to have a family that is never there to catch you when you fall?
You can give them warning, and they'll come and watch,
sightsee,
as if you were some roadside spectacle
nothing to do with them
at all.
You smash to bits on the pavement,
shatter to smithereens.
They remain motionless, unmoved
by your pain,
your suffering,
your tears;
your terror,
your anguish,
your shame.
You are that moth beating itself senselessly to death against the shuttered flame of the lamp.
They make no move to stop your self-immolation.
How can they say "I love you," and yet watch you be destroyed? How can they stand there and do nothing? Are they stupid? Afraid? Both? What is the matter with them? Why do they just stand there and watch?
I do not understand.
You are a shattered being
who has fallen so many times
there's nothing left to put together. Not enough solid bits to hold the glue...
They don't understand caring.
They only understand a distant sort of vague sentimentality - their definition of 'love' is - what? I don't know. I've never understood it. I only know it has nothing to do with any of the things that love is to me.
They are the ones who, seeing the beetle stuck on his back for the thousandth time, crush it, instead of gently turning it over onto its feet again, helping it along its way, helping it to find a safe place.
They don't understand. They aren't even as good as the Pinball Wizard, who, though he was a deaf, dumb and blind kid, could at least play a mean pinball... They're just deaf, dumb and blind. See nothing, hear nothing, speak nothing, understand nothing. They might as well all be deaf mutes for all the fellow feeling they show.
***
It is empty, and alone, and frightening.
Terrifying in its vastness, that essential abandonment of a small child's spirit.
There is no mending it, ever, except by the hand and heart of another lost soul who seeks the same repair and understands what is needed. Who can be both giver and receiver.
Where are you? I need you, now. Not later - now.
***
I do not know that I can ever capture the echoing emptiness that is the feeling of 'belonging' to this family. It's like swallowing a vacuum, like having a giant sucking sound in the middle of your being where love ought to go.
Where there ought to be a warm fire burning there is instead: A hole. A space. Nothing. No one there.
This is the feeling of the child, the infant who emerges into the world, into being, after a long battle with darkness and terror. Emerges screaming and fighting and gasping for air and - terrified. She is born terrified. That there will be no one to care for her.
And she was right. No wonder she never wanted to be born in the first place.
***
They think I'm crazy. Because they're men, and they believe that women are supposed to do all the feeling for them.
But I'm a woman, and have had to make my way alone through most of this life, just as if I were a man, but without any of the myriad supports society provides for men.
I am not even spared the misery of being heterosexual - I have longed to be attracted to other women, so that I could escape the prison of heterosexual 'romance'. But I am, instead, simply a failed heterosexual - one who sees no point in the rubbing together of various bits for some fleeting moment of sexual gratification.
I feel caught in the middle, squarely and painfully astride the fence. People seem to think that I've chosen this place, but I didn't. I never felt that I had any choice.
I've been accused of being both 'too tough' and 'too sensitive', so many times I've lost count.
Of course I had to be tough - to survive my mother's neglect, my father's sarcasm and verbal abuse, the bullying from my brother, the endless misogyny from all the men in my entire family.
And a person gets sensitive from being stomped on so many times, oddly enough. Oddly enough, getting stomped tends not to 'toughen' one - one develops a tough outer shell to protect the fragile inner bits that have been so repeatedly and ruthlessly damaged, nearly beyond repair. One develops a rapier tongue and a lightning-fast left hook out of a mere need to survive those who claim to 'love' you. It's all about survival, man.
So don't blame me. I did, and continue to do, what I had to, what I have to, to survive.
****
Denial and repression only get you so far. I find that beyond a certain point, I have to resort to external escape mechanisms.
The only problem is, they're not working any more. My escape hatches are like some kind of nightmare maze that only lead me right back to the very thing from which I seek relief: The truth. Reality.
They don't care.
They never have.
They never will.
No matter how loud or how long I scream and rant and beg and plead.
They just turn their backs on me and walk away, indifferent. Uninterested. I simply don't matter to them.
It is truly like the wolf who must gnaw off her own hind leg to escape the trap: There is no other way out, except death.
And having made this choice, she chooses only another kind of death: The death of her soul, that fragile, precious, unique, irreplacable light that is the flame of her being.
They would extinguish her, through their mere indifference.
How can they not see how bright she is, how beautiful? How brilliant and shiny and special and unique, an opal, full of fire and ever-changing color. She is like a diamond - all facets, flashing every color in the rainbow. She is beauty, embodied.
***
I feel as if I am only holding myself together through sheer force of will, through pure and indomitable stubborness.
But even granite is eventually worn away. And that which is too brittle shatters...
She seeks only to be seen and loved for who she is - "like any bright blade of grass, any shining stalk of wheat."
And so they do, some - some see her in this pure, this simple way.
But it is not enough.
There must be one, at least one, who truly loves every bit of her being, exactly as she is.
Where is this person? I am waiting. I am ready.
Will you come and take care of me now, please?
***
It is as if, if I let down my guard for even a moment, if I relax for even a split second, it will all come tumbling down - it will fall apart, I will explode in in a shower of springs and sprockets and un-reassembleable bits that will never go back together again.
So I can never stop, can never rest, can never let down.
Because if I do, I will see that there is nobody here but me, and never has been...
And then I will fall to bits, and no one will see, or care, or know, until it is too late, and I am gone.
Even if the empty shell of me remained, the essential I, the me inside will be gone.
That beautiful and irreplaceable spark that no one ever saw but me.
That is why the narcissist must spend so much time looking in the mirror: Because no one else is paying any attention. She is afraid she will disappear the instant she looks away. The sense of 'self', oddly enough, is assembled from all those mirror fragments that a lifetime around other people who care about you enough to show you a piece of yourself that you can hold in your hand, your mind, your heart, your soul. A piece of yourself that you can carry away and cherish, and feel to the depths of your being to be true.
Right and proper parents know how to do this instinctively; but most parents are neither right, nor proper.
****
The pit of despair is not so bad. It's actually rather cozy here, though the decor is a bit tedious - black everywhere you look. We could do with a bit of color.
Who's 'we'? Well, it's the schizoid persona that we'll be forced to take on should the raw force of our willpower fail to withstand the relentless onslaught of cognitive dissonance. At some point the twain shall be parted, never to meet again. Or something like that. Couldn't put Humpty together again - he was a frickin' egg, after all - whaddya want, anyway - miracles? Shit. I'll be satisfied just to get through this damn thing - life, that is - which is how my grandfather put it.
***
I seek some kind of reconciliation, some kind of peace, some way to think about all this that makes sense to me, that allows me to walk out of the maze, to be free, to escape the family trap, for good and forever.
The madness that comes from being alone with such thoughts for too long - for most of one's life - lurks at the edges, in the corners of my eyes. Just out of sight, I catch a fleeting glimpse, but it is gone when I look squarely at it. I see just the very tip of its ratlike tail twitching out of view constantly, but can never see the whole beast.
Maybe that's a good thing - the day I can see the whole beast will be the day the world no longer parses at all for me, and they really will have to wrap me up and cart me away to be lumped in with the other vegetables.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
it is not in the thing itself
that beauty is contained; it is in the eye of the viewer, the mind, the imagination behind the eyes that illuminates what it sees. The eyes cast the light with which the beloved object shines.
It is in the heart and soul of the being who finds beauty in that thing or person that the beauty resides, not in the thing itself.
Without ears to hear it, the falling tree makes no sound.
Without eyes to perceive it, beauty does not exist.
It is in being seen, truly, completely, fully, by someone who loves what they see, that we are born, and become and remain beautiful.
It is the reflections from the eyes of others that let us see who we are and teach us to love that being we call ourself.
In fact, I would say that babies are born loving themselves and all around them. It is only painful experience that teaches us otherwise, that breaks the bonds of love and loving admiration. It is the projected fears and hatreds of others that turn us into something unwanted, ugly, unloveable. We do not do this to ourselves.
It is in the heart and soul of the being who finds beauty in that thing or person that the beauty resides, not in the thing itself.
Without ears to hear it, the falling tree makes no sound.
Without eyes to perceive it, beauty does not exist.
It is in being seen, truly, completely, fully, by someone who loves what they see, that we are born, and become and remain beautiful.
It is the reflections from the eyes of others that let us see who we are and teach us to love that being we call ourself.
In fact, I would say that babies are born loving themselves and all around them. It is only painful experience that teaches us otherwise, that breaks the bonds of love and loving admiration. It is the projected fears and hatreds of others that turn us into something unwanted, ugly, unloveable. We do not do this to ourselves.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
unforgiving, unapologetic parents
I think they must get these notions from the way they were raised, but I'm astonished how many parents seem to think it totally undermines their 'power' if they ever apologize about anything, or admit, in any way, shape or form, that they might just possibly have been wrong about something (am reminded here of my dad making a joke about that very thing, acting like the Fonz in Happy Days - he was constitutionally incapable of saying "I was wrong". Instead he would do this sort of false stutter thing, "I was wr.... I was wr-wr-wr..." but could never actually get the whole word out. It was sort of funny when my dad did this, but also annoying as shit, because it just distracted from the fact that he still never fucking apologized. So there was always this churny sort of sick feeling in your gut that he was pulling something over on you, in addition to being pissed about whatever it was he'd done to make you mad in the first place. Fucking bullshit. Damn, but the whole parenting thing is so fucked up! Alice Miller, people, read your Alice Miller. Break the goddamn chain. Do something fucking different for a change. Definition of insanity and all that... use that so-called 'intelligence', that oh-so-logical brain that you're always bragging about for something other than a frickin' doorstop already. Fer fuck's sake.)
And at the same time these flawless, above-reproach parents are so fucking harsh and critical - so judgmental, so fucking godlike in their absolute unwillingness to show any kind of leniency or understanding. They just come down like a hammer, smashing you into tiny pieces so that they can feel better about themselves for all the times they've been smashed down in their lives. Fucking stupid-ass pieces of shit.
Maybe this is where the whole concept of god comes from? I've often thought this, that people created god to explain all the things that don't make sense to them - a sort of celestial repository for all the unwanted thoughts, fears, needs, etc. Kind of like a mental attic, where all the old, unresolved emotional crap can pile up unnoticed and unheeded. "Give it to god, he'll take care of it."
And the god thing can be a way to mentally let parents off the hook - it displaces the unthinkable, unpalatable recognition that those who brought you into the world see you as no more than a verbal, emotional punching bag on which to take out their old hurts, wounds, resentments. God offers a convenient escape hatch from everything we can't face up to, we can hand him anything that's too big or scary to deal with on our own. That untouchable, unreachable 'parent' on high, on whom we can dump all our responsibilities and cares. A massive delusion, mass psychosis.
Wonder why they don't have it listed in the DSM? Answer: Religion is convenient for the power-mongers. It's an excellent way to keep the sheep distracted.
And at the same time these flawless, above-reproach parents are so fucking harsh and critical - so judgmental, so fucking godlike in their absolute unwillingness to show any kind of leniency or understanding. They just come down like a hammer, smashing you into tiny pieces so that they can feel better about themselves for all the times they've been smashed down in their lives. Fucking stupid-ass pieces of shit.
Maybe this is where the whole concept of god comes from? I've often thought this, that people created god to explain all the things that don't make sense to them - a sort of celestial repository for all the unwanted thoughts, fears, needs, etc. Kind of like a mental attic, where all the old, unresolved emotional crap can pile up unnoticed and unheeded. "Give it to god, he'll take care of it."
And the god thing can be a way to mentally let parents off the hook - it displaces the unthinkable, unpalatable recognition that those who brought you into the world see you as no more than a verbal, emotional punching bag on which to take out their old hurts, wounds, resentments. God offers a convenient escape hatch from everything we can't face up to, we can hand him anything that's too big or scary to deal with on our own. That untouchable, unreachable 'parent' on high, on whom we can dump all our responsibilities and cares. A massive delusion, mass psychosis.
Wonder why they don't have it listed in the DSM? Answer: Religion is convenient for the power-mongers. It's an excellent way to keep the sheep distracted.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
will you miss her when she's gone?
The shrinks have a name for it: The False Self. It's the mask we put on to prove to other people that we're ok, that we can handle it, that we need nothing and no one and are utterly, totally, completely self-sufficient.
We never break down; we never fail; we never have moments of self-doubt or insecurity. We're always together, with it, controlled, on top of things.
"How are you?" "Fine." What the hell else are you supposed to say? Can I say, "I'm not fine"? Then what? Will you care? Will you just ignore me as if I'd never said a word? Does it make you uncomfortable? Is that my fucking job in life - to never fucking rock the boat? To never let you know that everything's not fine, that there's a crack in the varnish, a hole in the boat?
In fact, there are thousands of holes in the boat. So many they can never be repaired. She's sinking, slowly but surely, lower in the water every day. One day you'll look out there, toward the familiar profile of her gunwale against the sky, and there'll be nothing - just a blank space where she used to float. And you won't really feel anything, because you knew all about it - you expected it, all along, it was just a matter of time
Sure there's a brief lump in your throat, it takes you a while to adjust to the new view - that smooth expanse of nothingness where once there used to be a human being.
But you fill the gap quickly with the usual busyness and distraction, and before you know it she's but a faint memory, as if she never existed. Which she never did anyway, except as a sort of vague image in your mind's eye, an idea, a concept. She was never real to you in any way, shape or form. You always kept her at a distance, like the boat - a safe distance away from shore, so you'd never have to really see what terrible shape she was in, how her paint had peeled, her boards rotted, her oarlocks gone and her rope frayed and knotted from breaking so many times. Maybe she didn't sink - maybe she drifted away with the tide. Who knows.
***
The shrinks make it sound as if people with a False Self are an anomaly, are unusual, the exception to the rule.
I would argue that, no, it's just the opposite - we're expected to put on a false self by our whole culture. People spend their entire lives creating these images of who they think they should be, propping them up on the lawn like cardboard cutouts to distract everyone from what's really going on.
Those of us who try to be real, who bleed and cry and ask for help - we're merely seen as weak, as pathetic, as losers. People move away from us, embarrassed by our need and helplessness. They turn away in shame, afraid that somehow our bad luck will rub off on them and they'll catch it too, like some communicable disease.
***
The fact is, no one cares whether I sink or swim. People reach out, but it's always a one-shot deal - there's no continuity, no long-term connection. Relationships seem to be about as strong as wet tissue paper. The people who stay in relationships all seem to have made some kind of deal with the devil that I simply can't stomach: One or the other of them has to suck it up in a way that must be like swallowing broken glass every day. Every relationship I see seems to have some kind of massive power imbalance that totally fucking sucks.
I don't think I'm even capable of falling in love any more - I feel so completely disillusioned and let down about everything. Nothing makes sense; nothing adds up. I feel like I've been wandering, drifting most of my life, looking for some port to anchor in, a safe haven, a place to be out of the weather.
***
The thing is, when you grow up in a family where nobody has your back, nobody sticks up for you, nobody's there to catch you when you fall - you develop this prickly self-defensiveness born out of the inablity to ever truly relax, ever feel truly safe or at home with yourself.
Because no one seems to 'get' you, to be there for you, to understand or care about what you might be going through, even in the most superficial, "I'm curious about that" sort of way - well, you begin to feel like you don't exist. Like you're not there. Like no one can see or hear you.
And you begin to get angry about that, because people are always stepping on you, tripping over you, acting like you're this invisible person that no one can see.
At some point you begin to believe that there must be something severely wrong with you, like you're defective in some way, that you're just simply wrong. As if your very existence was a mistake, an error, something to be deleted from the ledger of life at someone's earliest convenience.
We never break down; we never fail; we never have moments of self-doubt or insecurity. We're always together, with it, controlled, on top of things.
"How are you?" "Fine." What the hell else are you supposed to say? Can I say, "I'm not fine"? Then what? Will you care? Will you just ignore me as if I'd never said a word? Does it make you uncomfortable? Is that my fucking job in life - to never fucking rock the boat? To never let you know that everything's not fine, that there's a crack in the varnish, a hole in the boat?
In fact, there are thousands of holes in the boat. So many they can never be repaired. She's sinking, slowly but surely, lower in the water every day. One day you'll look out there, toward the familiar profile of her gunwale against the sky, and there'll be nothing - just a blank space where she used to float. And you won't really feel anything, because you knew all about it - you expected it, all along, it was just a matter of time
Sure there's a brief lump in your throat, it takes you a while to adjust to the new view - that smooth expanse of nothingness where once there used to be a human being.
But you fill the gap quickly with the usual busyness and distraction, and before you know it she's but a faint memory, as if she never existed. Which she never did anyway, except as a sort of vague image in your mind's eye, an idea, a concept. She was never real to you in any way, shape or form. You always kept her at a distance, like the boat - a safe distance away from shore, so you'd never have to really see what terrible shape she was in, how her paint had peeled, her boards rotted, her oarlocks gone and her rope frayed and knotted from breaking so many times. Maybe she didn't sink - maybe she drifted away with the tide. Who knows.
***
The shrinks make it sound as if people with a False Self are an anomaly, are unusual, the exception to the rule.
I would argue that, no, it's just the opposite - we're expected to put on a false self by our whole culture. People spend their entire lives creating these images of who they think they should be, propping them up on the lawn like cardboard cutouts to distract everyone from what's really going on.
Those of us who try to be real, who bleed and cry and ask for help - we're merely seen as weak, as pathetic, as losers. People move away from us, embarrassed by our need and helplessness. They turn away in shame, afraid that somehow our bad luck will rub off on them and they'll catch it too, like some communicable disease.
***
The fact is, no one cares whether I sink or swim. People reach out, but it's always a one-shot deal - there's no continuity, no long-term connection. Relationships seem to be about as strong as wet tissue paper. The people who stay in relationships all seem to have made some kind of deal with the devil that I simply can't stomach: One or the other of them has to suck it up in a way that must be like swallowing broken glass every day. Every relationship I see seems to have some kind of massive power imbalance that totally fucking sucks.
I don't think I'm even capable of falling in love any more - I feel so completely disillusioned and let down about everything. Nothing makes sense; nothing adds up. I feel like I've been wandering, drifting most of my life, looking for some port to anchor in, a safe haven, a place to be out of the weather.
***
The thing is, when you grow up in a family where nobody has your back, nobody sticks up for you, nobody's there to catch you when you fall - you develop this prickly self-defensiveness born out of the inablity to ever truly relax, ever feel truly safe or at home with yourself.
Because no one seems to 'get' you, to be there for you, to understand or care about what you might be going through, even in the most superficial, "I'm curious about that" sort of way - well, you begin to feel like you don't exist. Like you're not there. Like no one can see or hear you.
And you begin to get angry about that, because people are always stepping on you, tripping over you, acting like you're this invisible person that no one can see.
At some point you begin to believe that there must be something severely wrong with you, like you're defective in some way, that you're just simply wrong. As if your very existence was a mistake, an error, something to be deleted from the ledger of life at someone's earliest convenience.
mirror neurons, culture, childhood
I grew up with a father who was unkind to me, who treated me like a problem to be solved rather than a person. I was continually punished in subtle and not-so-subtle ways for the egregious, heinous sin of having dared to be born female.
My mother, on the other hand, was simply clueless. Half the time (or more than half) she didn't understand what she was seeing, so she mostly responded inappropriately. She 'succeeded' as well as she did (if you define 'succeeded' as 'survived the prevailing fucked-up patriarchal, misogynist, sexist culture with a roof over her head and plenty to eat') because she was able to conform to the cultural requirement of the 'good wife' - i.e., she didn't talk back to her husband, was meek and submissive (frightened, in other words, of losing her 'job') enough in the early years of their marriage to lull my father into a sense of complacency from which he never recovered. He also had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility fostered by his father, who believed strongly in that most poisonous of all cultural 'shoulds': the Protestant work ethic.
To this day I think the stern looks bestowed on me by my father in every picture I can find (and believe me, I've hunted for one where he appeared to be looking upon me with benevolence, with kindness, possibly even fondness, possibly even something so - alien? as a mere and simple friendly smile*, for fuck's sake. Nary a one. Art mimics life, or some damn thing like that) reflect my dad's belief that being a father = having a stern expression at all times. Photos of his dad, my grandfather, capture perfectly the expression that comes to mind when I think of the word 'patrician' - cold, aloof, unresponsive. Ack.
None of the men in my father's family really believe in the work ethic - they all rebel against it in more or less visible ways. But they sure talk the walk, whether or not they walk it. In other words, they follow the letter, but not the spirit of this 'moral principle'. And they for sure as hell pass on the guilt... if guilt were an Olympic event, who'd win, d'ya think? Protestants or Catholics? I'd say we give the C's a good run for their money.
I don't give a shit about the Protestant work ethic - in fact, if I'd been less terrorized/terrified by the whole thing as a child, I would have tried to talk them all out of it and persuade them to actually live life instead. Ach, well. Maybe in another incarnation.
So what I think, is: I was really smart, really sensitive. One parent modeled intentional cruelty, believing that to be simply 'the way of the world' ("It's a jungle out there," as he would have put it). He didn't much like women, and I, being a miniature woman-in-training, got the brunt of his resentment. He verbally backhanded me and mom every chance he got, until I learned to talk back to him - 'smart mouth', as one of my aunts (Dad's younger sister) called it.
But it was a survival technique, and a necessary one. The man who feared that I'd grow up to be yet another 'mouse' very nearly turned me into one by his very own goddamn oppressive 'parenting' techniques. Goddamn fucking clueless git.
Of course he was a mere scrap of a 23-year-old when I was born - skinny, scrawny, trying to be tough, trying to carry the world on his narrow shoulders. The scowls on the faces of the parental units in their wedding picture has never ceased to amaze me. These people do not look happy! They look like somebody lined them up at the business end of a shotgun...and I've always wondered if that was in fact the case.
But mom continues to insist on her rose-colored version of the story (I'll probably never know the truth, just my gut instinct. Course I could always find out the date of their marriage - hm, never thought of that before.)
***
Aside: This is not parent-blaming. That label is a cop-out, slapped on those of us who are struggling with old, parent-imposed baggage by others who were not handicapped in that way - people who, through no effort of their own, were privileged to be at the receiving end of a fairer deal. In other words, they were dealt a better hand in life. Once again, fundamental misattribution error at work, better known as 'people taking credit for things over which they had no control,' and for which they should be given no credit. Like being born white, rich, smart or beautiful. Check your privilege at the door, people.
People who say we're parent-blaming are also those most likely to perpetuate the same power-over, abusive shit on their own kids. Those of us accused of wallowing in self-pity are, often as not, actually trying to do something about it, namely, break the pattern.
And yes, part of the pattern is anger, and being angry. I am rightfully angry at having been born into a comfortable middle-class family and yet having been treated like some kind of - I can't even think of words to describe the feeling - serf. Like I was hobbled, ball and chain around my ankles, for the crime of being born a woman in a man's world. I got caught between a misogynist, sexist man who took out his resentments on me, but in such a way that it took me 40 years to catch on that he planted the seeds of self-hatred all those years ago, and a mother who has never, to this day, been able to face up to her childhood shit. So she perpetuates the patterns ad nauseum, "the sins of the [mothers] shall be visited on the [daughters], yea, unto the seventh generation," or whatever the hell the quote is.
***
A father who was a hammer (albeit a velvet-covered one, which just meant that the bruises were internal and couldn't be seen, kind of like the hit man who learns to 'leave no marks'), and a mother who was this squishy, unsupportive, unprotecting, terrified mouse (marshmallow?) who periodically morphed into a resentful, angry, passive-aggressive child who had no clue what she was dealing with, but faked it to the best of her ability.
(I felt like I was on a roll, then Blogger seized up while my best thoughts were churning around crying out to be put on 'paper', and now I seem to have lost my clarity. Dammit. Sigh. Just have to do the best I can.)
They were both too young, I can see that. But I can't forgive them for how they treated me. I should have had a bright future, all the hope and potential in the world. But they were both so caught up in their own dysfunctional shit that it's a wonder I didn't become a complete basket case. I think my only saving grace was my bright mind, which dragged my kicking, screaming, terrified child self into a safe, dark corner of books and stories, where no one could touch me.
***
What I remember is the scowls on my parents' faces. They seemed to think that parenting primarily entailed being very serious, which shows in many of the photos taken when I was little. Several pictures show me clowning in ways that seem guaranteed to irritate the shit out of any parent-in-training who's trying to impress friends/family with her/his fitness to be a parent. The only problem was, the more serious they got, the more I had to 'act out' to relieve the fucking endless tension...
And yes, they were broke. Miserably so. And I was no good as a clown - or, let's say, more accurately, my parents didn't 'get' my sense of humor. I didn't relate to them, nor they to me. I was this little alien being who'd somehow materialized into the wrong family, and never the twain did meet.
I won't even give them credit for 'doing their best' - yes, they did their best to jump through the cultural hurdles that time period imposed on new parents. But neither of them had the intuitive sense god gave a frickin' rock, so I was stuck with these two clueless wonders, each clueless in their own way.
***
I, however, was smart and sensitive, intuitive, perceptive and responsive in all the ways my parents were not. I made up for their shortcomings by becoming the ultimate conformist - I became whatever they needed me to be (yes, this is quite a common survival technique for children in fucked up families - not claiming to be special here), which in my case was mostly invisible. I was my mom's full-time job for the first three years of my life, until my brother came along, at which point he sucked up all the oxygen in the room, and mom was much more attuned to his needs, not to mention he was much more vocal - mom called him the 'fire engine', he had an ear-splitting wail that wouldn't quit til he got what he needed. I think I was much more intimidated by my mother's fear and anger, and so reacted to her unfriendly looks with fear and, eventually, silence. I literally lost my ability to express my needs. Also she must have been completely exhausted by raising two small children single-handedly (dad was never around, between bridge, poker, work and hanging out with his family), and probably was less 'fussy' with my brother because she simply didn't have the energy.
I was naturally much more quiet, and so became the Invisible one. I think that's why I so loved Kipling's story of the tiger, who faded invisibly into the grass, his stripes turning him into just another pattern of shadow and light. And Esme Weatherwax in the Pratchett books, who can 'fade' into the background til you're no longer aware of her presence. I think I have sometimes unnerved people with how quiet I can be (based on a few comments that come to mind) - even my breathing is affected sometimes, so shallow that I make no sound whatsoever. Yikes. Kind of scary when I start to put all the pieces together.
***
The anger is real, and valid. Fuck all y'all who judge without having walked the miles in these shoes.
I now care less about being angry because I finally understand what happened, and I got there at my speed, in my own way, and on my terms. That's the best part - I get to decide what matters to me, what's important to me. I don't have to listen to those doubting, damning, shaming voices any more. I can say FUCK 'em, without hesitation, regret or remorse.
I get to go at the speed that's comfortable for me, and not have to 'hurry up' or 'grow up' too fast because it's inconvenient or uncomfortable for somebody else to have to adapt to my pace.
I get to walk without tripping (and without being tripped by that fucker).
I get to talk when I see fit, not when it's deemed acceptable by somebody else.
It's all a power trip, a power game, and those of us on the 'downside' of said power shit are cursed to forever bear the double burden of both getting the short end of the stick and being blamed for it, too. Like an unruly slave who 'got out of line' would sometimes be labeled with some make-believe, phony-ass diagnosis of drapetomania, which basically meant she (the slave) wasn't puttin' up with none of that shit, and was bein' too damn uppity. But of course slaves were born to be slaves, of course they were, how could it be otherwise? So any resentment or resistance on their part had to be down to some kind of fucking mental disturbance. Yeah, right. Like how fucking are mentally disturbed are you going to be when I shove this shotgun up your ass and pull the fucking trigger??? I'd say, all parts of y'all goin' to be seriously disturbed by that shit. So get over yourself already. You're not so special - you jest ain't been stomped hard enough in this lifetime to see what the hell all the fuckin' racket's about. To you it's just meaningless noise. But to the rest of us it actually means something, and reason we won't 'quieten down' is 'cause we want ya'll to fuckin' listen up already.
Anyway. Damn, but it felt good to write all that down! I wonder how many violent fantasies are basically revenge fantasies toward the various oppressors in one's life? I noticed myself thinking that while watching the Harry Potter movies - being especially taken by the stark contrasts between the 'good' guys and 'bad' guys - the whole good vs. evil thing. Especially watching the bullies (and there are many of them in these stories) get their comeuppance. Credits to Alice Miller. If only the rest of the culture would catch on to what is right in front of our noises: Mean, thoughtless parents produce children who become cruel, vicious, bullying parents in their own turn. And the cycle goes on, and on.
(Encountered an article today that said that the part of the central nervous system that processes physical pain is the same network that processes feelings of humiliation. Which might explain why so many people react violently to being humiliated! Makes sense - if we are affiliative creatures who depend on bonds of kinship and friendship for our sense of safety, security and belonging in a world where to be alone means to be shunned - naked and alone out on that savannah where there be tigers, and you'll get et if'n you ain't careful. You therefore want to be safely protected by others of your kind! Why the hell else do we have the most highly developed social networking skills of all god's critters? Answer: We're a tribal species. We need other people to survive, we soft-skinned, shell-less, dull-toothed and relatively slow bipeds. Pain and humiliation go against the bonding process, triggering all kinds of negative chemical reactions in the body. 'Not good,' as Cap'n Jack would say. So we have all kinds of incentive to avoid situations which cause us either physical or emotional pain, because they signal a rift between us and those we need most: Our kin. And thus it makes sense that the nervous system processes both humiliation and physical pain along the system pathway: They're both signals of something gone wrong in a social situation. Argh - getting bleary, need sleep. 'Pologies for any incoherence.)
***
Anger is part of the process (at least when you come from a family that doesn't support individual growth) of splitting away from the parent plant (the 'family') and becoming one's own person.
Anger happens when you finally get enough distance and enough life experience to realize that they way your folks did things isn't the only way, and that many of the things they did and said were damaging and destructive, if not simply outright cruel.
Anger is the fuel that keeps you motivated; that keeps you hunting for reasons, for solutions, for ways to make things work. To solve the 'problem' that you've been made out to be; to stop feeling like 'the problem' and put the blame to rest squarely where it belonged all along: On the shoulders of those who should have been fucking paying attention, but weren't.
So. Now I get to clean up the mess, deal with the consequences. And as my anger slowly dies down into a heap of coals with the occasional flare-up, I get to experiment with different ways of being and doing that my parents never showed me and/or didn't know about. I get to discover new paths, new ways. I get to decide for myself what's important, what matters. I am no longer in thrall to their angry glares, resentful scowls, judgmental looks. They have no power over me any more.
But it's like an earthquake - there are aftershocks in the form of relapses, regressions, etc., as I (mainly by trial and error) discover what actually works. I have to try out new anger techniques on strangers, then bring them closer and closer to home as I discover who my true friends are by testing the strength of our relationships. Adjusting the distance between me and others to match my comfort level, my willingness to trust based on my new standards, based on my rules.
(Sanctimonious, that's the word I was looking for earlier. Can't remember now where I meant to put it, so will store it here for later. Need a nap now.)
*Edited to add: I've remembered a photo where dad and I are clowning around and he's grinning a goofy grin at me. I remember there was this brief stretch where I was finally ok with dad because I'd become pretty, in spite of his constant backhanded remarks throughout my teenage years.
I have to say it felt kind of creepy - like being hit on by your own dad. I mean it would have been one thing if he'd been truly, genuinely friendly to me my whole life, and had made me feel like he liked me just the way I was. But in reality he could be unspeakably cruel and thoughtless - saying things that absolutely mortified me, cut me to the bone so that I felt like nothing and no one. He made it seem that I was unattractive but that it didn't matter - "We aren't here for decorative purposes," he'd say, as if that would somehow relieve the pain.
I didn't actually think I was ugly - I didn't think I was anything, really, not even plain. I just felt like - nothing. Like no one could see me. I remember gazing into the mirror by candlelight one night when I was about twelve, admiring my perfect skin, my gorgeous eyes, my pretty smile. And feeling unappreciated and resenting already that my youth and beauty were being wasted on someone so incapable of seeing me. I felt lost, already, even then - I feared that no one would ever see my beauty, no one would ever appreciate me for who I was.
When dad finally decided I was not so bad to look at after all, in my late teens or early 20s, it was too little, too late - I already felt betrayed and abandoned. I remember meeting him at a bar somewhere and thinking, Wow, this should be really cool, he's treating me like a grownup.
But it just felt kind of skeezy - I wondered if the people in the bar thought that I was some young chick my dad was cheating with, and if my dad was somehow kind of getting off on the idea that people might think I was his girlfriend rather than his daughter - it was pretty fucking weird, really. I remember feeling kind of shocked that this was my fucking father acting this way, and putting kind of a mental distance between me and him so that I wouldn't have to think about it too hard. It was really kind of gross.
My mother, on the other hand, was simply clueless. Half the time (or more than half) she didn't understand what she was seeing, so she mostly responded inappropriately. She 'succeeded' as well as she did (if you define 'succeeded' as 'survived the prevailing fucked-up patriarchal, misogynist, sexist culture with a roof over her head and plenty to eat') because she was able to conform to the cultural requirement of the 'good wife' - i.e., she didn't talk back to her husband, was meek and submissive (frightened, in other words, of losing her 'job') enough in the early years of their marriage to lull my father into a sense of complacency from which he never recovered. He also had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility fostered by his father, who believed strongly in that most poisonous of all cultural 'shoulds': the Protestant work ethic.
To this day I think the stern looks bestowed on me by my father in every picture I can find (and believe me, I've hunted for one where he appeared to be looking upon me with benevolence, with kindness, possibly even fondness, possibly even something so - alien? as a mere and simple friendly smile*, for fuck's sake. Nary a one. Art mimics life, or some damn thing like that) reflect my dad's belief that being a father = having a stern expression at all times. Photos of his dad, my grandfather, capture perfectly the expression that comes to mind when I think of the word 'patrician' - cold, aloof, unresponsive. Ack.
None of the men in my father's family really believe in the work ethic - they all rebel against it in more or less visible ways. But they sure talk the walk, whether or not they walk it. In other words, they follow the letter, but not the spirit of this 'moral principle'. And they for sure as hell pass on the guilt... if guilt were an Olympic event, who'd win, d'ya think? Protestants or Catholics? I'd say we give the C's a good run for their money.
I don't give a shit about the Protestant work ethic - in fact, if I'd been less terrorized/terrified by the whole thing as a child, I would have tried to talk them all out of it and persuade them to actually live life instead. Ach, well. Maybe in another incarnation.
So what I think, is: I was really smart, really sensitive. One parent modeled intentional cruelty, believing that to be simply 'the way of the world' ("It's a jungle out there," as he would have put it). He didn't much like women, and I, being a miniature woman-in-training, got the brunt of his resentment. He verbally backhanded me and mom every chance he got, until I learned to talk back to him - 'smart mouth', as one of my aunts (Dad's younger sister) called it.
But it was a survival technique, and a necessary one. The man who feared that I'd grow up to be yet another 'mouse' very nearly turned me into one by his very own goddamn oppressive 'parenting' techniques. Goddamn fucking clueless git.
Of course he was a mere scrap of a 23-year-old when I was born - skinny, scrawny, trying to be tough, trying to carry the world on his narrow shoulders. The scowls on the faces of the parental units in their wedding picture has never ceased to amaze me. These people do not look happy! They look like somebody lined them up at the business end of a shotgun...and I've always wondered if that was in fact the case.
But mom continues to insist on her rose-colored version of the story (I'll probably never know the truth, just my gut instinct. Course I could always find out the date of their marriage - hm, never thought of that before.)
***
Aside: This is not parent-blaming. That label is a cop-out, slapped on those of us who are struggling with old, parent-imposed baggage by others who were not handicapped in that way - people who, through no effort of their own, were privileged to be at the receiving end of a fairer deal. In other words, they were dealt a better hand in life. Once again, fundamental misattribution error at work, better known as 'people taking credit for things over which they had no control,' and for which they should be given no credit. Like being born white, rich, smart or beautiful. Check your privilege at the door, people.
People who say we're parent-blaming are also those most likely to perpetuate the same power-over, abusive shit on their own kids. Those of us accused of wallowing in self-pity are, often as not, actually trying to do something about it, namely, break the pattern.
And yes, part of the pattern is anger, and being angry. I am rightfully angry at having been born into a comfortable middle-class family and yet having been treated like some kind of - I can't even think of words to describe the feeling - serf. Like I was hobbled, ball and chain around my ankles, for the crime of being born a woman in a man's world. I got caught between a misogynist, sexist man who took out his resentments on me, but in such a way that it took me 40 years to catch on that he planted the seeds of self-hatred all those years ago, and a mother who has never, to this day, been able to face up to her childhood shit. So she perpetuates the patterns ad nauseum, "the sins of the [mothers] shall be visited on the [daughters], yea, unto the seventh generation," or whatever the hell the quote is.
***
A father who was a hammer (albeit a velvet-covered one, which just meant that the bruises were internal and couldn't be seen, kind of like the hit man who learns to 'leave no marks'), and a mother who was this squishy, unsupportive, unprotecting, terrified mouse (marshmallow?) who periodically morphed into a resentful, angry, passive-aggressive child who had no clue what she was dealing with, but faked it to the best of her ability.
(I felt like I was on a roll, then Blogger seized up while my best thoughts were churning around crying out to be put on 'paper', and now I seem to have lost my clarity. Dammit. Sigh. Just have to do the best I can.)
They were both too young, I can see that. But I can't forgive them for how they treated me. I should have had a bright future, all the hope and potential in the world. But they were both so caught up in their own dysfunctional shit that it's a wonder I didn't become a complete basket case. I think my only saving grace was my bright mind, which dragged my kicking, screaming, terrified child self into a safe, dark corner of books and stories, where no one could touch me.
***
What I remember is the scowls on my parents' faces. They seemed to think that parenting primarily entailed being very serious, which shows in many of the photos taken when I was little. Several pictures show me clowning in ways that seem guaranteed to irritate the shit out of any parent-in-training who's trying to impress friends/family with her/his fitness to be a parent. The only problem was, the more serious they got, the more I had to 'act out' to relieve the fucking endless tension...
And yes, they were broke. Miserably so. And I was no good as a clown - or, let's say, more accurately, my parents didn't 'get' my sense of humor. I didn't relate to them, nor they to me. I was this little alien being who'd somehow materialized into the wrong family, and never the twain did meet.
I won't even give them credit for 'doing their best' - yes, they did their best to jump through the cultural hurdles that time period imposed on new parents. But neither of them had the intuitive sense god gave a frickin' rock, so I was stuck with these two clueless wonders, each clueless in their own way.
***
I, however, was smart and sensitive, intuitive, perceptive and responsive in all the ways my parents were not. I made up for their shortcomings by becoming the ultimate conformist - I became whatever they needed me to be (yes, this is quite a common survival technique for children in fucked up families - not claiming to be special here), which in my case was mostly invisible. I was my mom's full-time job for the first three years of my life, until my brother came along, at which point he sucked up all the oxygen in the room, and mom was much more attuned to his needs, not to mention he was much more vocal - mom called him the 'fire engine', he had an ear-splitting wail that wouldn't quit til he got what he needed. I think I was much more intimidated by my mother's fear and anger, and so reacted to her unfriendly looks with fear and, eventually, silence. I literally lost my ability to express my needs. Also she must have been completely exhausted by raising two small children single-handedly (dad was never around, between bridge, poker, work and hanging out with his family), and probably was less 'fussy' with my brother because she simply didn't have the energy.
I was naturally much more quiet, and so became the Invisible one. I think that's why I so loved Kipling's story of the tiger, who faded invisibly into the grass, his stripes turning him into just another pattern of shadow and light. And Esme Weatherwax in the Pratchett books, who can 'fade' into the background til you're no longer aware of her presence. I think I have sometimes unnerved people with how quiet I can be (based on a few comments that come to mind) - even my breathing is affected sometimes, so shallow that I make no sound whatsoever. Yikes. Kind of scary when I start to put all the pieces together.
***
The anger is real, and valid. Fuck all y'all who judge without having walked the miles in these shoes.
I now care less about being angry because I finally understand what happened, and I got there at my speed, in my own way, and on my terms. That's the best part - I get to decide what matters to me, what's important to me. I don't have to listen to those doubting, damning, shaming voices any more. I can say FUCK 'em, without hesitation, regret or remorse.
I get to go at the speed that's comfortable for me, and not have to 'hurry up' or 'grow up' too fast because it's inconvenient or uncomfortable for somebody else to have to adapt to my pace.
I get to walk without tripping (and without being tripped by that fucker).
I get to talk when I see fit, not when it's deemed acceptable by somebody else.
It's all a power trip, a power game, and those of us on the 'downside' of said power shit are cursed to forever bear the double burden of both getting the short end of the stick and being blamed for it, too. Like an unruly slave who 'got out of line' would sometimes be labeled with some make-believe, phony-ass diagnosis of drapetomania, which basically meant she (the slave) wasn't puttin' up with none of that shit, and was bein' too damn uppity. But of course slaves were born to be slaves, of course they were, how could it be otherwise? So any resentment or resistance on their part had to be down to some kind of fucking mental disturbance. Yeah, right. Like how fucking are mentally disturbed are you going to be when I shove this shotgun up your ass and pull the fucking trigger??? I'd say, all parts of y'all goin' to be seriously disturbed by that shit. So get over yourself already. You're not so special - you jest ain't been stomped hard enough in this lifetime to see what the hell all the fuckin' racket's about. To you it's just meaningless noise. But to the rest of us it actually means something, and reason we won't 'quieten down' is 'cause we want ya'll to fuckin' listen up already.
Anyway. Damn, but it felt good to write all that down! I wonder how many violent fantasies are basically revenge fantasies toward the various oppressors in one's life? I noticed myself thinking that while watching the Harry Potter movies - being especially taken by the stark contrasts between the 'good' guys and 'bad' guys - the whole good vs. evil thing. Especially watching the bullies (and there are many of them in these stories) get their comeuppance. Credits to Alice Miller. If only the rest of the culture would catch on to what is right in front of our noises: Mean, thoughtless parents produce children who become cruel, vicious, bullying parents in their own turn. And the cycle goes on, and on.
(Encountered an article today that said that the part of the central nervous system that processes physical pain is the same network that processes feelings of humiliation. Which might explain why so many people react violently to being humiliated! Makes sense - if we are affiliative creatures who depend on bonds of kinship and friendship for our sense of safety, security and belonging in a world where to be alone means to be shunned - naked and alone out on that savannah where there be tigers, and you'll get et if'n you ain't careful. You therefore want to be safely protected by others of your kind! Why the hell else do we have the most highly developed social networking skills of all god's critters? Answer: We're a tribal species. We need other people to survive, we soft-skinned, shell-less, dull-toothed and relatively slow bipeds. Pain and humiliation go against the bonding process, triggering all kinds of negative chemical reactions in the body. 'Not good,' as Cap'n Jack would say. So we have all kinds of incentive to avoid situations which cause us either physical or emotional pain, because they signal a rift between us and those we need most: Our kin. And thus it makes sense that the nervous system processes both humiliation and physical pain along the system pathway: They're both signals of something gone wrong in a social situation. Argh - getting bleary, need sleep. 'Pologies for any incoherence.)
***
Anger is part of the process (at least when you come from a family that doesn't support individual growth) of splitting away from the parent plant (the 'family') and becoming one's own person.
Anger happens when you finally get enough distance and enough life experience to realize that they way your folks did things isn't the only way, and that many of the things they did and said were damaging and destructive, if not simply outright cruel.
Anger is the fuel that keeps you motivated; that keeps you hunting for reasons, for solutions, for ways to make things work. To solve the 'problem' that you've been made out to be; to stop feeling like 'the problem' and put the blame to rest squarely where it belonged all along: On the shoulders of those who should have been fucking paying attention, but weren't.
So. Now I get to clean up the mess, deal with the consequences. And as my anger slowly dies down into a heap of coals with the occasional flare-up, I get to experiment with different ways of being and doing that my parents never showed me and/or didn't know about. I get to discover new paths, new ways. I get to decide for myself what's important, what matters. I am no longer in thrall to their angry glares, resentful scowls, judgmental looks. They have no power over me any more.
But it's like an earthquake - there are aftershocks in the form of relapses, regressions, etc., as I (mainly by trial and error) discover what actually works. I have to try out new anger techniques on strangers, then bring them closer and closer to home as I discover who my true friends are by testing the strength of our relationships. Adjusting the distance between me and others to match my comfort level, my willingness to trust based on my new standards, based on my rules.
(Sanctimonious, that's the word I was looking for earlier. Can't remember now where I meant to put it, so will store it here for later. Need a nap now.)
*Edited to add: I've remembered a photo where dad and I are clowning around and he's grinning a goofy grin at me. I remember there was this brief stretch where I was finally ok with dad because I'd become pretty, in spite of his constant backhanded remarks throughout my teenage years.
I have to say it felt kind of creepy - like being hit on by your own dad. I mean it would have been one thing if he'd been truly, genuinely friendly to me my whole life, and had made me feel like he liked me just the way I was. But in reality he could be unspeakably cruel and thoughtless - saying things that absolutely mortified me, cut me to the bone so that I felt like nothing and no one. He made it seem that I was unattractive but that it didn't matter - "We aren't here for decorative purposes," he'd say, as if that would somehow relieve the pain.
I didn't actually think I was ugly - I didn't think I was anything, really, not even plain. I just felt like - nothing. Like no one could see me. I remember gazing into the mirror by candlelight one night when I was about twelve, admiring my perfect skin, my gorgeous eyes, my pretty smile. And feeling unappreciated and resenting already that my youth and beauty were being wasted on someone so incapable of seeing me. I felt lost, already, even then - I feared that no one would ever see my beauty, no one would ever appreciate me for who I was.
When dad finally decided I was not so bad to look at after all, in my late teens or early 20s, it was too little, too late - I already felt betrayed and abandoned. I remember meeting him at a bar somewhere and thinking, Wow, this should be really cool, he's treating me like a grownup.
But it just felt kind of skeezy - I wondered if the people in the bar thought that I was some young chick my dad was cheating with, and if my dad was somehow kind of getting off on the idea that people might think I was his girlfriend rather than his daughter - it was pretty fucking weird, really. I remember feeling kind of shocked that this was my fucking father acting this way, and putting kind of a mental distance between me and him so that I wouldn't have to think about it too hard. It was really kind of gross.
Friday, September 11, 2009
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:
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:
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
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:
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.
"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:***You Can't Heal an Emotional Wound with Logic
- 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
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.
Friday, August 21, 2009
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.
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."
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."
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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.
Monday, August 10, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, August 3, 2009
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.
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:
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.
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.
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