getting closer to the source

This is a bit exhausting - still trying to piece together and make sense of, single-handedly, without evidence and/or support from anyone in the family (i.e., no witnesses) what actually happened in my childhood to lead to the experiences I have today of trauma, sleeplessness, social anxiety and various other high stress-related symptoms and behaviors.

I feel like I'm trying to assemble a puzzle while having no idea whatsoever what the finished picture will look like, and trying to find the pieces by feel rather than by sight. In other words, everything seems to take at least 70 times longer than it 'ought' too...

Sigh. Well, at least I'm making progress. I'm no longer leaning on my old friend Jack, which means my body is not dealing with the ravages of alcohol on top of everything else. I'm sleeping better, with fewer nightmares and more continous, uninterrupted hours of sleep. I still have strange dreams, and still have trouble going to bed at any sort of 'normal' time of night, but I'm less fearful of actually falling asleep. I've learned how to get through the peri-panic moments so that I don't get sucked down the rabbit hole of dread. I've established enough contacts with people I trust so that I can call somebody if I really get stuck. So I don't feel so alone with it any more.

And now I'm beginning the process of trying to re-assemble the rest of my life, all the things that have been on hold for the last 10 years while I tried to figure out what the hell was going on, what it was inside me that continually undermined and sabotaged my best efforts to 'get ahead'.

Well, I'm not going to make a list - it's too long, and still in progress. And honestly, I don't need it. It would just be for show. But time is too short now to waste on such a project, and it's become clear that no one will ever read, understand or care about it besides me anyway. So why bother?

That last statement seems like it ought to feel depressing to write, but in fact it doesn't. It feels like a mere, bald, plain statement of fact.

And in fact I don't need such lists, such affirmations any more. Because I have the more real, solid evidence of having been hugged and encouraged and supported enough by my many friends who've come through for me in ways I never expected. Healing is well under way.

It's interesting to see what path things take. I no longer feel like I have any 'control' over any of it - it's more like I'm simply removing impediments to the growth of this plant/being named Grasshopper. And then seeing who she turns out to be when her flower (beautiful sunflower!) finally, finally, after all these years, gets her chance to bloom.
***

The anger is gradually subsiding - it was a knife, necessary to the process of cleaving away all the dead wood that barred my path for so many years. There's still a fair percentage of my daily energy going to maintaining that clear path - like a samurai machete-wielding goddess, I hack my way through the mental monsters and demons that plague me. But I do so with a single-mindedness that would do any cape-wearing hero proud: I no longer flinch or apologize, but simply get on with my business, do what I have to do.

Sometimes my 'goddess' is Wonder Woman with her bullet-deflecting wristlets; sometimes she's a big, black Jemima figure with a headscarf and overalls, shotgun on her hip and pitchfork at the ready. A no-nonsense, fierce, don't-mess-with-me mama who keeps a cigar in her pocket and can break any man in half over her knee. (Queen Latifah seems to embody, at least in her films, this fierce mother-bear protectiveness that I so missed having in my childhood.)

Whoever and whatever she is, she's fierce and strong and takes good care of me. She keeps me safe, fends off the bad guys, and sometimes scares the shit out of me with her directness and her total and complete unwillingness to take no crap from nobody, nohow.
***

The critical, judgmental voices are getting quieter and quieter, smaller and harder to decipher, like that 'wah-wah-wah' sound used to represent adult voices in the old Charlie Brown cartoons.

I feel more and more comfortable telling them to just shut the fuck up, and feel less and less remorse about having done so.

If anything encroaches on my peace and serenity, I just tell it to fuck off. It's amazing how well it works, and how blissfully, blessedly silent the internal, nagging voices are becoming.

I'm less and less hyper-vigilant - less triggered by loud voices and random scowly faces caught out of the corner of my eye.

I've adopted a total acceptance policy (been using it for quite some time, actually, but it's gradually spreading to encompass every area of my life), what some might refer to as 'radical acceptance' (yes, I know there's a book by that name.)

So if I find myself doing some kind of OCD behavior, rather than judging it, I simply accept it, encourage it, even, and ask it what it's doing. I get curious about it, and try to find out why I might be doing that particular thing (like checking that the back door is locked 20 times before I can actually go out the front door. Answer? It has to do with security, or lack thereof, and having lost many things of great sentimental value to a burglary about 10 years ago. When something traumatic happens and you don't have the emotional resources to help you cope with it at the time that it happens, you tend to store the memories away until such time as you feel safe enough to look at them and help them heal. Meantime, the 'trauma' can leak out in all kinds of weird ways that you may or may not associate with the original source of the problem.)

Today's google search link harvest:

why

do I feel suicidal every time I'm around my family? If I even speak to one of them, I find myself blurting out things like, "I may not be around much longer", "I can't take it any more". It's like I just can't hold it inside any longer - the pain of being unheard for my entire life. I keep saying it's as if I were bleeding to death alongside a road and nobody stopped to help me - that's what my family feels like. Only the bleeding is all internal, invisible (at least to them), and no one notices til it's too late. It reminds me of when I had gallstones and hadn't eaten for two weeks because of the pain and I had to harass the doctor to pay any attention to me because I 'looked too healthy'. Fuck. It was all I could do to not grab the asshole by the lapels and shake him.

"Look, I know I'm not as important as that heart attack you're dealing with down the hall," I said, "but I haven't eaten in two weeks and every time I eat there's this excruciating pain, unlike any pain I've ever had in my life. I know I look perfectly healthy, but I'm not - there's something wrong." The very first guy I saw at my first emergency room said something about, "Well, it could be gallstones, but you just don't fit the profile." Fuck. Why can't these idiots look past their stupid assumptions and see what's right in front of their noses?

I finally persuaded him to at least refer me for an ultrasound (what the fuck am I paying you assholes all this money for, anyway? Jesus fucking christ.) Sure enough, gallstones. Though there was a weird moment where the lab tech called another tech into the room to say, "Look, her liver's way up here!" And blah blah blah - I guess I was otherwise extremely healthy, and they'd never really seen a normal, healthy body before under their scans - most of the women who came in were 'fair, fat and forty', which is the standard profile for people who tend to get gallstones.

Anyway. The whole point is, nobody ever believed me. I was not a hypochondriac; I hardly ever came in at all, except for routine exams and pap smears. My so-called 'regular doctor' practically didn't know who I was, I came in so infrequently. And yet the one and only time I came in with a serious complaint, they treated me like - I don't know what. Like I didn't know what was going on with my own fucking body. Jesus. The hubris, the arrogance. I've encountered this so many times now with the medical profession, whether standard or alternative, and with dentists as well. In fact anybody with any 'credentials' seems to be almost entirely about 'proving' themselves, something to do with ego. Truly, nobody ever grows up. We're all just children in oversized bodies. Sigh.

And my family is the same: I don't know if it's because of all my years of silence and only speaking up now, but it's as if I've lied, or cheated, or - I don't know what. They just won't listen, won't hear. I've read recently that people resist having their motives questioned, their - whatsit - morality? or something - impugned. Their 'honor', maybe? Dunno. Seems like truth doesn't matter to most people at all - it's all about image, the mirage, the projection. Like the Wizard of Oz, once again. All smoke and mirrors, no substance. Fuck.

It's that invisible feeling - like I don't matter, like nobody cares, nobody hears. No matter how loud I shout or scream, all they hear is that I'm being inconvenient for them. They don't appear to hear, see or otherwise perceive the pain. They're like that 'deaf, dumb and blind kid,' only they don't even play a mean pinball... (song reference.)

Feeling like you don't exist. Like the pain inside of you will just explode - like you'll explode - your mind, your body. Like a gasket, or some gizmo that's been under pressure too long and has worn out. Something just gives out - heart, mind, soul, spirit. Something.

But I don't want to go. I don't want to die. I just don't want to deal with them any more. I want them to go away and leave me alone. The problem is, they're only too happy to do just that. In fact it's just more of the same - I can't even appreciate it as the cessation of an unpleasant noise because there never was any noise to begin with - just the deafening SILENCE.

Silence. Fucking SILENCE. By speaking my truth, I've alienated them all - they've closed ranks, shut me out, now more than ever. But it's not the blessed relief of silence after too much noise - no, it's the further pain of being totally ignored on top of never having been taken seriously in the first place.

If anybody from the family ever reads this and cares enough to try to understand, THIS is where the pain comes from: The silence of having nobody to care, nobody to listen. Having everybody walk away and turn their backs on you every single time you express any kind of emotional need that makes them the least bit uncomfortable.
***

From an article on the powerful long-term effects of prolonged emotional invalidation:

"We regularly invalidate others because we ourselves were, and are often invalidated, so it has become habitual. Below are a few of the many ways we are invalidated:

• We are told we shouldn't feel the way we feel
• We are dictated not to feel the way we feel
• We are told we are too sensitive, too "dramatic"
• We are ignored
• We are judged
• We are led to believe there is something wrong with us for feeling how we feel

You Can't Heal an Emotional Wound with Logic
People with high IQ and low EQ tend to use logic to address emotional issues. They may say, "You are not being rational. There is no reason for you to feel the way you do. Let's look at the facts." Businesses, for example, and "professionals" are traditionally out of balance towards logic at the expense of emotions. This tends to alienate people and diminish their potential.

Actually, all emotions do have a basis in reality, and feelings are facts, fleeting though they may be. But trying to dress an emotional wound, with logic tends to either confuse, sadden or infuriate a person. Or it may eventually isolate them from their feelings, with a resulting loss of major part of their natural intelligence."

***
The culture at large is complicit in these games of dominance and manipulation: A culture that believes in 'might makes right' and 'survival of the fittest' isn't going to have much compassion for those who lose at the game of life. Contempt is what you'll get, adding insult to the injury of already having 'failed' in the eyes of so many who look on and judge those of us who, by nature, inclination, temperament, circumstance or some combination thereof, are not suited to 'winning' the so-called game. Particularly if you're a woman, where, in this 'game', you're not even a player, not even on a 'team' at all, but are instead the ultimate object of derision: The ball. To be kicked and abused at will. Merely a means by which the 'teams' compete with one another. You (the woman) in and of yourself have no intrinsic value or merit other than as a means of manipulating the other guy into feeling more or less superior.

The enforcers in this game are the Pshrynks. They take the role of referee, and like all refs, are never truly impartial - they have their favorites, preferences, biases. They see what they want to see. More ideas on how we are blamed for 'playing the victim' by all parties: Beyond the Psychiatric Box.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

stories

It often seems that the stories we tell about who we are are almost as powerful, if not more so, than who we actually are.

I first noticed this while working as an architect in my 20s - the guys I worked with would constantly puff themselves up to look larger than life, bullshitting like there was no tomorrow.

Nobody seemed to notice! I was always dumbfounded by how many people would take them at their word, at face value, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. There was one guy who was a patent shyster, sitting at his desk all day running some kind of personal business, but because his manager liked the guy, it took them years to get rid of him. Men see themselves in other men, and so have sympathy for them, no matter how bad the behavior. But when it comes to having sympathy for women? Not so much. Men see what they want to see, and not what's actually there.

It's almost as if men (not all of them, but many) so admire the very art of bullshitting itself that they're willing to 'suspend disbelief' just for the sheer enjoyment of a good story. Maybe it's a bit like enjoying a magician's tricks, even though you know you're just being fooled.

(Thought for another time: Do people actually like being fooled? Why would that be? I feel like I'm missing something here, something fairly important, but can't get hold of it just now - maybe after some sleep :-)
****
So the thing to do, it seems to me, is to choose a story you like, and tell it well, and consistently, building the details gradually over time in such a way that you can discover which of them are
really you, and which are imaginary, figments, wishful thinking.

I think integrity must be the ability of a person to align who she wishes to be with who she actually is. Or possibly it's the amount of effort she puts toward said alignment, which people with similar levels of integrity can usually perceive. Which means she'll get credit for trying even when she fails, which she inevitably will, being human and all.

indifferent family

People say they love you so that they can maintain their self-image as a loving person. The thing to watch, though, is what they actually do. It's tough when you grow up in a family where there are constant contradictions between what people claim to feel toward you versus what they actually demonstrate with their behavior. You learn to distrust your own perceptions - you become very confused by the constant cognitive dissonance. It's a form of gaslighting, a kind of constant and insidious bullshit that can become such an ingrained part of the fabric of your life that you can no longer perceive it, kind of like the water the fish swims in - she pretty much takes it for granted.

My brother, for example. I think he likes the idea of himself as a magnanimous, generous guy. And successful - that's important too. Because one of the ways people measure their success is by their ability to give away money.

"See? I've got so much money, I can afford to give some away! Look at me, aren't I great?" Puffed chest, broad grin, like the little boy's first time riding a bicycle.

Thing is, they have no awareness whatsoever of the people or person they're 'helping' - it's all about them, as usual. All about maintaining their self-esteem, their sense of self-worth.

It's not about you at all, is it? It's really about them, and them feeling good about themselves. They really couldn't care less if what they do actually helps you - it's like the parent who says, "You'll take what you get and like it," and then the very same parent wonders why, when they're trapped in old age in the old folks home, no one comes to visit them. Selfish jerks.

The trouble is, when your family sometimes does nice things, it keeps you off guard. There's even a name for it: Stockholm syndrome. You're always waiting for that tiny crumb, that little scrap that keeps you trapped there, hoping against hope that all the other times that they were mean, selfish, careless, thoughtless, inconsiderate, rude, unkind - were just blips on the radar. Despite the massive evidence against such hope, it's what keeps us alive, keeps us from jumping off the nearest bridge.

We take that single speck of apparent kindness - such as a superficially friendly word - and weigh it against all the mountains of evidence that say, This person doesn't really care about me, and then we put our thumb on the scales so that we can't see the reality of the imbalance.

Denial is our favorite coping mechanism, or so it seems to me. Those of us who are suicidal, I think we get there because the mountain of evidence against believing that people are inherently kind finally becomes so huge that we can no longer ignore it, no longer avoid the truth. When reality piles up to the point that it completely obscures everything else, it's kind of hard to miss.

Or, as Lily Tomlin put it, "Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it."

If I could do it over again...

I'd tell my dad what I felt. Every single time. No matter what. I wouldn't bottle things up.

And I don't blame myself for being afraid of my parents - all children are afraid of parents who abuse their power to take advantage of a child's inherently trusting nature.

It's all the little things - the incessant scowl no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try to please him.

The laughter when you're hurt or scared or struggling with something - the mockery, the bottomless feeling that you're no good, that they'll never help you, they'll never credit you with anything or show you how to anything that's really important, like how to frickin' survive on this crazy planet.

anger

Anger comes up when things feel unfair.

When things feel unfair and you are completely unable to do anything to change the situation, that's when depression starts, and eventually possibly feelings of suicide.

The suicide is not because you really want to die; it's because you feel trapped and hopeless, and can't find a way out.

People murmur sympathetic noises, but DO nothing. They sit on their hands, watching you sink lower and lower in the water, til just the very tip of your nose is visible.

They say, "I'd help you if I could," comfortably ensconced in their half-million-dollar homes, packing for their next vacation, while you're wondering how the hell you're going to pay your measly $500 rent. Rent? Or electric bill? Which will it be? How much longer can you promise to pay them (while failing to come through with the actual dough) before they finally cut you off?

People in these fancy houses speak of how they're 'pinching pennies'.

I wonder what they mean by this? Yes, maybe they've cut back on their lattes, or only buy a $50 haircut instead of a $75 one.

But in real terms? They give up very little. Yes, they may struggle to pay that outrageous mortgage payment every month, but they pay it, it's worth every penny for the status they get from living in this fancy house in this fancy neighborhood.

It gets so you can't enjoy the smallest thing in life, knowing that every move you make toward pleasure is costing you money that 'should' be put toward the bills.

But how can you live with no pleasure, nothing to look forward to? Answer: You can't.

They say the best things in life are free.

'They', are, as usual, full of shit.

As some *other* 'they' used to say in the old days, TANSTAAFL, or, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

Everything has a cost. Absolutely everything, without exception.
***
You want to be let off the hook. You want to be relieved of your guilty conscience. You want to be appreciated for what you have given (which is lots of time and 'listening' energy, for which I am very grateful.)

However: When it comes down to it, I can't eat these things. I can't wear them, or pay the rent with your sympathetic ear.

I wish you would say, "I won't help you," rather than "I can't help you," which seems to me to be patently, obviously a fiction, an outright lie.

Why am I expected to bolster your ego needs at the same time that I've already swallowed my pride to ask for help in the first place, and have had the humiliation of being turned down?

Because this is the very nature of inequity, unfairness, power imbalance: Those who have it take it for granted; those who don't, suffer. Period. End of story.

The best one can hope for in this dog-eat-dog world is to not be the last dog in the chain.

There's a scene in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies where the pirates pull up in some small boats to visit Tia Dalma, a powerful seer. As they climb single file onto the landing, each one says to the next, "Mind the boat." This continues down the chain 'til the only one left is a guy with no tongue who finds himself lower even than the parrot, who does possess a tongue, as well as an acute ability to mimic whatever's necessary for its survival.

Hm. That last line: "Whatever's necessary for survival."

Have to think about that. The key is to define 'survival', which I think varies as one moves up or down the economic ladder.
***
I'm done letting people off the hook. From here on out, I'm calling them on their shit.

my mother *still* resents

my need for anybody but her.

her need to be the center of somebody's universe - anybody's universe - was so great that it became a vortex that tried to suck me in, tried to consume me.

Any time I tried to express a need of my own, tried to escape, tried to be independent, autonomous - she resented it. Became angry.

By her lights I was selfish and inconsiderate for ever needing anything that didn't benefit her in some way, reflect back on her. Like my achievements with music - it was something she'd always wanted for herself, so when I made some inroads, she fed off that heady wind of success like a crack addict inhaling a snootful (not that I know anything about *that*, just the image that first came to mind.)

She abandoned me when I showed any interest in others; to this day, when I ask about my father, when I asked if she'd make copies of photos she had of him and me together (you know, he died over 20 years ago, and I have almost nothing left of him - much was stolen when I got robbed 10 years ago, and all I have left is a mechanical pencil he used in college, plus somewhere a set of compasses that I used for a little bit myself in my architectural drafting classes)

...she got angry and upset that I wanted the photos because it wasn't about her. Fuck. Like they're competing, long after he's dead, after she's never once, in 20 fucking years asked me how I am, how I feel, how it affected me to have my father die when I was so young. All she can think of is that I'm not asking for pictures of her.

Well, yeah, mom - does it occur to you that dad is dead, that pictures are all I have left of him? Whereas you, you're right here in front of me. Though you might as well not be for all the communication we have.

Her need is so great, and she doesn't see my needs at all.

My needs come to her as a - what - an offense. A crime. As if I am somehow hurting her by needing something that she can't give. As if I am intentionally inflicting mental anguish on her by needing anything at all of my very own, anything at all that has nothing to do with her.

She set me up with a room of my own; she set me up to have the kind of privacy she never experienced growing up in a one-room cinder-block house with two parents and two younger brothers.

She resented me when I shut her out - when I took advantage of all that highly-vaunted secrecy and privacy to actually have some space of my own.

So even though she made the actual, tangible effort, she was never able to make the mental leap that recognized that my experience was different from hers.

She never seemed to be able to grasp that we were not one and the same person - that I was and am a separate being, a separate human with totally separate feelings, needs and desires from her.

Maybe that's where this saying (and behavior?) of 'It's not all about you' comes from - those of us who think it's 'all about us' grew up with parents (or at least one parent) who acted exactly this way.

In other words, the parent could not see us as separate. They constantly blurred, or ignored entirely, the line between 'me' and 'she', such that there was no line. There was no boundary, no border, no separation.

****
Now, after all this time, I think she finally doesn't care any more. Or, she does what all children of alcoholics do: Blocks it from her mind. Pretends it never happened. See no evil, speak no evil, whatever. Denial and dissociation are techniques I *should* have learned from her as a cradle language. Or maybe I did, it's just that now I choose them consciously as ways to deal with old emotions until the right conditions are available for me to finally cope with things the way I actually need to.

finding the missing pieces

of a childhood that was devoid of the emotional and spiritual substance and sustenance that I needed.

Fuck you if you think that's too touchy-feely and Newage-y (pronounced like 'sewage'-y). Girl's gotta grow the way she's gotta. No two ways. I'm a sunflower, and I'm a-bloomin', and you can't fucking stop me. So there. Neener neener. All obstacles will be flattened by my own personal Mack truck, or, alternatively, a sledgehammer. Doubters are not welcome here.

still trying to throw off the shackles

of a repressed, middle-class, suburban childhood.

Met a kid the other day (late teens, early 20s? Can't tell any more, in my dotage :-) who was absolutely covered from head to foot in tattoos, had the hugest ear-piercings you've ever seen (you know, the kind that look painful, like you could throw a basketball through them?)

He was incredibly open about everything, blabbed non-stop about his fake/phony black rappa/gangsta 'accent' (which I poked a little indirect fun at him for since he looks, aside from the tattoos, like an average, middle-class white kid). He took the indirect comment at face value and said, "Yeah, people think I'm a phony. Even I think I sound phony. But I can't help it - it's what I grew up with, and I slip back into it when I get comfortable with people."

He also told me about what has to be the weirdest, most unbelievable phobia I've ever heard of: Fear of being a certain distance from home???!!?? WTF! I think he was messing with me. But, whatever. It made a good story :-)

I think I was impressed that, by his still obviously wet-behind-the-ears age, he seems to have already made some of the mistakes that most of us don't get to make until we're long out of the nest and have no one to rescue us any more. It's like, he's fucked up so bad and in so many ways that he bottomed out (or possibly, touched bottom?) in a way that seems to have really grounded him in his own sense of self - of who he is and what he wants from life.

I'm so freaking JEALOUS!!!! What I wouldn't give to have a Tom Sawyer phase, a phase where I'm that grubby, grimy little boy who gets to go everywhere and do anything just because I damn well please and because every man who sees me sees a little of himself as that boy, and gives him a hand along because he knows what it's like to be that boy.

giver vs. taker

Niggling thought which may explore later, just trying to capture it before it escapes -

Thinking of this woman who works at the convenience store. Always irritated that she makes no attempt to be friendly to me. I try all kinds of things - jokes, ignoring her, aggressive friendliness, silence, what have you. Nothing works. She's impervious.

The thought knocking at my brain comes from re-reading my 'conditional love' post, and having this flashing thought that maybe people resent it when you need something from them, even the need to be appreciated!

So it's sort of like, if I do something in order to be appreciated, they resent having to appreciate me. If I'm nice to them, or try to get them to like me, they resent it.

Hm. Not sure if I can unravel this one just now.

And it also occurs to me that not everyone is like this.

I also noticed that this lady was really friendly one day when I came in in my black gig clothes, fresh from a gig. Who knows if the two things were related, but my brain is constantly working away at these little 'patterns', trying to solve them, trying to make sense of them, work them out. There are times when I wish I could find a switch to shut the damn thing off, but it seems to be such an indelible (?) part of my nature that I've just about given up on the fight and just spend my energy letting that be part of the flow of who I am. Two-edged swords and all that...(meaning that it's both a feature and a bug - I learned to do this to survive my non-communicative and unresponsive parents, and now I 'use' this brain function all the time, whether I want to or not. Constantly seeking the patterns that never existed with my parents. Seeking that predictability, that 'explanation' that makes it all suddenly make sense. Order out of chaos and whatnot.)
***

Feels like I'm responsible for everything that happens. Instead of seeing it as a flow, a give and take, with people like this who remind me of my mother in their unresponsiveness to me, I get caught in that same pattern of trying to please them.

Well, maybe I can just stop giving a shit. Or, I give a shit, but I don't *do* anything about it. Like I feel the feeling come up, but I just go (in zen fashion), "Oh, there's that feeling again. How nice." Then I let it go, and say, Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.

But really I'm not angry at the feeling, I'm angry at having grown up with a mother (and a father, too, though in a different way) who were so clueless, so unconcerned, distant, uninvolved.

It was as if I had nothing to do with them, I was this - jeez, I can't even describe the feeling. I don't like any of the words and images that are coming to mind. They piss me off.

I want to move on from this, replace these painful ideas and images with something that feels good, that makes me happy to contemplate.
***

Maybe she just finally feels like she 'knows' me well enough to be friendly. Since I always came in during the day at random times, she seemed to assume that I don't work, or something?! When I finally explained (not that she asked, I was just sick of being treated like some rich bum) that I'm a musician and I mostly work nights and weekends, she seemed a little friendlier.

It also reminds me of a little exchange at the cash register at the local shi-shi organic grocery a few weeks back - I was again wearing my musician's black, and had hoped to change before going shopping so that I wouldn't look like an oddball, but had no good place to change (other than the car) and didn't have the time or energy to hunt for someplace. So I said fuck it, I need a couple of things here, fuck these people and their bullshit intolerance of anybody who's not dressed *exactly* the way they are - REI, Eddie Bauer, Gap, whatever. What.EVER. Fuck!

So I'm standing there in line, getting my purchases totted up by the cashier, and to make conversation I ask this lady next in line (who was radiating an icy, unapproachable air) if those were grass seeds on her shirt. (And I admit I'm drawn irresistibly to these people - as if I get them to crack a smile, to open up to me in some way. I have to make some dent in their facade, make an impression, get them to notice me. Ah - layers. The onion, she hab many, many layah. Ah, so, grasshoppah.)

Now admittedly this is probably not the all-time winner in the tactful question department, but I was curious, and I figured anybody bold enough to go around with their gardening clothes on wouldn't mind. Must be pretty self-confident, right?

But no. She came back with this crack about "not feeling any need to dress up to go grocery shopping".

Picture me befuddled. WTF???

It wasn't til I was out in the car that I realized that maybe she thought I'd dressed up to go shopping!!! That maybe she thought, that I thought, that wearing all black to the grocery store was cool and hip.

Wow.

That's when my brain starts hurting, starts overheating.

Even now, in retrospect, I'm still trying to figure it out.

Like, was she maybe feeling a little bristly and defensive at having made the choice to go shopping without changing her shirt? And so she took a pot shot at me assuming that I was trying to make her feel bad?

Truly, I was only curious. I couldn't quite see that far, and at first couldn't figure out what those little specks were on her shirt. I realized they weren't a printed-on pattern, and then suddenly it came to me that they were those little burrs that you get from walking through tall grass.

I was so pleased with my deduction that I just had to find out if I was right, but she was standing far enough away (and seemed to be trying to keep her distance from me) that I couldn't really tell. So I just asked. And got slammed for my question!

It occurs to me also that her keeping her distance may partly have been that she assumed I was 'dressed up' to go shopping (my god, the very notion that we have to be so concerned about what we wear just in order to go fucking shopping makes my head hurt. Jesus FUCKING christ. Get a GRIP, people. This shit does not matter!!!!! To have to calibrate so closely, so perfectly, what I'm wearing so that I blend seamlessly into every environment I pass through, even if it's only for the briefest instant. Maybe it's part of the whole classist thing? AAAAAAAaaaaaagggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! Get me out of here!!!!!!!)

Then I found myself wishing I'd said to her that I was a musician and this was my gig clothing, but she could have denied that she was making any comment about my appearance. Fuck. Endless loops. And this was fucking weeks ago.

Classist bullshit. I fucking hate it.

kid with her nose pressed against the candy shop window

always on the outside looking in.

Someone on a feminist blog just put her finger on it for me. She said that a prominent feminist blogger "loathes being a woman and suffers a bit from penis-envy. Can’t say as I blame her. It’s hard to be a woman living under patriarchy."

I think she hit the nail on the head. And it resonated because I feel that way.

I grew-up in a male-dominated family with only brothers and no emotional connections with any of the women in my life - not my mother, not my aunts, not my grandmothers. My mother had only one female friend, and that relationship was quite distant and short-lived.

My mother used me as her emotional prop right from the beginning; when she wasn't turning to me for comfort or 'wisdom' (when I got old enough to talk), she saw me as her best buddy and confidante. And then she'd turn on me any time I failed to be any of those things...confusingly competing with me at the same time she expected me to be her best bud. No wonder my head is so fucked up about women.

I related more to my dad - more logical, more math-oriented, more of a problem-solver. Just like me. Easier to deal with, more predictable, even if an asshole. (Jeez, I sound like a guy!)

But I was a girl. My dad wouldn't let me into his world (any more than mom would let me in to hers - she claimed that she was 'sparing' me from the chores girls always had to do, but what it really felt like was that I was being shut out of her world so she could have some space for herself. And then she wonders why I never liked her much.)

So I had no place in the family. I was the fifth wheel, the one with no use, no purpose, except to get periodically yelled at or lectured by my dad for - what - failing to be male??? seemed to be his basic gripe. I tried to basically disappear by sitting around reading all the time, just like he did. There seemed to be some safe camaraderie in that. And as soon as I was old enough, I was gone a lot playing music. There was nothing for me at home - it was an empty spot, a hole where my safe zone should be. I took to reading late at night, falling asleep on the couch, because it was the only way I could keep myself from noticing how lonely and isolated I felt with my own family. I just simply felt like I didn't belong, like nobody wanted me.

I remember dad used to carry me upstairs to bed for a while when I was little when I would fall asleep on the couch reading. Then I distinctly remember one night where he decided not to, and never did it again - I think he woke me up and asked if I was going to bed, or maybe if I wanted to be carried? and I said no, I was going to read a little longer. And then he never asked me again, and I felt distinctly abandoned.

What is it with parents and putting their own hurt feelings ahead of understanding that children need to go their own way in order to be allowed to grow up? How do they expect us to actually become adults if we're always having to put our own parents' emotional needs ahead of our own? Some seriously fucked up shit there. 'Course dad was probably only in his early 30s at that point. No excuse, but men are pretty clueless, relationship-wise, until at least in their late 40s. They rarely begin to 'get it', at all, until they're in their 50s or later. Something to do with testosterone levels dropping off, I s'pose. Man-o-pause.

***
As I child I never had close female friends - we moved too often, always right at the moment when I was beginning to settle in. I realized this the other day - we moved five times before I was 7 years old! I think I got a bit gun-shy, and since this was the sort of thing my parents would never have thought of, considered, noticed or discussed, it went underground and just became one of those invisible 'patterns' in my life that I didn't unearth for decades.

I had a couple of really good friends in junior high, but they both left suddenly in 9th grade - one moved to the east coast with her family and the other just - disappeared. I can't even remember the details, I just remember feeling abandoned and alone and not having the strength to start again.

I eventually did find a few casual friends in high school, including one friend who was a bookworm like me, and with whom I went bike-riding and had a few other adventures.

But we were never as close as I was with the junior high school friends, they were actually GOOD friends. The high-school friend was, well, a bit of a jerk, to be honest. Her parents were rich, her brothers were weird, her father was a patriarchal, misogynist asshole and her mother was the typical smiley, passive, stay-at-home wife. Bleh.

Wow, just when you think all the crawlies have emerged from under the rocks, you discover still more yet to be revealed...

I think what I'm saying is that I never formed strong connections with women, at any time in my life. I had a chance to do it in jr. high, and got started along that road, but circumstances beyond my control kicked me out of that safe, warm place and found me alone again, stranded alongside the road. Yet another abandonment.

And fuck you if you think I'm making too big a deal about it. My youngest brother was born shortly before we moved into the house my mom lives in now; as far as he's concerned, he lived in the same place for 16 years before dad died. So yes, he's had his share of rough knocks, but he also started out with some significant stability that I never experienced. Something there about growing deep roots that allow you to withstand the later winds of fate. Those of us that were never allowed to grow deep roots - either emotional or physical - are much more subject to being knocked over by those gale-force winds of chance.

There's also something about how mom always sucked up to the men in her family - including her own sons - knowing that they're the ones she'll be dependent on later in life. And yet at the same time she expects me to be her sole-source emotional supporter. While simultaneously throwing me under the bus emotionally, financially, in every real way you can possibly imagine. And at the same time acting like we're best buddies.

Is it any wonder I'm so confused?

I still can't really wrap my head around all this or articulate very clearly how simply betrayed I feel, by my entire family, over and over and over again. My little brother tried to make it up to me for a while, in various ways, but I think he got overwhelmed by how much unfairness there is and how extremely angry I am about it.

validation

I've always disliked that word, 'validation' - it reminds me too much of the big machine that goes 'clunk' and stamps your parking ticket. Like I've been slammed in the head by some smarmy, patronizing, phony-ass shrink's bullshit. Sigh.

But the grain of truth is that we all need validation. We need it like water and air.

It's another one of those invisible things where people who get plenty of it take it completely for granted and never have to think about it; while people who never get enough always feel like there's something wrong with them and wonder how to fix it. Kind of like how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

It's like my same old analogy of a plant blaming itself for not getting enough rain. WTF, is what you should be saying. Uh huh - blaming ourselves for not getting enough validation is like a plant blaming itself for not being located in a place where enough rain falls.

Yeah. Crazy shit. But that's what shrinks and self-help gurus tell us: That we're responsible for our own validation or lack thereof.

Bullshit. The only difference between us and the plants is that we have legs, and can move ourselves to a spot where there's more rain. Or validation, as the case may be.

I got to thinking about this while hunting for a quote about making mistakes being compared to the continuous course corrections that an airplane's autopilot makes. Here's a link I found that quotes it, plus a bonus story about how Thomas Edison had to try 10,000 different elements before he found one that would make his lightbulb light up:

Thomas Edison once mentioned to reporters that he had tried over 10,000 materials as filaments for his new invention, the electric light bulb. One reporter asked how the young inventor maintained his persistence in the face of so much failure. “Failure?” he responded. “I didn't fail. What I did was successfully eliminate 10,000 elements which were unacceptable for my needs.” What most people would call failure, Edison saw as the process of invention.

The ability to accept so-called failure simply as information and then make corrections without self-invalidation is rare. However, it is a critical key to success. Accepting defeat or criticism is never easy, but it is those people who take feedback and make corrections who create lasting success.

Everyone fails. Everyone makes mistakes and has painful experiences. Most people just complain about them, justify them or blame someone else. The self-actualized person learns from them, adjusts, and goes on. No self-condemnation. No pity parties. No blame. Just awareness and correction. It’s not what happens to us but rather what we do with what happens to us that makes the difference.

How do we make corrections without self-invalidation? Here’s an example: If we were to fly to a distant city, our flight would be off course more than 90 percent of the time. Constant feedback and correction would be required to reach our intended destination. As we drift off course, the guidance system reports to the autopilot, and the autopilot makes the necessary adjustments. As our altitude drops or increases slightly, the same thing occurs. This feedback and correction cycle continues over and over again hundreds of thousands of times throughout the course of our flight.

****
I was sitting there nodding my head as usual, going, yeah, right, glass half full vs. glass half empty. Sure. Positive thinking. It's all in your head.

And then I remembered, just before I got sucked (once again) into the bullshit meme-land of shrinks and self-helpers everywhere, that we don't in fact have control over everything that happens in our lives.

Whew, almost got me there!

So, ok. Validation is like rain. Rain falls where it wants to.

Validation is like rain because we don't have any control over where or when or how much of it falls on us.

So if we're not getting enough validation, we have to go somewhere where we get more of what we need.

Now, this seems simple. But remember that humans only learn how to do these things if their environments teach them how to do it. If your environment doesn't teach you, you most likely won't learn it.

Sure, you may randomly stumble on a book or movie that shows how a particular idea works, but most of us are experience-based creatures - that is, we only learn these behavioral patterns by actually going through them. It's the rare human who can learn something just by hearing about it. Most people have to be shown repeatedly, sometimes violently. Many people simply cannot learn new things once the initial 'imprint' has been laid down. It may simply require a certain amount of intelligence. Not to mention motivation.

Anyway. So my point with all this is that those of us who have been socialized to perceive ourselves as failures will be far more likely to be subject to feelings of guilt and shame any time something goes wrong. We've been 'wired' to take the hit, take the blame, take responsibility, regardless of whether we had anything to do with it. It's like when you see that cop car's lights flashing in your rear-view mirror and you wonder what you've done wrong, even if you haven't done anything wrong. We get this kind of built-in 'guilt reaction' that kicks in just because we've been yelled at so many times or falsely accused that it puts us a little off-balance all the time - we're always a little susceptible to being accused of something that we didn't do.

So.

How to change this wiring? BTSOM, as my dad used to say (beats the sh*t out of me. Nice, eh?)

But seriously, I think all a person can do is try to get aware of every time that little voice in your head goes "you're no good, you're a fuckup, let's watch you mess this one up". It's like they set up little trip wires and booby traps and obstacle courses all around you to the point where you're afraid to move for fear of making a mistake.

Whew. Exhausting to even walk through all that again.

So. Overwrite the sons-a-bitches, don't let the bastards get you down. Tell them to shut the fuck up (even if only inside your own head). Don't let them win. Call them on it every single time they try to undermine you or make you feel bad about yourself.

And maybe, eventually, you'll relax a little and have some moment's like ol' Tom had, happily tinkering away in his workshop making a million 'mistakes' a minute and never worrying a bit about it.

Why? Because he was learning. Constantly. Every single thing he did taught him something new, and he was able to learn from each thing and put it to use because he didn't have that constant, nagging voice of shame echoing inside his head telling him that he was a 'failure, failure, failure.'

Shut up, voice-in-my-head. You're on notice.

for the record

Ok, so here I'm going to copy verbatim some text from a book called Stalking the Soul.

I feel like I spend half my life (or at least, half of my life in the last 10 years or so) gathering 'evidence' against my family's belief in silence, in might makes right, in sticks and stones, sink or swim, suffering builds character, etc. etc. Or fill in the blank with your own personal favorite aphorism.

In case I forget about this book later on, here's some text from it that captures almost exactly what I experienced (and continue to experience) from my family.

Why, you may ask, do I feel the need to copy somebody else's writing? Because it's evidence, as I say, that I'm not just making this up or overreacting or just trying to get attention. All of which I've been accused of at various times while trying to make my case, make myself heard, get recognition, acknowledgment, comfort, appreciation, what have you, you name it. (What do I win if I manage to write an post consisting entirely of catch-phrases? Never mind, don't answer that.)

This writing shows that somebody else feels exactly the way I do about it. Which means not only that I'm a) not alone, but b) I'm RIGHT. I'm fucking right. So neener neener, stick than in your pipe and shove it up your ... oh, wait, that's not how it goes. Sorry.

So with all that ado, here's the text (p.96):

Abusive individuals evade a direct question when it is asked. Because they won't talk, one ascribes wisdom and grace to them. One enters a world with little verbal communication and vague unsettling remarks. Everything is suggested but never said outright. A shrug of the shoulders or a sigh will suffice. The victim tries to understand: "What have I done to him? Why is he reproachful?" And because nothing is actually said, anything becomes cause for blame.

Denial, whether of reproach or conflict on the aggresor's part, paralyzes the victim, who cannot defend herself. Abuse is perpetrated by the refusal to acknowledge what is happening [emphasis mine], discuss the situation, or jointly find solutions. [Family: Please make a note of this. This means YOU.]

If the conflict were out in the open, discussion would be possible and a solution might be forged. Within the scope of abusive communication, however, one must above all prevent the other person from thinking, understanding or reacting. An effective way of aggravating the conflict is avoiding dialogue [family? Looking at you again], which silently imputes blame on the other person. The victim is refused the right to be heard. [emphasis mine again. Damn, I could have written this whole thing, not so eloquently or dispassionately, to be sure. But the feelings? Every damn one is right on the money.]

Her version of the facts doesn't interest the abusive individual, who won't listen. [Wow, there sure are a lot of people like this. And even those who pretend to listen often don't care, they just want to seem like they're good people.]

This refusal of dialogue is a way of saying, without directly epressing it in words, that the other person does not interest the aggressor or that she doesn't even exist. [ow :-( ] With anyone else one can ask questions if one doesn't understand, but with abusers discourse is tortuous and unclear and can only lead to mutual alienation [emph. mine].

conditional 'love'

The small intestine is where the body begins the process of sorting good from bad in terms of the absorption of food. The unwanted 'junk' gets sent to other parts (kidney, liver, etc.) to be filtered out and eventually eliminated from the body.

But what happens when this mechanism gets confused? When there's some kind of meddling with the sorting process, interference - where somehow bad gets classified as good, and good as bad? This confusion can happen when the body gets too much junk food and has to try to find tiny crumbs (literally) of goodness out of a pile of bad stuff.

When there is too much 'non food', the body (and the mind - only Westerners split them apart in this unnatural way) becomes sick. (Maybe I should just start calling it the 'being', and skip over such convoluted westernisms such as 'bodymind' and other argh-y English-mangulating crap. Anyway...)

In eastern medicine, there's a psychic/metaphysical component to this as well: It's where our 'gut' instinct for sorting good from bad in our lives also occurs. Bad people, bad vibes, bad situations, etc. There's literally a whole separate set of wiring in the gut that makes it like an entire, separate brain from the one in the head (though of course they're connected, as all things are). In fact some would argue that it's the more powerful of the two 'brains', that it's the one that really runs the show, the back seat driver of the psyche, being the one that's been in existence the longest - the lizard brain.

So I'm sitting here noticing this, and wondering, Why does my gut hurt? What's happening that I need to be paying attention to?

And I realize that it's to do with the fact that unless I'm actively feeding somebody (metaphorically, as in emotionally) I can't feed myself.

Working my way back from that: I was a really smart little kid, with a really, really needy mom (emotionally, that is).

So she had this giant need, a huge vortex kind of like an emotional vacuum cleaner, sucking around at everything nearby trying to get what it needed.

And here I am, this newborn baby, trying to get my needs met.

What I learned was, the only way to get mom to pay attention to me was if I took care of her. Otherwise, I was just this pain-in-the-ass, noisy, smelly thing that made big messes and stressed her out.

So it became my job to become the 'good' baby, to be quiet and peaceful and never disrupt my mom's equilibrium.

I basically disappeared. I was complicit in my own virtual (?) erasure, making my needs invisible so that I could actually survive at all. As soon as I expressed a need of any kind - poopy diaper, hungry crying, needing to be picked up, falling down and needing a boo-boo kissed - there was this angry, scowling, critical face, making it all my fault. All my fault that her life had become this endless round of cleaning and tidying and chasing after some ungrateful two-year-old who couldn't take care of herself. Damn babies, anyway!

So now I carry this pattern along in my adult life: I feel that unless I'm actively helping somebody in my environment, that I have no value whatsoever. So I'm constantly (at a subconscious level) trying to feed other people: Make them laugh, help them solve a problem, make sure that the thing they need is sitting there waiting for them almost like magic, so they don't even realize I've done it for them.

And of course they took it for granted, since I never once demanded any payment or recompense - I was just this silent, perfect, needs-meeting device.

Well, I tell ya WHAT, it fuckin' SUCKS (literally), and I ain't doin' it no more.

****
But the bigger problem is, how to keep this from happening in my daily life? I can often see the pattern in retrospect, after it's too late, it's already happened, I've already set up a pattern of interaction with somebody that establishes me as the 'giver' and them as the 'taker'.

I've become more and more conscious of this over the years, and have become very angry about it at times, becoming angry with the other person for taking advantage of me.

But what is it in me that allows, or insists, that I behave this way?

I contend that it was that early, unconscious (subconscious?) training by my mother to put her needs ahead of my own or else I'd be treated totally like shit. Like I was an evil being, to be reviled and treated with contempt.

And of course my mother wouldn't remember any of this - I never called her on it, not til many, many years later (like, in my 40s) when I finally felt strong enough to stand up to her, unwilling to accept her silent threats of disapproval (and oh how powerful a parent's disapproval can be! Don't tell me it hasn't powered the entire lifetime of most of the people of the planet - the eternal search for the parental 'smile' that one never got as a child. That unconditional acceptance, that most important component of love of all: Mutual respect.)

So now I see how it plays out in current relationships, but sometimes it's exhausting to be so aware, so conscious of every little detail of every interaction. It's like learning to speak a second language - it never flows freely from some unwilled place, but rather constantly requires effort, the struggle to make oneself heard and understood.

What I want to know is, how come so few people ever engage in this process of self-reflection and self-knowledge? Answer has to be: Because they don't have to. Because, for whatever reason, they manage to survive, are able to get enough of what they need from life, without ever having to change a hair on their heads.

How the fuck does everybody else get away with this, but I cannot?

who's got your back?

People ask me over and over again, "So, why did you quit architecture?" I've never really been satisfied with my answers - they always left something missing. I think I may have finally hit on one that seems to capture the truth: Nobody ever had my back.

Over all those years, with all those projects and all those working relationships and connections and interdependencies and you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yourses, only one manager ever had my back. But he wasn't there long, and after that, I never had a similar relationship. They were all looking out for number one, ready to drop me like a hot rock the instant they saw a better option. They were fickle, unreliable, unpredictable, undependable. Huh, reminds me a lot of my parents...

He was the very first one (manager, that is), and even he tried to torpedo me initially, until I stood up to him. I never let his first salvo get past me, though it took everything I had to do it. I've always wondered if he even realized he was testing me, or if it's just an unconscious thing guys do to anybody new. (Just read somewhere, in some random Google search, a line something like, "As soon as he knows you'll accept that first lie, he knows he has you. You're his forevermore." Are men really that simple-minded??????

Never mind - please don't answer that question. I don't really want to know.
***

A woman in a male-dominated world finds there is no safe place to stand - there are piranhas everywhere, every potential ally will turn and gobble you up if it looks to be to his advantage. Women are no better, and in fact are often worse: There's so little support, and so much competition to get even a token spot in this world of good ol' boys, that most women will gladly throw another woman under the bus to climb even a fraction of an inch higher on the ladder.

Argh, this isn't where I really wanted to go with this.

I wanted to link the 'no one having your back' idea with having that same feeling in my family.

And also realizing that you can never climb very high on the ladder of power if the desire for power itself isn't a big motivator.

we learn to relate to others

the same way we learn language: By hearing it over and over and over again from the people we grow up with.

It is learned at such a deep level that it is mostly unconscious.

Many parents try to instill more conscious messages, hence the litany of 'shoulds' many of us can recite from childhood. Some of them have actual words, like the "Suffering builds character" my father was so fond of. Many of them are just feelings, that get triggered every time a similar situation comes along - the feeling of shame when you even hear someone being mocked, for example, bringing back the burning ears and sick-to-the-stomach feeling of wishing the earth would open and swallow you up. Or flinching when you see that same glare of utter contempt on a mother's face that looks just like the one you saw so may times when you were little. They can bring you to your knees with a glance, a scowl, a word. We are so craven, you see, we're all really just little children inside, never having grown up, never having been loved well enough, we seek, crave, long for that acceptance, word of praise, glance of appreciation that we never got. Such simple things, yet so hard to find, as unreachable (or so it sometimes seems) as the moon.
***

My brothers think this shit is lame; that I'm being pathetic, a whiner, a sissy.

The thing is, they got both sides of the coin - the mocking, plus the knowing that eventually, being men, they'd get to be part of the mocker's club themselves.

Me, on the other hand, being the girl, and the oldest, knew all along that I was never going to get to join that elite club. I watched mom be a doormat over and over again, disappearing from rooms at the slightest sign of conflict or unpleasantness. She always managed to be elsewhere when the shit hit. No wonder she has no memory of any of it, and imagines my childhood to have been entirely peaceful and pleasant: She wasn't there.

Let me repeat that, for emphasis: She wasn't there.

Oh yes, her body was there often enough, washing clothes and cooking and cleaning; but mentally? Emotionally? She was totally checked out. She was on some other planet, some safe place between her ears that had no connection whatsoever with my personal reality. In fact, she almost never checked in; never sent messages; never asked me how I was doing. She really just didn't know. Because she wasn't there.

Wow. No matter how many ways I stumble on this little 'gem' of truth (barking shins and stubbing toes each time), I'm still dumbfounded by this realization.

It's as if my mind (and human minds in general, I don't think this is something unique to me) simply cannot process the idea of a mother this disconnected, this dissociated, this uninvolved. It's as if the organism would cease to function. As if a tree discovered that it's own roots were trying to strangle it, or like that Twilight Zone episode where this guy's hand becomes possessed and he tries to strangle himself.

It's just so unnatural, so completely contrary to everything nature evolved us to be, that it just simply does not compute.

I imagine I can come back to this in a few hours or days or weeks and marvel, yet again, at this revelation; it will always seem fresh, because it is so shocking. And potentially devastating.

So how to keep it from repeatedly shutting me down? Well, I think that's what dissociation is for. Taking that which is impossible to deal with (at least, single-handedly, without help from another, understanding soul)

immediately,

on re-reading the previous, I am shocked and appalled by the language at the end. How quickly the parental voices step in to overwrite, edit and negate. I almost deleted it, edited it out; but why? Who am I protecting? If someone sees these words, someone who knows me, will they be shocked? Hurt? Repulsed?

And do I care? Because, if said person were involved enough in my life to have been privy to these feelings in the first place, I might never have had to have the feelings.

Does that make sense? In other words, if there'd ever been someone around who cared enough for me to talk at all about any of this stuff, it would never have accumulated into this giant, mooshed-together mountainous blob of stuff that's too big for anybody to deal with, let alone little old me with my tiny, rusty, bent-handled teaspoon. I do my best, but still.

It's about the layers, baby. First there's a layer of grief; then a layer of anger. Then a layer of sandstone - no, wait, that's shale, the oil-bearing strata. Never mind.

So then after the anger, there's another layer of grief, then a giggle, then something completely different. You see, they're all compressed there together, like growth rings, or maybe it really is like shale, where millions of years worth of layer upon layer upon infinite layer of organic debris is compressed, gradually, by its own weight (and the weight of hundreds of tons of rock on top of that) into this entirely new substance that is no longer the leaves, or any one thing - it's this gloopy, sticky, tarry, undifferentiated mass (for some reason I find myself thinking of that moment in Ghostbusters where Bill Murray is trying to shake some ectoplasm off his fingers and saying, "It slimed me," in a voice of complete and utter disgust).

The weight? My mother. Or, more accurately, her disregard for my feelings. I think it's that that translated into the 'lead' feeling - the sense that she was actually sitting on me, in some way, sitting on my feelings, blocking them by her very disregard. That her disinterest, in and of itself, was this sort of force that dammed the feelings up inside me (erg, just had 'talk to the hand' pop into my head, yuck, massive cultural disrespect meme, blech, yuck, get it off me).

It's this force that I've internalized, this resistance, this - blockage? Disrespect? Trying to find the right word. It's as if I have to pry her loose from me, shove her away, disconnect her, break her hold on my mind/body/psyche/spirit. I keep having the image of Sigourney Weaver in Aliens pop into my head, the parasite bursting out of her body cavity. The metaphor of the eggs being laid inside her body is not lost on me - the parent can lay the 'eggs', sow the seeds of discontent, by how they treat you.

This is crucial, understanding this almost Pavlovian mechanism by which we learn to relate to other humans: It is entirely unconscious, entirely unwilled. It is entirely situational and circumstantial; think of the child raised by wolves who thinks he's a wolf even though his arms a legs clearly differ from his wolf 'brothers and sisters'. The human mind is infinitely adaptable (which, of course, can be both a feature and a bug). The fact that we can adapt means that we often do adapt, even if it's not in our long-term best interests to do so. The organism simply responds to its environment the way it learned to over many millions of years of trial and error. The ultimate survival mechanism.

Next layer

of the onion, that is.

So, peeling away here, in my layer-y fashion, I find guilt underneath the shame.

Guilt that I screwed up, guilt that I did something wrong.

Guilt that it's my fault that people go away, that they leave me behind, helpless and hopeless, terrified, scared witless, frightened beyond any capacity to cope or function.

It's astonishing that I manage to function in the adult world at all sometimes, given how often this mute terror grabs me from behind like the undertoad and sucks me into the watery emotional underworld of panic and despair.

I try so hard to find out what I did wrong, I tie myself in the most amazing Gordian mental and emotional knots trying to retrace my steps and play a sort of reverse, deconstructionist chess game trying to second guess what might have worked if only I had known.

But growing up with what I grew up with, there was never any going back, never any strategy for repair or mending of bridges; never any healing or consolement; only the icy cold of abandonment and neglect, the flat, featureless, frightening grayness of a world with no emotional color.

I remember several times when I was really sick (as a kid) and had been lying in bed for several days and it had been quite a while since anybody had checked on me.

I felt this leadenness overtake my limbs - literally, as if my blood was turning to lead while I was lying there and I couldn't move. "How curious," I thought to myself, fascinated (and terrified) by this further weirdness (the mind can go weird places anyway when you're already sick; this seemed like just another possible deviation that I hadn't yet experienced. Also, when you grow up reading Dr. Seuss and Rudyard Kipling and Alice in Wonderland and Edgar Allan Poe, it's really no wonder if your mind is more comfortable with the strange than with the so-called 'normal'. Really, I never had a chance at anything remotely resembling 'normal'. I now approach 'normalcy' the way a drag queen approaches her makeup: With a sense of adventure and excitement and a chill of the secret pleasure of having 'gotten away with something' when I manage, somehow, to actually 'pass'.)

Anyway - I'm thinking now, in retrospect, that the leadenness was the literal feeling, in my body, of cutting off, of abandonment. As if my very molecules, or something, were actually changing, somehow, to try to shut out the unwanted feelings that I was unable to cope with alone. (I wonder if that's one of the times I need to go back to somehow, to reconnect with having a whole body, a whole spirit? To remember what it was like before my feelings got split off?)

This leaden state I think was a precursor to true dissociation - I think I felt that first few times as a literally bodily state, where my body, with its horrible and noxious feelings - eewwww - became this wooden, disconnected thing. Not 'me'. Of course I didn't think of it that way at the time - it was more like a sort of disconnected feeling of watching myself disappear, of feeling my body become so immobile, from having lain still waiting forever in hopelessness for someone, anyone, to show up and perform the normal adult caretaker behavior of giving a shit.

But nobody ever showed up, and it became like that game where you hold your breath to see how long you can go without passing out. As I lay there, motionless, I began to lose contact with various bits of my body - as if I were paralyzed, as if my body had literally become lead and lost all feeling, losing even the physical sense (proprioception?) of where one's arms and legs are in space. I was just these disembodied thoughts, floating around nebulously like some science fiction creature. Nobody cared; nobody noticed. I think I may have tried to explain the feeling to my mom, but of course she wasn't interested - she just thought I was trying to 'get attention'. Fuck, yeah, you fucking moron - ATTENTION. Fucking PAY ATTENTION TO ME! That's your fucking JOB as a fucking PARENT, you clueless piece of shit! Stop trying to fucking GUILT me for wanting what EVERY NORMAL CHILD TAKES AS A MATTER OF COURSE, AS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT.

Fuck. Did I say that already? Let me say it again: Fucking fuckity fuck fuck FUCK. Fucking stupid-ass pieces of SHIT. Is it too late to send them back, to exchange them for some real parents? Some parents who actually CARE????

if anger turned inward is depression

then anguish turned inward is shame.

That's my new contention.

I was sitting here (lying here, actually) crying, working through some old stuff, and I felt my face going into that shape you see on small infants who are really howling their guts out. You know the face - little mouth stretched as wide as it can go, eyes scrunched, making as much sound as possible. Howling.

And then I felt my lower lip start to go into that shape that I think of as being beyond the howling phase, when the baby has been left to cry for too long and has begun to enter that stage of despair, of losing hope. Where she has no belief that her caretaker will ever return for her, she's been abandoned, left alone to die. The wolves will eat her. She is terrified, distraught, and so full of fear that she begins to shut down. This is when the exhaustion sets in; in self-defense, her little limbs curl up, all energy leaves her body, and she assumes that curled-inward fetal position so familiar to those witnessing someone in major self-protection mode.

There's nobody there for her; no one she can trust. So she does the only thing she has left to do: Retreats from the world into the safety of sleep, where these fears no longer overwhelm her.

Of course, there's always the lovely nightmares. Do infants have nightmares? I know I started having them around age three, and had them more or less continuously throughout my life until the brief period when I had a consistent partner to curl up with every night, and then, more recently, I've had some nightmare-free stretches as I seem to have released some of the old demons by creating a safe enough time and place in which to face them down and let them go.

But I still have bad patches. Since the panic attacks early last year, I've taken to falling asleep in the wee hours with the lights on, as if waiting til it's almost light out will keep me from falling down the black hole again.

It's worked, more or less - no more panic attacks, yay! But has also wreaked serious havoc with any semblance of a 'normal' sleep schedule. But, hey, I'm doing what I have to do, and it's not hurting anybody, and it sure as heck is helping me, so FUCK that 'normal' shit. Girl's gotta do what she's gotta do.

Long-term solutions

So, if you tell somebody, someone who claims to love you, over and over and OVER again that you're miserable and terrified and suffering and lonely and have no one to turn to, that you've been having panic attacks and are afraid you're going to DIE,

and after all that, after all that intense outpouring of fear and rage and misery, they then proceed to

not call you or check on you in any way shape or form

for the next several MONTHS?

And if they ever do call, there's no, "Hi, how are you?" There's no subtle sussing around for a way to help. There's always resentment, and anger, and irritation that you're so fucking needy and pathetic. That you can't just fucking get your shit together.

And then they're all fucking walking-on-egg-shells, because they don't fucking GET that what you fucking need is fucking HELP and for somebody to SHOW that they fucking GIVE A FUCKING SHIT by actually fucking CALLING you now and then, and not just to pretend that nothing's wrong and that they'll only talk to you if you don't bother them with all that annoying suicide shit that's just a bunch of attention-getting anyway.

No fucking SHIT, you fucking moron. Attention? A person who's lonely and terrified and miserable doesn't need any fucking attention. Naw, we're just being manipulative assholes. We really LOVE being this miserable, it's so much fucking FUN. It's just fucking GREAT. In fact, why don't you fucking TRY it, you piece of shit?
***

So.

You've mentioned suicide to them, because you're afraid you're going to do it.

You don't really WANT to die, but when the pain gets bad enough, when you haven't slept or eaten in days, when you're terrified to leave the house because you can't stand the idea of yet another harsh word or rude action that will send your already full-to-the-brim pain reservoir sloshing all over the place so that you fall, yet again, down the rabbit hole of despair at the cruelty and selfishness of other humans -

FUCK - people worry about a fucking PET TURTLE or some shit more than they worry about actual humans. "Oh, pweese, won't you check on little anklebiter for me? I'm so worried he'll get lonely. I don't want him to be stwessed."

Of course they don't fucking GIVE a rat's ass about YOUR stress or loneliness. No, that's YOUR problem, babe. After all, you've got a car, you can dial a phone - what more do you need? So you have no money. Eh, money's over-rated (says the guy with two houses, four cars, a boat, a living room full of excercise machines, who complains that his friends tease him that he doesn't have a widescreen in his fucking living room. Jesus FUCKING christ.)
***

A friend (obviously no longer a close one) committed suicide about a week ago.

I have to say, I understand (I think) how he was feeling: Alone, lonely, end of his rope, no end in sight, no hope, no future. Getting older, all the bright possibilities that once beckoned from a glorious future never came to pass; the disappointments accumulate, over and over.

You never expected to be a superstar, no; but you thought you'd be loved, cared for; that you'd have a family of your own, or at least someone to curl up with at night.

You thought you'd have a home of your own; a nest, a safe place, where they couldn't throw you out because they'd found someone else who could pay them more money.

You thought you'd be doing something worthwhile with your life, something valuable, something that made you feel appreciated and important and special.

And yet, even when such appreciation came to pass, it was never enough - it never filled that empty place inside, that always hungry place where lack of true parental appreciation for who you WERE should have been.

Instead they were always on about what you DID; they never seemed pleased with you, never happy to see you; just the sight of your bright, shining little face never sent them into raptures of joy.

You became what they call a 'human doing' instead of a human being.

And even that never worked. You could never please them - you'd do the art projects your mom wanted, but you were too good, too quick, too naturally talented. Your amazing early work was met with: Silence.

The fact that you read at the age of three was used as a way to shut you up alone for hours on end, assuming that you were totally self-sufficient and would be just fine. News flash to moronic mother: Shutting a THREE YEAR OLD up alone with a bunch of books is the social equivalent of - I don't fucking know what. But I know that it fucked me up. At the time when I most needed other people, I was continually ALONE. Yes, I know, you had the new baby to deal with. Right, so what was I - fucking dog meat?

Yeah, I know. You weren't really ready to be a mother - ill-equipped and all that. Whatever. How the fuck does that help ME? Answer: It doesn't. Not at all. It's just another pathetic excuse.
***

And here we go round the fucking hamster wheel again: Trying to figure out WHY.

Why ME? Why am I, particularly, so miserable?

In this culture we're held entirely responsible for everything that happens to us, from the circumstances of our birth to the long-term outcomes of said circumstances.

You will fucking NEVER be cut any fucking slack for having been, say, emotionally rejected by your father for committing the heinous crime of being born female.

No one will ever sympathize that you didn't get enough support; after all, you're a girl - you're just supposed to shut up and smile and get married and have babies and stay the fuck out of the way of all the important people, namely, men.

Men don't care because all they want is to fuck you if you're sexy; have you as a status symbol if you're gorgeous enough, or indenture you as a child-bearing machine and household menial if you appear to possess the right mix of - let's see if I can get this right - sugar and spice and everything nice, was that the prescription women got stuck with? While men got to do all the fun stuff - frogs and snails and shit.

No one will ever care.

No one will genuinely be concerned that you're like a flower that, season after season, put forth leaves and branches and a bud or two - but never blossomed.

They'll blame YOU for that - you see, it was your own damn fault. You were just too angry - you wouldn't suck it up and roll over and let them get away with their shit. You fucking CALLED them on it, every fucking time, and they got tired of the woman who wouldn't let them remain little boys with their little boy toys. You wouldn't play 'mama' for them.

Eh, whatever.

FUCK y'all. Fuck ALL y'all.
***

What a fucking INSULT to call suicide a 'long-term solution to a short-term problem'. You can fucking KISS MY ENTIRE ASS, you sanctimonious piece of shit.

Have you ever fucking EXPERIENCED what this person's going through? No, you fucking well haven't. You don't have a fucking CLUE what it's like. Not only that, you don't fucking CARE. You just don't want to be bothered. It's too much trouble. Plus, it makes you think, and you don't LIKE to think. Thinking is hard. It's just too fucking difficult. Thinking is for people who got a bad hand in life, and you, we'll, you're special. There's no way you'd ever 'let' something like that happen to you because you're in total and complete control at all times of everything that happens in your life, and anyway only losers ever complain about their lives. That's victim shit.

Don't give me fucking platitudes about how it will get better. How do you know? It's been getting steadily worse for the last ten years - what the fuck is going to change? Am I going to magically get younger? Win the lottery? Suddenly become beautiful when I never have been before? Suddenly develop a completely different personality that allows me to be blissfully oblivious to the total and complete mindfuck of being a woman in a male-dominated world?

FUCK you.

***

Hearing your father screaming, “Don’t let my son die” is what kept you here. You know, now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you really matter to somebody. I think that those of us who contemplate suicide do so because we’re pretty dang sure that nobody cares.

The sound of the gun will echo for a long time, true - but so will your father’s words. That will pull you through, will give you the strength to deal with the rest of it. Hearing somebody scream that is like somebody throwing you an emotional life preserver - it’s probably what helped you survive. You’re very lucky to have someone like that in your life.

I envy you. I wish someone would care about me that much. I’ve wished for it all my life.

it's not the feelings that are the problem

it's the unrelieved (and unrelievable) accumulation that's the problem. The inability to find relief. Or help. Or anybody who actually gives a shit, on a daily, real, actual basis. In my life. In my actual, real life. Not online. Not via phone. Not by paying some complete stranger a bunch of money.

What I bloody fucking well need is someone who actually, genuinely, gives a shit.

The worst thing about it, I think, is the gradually increasing disconnection from reality. I no longer know what is real. I spend so much time lost in thought - reading, watching movies - that 'reality' is a concept that no longer has much meaning. Who cares? What difference does it make in a world, a country, a culture, where everything is manipulated by those with the most power to mold the world around them to match their own perceptions? When the average person might as well be living in a video game for all the contact they have with the actual people in their lives. In this country, people are absorbed in the lives of fictional characters and celebrities (and what's the difference, really?) while consigning responsibility for the real feelings of the real people in their lives to - someone else. A shrink, preferably - a paid 'carer'.

I swear to god, if I see another pair of people walking down the street while having separate cell phone conversations and paying no attention whatsoever to the person they're actually with, I will fucking kill them both. Or at least smash their fucking cell phones and scream at them, Fucking pay attention! Or a couple at a restaurant busily playing 'who's more important' by competing to see who can spend the most time on their strawberries rather than fricking talking to each other.

feels like i'm becoming someone else

as if I am no longer myself.

As if, in the process of pruning off unwanted people, trying to block out painful bits with which I can no longer cope alone - somehow, I'm losing track of who I am. As if I am slowly being carved away, til nothing is left.

I looked in the mirror just now, and I didn't recognize myself at all. Who is this person? I wondered. Where is grasshopper? Where has she gone? I have become so much in the habit of hiding everything 'unpleasant' that I fear I'm losing myself entirely.

I don't know who I am.

How can I find myself? Is there a map? Who knows the way?

let's see what happens

Keep returning to the image of the wolf chewing off her leg to escape the trap. Feels like that's what I have done/am doing with my family: Escaping the 'trap' of my family role is so essential to my survival that I have no other choice.

So I do what I have to do. In a way, it simply feels like, What happens if I do this? Like, Ok, here are several 'choices'. You've already tried the other one; tried the path of 'good girl, do what's expected'. It was seriously fucking you up; was killing you, whether anybody outside of you can actually perceive that fact is beside the point. You're the one who has to live in here, with you, inside these feelings. You're the one who has to make the choice: should I stay or should I go. It seemed clear to me that 'stay' = death; 'go' = life, or at least the possibility of same. Hope. Potential. Go toward the light, grasshopper, and I don't mean the one at the end of the tunnel, or the one they talk about in near-death experiences. I'm talking about growing toward the light of hope, the way a blade of grass grows, simply, toward the sun.

And not to make it sound as if I take this choice lightly; it's just that, once the agonizing is done, once the choice is made, one simply has to move on. The outcome will reveal itself in time. Hopefully, I have not made a choice that is as dire as chewing off a leg; hopefully I will soon find some metaphor that... wait just a goddamn minute. I've just realized that the societal 'shoulds' have leaked into my brain again while I wasn't looking. 'Put on a happy face'. Fuck that shit - it's the same ol', same ol', Don't bother me with your problems, kid, only dressed up as fancy, NewAge (pronounced like 'sewage') bullshit.

Ok - lather, rinse, repeat. Each lesson will be repeated until learned. Etc.

So it's society, and perhaps my family, as my up-close and personal representatives of same, who insinuate the 'wolf-chews-off-leg-to-escape-trap' meme into my head. Uh huh. Ok.

Now what? Find new meme, grasshopper, one that works for you. Second verse, same as the first means you haven't escaped the cage yet. You've stuck your head out, looked around, not sure it's safe out there. Frying pan, fire. Which to choose? The known tigers inside the cage, or - what? It's beyond the edges of the map, or as the old-timers used to say, Here be dragons. The unknown.

Stepping off the map.