If amygdala is where my future-reference patterns are stored, do I fail to store those memories because I'm blocking... no, that's not it.
Ok, so this stuff gets triggered over and over by new events because the old stuff never got resolved. So the 'reaction' is still sitting there, somehow, like a - potential, maybe? that needs to be released in order to complete the circuit.
But it never gets released, so it's like pressure building up behind a dam. Or, maybe, a pipe that's getting gunk built up inside it (like clogged arteries), so the pressure keeps building and building, at the same time the aperture though which the 'stuff' can be released (and experienced?) gets narrower.
See, for me, unless there's somebody on the receiving end (a la Alice Miller's 'enlightened witness'), it doesn't come out. I have no idea what analogy here to use, except maybe baseball: You need somebody to catch the frickin' ball. Otherwise it's the same ol' one hand clapping routine. Nobody there to hear you, you don't get heard. Not really; not in any real sense. It's just another kind of cotton candy for the soul - you go away hungry, un-nourished. Which is why we revisit the same old stuff over and over and over: We need that resolution. It is not a matter of 'playing the (fucking) victim,' goddamn it to fucking hell.
It's a matter of fucking hurting, really fucking badly, and wanting to fucking lance the fucking wound.
Am I making myself perfectly fucking clear yet?
A snippet from a (painful) poem I once wrote seems apropos here:
my heart is weeping through this pen onto the pageI know I've had this particular lightbulb moment over and over again, I'm pretty sure I've written about it before, possibly even today. But I'm looking for the linchpin, the rosetta stone, the key to unlocking this part of the pattern.
this paper is my ear
this pen my mouth
it is a closed circle
so what good is it?
So help me out here. What do I do? Where's the lever with which to pry this one loose?
2 comments:
Hi Again Grasshopper,
I think you're exactly right that there is a huge difference between being a victim and seeking resolution. And, that you NEED to dwell on the pain and awfulness of it all until, well, until you don't need to dwell on it anymore. That time frame is different for everyone, and there is no right or wrong way to do it (although you should be as gentle as possible with yourself while you're going thru it).
In my experience, there is a huge difference, energetically, between someone seeking resolution and someone wallowing in self-pity; people stuck in their victimhood tend to suck the life out of everyone around them, while the opposite is true for those seeking resolution.
Carolyn Myss calls the wallowing "woundology." Have you heard that term? In the pop selfhelp-12 Steps for life-unhappiness is a disease-just take a pill culture we live in, it's a tempting place to get stuck, and it happens to a lot of people. But I don't get that sense from you, GH. I sense an earnest desire to work thru your pain. I know you're hurting. I hear you. The poison is real, and it needs to come out. And to me, it looks like it is.
And yeah, it sucks that we're stuck with it all becuz there's nobody on the other end to hear us. I think that's a core, if not THE core, disfunction in disfunctional families (the complete and utter lack of any witness at all, much less an enlightened one). Sadly, there is no real resolution for this problem. Giving up and releasing it elsewhere is the only option that isn't crazymaking. (I had to give up all contact with my family for this very reason.) It takes a lot longer when you have to do it alone, and can *feel* like there is no resolution, but in my experience, there has been. And the good news about that (I think) is that I am no longer stuck in that awful place of depending on undependable people to get something they aren't capable of giving me. I find some freedom and relief in that, which makes up for some of the grief of it.
So I think you've found the lever, and I think you're prying it loose. But it's a BIIIG rock, and it's going to take awhile.
Just my 2 cents,
Kitty
Hi Kitty,
Thanks for the sorely-needed encouragement! (Warning - this response is *really* long!)
Yes, I quite agree that things have to work their way out in their own time, and it takes however long it takes. There are no rules, much though our culture would like us, as you say, to just 'take a pill' and not bother them with our unhappiness.
I think the reason I'm still fighting this battle is I'm making last-ditch efforts to try to communicate with at least *one* member of the family, my youngest brother, which I think is what all the posts about the nieces are for. I've made a decision (in my mind, haven't crossed this bridge with my brother yet) that I will not compromise on the bullying thing. I don't care whether he thinks it's a 'normal' part of raising children - I disagree, and I won't be party to it either passively or actively.
Which means I can't be around the family until we talk about and/or resolve this. I'm certainly not going to put up with being thrown out of my SIL's house repeatedly! If she and I can't have that conversation openly (and we still haven't, with a week having gone by and today's the 'dinner with the family day'), then I won't be coming for dinner.
As far as the rest of the family, I'm still learning how to disengage.
After repeated efforts over many years, I've cut off from the other brother entirely and as much as possible from my mom (she jumped in on my main social community years ago, and I can't tell you how impossibly painful it is to deal with this - not being able to hang out with my peers, my friends, because my mom's always there. She refuses to recognize any boundaries or make any compromises. Which means, in addition to cutting off from my family, I have little contact with my main social group - even just seeing her in passing brings up all the anger again. Still working on how to deal with this.)
The relationship with my youngest brother is important to me at least in *part* because I want to maintain some connection with my nieces, which I've been unable to manage with my other brother's children. I don't want them to feel the same alienation from their aunts that I feel with mine.
Having said that, I'm realizing that, after this last week, I'm questioning (as I think my brother is, too), how much more effort I'm willing to put into *our* relationship. I feel myself withdrawing, and I told him that when we last talked - that I think I need a 'time out'. But he dismissed it - I don't think he took me seriously. But he was pretty angry at the time. So we'll see.
(Just FYI, don't know if I've mentioned this already, my father died many years ago, so he's not in the picture. Still issues there, of course, but have worked through a lot of them. I *think*! :-)
So disconnecting completely from family is something I've been experimenting with, but losing the connection with my youngest nieces is a decision I'd really like not to have to make. Can an Auntie have visitation rights??? Dilemma. As life so often is.
I admit to being really torn about my brother. I want us to be friends, but is it possible? I'm not seeing how to get there from here. It's possible that if I (we?) just back *way* off from each other, in time something healthier might grow. Maybe that's another kind of boundary setting.
Anyway. As to Myss’ ‘woundology’: Yes, I’ve encountered that, and I have to say I ran away as fast as possible. I personally find that language un-helpful – to me, it adds insult to injury. I hear it as saying there are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways to deal with pain.
I prefer to think of it the way one might think about a feral animal: An animal that’s been treated so badly that it snaps and snarls at anybody who comes near, and then cowers in terror whenever someone overrides its self-defense mechanisms, is just simply in so much pain that it can’t do anything else. I think words like ‘woundology’ just further shame a person who’s so caught up in pain that they can’t see or think straight.
I believe what a person stuck in this place needs is compassion – a literal ‘open spot’ in their lives where what they think and feel is ok, no matter what. I think *that’s * what heals people: Being allowed to be where they’re at, and not being forced to conform to somebody else’s idea of 'normal'.
The 'take a pill' thing is just another way of shutting someone down, of saying 'other people’s feelings are messy and I don’t want to deal with them.'
Which is pretty much what you said, I think :-)
This has gotten so long! It should almost be its own post.
What you said, to stop ‘depending on undependable people’, is the key, I think. We just have to not go there. In order to make that move, though, to *my* mind it requires at least *one* alternative, *one* person in one’s life on whom one *can* depend. Because we can’t go it alone – literally, humans are hard-wired, biochemically, neurologically, whatever you want to call it – to be social creatures. The fear/panic/anxiety are real consequences of having one’s most basic need for social connection go unmet. So to take that step across the river, if one must abandon the unreliable stepping stones of the family, you have to have somewhere else to put your feet. We have to stand somewhere, right? Or, thinking of a person again as a plant, their roots have to be in some dirt, somewhere, even if it’s toxic. No dirt = dead plant. Toxic dirt = sick plant, but still alive. And I believe that on a basic survival level, our social wiring chooses ‘toxic but alive’ over ‘dead’. I mean, that’s its whole job, right? Is to keep us alive. When our lizard brain perceives a threat at this deep a level, the biochemical response system overrides all other considerations.
Ok, well, I’d better stop now. More rock-prying later :-)
And thank you again, being able to 'talk through' this is a HUGE help. Much gratitude showered upon you! :-)
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