Tag: #sharingjourneys

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Recovery is Such a Long Road

Often my enthusiasm was all I had to hold onto, now I sit in all the ways it’s gotten me in trouble….. readjusting always….

I am raw this morning…. I usually am after family therapy. Thank goodness I’m able to catch nuance and notice the most important part is that we are allowed to talk about our pain. This therapy truly has me practicing what I preach.

However if I insert any of my experience into the sessions then it is immediately justifying. That’s difficult to sit with. So I’m going over what’s the difference between justifying and also wanting room for your experience to be considered and seen. I think the difference is follow through with changed behavior. The words in the moment don’t do anything but invalidate the persons experience and I am truly sitting with having to hear hard things and sit in my mistakes as a parent and not squirm out of it, but also ask that I am also seen.

Not an excuse or a justification, but I need to matter in the equation and with parent child relationships “it’s not about you” applies. It never was about me. I began at such a deficit in attention, safety, love…. That I am tired in a way that has me operate in ways to outsource things.

I outsourced love I couldn’t find within myself amidst the survival, and I have to find out how not to shame myself for that as I am watching how it has hurt my kids. It’s also been widely judged by a variety of people. I could not be in three places at once. I made choices. Choices for a career and self development and trying for love as well, so I could not only love them, but also show them how to live.

I have to look at it like now I am strong enough to weather the storm of showing up in a new ways regardless of the built up pain that often comes at me. It’s almost unbearable, but when I realize I’m being allowed the opportunity to build trust one interaction at a time and I am following through, albeit still with mistakes, I gather the strength to go on.

I want desperately to be understood and to have a safe space to relax and rest in, and I’ve had to create that in myself so my children can have it at some point, if I haven’t made them into overly independent (a trauma response of course) by now. A certain amount of self sufficiency is good, abandonment is not.

I felt abandoned my whole life, and as a result my children felt that abandonment through me. It is heart breaking. My only solace is that grace and compassion and understanding will help us all heal. It’s finding that balance of having it for myself while fighting the intense need to protect myself at all costs.

Courage under fire

That line is what I most resonate with right now. And don’t give up on me. Me to me, and me to them. Please don’t give up on me. I never wanted to be selfish in the ways that I was, and a first hand experience has changed my heart.

In short I have hurt enough from hurting others that it drives me to change. What always got lost in all of this however was my SELF. There was none. Only responses and triggers and survival templates.

Now I am growing a self….

Growing a self from scratch, while providing a modicum of something I never had.

It says in the trauma book by Oprah and Dr Bruce Perry, you can’t give what you don’t have, and so I found a way. I always believed where there is a will there is a way. And if there wasn’t a will, if I didn’t cultivate that belief system, I would not be here today to be writing.

For much of my life my will to survive is all I had.

I am struggling and have always with the shoulds imposed on parents while they have very little support and understanding. It’s the trickiest balance you can imagine to validate someone’s experience, and also challenge them in ways that are loving and supportive so change can occur.

This is my work: what I can and will strive for in my counseling office, and I will do so with all my heart. It’s easier in there, many boundaries keep me safe and able to work. Then when it comes to applying to the messiness of real family, without that structure, without a beginning model or template. It’s unimaginable.

But I will keep working at it. Walking the line. I walk the line every day. Of validating my own experience and theirs and also not accepting any story u might tell to feel better emotionally, but then as a result not follow through with changed behavior.

I’m exhausted of having to modify my behavior on top of all the roles I hold, but thankfully I also appreciate the journey and am energized by life itself as well. Light and dark intermingling and never giving up on a story that’s being written and the one that needs to be told.

I’ll never give up….

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Marveling ….

So this morning I’m watching my teenage son pick himself up from some of his personal struggles and a new grief and I am in awe. I made that, but nothing could prepare me for the privilege it is to watch him grow. And if the events of this past couple of years didn’t happen, I might have missed it. That would have been tragic.

He’s so beautiful. Learning to be himself, and so are you Christina. My friends would say that, because they often see me better than I see myself.

I am coming back to life. I am breathing life into this home that felt like a tomb housing all my dead dreams. But nothing died, life just adjusted me back on my path.

A dear one sent me a Jay Shetty podcast where he was interviewing Martha Beck and this quote is what began it, “The variety of an ordinary life is infinite and precious.” Yes yes yes! She talks about what integrity means in the sense that she knows it. Which is when we are aligned with our true nature and purpose and whole versus when we are divided by being what society wants us to be. And the sheer difficulty of this because biologically we are wired for belonging.

For me, never having felt a secure beginning of belonging the only thing my frightened mind could do was focus on that pursuit and then society came along and caused people to judge me, knowing nothing of my origins or my pain.

Recently even a family therapist has contributed to some of this shaming, without realizing it. It has shown me how easy it is to shame/judge another, when what they need to grow is understanding, acceptance, and support.

It is so easy to say what a mom should or shouldn’t be while never even knowing her story. You cannot give what you do not have. And I’ve spent my life making sure I got it so my kids could have me available to them. Ironically that path and financial scarcity created the opposite. I’ve been in a hurry to become someone they needed. I did it without being given it naturally. I’ve been doing the impossible for a very long time. Defying gravity.

This has been challenging my approach as a counselor as well and there’s a shift happening in me. Moving towards the natural ability to nurture and support. One I always felt I was and would forever be without.

It is grief itself that has softened and humbled me into a calmer more loving person. I think of that anxious terrified girl who looked so strong and intimidating clothed in her defense mechanisms. A scared child, and easily irritated adult. I just want to hug her, she is me.

Witnessing how much suffering a human heart and body can endure is truly humbling. And our culture says just keep going. And yes we need to keep going, but at what cost if we leave ourselves behind by not acknowledging our own lived experiences fully.

Acknowledging, knowing, is the sweet spot between blame, shame, and or blindness and numbing. Acknowledging allows us to see what we are working with at full value and adjust accordingly. But for intolerable circumstances we make up stories about what’s happening subconsciously in an effort to feel better, but what that does is make us even more locked inside ourselves.

As I get to know myself I realize how invisible I’ve been to me. I’m often surprised when people say something that reflects they see me, and I see it so differently.

Learning to be Christina….

My relationships with my children are evolving, repairing, it’s slow, but it’s happening all around me. The realization of how much beauty I will get to experience as I get to watch them become. I could not have asked for a better life. I say that as if I did not create every second of it. See invisible.

Lately I’m filled with love…. There isn’t a part of this last time that I regret any more because understanding wipes that away. It’s exhausting to fight your own path, your own self. Especially now that I know my own heart, and have a new understanding of how my early life impacted me. It is not and will never be an excuse. It is reality. I was so so hard on myself.

Something I’ve unwittingly ingrained in my children, and now hopefully as they watch me change that, they can heal also.

I think of that feral self I was, and have so much compassion for her pain.

Martha Beck describes so eloquently the pain one can experience when divided and I was divided from self and any family system and I’ve been rushing to get to a place where I can enjoy my children and be connected to them and me, but that journey never looked like that to the naked eye, because you would need a deep understanding of brain, behavior, biology, and my story.

I am working on that last part now, the claiming and the telling….

Anyway it’s time to shower and counsel humans (my greatest privilege), and then have my own counseling. Just a typical Tuesday. I had so many thoughts as I always do, but lately it’s the quiet of my mind that I marvel…..

💜

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No Turning Back

I’m on the brink…. Of turning around and never looking back. I can’t hurt like this anymore. No man left behind is not working for me. My attachment system is failing my health and wellness. I’ve done this before and it’s how I got out alive. It’s time to do it again.

I need to stop sifting through the wreckage of my old life and accept that it’s time to focus on my new relationship with myself and what is head, rather than what is behind.

I would do anything to make things work, all on my shoulders. I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough. Another wave of grief when will they stop. Sometimes nothing helps. No amount of tattoos, distractions, good moments, nothing helps. Sometimes you just sit in it. For me it feels like it will swallow me, but somehow I’m still here breathing.

I’m just so tired of these waves of grief, the price of love, and trying for something. I’m starting to not punish myself, so that’s good. But I’m real tired of this grief. It’s relentless. Pulling me under. Taking the oxygen out of me. There’s no where to turn for comfort.

I’m reading Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club and there was a part yesterday where she talked about planning to run away and it included the rest stop bathroom she would live in and how she could afford a corn dog a day. It flashed me back to my own childhood and a memory long forgotten about my own Taco Bell budget for running away and how often I planned it. I didn’t stop planning it and at 17 I executed. I never looked back.

I remembered the playhouse that was my mom and aunts and falling apart and how in my mind I made it a palace, which is what I did with every bad memory. I just turned them into what I would do differently so my life wouldn’t be like that. I took for granted that someday it would all catch me and add up in my functioning. That the cracks would show. No matter how hard I work the wounds are there.

And this relationship with myself that at one point kept me going is now abusive and must give way to something much more vulnerable. I am raw. I am scared.

I think about how immobilized I become with decorating. I think of how no one was ever excited about anything to do with me. So I didn’t have my own things, that I liked. I was just put wherever I could go, and I had to make my own happiness out of my imagination. To constantly go somewhere else in my head.

I sat in that scarcity yesterday. And connected it to becoming frozen now when asking myself what I like. How that’s still such a process and how I’d still like to outsource it due to the sheer overwhelm I experience when trying to make a decision in this area.

Why does it feel life or death or impossible. Just pick up the phone and schedule something. Just fill out the forms. Just make that phone call. Why is it harder than it should be. Why can’t I just accept what happened to me and the outcome of that? Because accepting feels like surrender to all this lack. All or nothing.

I’m in so much pain all the time. And the thing I believe that makes it somewhat bearable is connection. And for me that connection needs to be consistent, safe, and someone who sees me. That connection needs to be with me, but how to even maintain with no fuel.

Running on empty, trying desperately to fill. Tired of how intense everything feels.

I just need to rest and stop involving myself with things that hurt. No matter how much I care. Just when I think I’m getting somewhere I keep getting plucked up and back at the starting line. I know Melissa would tell me right now how far I’ve come, how far from the starting line I am. And I know that’s true.

But I mean specifically with connection. That is empty in terms of partnership, and please don’t try and tell me I have it all in all these other areas. I know and I’m grateful, but that doesn’t stop these holes from bleeding.

I’m tired….. and the suggestion that both are feeling the same so why can’t they just be together is abusive as all hell, when one was always loving and caring, and the other was not.

When the truth teller and the golden child fall in love the gates of hell burn with excitement because everyone is going down.

When the truth teller and the rescuer fall in love it seems like all can be fixed, until the bubble bursts. It’s equally as painful because a rescuer is no more emotionally available. The rescuer rescues everyone but themselves.

I’m not that anymore. And I can’t go forward, and I can’t go back. But I am going forward.

The truth teller just needs to make sure to maintain all by herself because nobody likes the truth. Nobody she knows anyway, certainly not the rescuer or the golden child.

Here I am lost in all these feelings again…..

I’m not abandoning myself this time, and that’s a new kind of lonely, and a new kind of hell, for now.

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Caribbean Vans and Liars

The most egregious of lies are the ones we tell ourselves. Nothing prevents self growth like those.

Sunday. Bloody beautiful Sunday. I love em.

Chip came over for his weekly visit. He was wearing a teal blue shirt, the color of the Caribbean Vans, one of my favorite colors. They had a sale at journeys yesterday and those shoes were only in size 5 and 5.5, so that won’t work. Didn’t stop me from getting them in Thyme and a few others. All my vices cannot be allayed at once. And you can’t even really call my shopping a vice, it just seems extravagant because it’s yet again another thing I’m all or nothing with.

I’ll drop $1,000 a couple times a year, and some years next to none and that’s it. I don’t shop as a habit, but when I do it’s balls to the wall. It’s nice to be able to do that without stress. My mind wants to go to a stress place with it, because it seems surreal, however now that I’ve had my software update to actual reality, all is good.

“I use to think that smoking was my only vice… but now…..” we are watching Mamma Mia this morning. Twin A has been nostalgic lately, and wanting to and I am thankfully able to enjoy the presence of that. We want to Devine’s bagels this am and dropped some off also for her bf family who is caring for a dying loved one. 🙁

I am reading Mary Karr’s “The Liars’ Club” and it’s so so good. It gets good when you do Christina. I am realizing I can be close to my fellow sufferers of the dysfunctional family variety by reading their memoirs as I work towards writing my own. There’s room to do this now as I’m learning to value my most valuable resource, my time. I’m learning I can choose as carefully as which shoes to buy, more carefully hopefully, what I spend it on. My standards used to be much different.

The problem was never me, but I was always going to have a problem until I got help. Co-dependence as a result of survival necessity as a result from trauma was ruling my entire functionality. As I change that, life is so much different, but oh my god has the passage been brutal.

I’ve never been more lonely than I am now, but loneliness born of raising your standards is much different than loneliness from not having options. I’ve had those wires crossed my whole life. Now we are leveling up folks.

Who knew that love could be something that shows up for you consistently without you having to run round to both sides of the court to hit your own ball. In essence I’ve been playing with myself my whole life 🤣 it’s not as bad as it sounds, turns out I’m pretty good company.

I have no idea how good it can get yet, because I never waited long enough. I just kept working with what I had (which was all manufactured by me, my imagination and my efforts) thinking that was my only option. You mean it’s not? No, it’s not. It never was. That will need to be grieved, but that’s ok because that will pass naturally in the midst of living. I’m not worried about that. It’s natural and will ebb and flow.

I have been having vivid dreams that I recall which is rare for me, both the recall and the vivid. I’m beginning to think it’s rare because I was always laser focused on another to the point of exclusion. So when I return my own subconscious rises.

Last night in my dream I birthed a baby and it looked exactly like a little girl who is about to have a birthday. I wanted to tell her mother. I felt what I felt in both those cases intensely. I don’t really wonder what dreams mean, in this case I don’t have to wonder, reality is the same either way. Those are my feelings and they are as real as anything, and what they mean is my heart is alive and I’m able to love with all of me. Thank God. I’m always grateful for that.

What I do wonder is how things would have been if I were a part of that now. At the party. Was it rained out? Was she happy? I’m sure she was. I send my love along that spiritual cord that always exists between us. Who knows why certain people are brought into our lives. I choose gratitude around this, even when the pain is excruciating. The memories and the thoughts are as close as my own heart, all days. I just hold space for them and allow myself to move forward in my life with the full acceptance of reality. It’s a beautiful painful thing,

I’ve been processing so much lately. So many things I blamed myself for. One of the lessons is all things comes full circle to exactly what they are, whether or not we have the courage to deal with that, and how we do is everything.

Ultimately what I’ve settled into changing is my abusive relationship to myself. The authoritarian parent who became the only way I felt I could keep myself from becoming my mother. I never was her, and I never was going to be her. I wish someone would have told me that. Christina people have told you that your whole life, you couldn’t believe them. You weren’t able to yet.

I don’t doubt myself any longer, and the less I do, the more secure of a relationship I have with me, the less reactivity, and the more healthy decisions. I never thought this was possible. This is what peace feels like.

I’m still lonely. It burns every single day. But I trust now that when love shows up on its own and with authenticity that I’ll know myself to be more than up to the task. And to be able to see this, I had to stop over-functioning.

People lacking capacity is no longer internalized. I am truly free. And I won’t tell a story of fear around scarcity just because there’s so much unclear right now. What is clear is brilliant and beautiful and I have so much room for connection when it presents itself in its own, wholly ready.

I’ll be able to meet it there. Because I went back into the burning building and rescued myself. I’ve spent my whole life doing that, a more than worthy pursuit.

Now I want to live… gently…. Generously and with gigantic enthusiasm for every single moment.

I sound passionate in my writing. I am passionate, and in the day I’m hopeful and strong and when the day has worn me down, my heart and body are begging for connection. I’ll keep connecting with myself and engaging in experiences until I find someone who can show up for themselves and who strives to live in integrity and authenticity and never stop striving. Never stop getting back up after falls, and never giving up.

One step at a time….. we do recover….

Don’t give up on me, because I never gave up on you

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Not Everyone Knows What They Have

Playing with music and lyrics… it’s not there yet but I promised the process so here it is…the beginning of the making of a song…

Not everybody knows what they have

You said you were equal opportunity

Not your shiny new toy, it doesn’t matter whether I’m a girl or a boy.

Hedging your bets

Bet you didn’t bet on me

Selling my soul for the high

I was always used to

Just getting by

You wanted what you always wanted to be, and it was always me

And you didn’t bet on me

And I was always going to be

Bet you didn’t bet on me

Setting myself free

Fuck Family trees …

The roots run deep

But you couldn’t break free

You were never untamed

All you know how to do is blame

Jokes on you

I never was a fool

Because I’m platinum anyway

Didn’t you know

What you reap is what you sow

You always told a story we were the exception to the rules

Bet you didn’t bet on me

Investments were low

A dream with no where to go

Promises that would never grow

Bet you didn’t bet on me

becoming everything you wanted to be

All that glitters is not gold

You painted a lot of pictures,

They are hanging in the gallery

But none of them sold

A story untold

that was meant to unfold

You never put any skin in the game

you wanted a heart,

but never were bold

So the story remains untold

Not everybody knows what they have

All that glitters wasn’t gold so our story remains untold…

Let the cards fall where they may,

the time was long gone for me to fold

I lay my hand down to rest

For I was never second-best,

This is what happens when you fall for a fool

that never believed there were rules

Bet you didn’t bet on me

Jokes on you

Because it was always me

Now I’ll always be

The ghost in your bedroom

Not everybody knows what they have

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Symptoms and Synchronicities

“Our scars remind us that the past is real, I tear my heart open just to feel.”

My irritability is a symptom, my reactivity is a symptom, my intimidating is a symptom, my being hard on myself is a symptom, so I didn’t slip off the edge of the cliff into an infinite abyss of depression. It felt like the only way to not drown in my own sorrow. It was my coping mechanism and is a symptom. These are not choices folks.

And yet we well meaningly tell people what they should do. Just think less. Are you fucking kidding me, think less. If only I could. A clear and present mind is a privilege. If you have one call your supportive parents and thank them, for doing a good enough job.

Even as I make these posts there is shame. Don’t be too loud about your pain. It’s self indulgent to be able to speak your truth out loud. It’s taking. It’s bad. It’s shameful.

Do you know how painful it is to think of someone being afraid of me? That me being direct is intimidating? You know what’s intimidating? Emotional abuse where it looks a certain way on the outside and is different inside.

For me being direct is safe. Being transparent. My strong is a symptom. Just because someone’s demeanor is strong and direct does not mean their heart and mind are not in the right place.

Fellow warriors describing perfectly the process you read in my blog. I am grateful.

Strong on the outside, puddle of goo on the inside, and never the two should meet. Except they must, and now they are. And I am attempting to reach an equilibrium with this reunification burning fresh like pink scars shining in the sun.

There are different ways to be loving. I love by working hard at connecting the dots from my now functioning to my experiences, and there’s so much grief attached to that. That each trip in sometimes leaves me with illness for days. This is not rumination. Not mental masturbation. Not any of the judgments. This is necessary.

It was always going to be necessary that I received love to be able to give it, and I’m trying to do that now. I just expanded my sources from one romantic partner, and all the pressure on them, not even knowing, I didn’t know either. To receiving from and abundance of resources that also receive by giving. My energy healer being a number one source.

Loving healing touch, time, and attention. So I can give that also to my children. I work so hard and so fast because I’m determined in this lifetime to be a parent I didn’t have, and as it turned out that’s a lot harder than I realized.

It has taken a long time to realize I can do this with love and lovingly, and it’s not just the realization again you can’t squeeze water from a stone. It has taken a ton of healing.

I’m on my way…. Watch me….I love my children enough to burn and rewire. Enough to take a thousand trips into hell instead of living on the surface. I love them in such a way where I want them to be exactly who they are, and I want to give more than I take. And with my life to be able to accomplish that is nothing short of a miracle….

Growing up in a household with CPTSD https://www.beautyafterbruises.org/what-is-cptsd

Beauty After Bruises

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I never asked for this strength….

To be clear, this is what grief looks like, my process of uncovering myself. From now on I’ll use all painful things I need to sit with to heal. By not minimizing, dismissing, numbing, ignoring. I’ll say my truths loud and forever, because it works.

Tonight I’m angry that I was robbed of my childhood, and my spirit respectively. It feels extra raw tonight. As part of family therapy it’s been suggested to me I can be intimidating and the possibility my children fear me or I make them anxious: this feels unbearable. It’s not because that’s how we don’t change. So I will feel it. It’s a punch to the gut. It feels like I’m making excuses when only I know truly the on and off switches that often operate against my will.

I can’t even explain the variety of abuse I endured and how it was consistent mental torture that always left me guessing my reality. Gaslighting, manipulation, shame, guilt, fear. How everything was on my shoulders: I was to take care or myself and if I had a need it was such a bad thing.

I can understand logically now caregivers were burdened beyond capacity and I was not that burden. But it does not make the imprint on me any less severe.

For a long while each new realization of how my trauma has impacted my choices, my relationships especially with my children, and me, left me feeling filled with bullet holes and left to bleed out and die. Every Friday night I would feel this way, and often Tuesday evenings as well as I travel through emdr exercises.

I have just wanted the pain to stop so many times. And I do not mean in death, I mean through living in a way thats enriching and authentic.

I have been severely lacking in support, and left to my own devices to figure it out, and then shamed for that as well. The more I lack support the more I scramble like a wild animal to quickly meet my needs. A frenzy. And then shamed for that too.

I kept my children safe from anything I could unwittingly become due to the lack of trust wired into me. Everything feels like a danger for me. My new tattoo, could get infected, could be allergic to it, could be my fault, could be irresponsible. Who do I think I am to have something I want and think there won’t be a tragedy to quickly follow.

Do you have any idea how much pain I live with daily ? And I’m not a martyr. I refuse to make anyone else responsible or sorry for me or be a victim either. I sure sound like one above don’t I. Except that is a judgment, and so too is what I just said I suppose. If my scars didn’t burn so hot. My grandmother running around wringing her hands and letting me fix it and soothe her. Poor Joyce with the mentally ill daughter.

Poor Chris. People would do nice things because they felt sorry for me, all the while shaming me for my acting out behaviors. A tragedy. All the whispers I felt them clawing through my skin. Don’t be nice to me because you feel sorry for me. Have the courage to see who I am and why I am and love me anyway.

If you want to love me be enthusiastic about me, knowing me, being around me, talking to me. That’s all I want. If you’re not enthusiastic about it then just don’t…. Simple. But don’t feel sorry for me.

They all stood idly by because no one wanted to upset anyone. So they whispered about my grandparents being the poor ones saddled with a mentally ill daughter who got pregnant. I became lumped in with her. I was Lisa’s daughter. I was not a child who never should have been in that situation. No one spoke up about that: everyone was so fucking afraid to upset anyone. So that became my burden to shoulder, and now because of it the other adults in the world shouldering their parents wounds trying to also be parents themselves find their way into my knowledge.

Knowledge is power.

I have only ever wanted understanding and support. Those are the things I wanted. Instead people are horrified at the mother when she appears any less than the societal standard for nurturing. We cannot do what we have not had. We can try, we can circumvent, we can fabricate and hope the knock off passes. But people can only do as well as was done by them, when they were defenseless and innocent.

I made sure I always met my needs with another adult so I never ever spewed all of my dysregulated emotions or all of my unmet needs onto them. I literally did the best that I could, and on top I keep working towards being a calmer, kinder, better mother, against all my wiring and all of the pain I carry.

Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. Just be kind to me and understand me and never be a place that harms me. That’s not too much to ask.

I only want peace, that’s all I want. And to be able to be peaceful while living with all of these triggers, all this sensitivity to sound and anything that moves, and all of what’s stored in my body.

I want to be able to make a decision without freezing or flying. I want to not be irritable when my kids are simply playing because everything that moves agitates things inside of me I never fucking asked for.

If I could count how many times I’ve been gaslighted by society. Just do this. You think too much. You’re too sensitive. You’re intense. I am fucking intense. Life has always been intense to me, and then I got shamed for it. I’m angry: furious.

I don’t feel intimidating, I feel intimidated all the time. And like I won’t be safe and won’t be loved. And the parent isn’t supposed to feel that way. But I do, and it’s not my fault.

I need to only be responsible for my healing right now. And battling the shame that comes with speaking about it even. People don’t know what to do. You must be crazy. They look away from things they can’t make sense of and decorate their homes and stick their head in the sand.

And I’m not. I’m looking. And fighting. And trying. And breathing. And crying. And claiming myself from the lost and found.

I broken spirit is the hardest thing to recover. A broken heart mends, but a broken spirit is almost fatal. They broke it over and over. Every enthusiastic thing I tried to share some strange cold critical remark was made. I shrank inside myself, and became everything they needed, because that was the only way to even get a crumb of worthiness.

My children can be loving. They approach and hug me with warmth and passion and I want to be the same way. I know I am logically, but I’m all locked down inside myself.

I love with drive and I love with passion and I love with intellectualizing. I love with acts of service and reliability in financial support and keeping myself sane. This is how I love. I soak in hugs and warmth and affection, but giving them is always a carefully calculated world with me because what if it isn’t sincere. It never was in childhood it was a game. And then came the torture of having any affection given to meet an end, swiftly removed. Kicked in the teeth and punched.

I was not a child I was a pawn. I was not a child I was a therapist. I was not a child I was a punching bag. I was not a child I was a chew toy, a back scratcher, a gratifier of egos. I was not a child I was a burden. I was not a child I was bribery and image. I was not a child I was a meal ticket something to get welfare and praise. I was not a child I was a poorly behaved monster, and they made sure I knew it.

I’ve spent my life trying to be loved and belong somewhere. And in that process garnering even more shame. All of the fucking shoulds. You should have felt what I did or seen what I came out of. The fact I’m breathing is a miracle. And that doesn’t mean anyone owes me anything or I expect anything, except to be treated with compassion, understanding, and respect.

My abuse included the continued shattering of a spirit, with very few reprieves. Psychological damage continuously administered, to the point I was almost a robot, a machine. Responsive to the needs of others and deeply giving, but with no self. If you asked me what I needed I would stare blankly.

I’m intimidated by the smallest of tasks, things that for someone else is a phone call and a few quotes. Will I do something horribly wrong and end up not able to support my children somehow immediately is always in my mind.

I always feel unsafe, even without any evidence. Do you know how tiring that is? It’s not conscious. It’s a reflex, something that lives inside.

And maybe the happiest I’ll ever be is the only thing I’m programmed for which is my dark passenger and my saving grace: the gift of sight to clearly point out dynamics and needs in others; because that’s always so clear to me from my life.

Where do you think I got this knowledge? It only cost my humanity. If this feels dark, or intense, or difficult to read. If you’re uncomfortable with words like this said aloud, then you have just experienced a little of what I live with every day.

Abuse is intimidating isn’t it ?

This is my commitment to my children….. I will do the best I can….

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Days Start Strong, Night Brings the Nothing

“There are many kinds of joy, but they all lead to one: the joy to be loved. Every story is a never ending story.”

It’s going to be a two fer today. Who could have guessed. This is the downswing. The loneliness settles in right around now. I’ve surrounded my day in all the ways I wanted it. I’ve indulged, relaxed, and spent my day with the writers I love.

I finished Wild Game, and am now onto Amy Tan’s, Where the Past Begins. She of course is talking about the writer’s process, and the longing sets in.

She dedicated her book to her editor because he took her many frenzied emails and listened to them. It’s me! It’s me! I’ve tried every way around this. I know I can open an email and write to myself, to a friend, to my therapist, but nothing is the same as when it’s fueled by the passion of the excitement of becoming known to one another. It brings me to life. A huge part of who I am. I feel lifeless and listless without it.

She writes, “my emails were not carefully composed. They were dashed off with free-form spontaneity, a mix of rambling thoughts off the top of my head, anecdotes of the day, and updates on my dog and perfect husband. In contrast, Dan’s emails were thoughtful and more focused on my concerns, although they also included notes about Moroccan cuisine. He sometimes responded to my off hand remarks with too much care, thinking I had expressed serious wringing of my soul.” This last line be still my heart. Me too. I feel seen.

Later she goes on to say what had enabled her to write those thousands of emails was spontaneity. I underlined and starred this. If I applied that to writing a book, I would be able to finish quickly. Spontaneity is the answer. This thing I continuously fault myself for as impulsivity. My wires are always crossed towards seeing me in some horrible light. When what comes into view most often is how right I have been and am. Just because something hurts does not make it wrong. Not in the ego sense of right. In the spiritual sense. I am on my path damnit. I am enough, and I will figure out this balance while also being compassionate and loving to myself.

Longing will be the theme of this evening and post I believe. I can do all the self work I want, but it’s not moving this period of time in my life. Amy writes about how her writing in an email is different, and the hairs on my arms stood up. I’ve never heard anyone describe the differences in modalities in a way that made me realize how much I miss writing letters to a lover.

That is my thing. My truest self comes out to play in those correspondences, and I was in love with that consistently exploring myself with another person, and hitting the ball back and forth, as much as anything else. I’m thinking how wanting to be known is a theme of recent.

And entirely different self emerges when I open my laptop (which I haven’t written on in months). I just felt a stabbing pain at the realization I don’t even write my blog posts on there, because touching that keyboard is as much touching the skin of my lover. That is the place I would go. I would open up the screen, describe some of the surrounding details and fire away.

Did I have a lover to facilitate my writing, or my writing facilitated the love? Either way I wanted that consistent space, but I never wanted to stop writing, or working at love. Recently someone suggested to me “does it have to be so hard though, or that they didn’t think it need be so hard all the time.” And I’ve been sitting with that and thinking about it a lot. I think of how I differentiate good hard and bad hard, and good tired and bad tired.

Is consistent engagement in a variety of ways using creativity and feeling alive hard? Does it have to be? For me it’s hard not to be those things. And for some I suppose it feels like work. When work is fulfilling it ceases to be work, for me at least.

I am lonely ….. deeply lonely. Longing to be known and engaged with in a way where someone shows up, is consistent, reliable, interested in building, engaged, and all in. And that isn’t something available to me right now and so it’s stretching my limitations to go day in and day out without. I’m constantly threatened with falling into bad habits or pits of despair. And knowing that if I can’t maintain on my own.

You know what that’s crap! What if I can’t because I don’t want to, because we aren’t made to be alone like this. I don’t buy it. At least I’m not. But there is no default either.

I read a post by Brene Brown today about how she’s ready to go down the writing spiral and how her process is all or nothing and she gets lost. And in another book I read just today as well, about a supportive family tip toeing around the writer knowing that’s who they are and what they need, and I think what must it be like to have that kind of support.

I can’t write with love and I can’t write without it. Although I think not being able to write with it was prior to the crucible that has been this past year and a half. I was desperately disconnected in so many ways. I could have never written anything without the connection to me.

But now I want that playground for my psyche that is the art of e-mail and all the other forms of connecting, that is that secure grounding of that one main place you go when you want to be your full real self. And here come the tears.

Melissa would say just be with that feeling. It won’t swallow me, end me, and truly I finally know that. But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck completely.

I want to be held and touched and considered and from someone who can show up as a whole person to want to be consistently engaged with me creating a life together. The loneliness is like jagged teeth biting into my flesh. There is very little relief. I get moments and glimmers, and I know I’m on path.

I’m frustrated with feeling impatient, or too intense or this or that…. Those are judgments. Just because certain things did not turn out the way I thought doesn’t mean any of that is true. But that’s my constant battle. Which means I still have work to do on my relationship with myself. I will always have work to do and I’d still like to be held, touched, worked for and with, by someone enthusiastic about me, that is able to stay two feet in and fully engaged.

It’s not too much to ask and it is ok that it hurts right now. That the loneliness stings…. I think the biggest area where I hurt myself is still being used to turning something that is not something into something. Straw into gold. I need to be still and do me until I invite a fully present and enthusiastic individual into my orbit.

The lens of scarcity colors everything different than abundance does. Moving slower helps to see what’s really there. I see why I just tried to use my will and determination before because sitting in the disappointment is sometimes unbearable. It’s especially unbearable when I go to that old place of alone in childhood; where there was no reprieve and no relief. At least if I told myself life was what I made it, and boy did I live by that, it gave me something to focus on that kept me alive and sane.

Burning right now. Burning good, versus burning bad. There’s a light at the end of this tunnel. I can’t feel it yet, but I can see it, and that’s something.

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Wild Game…

“You can see when you’re wrong, but you can’t always see when you’re right.” Billy Joel -Always remember me this way….-

Somewhere I always knew that the answers lie in books, cumulative knowledge that lies dormant until the appropriate combination of lived experience and wisdom collides into epiphany. Im sure it’s part of the reason I want so badly to write one…. Many.

More apt the answers lie within ourselves, but books are the mirrors, particularly in the absence of a loving and safe parent relationship, that help us become known to ourselves.

I cannot for the life of me remember who recommended me to read Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur. I think I know, and I know that has no correlation with what the person means because they are no less than soul tribe as this book connected life changing dots for me at this time in my life. How did they know ? It stands to reason the people that venture to love us in one way or another, can often see us better than we see ourselves. This is certainly the case with me, as we all know by now I’m often invisible to myself.

I’m awaiting my Sunday treat of a visit from Chip. He brings groceries, the things a parent might do. I can only hope to fashion myself as half the person he is with consistency and thoughtfulness. These are things I now have the space and knowledge to cultivate within myself. I can truly feel and see the joy in tending to my children. I never wanted it to be a thankless duty, a burden, or to take more from them than I gave. To use them for my own benefit unwittingly from the life that was dealt to me.

I have been determined about that, as much as anything else. Though to me it has only seemed about my love life. I couldn’t see the rest of me, only my mistakes. There isn’t a fate worse than that. Purgatory.

I am finally realizing who I really am is not the worst possible assumption, even in the face of many eyes that could see me that way: there will always be those that truly appreciate my full real self. I am rambling now as Oslo and my daughter’s boyfriend are visiting and I cannot miss these moments. It’s no longer a raging battle and desperate attempt to get my words down before they escape. I mean it still is, but my priorities are no longer backward, making my children feel as if they are irritating to my existence, rather than the thing that has always breathed meaning and life into it.

If I had only ever just been less overwhelmed with survival, with life, with myself…. But if I had I wouldn’t be me, and have my cast of characters and a rich landscape to create from. Life has to be lived forward, but can only be understood backwards. No truer words. Kierkegaard

It’s not where you get lost that matters as much as where you land. Character (not a forced kind, but the kind that emerges from the genuine caring for another’s well being before the self) is everything, it will always emerge outside of the mistakes. It stands tall, when momentary clips of life fail to capture the big picture.

I always wanted to be closer to my kids. I just didn’t know how. I believe an onlooker could scream common sense or just easy, but for me this was not. Desperately terrified at any second I could morph into something that I came from, and as a result of that fear, a self fulfilling prophecy. Moody. Short fused, vibrating with anxiety.

When I read this book I see how much worse I could have done, and it answers a lot of questions for me. I could have used my children as my confidante, and because I didn’t know how to not do this, as it’s how I was raised, I stayed always an arms length away. It is my sincere hope that through therapy and this reconnecting with myself, this now can heal. Because it was never the truth of my affection for them, or my true desires and motivations.

I always put love first from what felt like a place of necessity, despite others judgments including a therapist recently who suggested some shoulds and that I could have hired a nanny. Interesting perspective and I’m wondering with what resources, emotionally or financially. The truth is we can harm others with our world views and belief systems, while never having lived a moment in their shoes. I hope to always be mindful of this, when it’s so easy to forget and just blurt out words.

I am not perfect, sometimes I say things carelessly, in sessions even. I can always tell by the immediate reaction in my client. To the best of my ability I attempt repair then and there, if I am unable at that time. I make sure not to repeat the mistake, because I’m able to pick up on how it made them feel. I can feel the immediate shift, as they tense up under the weight of sometimes their own judgments, preceded by my well meaning launch of passionate preaching.

Something I love most about my clients is I believe the majority of them know my heart, character, and intentions, and feel my repairs. I believe that’s why my clinical relationships are so deep, meaningful, and continue to evolve. When they are not or do not parting is not a trauma it’s done with care, concern, and an appropriate amount of honesty. So we both are allowed to grow in the absence.

Anyway this book. I could feel the stab straight through my heart as the main character waited loyally for a bond, recognition, etc from her mother that never came. On her wedding day it was not about her in the least. Her entire life it was about her mother. My heart aches for all the hopes that were born and died in vain, and the toll that took on the host.

This book helps me sew up a long time gaping wound of abandoning my mother. Always wondering if I had it wrong, am wrong. This books help me see what would have been had I tried to belong somewhere that truly never saw me.

And the benefit is two fold because it gives me even more motivation to be genuinely about the lives of my children, interested and invested. While striking that delicate balance of still having my own life. Something worthy to strive for. And nothing about this can be all or nothing. It’s truly one foot in front of the others with my priorities straight and it’s working. It’s no longer the mythical they, or any other myth.

Reality is that we are healing and reuniting and it’s not grand gestures or manipulation of facts, painting a reality over their lived experience. It’s sincere change.

This book has helped me see what would have been. Even as I read it I longed for the being wanted and normalcy of her marriage to Jack, that stability and to be adored, the honeymoon and all that shared experience and closeness. And yet her mother’s affair and lack of presence gave her no arena to create a relationship with herself. The result depression, disconnection, and her suffering.

It was at this very moment I’m realizing all I dreamed I didn’t have is not the stuff that matters most, and that I truly am more than capable and aware of those things, which will lead to a life that is fulfilling in ways I haven’t begun to imagine yet.

I wonder what it will look like for my kids that their mother is catching and correcting, the very second she could, and also sitting with the burn of all the years I was consumed and distracted with my own pain. The guilt could swallow me sometimes, but when I understand that too is selfish, and pick my head up and carry forward with my corrections, is better than trying to go back to understanding or halting my ability to exist in peace, because if I am to create space for them to learn who they are, I must find acceptance and eventually joy for my whole story.

It is necessary.

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Unstoppable Forces and Immoveable Objects

I believe I had promised at one point that I would be talking more about my trauma in coming posts. And since my follow through has improved dramatically as a result of the grounding that occurs from my trauma work, here it is. Here I am.

I am connecting so many dots recently with regard to my early childhood experiences and who I am today, and how that has impacted particularly the events of the last couple of years of my life.

A recent trauma in getting a large area of my arm tattooed has given way to some more realizations. So here’s the process around me getting this tattoo. I have always been drawn and attracted to sleeves on others, but unable to picture one on me. I use all sorts of reasoning to deny myself the very expression that unlocks my healing and therefore my creativity.

So recently I’m freeing my spirit enough to go after these things, but when I get to the overwhelming parts I often freeze or fly. All or nothing to a fault. So on the brink of this sleeve I was anxious and restless for days. So many what if’s. What if I hate my own arm after, what if it doesn’t come out exactly as I want, what if what if, what if I get in a lot of pain and can’t finish it. What if there’s a complication because of my autoimmune disease. What a silly notion because I’ve been living with so many different kinds of pain my whole life. I am not a stranger to it, nor faint of heart.

In any case I was emotional the day of, and absolutely terrified. I went anyway and found it to be relaxing, enjoyable, and that I had a ton of support, children and loved ones stopped by and cheered me on. I am seen and loved, and my kids were excited for me. They were not judgmental or unkind to me, the way I am with myself. I hadn’t realized how much. No one but me said anything unkind to me!

I’ve made all these strides in the way I live, but the way I think is often still trapped in old ways. I am working on moving those energies now.

So I end up also putting a whole other piece I did not even expect that evening. 3 plus hours of tattooing and an ink well that had quite an intense amount of shading and color in a sensitive area. It’s beautiful I love it….

So I wake up the next day and am examining my new arm, working on falling in love, ignoring the imperfections, and seeing the whole and the experience for what it is…. I had clients all day and dinner with my favorite man. It was Thursday after all…. And during dinner my arm begins to ache…. I wondered if perhaps I had held it funny but this was something that just came on.

Electric currents of pain begin to flow up and down my arm in waves. It begins to intensify. Aching, jolting…. I go home try to take something and I’ve been so exhausted from all the excitement I think I’ll sleep it off. The pain worsens and I can’t get comfortable and I’m beginning to get nauseous and shaky from it. This pain was no less than a foot surgery in 2009 where they cut through bone. And the thoughts that went through my mind. What could possibly cause this kind of pain besides something very serious.

I knew I was taking a higher risk as someone with an autoimmune disease, and why would I increase my chances of anything being harder in our lives. But then I dismiss all that and think it’s anxiety and I’m dedicated to confronting my fears as a way of living. So I think I’m being a bad ass and so excited and proud only to be struck with this.

And this is one of my major areas of work. It is so unthinkable for me that I could be safe, deserving, and have things I want without retribution. There was always a punishment after I got a need met. Never safe and secure. So energetically the minute I get something I want or need, right after something bad happens, and I can’t break out of this cycle and thinking until I can break through this pattern. The rug is always pulled out, something always comes crashing down. The belief perpetuates the action, until I break through. And damnit you know that I will.

What happens when an unstoppable force meets with an immovable object? Transformation that’s what. I never knew how to answer that question and now I do. My lived experience taught me, and now of course I want to watch Imagine Me and You….

All the horrible thoughts arrive. As my energy healer said not only were you in pain but then also you were suffering. My thoughts were causing me a great deal of suffering and they were trauma responses. This swift change from exciting to terror set off all my trauma triggers.

No matter where I go or what I do I will always be something wrong or bad or doing something wrong or bad. It’s so deeply ingrained in there. So on top of being in pain, horrible thoughts raking through my insides with white hot pain.

Then on top of everything taken care of by someone I have hurt. Christina you hurt also. You were in the equation and how wonderful each of you could find forgiveness for the other that you could each allow this moment.

I am relentless on myself. Relentless. I do not allow me to have all the normal things a human being does. I am always at fault and always responsible.

My relationship with myself needs to change. It’s still so harsh and judgmental, and I am still so lost to the generosity and compassion I so easily offer others.

The next morning to my surprise I was alive and it felt much better. I will say if I didn’t have leftover pain medication from my ablation I would have needed to go to the emergency room. and now hopefully I can just laugh at my tenacity and enthusiasm that often takes for granted my own needs. I am working towards getting better at recognizing and honoring them.

Needless to say we will go for shorter sessions even though I’m quite capable of the long ones in the moment, it’s the after effects sometimes you must watch out for. 😉 what is living if not for learning.

I expected to talk more about my trauma either I’m avoiding the specifics…. Wait a minute. I just did. I plan on getting down/out some of the reasons I’m so far removed from my own reality, trusting my own lived experience.

It will all make sense when you hear more about my childhood, and it’s interesting how having a therapist who keeps all your story, can help you see the blind spots. She sees me better than I see myself, and through the process I can become known to me.

For now I’m enjoying my new creativity and attempts at self expression. It’s taken a lifetime to get back to the self that was taken from me at such a young age. The pursuit of this was always necessary and through judgments all it has made me look is selfish. Selfish for something necessary. Always out of order the chronology of me is an interesting thing…..

There are so many places I could be judged as selfish, but the worst of all is it I betray my own knowing by what other people think. I’m not selfish. I am generous and compassionate and considerate and loving. But I was never going to have any stable ground under my feet or operate dependably, consistently…. To be able to maintain…. Without a relationship with myself in tow. It was not possible and I did not know that.

Forgiveness…..