be wholly possessed by rage for days, unable to think, unable to sleep, basically unable to do anything but feel. So one day, I just decided I couldn't do that anymore. Those feelings turned off like a switch. I still care about feminist issues, but I try to keep a safe distance so as not to reignite that flame. And then there's my father. He's close to 90 now, but when he was in his sixties or seventies, I realized there were aspects of him that could stand to be changed, but at that stage, I decided the effort of trying to change him would likely cause more of a loss of quality of life than whatever change could grant him. It may not be right, but I tend to leave people who are old enough to be severely fixed in their habits (not talking about your mom's age, whatever it is, but elderly), and not try to change them, because the cost for them may outweigh the benefit, and many such changes are more for our benefit than theirs.

Anyway, I've probably created more heat than light. What was the question again?