“Every soul is like a minnow, every mind is like a shark.” Leonard Cohen
I am preparing for family therapy tonight. It has felt like preparing for battle, and it never should have. That’s inside of me, I tried to never let it out. That wasn’t an option. It leaked and poured out the seems and the more aware I was, the worse I felt.
The worse they felt….
The battle was always inside of me, and it would always create one outside. It began before I was born, and it’s my task, not my burden. Though if you caught me on any difficult day, I would tell you it was.
My battle is my task, trauma as a task to absolve. Is that the right word? I damn sure know it doesn’t dissolve, because that’s such a tame word, and it doesn’t.
To see things clearly and with safety is the ultimate privilege anyone could ever have.
Don’t cry for me, don’t hold me…. Just see me. Show me you see me. The guard goes down just a little, but he never takes off his armor. It’s stifling inside of here, this suit of metal. Once you’re hit so many times it never goes down.
All of the intensity of not receiving support fired straight at my kids. The truth is unbearable at times. I want to change out my suit of armor for robes. Even choosing an outfit is exhausting. I’d like to simplify everything. Maybe it will help. The Buddhist principles. Maybe they will help.
Can anything help?
Is it better to be a tortured soul than a lost one? Are those my only choices ? Most of my life it’s felt like it.
Is this the hill I’m going to die on? The best they could say is at least she never gave up. I guess that’s something for them, and everything for someone like me.
“All I ever wanted was some support that was unconditional. I tried to find that in partnership and failed every time because that’s not an unconditional relationship.
I had to give up me to have security.
Who would I be without my guard. I never let it down anywhere or with anyone except in the bath maybe is where that began.
I ache that I didn’t give you a better family life. That I “failed” every time and became more ashamed.
I ache at the word selfish. I never had a self to enjoy. Everything I looked like I was enjoying I was just trying at, trying to learn it.
I was trying to protect you and that backfired.
That I couldn’t just create a loving and warm mother out of thin air. That I didn’t keep my focus on you because primarily of resources emotionally and financially.
And then to shame myself for it, and then to be shamed for it.
Is agony…..
When I feel I have no support I run around like a feral animal, lashing and biting. I run scared all the time. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone and I’m sorry for the amounts I gave to you.
So many parts child still…
My trauma is also yours…..
I’m sorry
It takes an act of god to access my feelings, let alone show you. So I try to bridge the gap with writing because I can safely access myself there.
I’m like a human machine for detecting patterns and behavior because I spent my life trying to make sure I could keep you safe from me (my trauma).
You just wanted my time and attention and I did too. Everyone was in scarcity.
Now we could have this thing and I don’t know how to let go.
To find the balance of not being walked all over, but also having respect for myself and being able to love you.
I’d like to love you. To have and to make room to be loving. Please know that I need help with this, it wasn’t naturally given to me.
And I also need to be your mom to teach you and have boundaries etc.
This is often out of balance. I’m desperately seeking balance.”
Desperate causes so much harm. The feeling alone.
Desperate my whole life.
I’m running out of that energy and will I land at the bottom of my own inner well (sacred space) defeated in a puddle of my own shame and self loathing.
Or is it possible to rise out of something like this. ?
Balance
If my guard lets down at this point in my life will I just drop lifeless to the ground? It’s all I have ever known. This is my truth.
It took years to turn a sensitive, loving, creative child into a sentinel.
How can you ask me to undo that?
A major rule of therapy is you cannot strip away someone defense mechanism or reveal them to themselves without first replacing that with something more functional. You have to make a safe landing space first.
I’ve been this for countless people in my office, and often times the opposite for my children.
I will need to live with the balance of this truth, with forgiveness and mercy in my heart, if I am to live without constant suffering.
Atonement
How did I even get here? I’m not even religious :p That all caused me so much damage, repression, shame… it was in the wrong hands of course. Are there wrong hands ? Or just incredibly broken ones.
The questions are endless…..
“Suffering had led me to wherever I am, suffering has made me rebel against my own weakness. – Leonard Cohen
Good morning! It’s sacred Sunday and now that I’m old and retired, only two days out, somehow the release of some of the pressure I had felt, is opening up the space to do things out of joy, rather than pressure. Perhaps I’ll have time for grammar and to tackle the previous one large run on sentence above.
While watching Dexter yesterday I was looking up recipes, marry me chicken, chicken Kiev casserole, and contemplating the waffle maker with Ube (purple yam) pancake mix Tyler brought from the latest Trader Joe’s sensation. My goodness that takes me back. The buying of items that were new and exciting all the years I worked there. I was never an amazing cook. Too rushed for that most likely. But there was always variety and abundance.
The exercise is to notice more of what you’ve done right and less of what you’ve screwed up. It’s fairly straight forward, but very difficult for those committed to their own suffering.
While personally I’m trying to navigate my relationship with food into a healthier one. Less all or nothing. Portion control. I’m fairly certain it’s my emotions that guide most of my eating, and I’d like to introduce some logic into the equation.
I’m enjoying my bath and my coffee and going to toggle through a few different books until I settle into a zone. Writing and restless and I still have a finicky dance, but it’s being sorted. My tattoo is itchy, oh so itchy. A reminder of the different stages of the healing process. A metaphor if I delved. I delve less these days. I want normal to a degree. I am basking in normal and mundane.
I can have all the fantasy I want with my writing without having to explode my life each time I have a craving. Wow that’s an old version of me. So hard on myself. She is only there in nostalgia not in practice. There was so much more going on to my beginnings and endings of my relationships and I’m working on navigating the shame at the ways I saved myself. Especially as I didn’t even know what I was doing.
I have come to find most people are just stumbling about. The majority of them. I’m not some big bad wolf. They are also just trying to sort themselves, to ground, to overcome their cravings and short comings.
Don’t other yourself, you’re most likely, more like everyone else, than some anomaly. I take comfort in that rather than offense. Human, all too human.
Anyway it’s a glorious Sunday: there will be home cooked food smell, dogs, teens in and out, my stand in father popping by with groceries, cards maybe, some straightening of the house. Sundays are so full if possibilities. A little admin and notes hopefully. A whole lotta love.
It’s a full life….
The nagging of my mind to find threat and eradicate it or succumb to it in some fashion is no longer present. It has been replaced with bliss and joy and possibilities. Don’t get me wrong some bouts of irritable feelings remain, little waves, reminders of confusion and pain.
But any desire for those things is quickly reminded of the big picture. It’s more automatic than it isn’t, which is wholly opposite of how things used to be. It used to be automatic to be drawn to self sabotage and harm. That is the sad truth.
I have been determined to make way for clarity to create and damnit I will! I have no doubts in my determination. Not nearly so many as my concentration, but that can be worked at. And working at it I am.
I watched a Les Carter video the other day entitled, are Narcissists just mean Co Dependents. Within the video he talked about how both categories have low peace. This is ultimately my compelling why for recovery. I need peace like I need oxygen. You don’t find it, you must be it to have it. That’s the secret.
Want peace? Be peaceful. Sit and do nothing and see what happens. Stop distracting yourself with anything. Be still.
Anyway I referenced a line from the video in my sessions Friday and Saturday because it fit so well. He was describing both as “having a chronic undertow of agitation and irritability and to be driven by insecurity.” Oh my that line, driven by insecurity, most of my life Mr. Carter, most of my life. He describes displacing this pain on others, a transfer I was unwilling to continue.
The work is arduous and I’d try for a long time, not quite reach the root and then give up into comfort and try to concoct a story about it that this was right and real and everything. These conclusive stories ever the protection for my terror ridden mind, only made things worse in the long run. They seduced me with relief in the moment. Never again. Never say never, but I believe in the maintenance of my work.
Anyway on this gorgeous pile of hours that spread out endlessly with no plan I will leave you with this from the video. “I’m sorry you never learned to draw upon your own inner confidence, something went dreadfully wrong in your past.” Oh my heart, and then also, “they think discarding people makes them independent, but they are actually just avoidant.“
I can so easily recognize distancing behaviors in my self and others now, as well as the painful cycles that come with attachment wounds.
I use my life experiences to sharpen my gift. It no longer feels like a curse. I have a much more well trained mind than I used to, and it makes life so much better. This mind has realistic expectations for my self and others, and knows how to find what it needs rather than causing such a stir, out of frustration or boredom. This mind is realistic and grounded rather than a funhouse full of mirrors distorting images.
Rather than rage against what I didn’t or don’t have and feel sorry for myself. Stuck firmly in the Karpman Drama Triangle, right along with my teens I am individuating, in small pieces, and healing in leaps and bounds.
An abundance of recovery…..
Ps I got Wordle on try three this time. Woo! I’m getting the hang of taking my time with things, rather than rushing with very little mindfulness. Of course a lot of it is also luck, but I think that’s true of life as well. More than I ever was able to admit to myself before. That would have felt very unsafe for me.
Go easy on me….. I was still a child Didn’t get the chance to Feel the world around me I had no time to choose What I chose to do So go easy on me baby
My girls graduate high school today. It’s surreal. Almost an out of body experience, but in a good way this time. I am sifting through so many moments on this journey.
My main regret is that so much of it was stressful for them in ways I may not have even noticed and it has caused them harm. They are in recovery too. Hopefully less than I feel, but I know they are. Acknowledging but not drowning, just doing slowly better, is the sweet spot I’ve found. It’s what I strive for.
This morning I am nauseated (injection), it’s been a few days of it and I’m getting tired of it. But other than that my tattoo is healing well this time, or I’m just less anxious and more used to the process. It’s probably that 😉 it’s amazing to see my growth even there with my anxiety.
I went to https://www.bloodroot.com last night to commemorate the work done with a beloved person as they transition to their next chapter. It was a making sacred ritual of this rite of passage and it couldn’t have been more magical.
The place itself is something out of a fairy tale and I may need to begin sitting outside or in, and writing there. There’s something about it. All of it. It’s across from Captains Cove and I could hear the band (Eagle Eye Cherry always takes me back), from the kind of distance I’d like to be hearing the band from. Across a body of water. Subtle and uninterrupting.
I felt like I was transported in time to the Whistle Stop Cafe…..
The tree. The lighting. The women. The books. The food cooked where you can see with nothing but love. I’ve been thinking about how food filled with love tastes different and how meals have marked me with forever memories. When I have been cooked for and shown that I matter. I’m important.
I saw a younger version of me in my office yesterday and she just wants someone to be enthusiastic about her and to be less lonely. I lived all these years not even knowing I felt that way. Not knowing how I felt at all. This feelings thing is still hard. Too little sometimes, too much others. It’s a battle sometimes, at least what I am able to show.
She is not alone. But now I think of where that leads to. A line from a Les Carter vid this am, “I’m sorry you never learned to draw upon your own inner confidence, something went dreadfully wrong in your past.” Oh my heart about this line.
All in the same evening, I sat with someone newly minted on their journey, so lost to themselves. Their value invisible to them, as I scramble to show them, with everything I’ve got. All the tools, and my passion. And I sat with someone who is nearly, if not seven years into the process.
Someone generous who shared with me that I’ve been their safe space and that I always showed up with everything I have consistently and that they knew. That this is what allowed them to be challenged by me when it’s so hard to see what we are doing to ourselves in the aftermath of what has been done to us.
I don’t think there could have been a better time for me to hear these words. As I’ve spent so much time burning in the fire of my regrets and all I didn’t know. My awareness.
I’m processing through how with my kids what I do and who I am seems invisible, how they feel about me. I was so reactive to that for awhile, and now I have surrendered to acceptance of what we will create now in this more peaceful place.
It’s tempting to become euphoric at the info shared last night and to become indignant with them. But the relationship is different it cannot be compared. It is the boundaries themselves that help the power and for it to be effective. Change those and it’s so easy for there to be hurt, disappointment, misinterpretation.
I live much better inside solid lines of expectations and yet my full real human self yearns to burst forth with creativity.
My darkness that lives inside as a result of my painful beginning has been crafted into a gift. My unfortunate innate ability to control my emotional response, to my detriment, helps me as a clinician, yet hinders me as a human.
I need to ask for understanding and acceptance about this, rather than fall into spirals of shame. This is some of my work. We must teach others how to love us. Without collaboration you can never learn love. It must be learned. It can feel magical in the beginning, but to get it off the ground after the initial ingredients are present, you also need to learn the other person.
And if you don’t know yourself first, you will inevitably resent this new responsibility. Particularly if your plate is already full. In the past I ended up resenting anyone else needing a single additional thing from me. I lived in a state of compassion fatigue, and total and utter burnout for years and didn’t even know it. That’s how invisible I can be to myself. That is a dangerous thing. Operating on pure survival.
I still have triggers and reactions I don’t always love, but when I sit with myself gently until I’m calm, I come out the other side with grace and forgiveness.
Mercy
Today is going to be an emotional day. Such an emotional day, and a long one. It’s injection day, I have a few clients this morning also with my therapy in between, nails with my girls, figure out schedule, graduation, and a large dinner reservation after. All the things. I couldn’t be more proud.
I am humbled by the love that I feel and that is developing inside and out. It is transforming me. Most of the time I’m in too much awe to be able to articulate. But we all know that won’t last too long and I’ll be talking away about it.
I’m obsessed with Olivia Rodrigo. Driver’s License is my new repeat song and anything by her and I must admit Harry Styles new album. I can blame my clients for this one.
A childhood memory. There are very few. My skin sticking to the leather in summer. Before seatbelts were a thing. Listening to Robert Palmer with the woman who gave birth to me. I thought she was so beautiful then. She was everything. Oh so cool. Beautiful. The Sun shown on her regardless of how dangerous she was for me.
This morning I’m thinking about addiction and how it eats everything in it’s path.
I’m thinking about my own propensities towards it, and the differences between those with the actual gene and me. The ones I believe to be true anyway. I’m not sure if I have it too and I’m just committed or if I truly don’t understand the disease.
Well that’s not entirely true as I work myself through. We still have the power of choice and no one said those are easy. Not easy but still a choice to get help and stay a course that leads to feeling better in the bigger picture versus the moment. God it takes a lot of work.
I watched 28 Days last night. They do such a good job portraying the blur and how easy it is to not care about those around you while in the throes. God it’s painful. For the person struggling and their loved ones.
Today in therapy I will be working on some of my own triggers around addiction, and I’ll go see Julie after my traditional therapy to bolster that work. My energy healer. I don’t know what I would do without both, all of my therapies. I’d be lost. I’ve been lost. It isn’t pleasant.
My triggers. The sights, smells, sounds, the tiniest Indication of addiction in so many capacities. Even the attitude an addict has. I have no patience or compassion in this area. I know I’d be told by loved ones that I’m being hard on myself.
Let’s see if I can walk myself gently into my own truth. A favorite form of healing. By being able and courageous enough to write out my truths, even if they could hurt someone else.
Addiction has affected my life so profoundly and from a young age. I’m not alone in this. In fact it probably has most people in one way or another.
I’m honestly not sure how mine compares, but I am sure the comparing doesn’t matter. So let’s find the facts if I give myself permission. My predatory father got my younger mother into cocaine. I know that. I was born a product of that. An unhealthy unbalanced relationship between an older married man (as I have been told) and a teenage woman raised Footloose religious style.
What I remember of this was the powder on the mirrors with the razor blade. A blur of drugs and alcohol and bad men, and my mother being wildly unpredictable emotionally. The scars are immense. The triggers that I don’t even know when they happen. They take me over emotionally. It feels embarrassing and shameful to have things inside that can be activated without your consent and make you react so intensely and then be ashamed about it.
Shame is the ultimate addiction isn’t it? Along with co dependency. The attempt to distract from all of this by focusing on what other people should do to get better, to the exclusion of the self.
Sigh. How does anyone figure this out.
I get easily addicted to comfort, after having gone without so long. And sometimes it blinds me to my own higher truths and I have to force myself outside it so I can balance my reality and get a clear look.
Clarity is something I often focus on in my energy healings. My lens is often dirty with the carnage that the triggers leave. It’s so desperately painful to live like this. It’s also infinitely beautiful, the awareness and gratitude it creates. That alone leaves reasons for living when so many from my background succumb to addiction or take their own lives eventually.
They remain haunted and often don’t find ways to cope that are sustaining or healthy.
God I hope my nearest and dearest find their way through the dark wood. I don’t want to have to do life without their smiles and hearts warming the way. I don’t know what I would do.
I am in many ways finding mine, but I am committed to awareness and not repeating my mistakes. That I will say. When there’s always so many new ones to make it would be boring to run on an infinite loop. But patterns themselves are heavily woven into the dynamic.
Anything can be addicting. Grief. Pancakes. Dogs. Sweaters. Books 😉 I mean I could go on forever. It’s harder to see where we don’t need more of a good thing. Notice I did not list cats 😉 a trauma trigger in and of itself.
The only thing you can do with someone struggling with it is love them, never withdraw love, but have radical boundaries so you don’t explode with anger and resentment daily. That is what I’ve learned most recently about the beast.
To take care of yourself even better, battle your own demons with even more passion, so you can show the way. Showing the way is much more productive than telling it I have found. Practice more, preach less, and just be in your own integrity. And to do that you can’t get caught up in the emotional traps the dynamic sets up. Anger, resentment, rage, futility, draining of energy.
All of that merely feeds the disease.
I am learning…..
The first rule of addiction is don’t lie, to yourself or anyone else. Don’t lie about anything ever. Lying lowers your vibration and takes you out of your integrity. I would say lying is the hallmark of addiction. Withholding, shaping the truth to try and reduce shame.
I can feel a lie immediately. I feel it in my bones, and even when I believe the best in things the truth eventually accumulates and rises to the surface.
I can’t think of anything more painful than a lie. It causes so much destruction in its wake for so many. Lies are felt whether they are discovered or not. I cannot abide a lie. There are some special rules for the people who have been neglected and abused in childhood. You cannot lie to one of them. They had their soul stolen at a young age, they cannot tolerate anything else. They should not have to.
I should not have to. I cannot.
If you break my trust you break my soul. If someone I love breaks my soul, that is the one thing that can lead to giving up on myself, which is addiction. Depression. Giving up.
My heart can handle breaking. It’s not ideal, but I can understand the natural changes of life and human nature. It’s understandable. Someone that says they love you lying to you, that isn’t.
I’m not interested in excuses. Mine or anyone else’s. I’ve been accused of being hard on people, but I do not believe this is too much to ask. To choose to be surrounded by people who show up for themselves and live in integrity.
That is my expectation for my one precious life and I won’t back down from that.
“And you call me up again just to break me like a promise So casually cruel in the name of being honest I’m a crumpled up piece of paper lying here ‘Cause I remember it all, all, all”
Let’s just see what comes. It’s time….I always think. And then I get busy and don’t let the wings of inspiration take me to that special place. Home.
Speaking of home…. I bought one. Mine. A redo of sorts. There will be a house warming, why not, really because it’s already a warm home. This time death or any other death will not cloud my accomplishment or my joy.
I often just marvel and awe at the fact I am able to own a home like this just in my name. I can’t tell you how much work it has taken to get a healthy relationship with money, or anything really. I could just cry thinking about it.
I am finishing books, the most recent of which is Momma and The Meaning of Life by Yalom of course. And I’ll post some excerpts from it that I love! Prior to that was the Honey Bus, I related to that one so much, and found parts of myself that may have never been recovered without it. I’m also working on Hillbilly Elegy, The Tender Bar, and East of Eden.
East of Eden I could take a lifetime to read as one page is so delicious I’m description, metaphor, and insight…. That it’s too good not to savor slowly. It’s the kind of book that you drink in every word, and pray it lasts, because you never want it to be over.
I am blissfully present most of the time these days. My brain no longer on fire. Sure the spirals occasionally threaten, the over thinking my brain is so naturally programmed for, but it’s not natural for me any longer. Peace has taken over.
I lived as a walking talking trauma response for almost 40 years before I became aware of how severe my own was. It’s like working with clients was always walking me towards that truth gently at a pace I could tolerate. Funny as I would often see myself as not gentle with others, because my style is very direct and protective and I’m sometimes too full with knowledge. Who knew there could be such a thing.
Sometimes it isn’t knowledge that does the most healing, those words are hard for me to say without choking on the resistance. I have learned the heart had the most healing power, once you can figure out how to get the guards to stand down.
We are all in this together, my defense mechanisms and me. I thank them for their service daily and also let them enjoy their retirement to a degree. They will likely always carry and always watch carefully, but peace is their main objective.
I have learned peace is just another way to protect oneself. Peace of mind is a powerful ally.
Being so disconnected with myself and keeping away from my children while focusing on providing has taken its toll and given me a fair amount of regrets. Fear is a great thief. So much pain is caused with it being the guiding force. I wade through it daily in my work, and as I process my life and the meaning of it.
My mind is an interesting force some days it can remember everything and some days it can’t even catch a thought. I used to become so disturbed by these inconsistencies and now I attempt to embrace them and it with compassion.
The truth of the matter is I live daily with a lot of psychological pain. It’s a fact. I asked Melissa (my therapist) the other day how sick am I? She worries it was self deprecation I’m sure, and I assure her I need it for understanding and validation of my pain. We explore for curiosity at first because she can’t answer without context. We can’t answer without context, could be disastrous.
Later she concedes that I am very traumatized. It’s a fact at this point. It’s a fact that I lived without the knowledge or language for my entire life. Just stumbling through it in excruciating disconnection from myself, and being able to access stable logic to balance me…. Keep me floating steady.
I use my trauma daily in my practice, to inform my care that I give, and to help others like me connect dots to understanding themselves. And while I’m working the pain eases. It returns white hot in almost all other times, but while I’m using my pain to help it all but disappears. This is the point in Man’s Search for Meaning. The light that shines out of the darkness. To be a light in someone’s dark, lights my way as well. You cannot share light without also being in its glow.
This is how I survive my painful mind, that looks for threat everywhere. That causes so many triggers and flashbacks that I must manage daily. I must manage myself and not turn that into a negative view about myself. That’s a lot of managing. Never mind the raising of children, the keeping of a home, and owning a successful practice.
I have so many triggers. It’s so easy to distort reality and it’s taken a lifetime to admit that which feels like defeat or failure, when it is actually a very real disability.
It is brain damage. All of those times I was teased or insulted for not being able to concentrate, or why I can’t remember how to get somewhere even after twenty times of driving there. The worst of which is that my kids feel like I don’t care when my mind drifts when they wanted so much to talk to me about their day. My mind was thinking about our next meal, money, how I was going to feel any acceptance or belonging, but for them I was just absent during all those times.
It never was a lack of caring. That misunderstanding cuts so deep. The misunderstanding of myself as bad, wrong, deeply flawed has been my dark passenger all of my life.
This is the first time I’ve ever lived without it as much as humanly possible. There will always be a tendency, but I’ve gained control of my own mind using awareness. and tons of trauma work.
Melissa decodes me to myself each session when my mind attempts to twist things into a narrative that makes sense, a battle. She helps my mind make a peace treaty before the troops are even on the field. Their uniforms are getting dusty, they are getting out of shape and playing cards, but they will always be waiting if I need them. Security.
If I don’t get a dose, my mind starts to become cluttered with intrusive thoughts and I start to fall back into triggers. After two years I moved to one time weekly and sometimes I’m barely breathing with the rally of the troops just before Friday mornings. I have held on so tightly until I can understand myself and others in a better light.
I breathe with relief after a session…. Even the heaviest of sighs are with so much lightness Of being. It burns off, the anxiety eventually burns off with enough exposure. It’s walking through the fire that’s tricky.
Anyway I promised some Yalom, we are almost there. Some details before…. Twin B also has Crohns disease and is on Humira. Not the thing I wanted to pass to my kids. It’s heartbreaking. 🙁 it’s interesting watching her navigating this and everyone just says she’s lucky to have me, and that’s still hard to accept as true, though I’m much further on that journey.
My girls are days away from high school graduation. They are strong, kind, insightful, warm, and I could not be more proud, and my son as well. He’s sensitive in the best way, though that also sometimes turns against him. I hope I’ll be able to help with that, just by showing up. I am finally able to enjoy my children without being terrified of fucking them up, since I already have of course.
But finally I can see more good, than the bad. More good in me and from me, and not hold myself in contempt for the ways I learned to survive. For how my mind became programmed. It truly wasn’t my fault, and I truly have always taken responsibility for my own healing. It’s just been a very long road.
I am tired. I am so far beyond tired. Yesterday I walked almost 7 miles working on being healthy and today I woke up sore in all my joints, and aching. Every attempt I make seems to end in punishment, but I don’t choose to keep that narrative. I take deep breaths, pauses, ask for what I need, and keep showing up.
I stretch. I cry when I need. I say how I feel. I am learning and teaching and living. I appreciate life as a gift, even amidst pain. The pain comes and goes and there are moments in life so sweet that all can be forgotten and I’m blessed with so many of those.
I didn’t realize how shaped I am by the theories that resonate. Yalom is in so many ways my guiding force. “Dr. Whitehorn genuinely wanted to be taught. He was a collector and had in this manner accumulated an astounding treasure trove of factual curios over the years. You and your patients both win he would say, if you let them teach you enough about their lives and interests. Learn about their lives; you will not only be edified but you will ultimately learn all you need to know about their Illness.”
“By allowing the patient to teach him Dr. Whitehorn related to the person, rather than the pathology, of that patient. His strategy invariable enhanced both the patient’s self regard and his or her willingness to be self revealing.
Yalom is honest with patients in a way that at times makes me cringe with imagining. We are not supposed to say something that will hurt them, and god forbid it’s not socially appropriate. One of the vignettes is about a client of his who hears his honest thoughts about her accidentally on a recorded tape he gave her. She never reveals this to him, but finds ways to make it as if she’s found out other people have said this and asks him if he feels she’s this or that.
He is never dishonest with her, and so even with that level of a breach the work becomes successful because her anger at his words motivated her to truly look at herself. The truth itself is what motivated her, when nothing else had budged.
An honest look is worth its weight in gold as far as transformation, and it’s one of the hardest things to do.
All this time later I can finally hold space for the ways my trauma has hurt my children and me. I can operate from a softer space, and from this place worlds open up to me.
I can feel in real time, not only think about how I should feel. That is something that I’m still only getting glimmers of, but it’s a beginning and it will grow.
I have a patience I never had before, mostly with myself, and It has given me a new world to explore within myself and how I see others.
I guess I had (have a lot to say) no surprise there. Where do I start, where do I stop, what goes where? Finally that’s not so overwhelming that I don’t move. For now I’ll just speak, the work will organize itself once I trust it enough.
I’m on a plane, crying in plain sight while reading part five of What my Bones Know. How her partner’s family treats her…. What it took on her part to receive. The fact she stayed. There’s a little girl across the row eating pretzel sticks and suddenly I’m transported back in time. To a life that could have been, to a precious memory.
I’m able to realize now my memories are not a betrayal of the present. I get to keep my whole story and my whole self. I get to waft in and out as I please and take what I want, and leave what I want.
Is this freedom?
A baby cries…. Not mine. There won’t be another.
One of the most unbelievable aspects of life is how much it can change, and how amazing those changes can turn out to be. And that my heart can still swell with love for all that ever was, because it’s all part of me.
My shoulders are sore, the gentleman at my favorite nail place wailed on me this time. Fresh pedicures and fresh bruises abound. There was some drama on the plane about the stowing of luggage as we set out. This is our second flight, we will land in West Palm.
A family I didn’t stay in will visit in a couple of Sundays. A former lover and friend who now has a lovely wife and baby, and one on the way. The kids will get to meet and bond with the little one. And all the adults will potentially have some forms of closure. There will be joy, and no hard feelings. That’s what happens when all people with good hearts are involved. When no one intended any harm, we were just young and immature and ill equipped in so many ways.
The plane is up in the air now. I no longer need Xanax to fly. My first years absolutely adventurous of spirit, until the intrusive thoughts and nightmares began, until I became afraid of my own shadow, body, and every possible thought.
The next years obfuscated by a lack of understanding or time or resources to obtain it. The next years trips inside myself and back out again recovering what I could from the rubble of my life.
A self has emerged. She wasn’t perfect, God knows she wasn’t.
But today I am flying to Florida with my kids. And in my mind I’m crafting letters to them for therapy acknowledging their experiences that have hurt, and hoping for a closeness I never thought possible. There’s a post it on my desk that says “it’s not too late”, and it isn’t.
At the end of this book it talks about estrangement, and how much more common than we know.
I’ve never met another person until Stephanie (the author) that describes so eloquently how although she was invited to things, how she couldn’t feel the things one is supposed to about it. I’ve never felt as seen as I do now, or attached to an author.
I hope that means I’m getting closer to my own. I’m not even sure that needs to be part of my story anymore, it’s just becoming so much better each day.
Eek a little turbulence. I should be well schooled in this from my life, but alas I am someone who wants to feel her feet on the ground even if her head is often in the clouds.
I’m a little nauseated, that’s what waking up at 2:15 am will do. I’ll be too excited to rest until it’s time, but this whole thing is about rest right ?! And bonding let’s not forget that. A wise friend would tell me to keep my weight back when it comes to expectations. He’s not wrong. Be careful with those things.
I’m ready to sip a beverage out of a coconut shell in a beach chair already, and to watch my kids, now nearly adults, enjoy some of the finer things in life. Like a vacation for example.
Hopefully going forward it’s a yearly occasion and there’s plenty more time for bonding, and I’ll be involved every step of the way.
God I love my kids…. Outside all the triggers and fears they wouldn’t learn what they need to be ok, when I see them, really see them, it’s almost blinding.
Kind, considerate, warm, bright, welcoming, loving, intelligent, curious, empathic, funny…. I could go on. It’s almost surreal at times.
Anyway that’s it for now. I hope to write plenty more during this trip.
It’s late for me to be writing a blog post. Only one or two times have I ever attempted this feat. As if we are talking about extreme sports or something. Kind of.
I put on K.D Lang’s Constant Craving, it mimics how I feel right now. But what?! Could be so many things. Presence? Warmth? Food? It goes along with the title of my Memoir: Starved.
Am I doomed to be restless forever? Even as so many things are so good in my life?
I’ve been working hard. Harder than I ever imagined. I’ve become more me than I ever thought possible. A self, a real self. I’ve been working to make amends with my children, and building trust in myself has everything to do with it. As outside changes take place can I maintain those stabilities? Yes.
I watched The Tender Bar the other day and also have Hillbilly Elegy on the radar. I purchased both memoirs and have been researching the authors. Better at purchasing books than reading them. Another addiction? Maybe…..
I’m reading Beyond Codependency, and a line today struck me. “Deprivation runs deep, it creates blank spots in us.” That line alone could release grief, torrents. I read the passage during several sessions today. My people. The walking wounded. The brave.
I guess that’s why I feel starved no matter what I do.
Listening to Exile by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver, on repeat. The piano. Haunted. JR Moehringer writes about the ache of hearing his father’s voice while never having a relationship with him, and how being at the bar was at least something: his uncle Charlie teaching him the man sciences.
The ache …..
No story or obsession can protect me any longer. I live as a real human now. Sometimes I wish I could go back. No, I wasn’t better off. My mind spun. I was in a frenzy. My mind burned. Now it’s so quiet that sometimes the silence is deafening. It’s so still.
Peace is still so foreign and yet I’m better. Better to and for others, better with myself. Softer somehow. Grief has softened me. Every where. :p I struggle with my relationship with my body. Without my all or nothing and my addictions I can’t command myself into whatever is needed, because there is no longer a compelling why.
The last being the anxiety of being good enough. I know I am. So have I lost my edge, or Just my ability to torture myself into performance. I could go numb before and just obey. I know you know what I mean. I gave that up. The dark gift (passenger). The ability to swiftly disconnect. I traded my safety, for a real human life.
I guess I know why the Buddha is round ha. He’s so happy though. I too am happy. I scarcely know if I’m allowed, but my toe is in the water.
My mind is so still, if you saw the difference you would cite demon possession. Perhaps I had a lobotomy in my sleep. So now where is my story in here? Who am I without my coping mechanisms, without the guards. Most of the time I’m too guarded to even trust emdr I have found. But I grieve ….oh do I grieve.
I grieve that chaotic frantic woman ….. she was my constant. I don’t know what to do, as this new self. I’m quiet sometimes because it’s hard to trust new, even when it’s better.
And I love…. As hard as I ever have….. and I get up after getting knocked down….
My whole heart on the line. This is a gift the way that I live. With every fiber of my being. People crave this existence and a touch that makes all the difficult worthwhile. And I have it all, and I give it all.
Every day I live a year long. I’m so fulfilled at the end of each day, even when I’m restless. I fall asleep hard and fast and sleep deeply. Movie reels playing all night long, safely far enough from consciousness, but they are there. My dreams. Body slack. Not waiting for a pin to drop.
Mostly I am humbled daily by the work. Asking for forgiveness, learning, gently having my own back. Self supportive. What even is this….?!
Honing in on what to learn next. Realizing that while I lost a dream there are so many I didn’t realize I was already in. I’ll have grandkids, and I’ll be there every step of the way consistently engaged because I can and want to. Simple. Like how Charlie loved JR.
Sometimes the simplicity of love is startling. What is even more unsettling is how natural for me it is to complicate everything.
The kids and I are going on vacation soon…. West Palm bound. We sat around the table tonight playing skip Bo and talking about the different things we want during that trip. There was no tension or fighting. After all this time, we get to relax together. And the relaxation doesn’t have too high of a cost like it would have before. Stress somewhere else.
If you asked me if I would have been able to afford this vacation by myself or any of the other things we have I would have laughed. The life I live now is one that I saw as out of reach not that long ago. Impossible.
Even better I am rich in the knowing that my children have emotional safety. It was touch and go there for a minute, but I was never a lost soul. I’m too much of an advocate for that.
Sometimes arriving begins with breaking the silence without a plan in mind. This is a jumble of many potential blog posts I never chose to write. It’s tempting to feel it’s less good in its jumble but maybe the habit is the most important part. Just putting words to the page. Say anything…..
One post that’s rattling in my brain is “time will tell….” I think I’ll make that my next. I’ve said plenty here.
I’m still squeezing the poison of abuse and neglect out of my veins. I am still confronting the ways I can do and be those things, and eradicating them from my emotional vocabulary.
I am still learning…. I will always love learning. It keeps my sometimes beastly mind busy from turning in on itself.
Lately an old message received plays in my mind. “We are both ruthless creatures.”
I’ve been watching Pieces of Her. We are on the finale tonight. The last episode Nick Harp refers to his daughter as a beautiful creature, and I got chills. Then he does this head cock. Studying.
I study people too. I study because I’m genuinely curious and also because the modeling I had most of my young life was ruthless, clueless, terrifyingly confusing. I study to do better, not to take advantage of. But for the longest time I was confused about that. Because I was painfully aware I wasn’t supposed to feel and think in the ways I did.
So here I sit…. Laying down good behaviors and extinguishing bad ones. I don’t have it all figured out. Not even close, but I do know people are dynamic magnificent human beings. In all their glory whether that be crazy sick sad shit (to quote a favorite movie), or being at their peak, their best selves.
They are not toys, toasters, or something to be manipulated.
I’ve found the secret to not falling in with such a crowd is to not manipulate stories yourself. Not regulate oneself by changing the story and then behaving accordingly. Knowing the connection between thoughts and behavior is very helpful. Thanks college degree and to the “streets”, where I learned the most, often the hard way.
Mostly, these days I’m trying to learn balance. Knowledge is power. However if you use knowledge too much without heart and intuition (soul), you’re being operated by fear, and it’s not very fun. If you are all heart and intuition without knowledge, you fall prey more easily to a life that is not your own.
Balance
Balance for me used to feel impossible. Every answer just created more questions down the knowledge rabbit hole. I learned some boundaries are hard, you don’t make different rules or call it something that permits forward motion without the calm still waters that create a clear view.
Clarity
I learned trusting oneself with a solid foundation of self is priceless.
I’ve learned a lot these past years of my life. It’s a good thing I enjoy learning.
Letting go of the past is hard. The attachments, the mistakes, the pain even that became a constant companion. Life right now if a free fall into the unknown, but with plenty of lifelines that are solid and trustworthy. That’s the point all along right ?! Connection.
Connection
I will always wonder what my life would have been like if I didn’t have to make my own solid ground. I won’t spend much time in it because it’s moot, but more a gentle musing from time to time. Where I intend to land solidly though is all the magic that has been created by the process of making my own self.
Darkness and light intermingling…. My own and the world’s. There will always be both. And people are humans not creatures. Becoming is beautiful.
On the living front recently I booked vacation for the kids and I to Florida. Blue water, warm Sun. I’ve waited my whole life to be in a position to do this. There is some anxiety, but mostly joy. This will be the girls first flight. And only our 3rd ish trip together just us. Where we get to play…. We have all done so much work. I had very little play in the mix. I’m glad I tried to give them people and experiences where they could have that. When I felt I didn’t know how.
Play is supposed to be natural. Someone took those gifts from me, but I have been determined to find them in a healthy way. Not only playing in and with the darkness. I needed some light too.
Thanks for all who have braved the journey of watching me become who I always was. It’s taken the love of so many. The encouragement. The support. The seeing of it all, to help me understand the good in me…..
I cry for how long I’ve judged my process and my decisions and choices. I cry for how hard I’ve been on myself when I’ve been surviving my whole life. Just because no one could see it. Judged for the ways I chose to save myself. Because I’m a mother, these choices meant I was selfish. The worst part is I allowed myself to believe those criticisms and as a result pulled away from my children.
I pulled away because I didn’t want to infect them with my particular disease. Survival is a great burden, and it’s hardly understood, except by those who have had to. I didn’t want them to understand, and then to feel close I needed them to. And that too became and unrealistic demand. I judged myself so harshly, and held on tight to that.
Holding on and letting go. Figuring out what to hold on to and what to let go of. The stakes feeling so high. I’ve softened all of that. Mistakes are the portals of discovery. In fact some of my most recent joy had so many in the beginning and that is what has made it feel perfect. The imperfect.
Because it’s real. You know? 😉
This morning on my sacred Sunday I am reflecting and wafting through my life. I’m listening to Exile by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver. I am just overwhelmed by the abundance I’ve created in my life by the self-work I’ve done. I’ve done the impossible, changed my wiring in so many ways. People don’t do this, but I am. And I’m fucking proud.
I’m so emotional lately…. That is when I can stop holding my breath. I still do that. I hold on and wait for the bottom to drop out, but I know when I’m doing that, and when I’m not, and it makes such a difference and when I’m feeling safe, when I can reflect, the tears immediately come. The gratitude. The joy.
I made it out alive and I kept my self on ice, ready for exploration once safe. Now I’m here, and so often I’m overwhelmed that it feels like I won’t get the experience in some way. Even when I’m right here in it.
This is a journey not a destination. This journey is so beautiful it brings me to my knees with emotion. The good, the bad, and everything in between.
I ran so fast and so hard. I ran on empty so long, that it’s hard to know how to operate on a full tank, and not just keep watching the gauge. No matter how many times I check, it’s full, won’t stop me from trying. Some things are hard wired.
I’m operating this new soft self. My mind tries to drag me to every worst case scenario and exhaust me into that familiar irritability, but I’ve hedged my bets with all the support I’ve allowed myself permission to seek, and to accept it.
My authentic self is finally taking the lead…. Slow and steady wins the race. I am steady. I am a rock. I am reliable and trustworthy. I am consistent and nurturing and so loving. I can see myself and it’s overwhelming.
I spent most of my life overwhelmed by fear, and now I get the privilege of being overwhelmed by love.
I just took a deep breath. Whenever I’m overwhelmed now, that’s what I do. The restless settles into security and then the fruits of my labors shine and sparkle all around. I blink my eyes and try to bring them in and out of focus. Yes Christina this is real.
It isn’t any longer all or nothing. My life is piloted by self trust, not story telling. And I will not shame myself for what developed out of survival, for I have always lived the philosophy of Maya Angelou. Once you know better do better. And I always have.
And now after 41 years on this planet I’m in my body. Through hell and back so many times. Fighting myself, fighting every battle that crossed my path, permanently in fight and flight mode. The story protected the mechanism and as long as that was the case the pattern repeated.
Now I am broken free. Out of jail and purgatory. It’s like having to learn everything from the beginning again, so vulnerable and raw.
I’m so exhausted, prone, in a good way. Laying spent across the earth finally without all the thoughts of illness and death.
Everything is a first right now in so many ways. Out of the dark night. Reborn. Now when I don’t want something to be over rather than dissociation, I open wider and connect more. It’s never over, the moments, they become absorbed into my being.
Becoming solid, whole, and present.
I am present, alive, for the first time in this way. Overwhelmed by possibility….. life is beautiful. I know I always believed in that, but I never felt it, not like this.
Recovery is a long road, and it can be beautiful. It doesn’t have to be dark. Turn on the light. Allow the universe to have your back and shine its gifts on your pain. Everything is connected….
Hi. I can’t remember the last time I said hi and meant it in the way I’m thinking of now. Actually I can.
I just read a passage in Stephen King’s On Writing that has inspired this post. Page 56. When you write a story, you are telling yourself the story, he said. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.“ Gould said some thing else that was interesting on the day I turned in my first two pieces: “right with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out.”
I made a promise to myself that I will finish this book from cover to cover before the end of the year. It feels like a good goal. A few years back I read the first half, and it felt so sacred and emotional, that I could not bring myself to allow it to be over. Or at least that’s the story I tell. Also I couldn’t focus on one thing at a time or move slowly.
I am relieved these days that I can be still. I had a spiritual experience this morning. The weather is beautiful and I just sat in my living room looking around and the abundance I have created. I had everything I ever set out to do right under my nose the whole time. People tried to tell me this so bad often, but I wasn’t ready to let go of my pain. Or to let it let go of me.
When I slow down and comb through my life I have so many things I didn’t even pay attention to. I was amassing and moving more quickly than I could appreciate. Now I am slowing down and looking through the piles and boxes and dark corners and making new discoveries all the time.
Like this mornings which was a video by Esther Perel on listening. Esther Perel on Listening there were several gems in this. My favorite aspect of it is her owning mistakes as a counselor. I believe in this, but hadn’t yet found the courage to do so. She helps me. We learn more from our mistakes and it also helped me with some work I’ve done recently.
This afternoon between driving one of my twins to her job (we are down a vehicle currently) a pending ski trip motivated some closet cleaning. Amidst some of that were maternity clothes new and still in the bags, as well as many sentimental artifacts from 2019 until now.
The last time I did the first round of this cleaning I thought the emotions would kill me. It’s refreshing to see that this time I’m able to do it, feelings still in tow, but with a lot more acceptance.
The gift I have received from all of this darkness is presence. In the Esther video I referenced above she talks about languishing and about how the opposite is eroticism. Of course that caught my interest. The things that make us feel the most alive. The most present for the sensations. I recalled a time on the beach when I had met a lover I was quarreling with. We could not communicate or come to any understanding. So I requested we sit at the beach together, but not be allowed to say a word.
Now I can appreciate this creativity and effort so much different than I did then. I still remember that day fondly. Today as I was thinking of it I was thinking about eyes closed and just feeling what sand flowing through your fingers feels like. Whether it’s cool or hot, lumpy or smooth, moist or dry. The full sensory experience and how if you tune out the world and tune into the sensations, we are capable of the miraculous, without any cost, …. So simple.
I think of how my traumatized mind made simple things more complicated as my mind jumped to every possible scenario the very epitome of anxiety.
I think of how any trip I embarked upon was riddled with intrusive thoughts of bad things happening, and how I never understood why my mind did that, and worse, I felt defective, crazy, or bad. I shrank inside myself to try and make sure that didn’t infect anyone else.
I tried to protect others from even the possibility of becoming something “bad”, and I have a lot of appreciation for the things I did to adapt, and those that I faced.
I’m making a tender and soft self to operate from these days. Presence and intentionality. If I take a day or two to think about things I’ll usually see how I feel and what I need to do with so much more clarity than I ever was afforded before.
My ego runs the show so much less. It’s not nearly as fragile. I say I’m sorry and thank you for reminding me, and don’t have expectations for my children I couldn’t even keep up with when no one is looking. They truly are my greatest teachers. The work I’m most interested now is working on my listening and doing research around this.
After almost a year of horrible family therapy, now that I see what a good relationship really looks like, with a committed therapist, it’s a true game changer. I was so vulnerable I didn’t even know it shouldn’t have been like that. And I’m a therapist!!! We can’t see ourselves no matter how smart and aware, and vulnerability and grief changes the whole game. I wish I knew this sooner, but I’m glad I do now.
I appreciate Esther and Stephen’s company and guidance today. Fast friends. For now I’m going to listen to some old school Eminem and finish cleaning out my closet.
Merry Holidays Everyone. Life can be anything you want it to, if you’re committed and consistent.
