writing to sort out the tares

[Gaining Strength]

I gleaned something here last night that has helped me out, shaken things up and my mind is a jumble so with some apoligies I am pouring the mess out here to try to comb through and make some sense.

My great nightmare has been paralysis.  In June I prayed for insight into this paralysis and the word "shame" came to me. I was a little surprised because I had worked through shame many times in the past, reading and re-reading Bradshaw's book. But I had only scratched the surface.

Strangely enough I didn't see the FEAR underneath it until I read a post by Hops last night. Now it seems so clear:  of course it is fear.  The shame is annihilating but the fear is Fear of being annihilated, fear of being who they said I was.  So out of fear I had become what I feared.  I have been waiting to be rescued by my father, waiting for him to give me permission to grow up, waiting for him to provide for me financially the way he was provided for the way the people I grew up with were provided for. His message, repeated to me over and over was not to ask for what you want or need but to wait - you get what you deserve.  I must not have deserved much.

I've waited all these years, to be freed, caught in an unconscious psychological prison.  Now I'm getting it.  For several years I knew that my prison was like the string that held the elephant but I could not find the strength to snap that little binding fiber. 

My longing to belong, to be loved, encouraged and "set free" by my father has been that string.  Now I can break it.  But that leaves me afraid of being responsible for myself, leaves me feeling abandoned.  But really I can deal with those fears.  I have the tools for those fears.  How strange it is to see that I have continued to long to be recognized and loved by him.  I really had no idea that I was still stuck there.  I truly believed that I had let that go years and years ago.  I thought I had grieved it all already but here I am again having to do that wretchedly painful grieveing all over again.  I hate it but I am willing to do it in order to get through it and get to the other side.

This summer I have really learned that just because I have addressed an issue in the past does not mean that I have fully plumbed those depths.  That was a dangerous belief for me, it kept me locked in denial.  So now I have to go about grieving my loss of father all over again.  But I have a really nice father I created in my mind a year and a half ago and I am going to go talk to him about getting through this new grief and moving on.

I deal with fear by repeating over and over, "I did not give you a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind." 

Thanks for this place.  I'm so glad to have a community where I can talk.  I have been so lonely and so alone.  This forum has been the greatest gift to me.  The freedom to express, to throw my struggles out into the world without watching backs turn or the shades go out in the eyes.  I was so alienated in my family and have only recently realized that I lived out that alienation in my life until it finally took a toll and overcame me completely. 

Cutting these ties are just the first step.  It has always been strange to me at how painful this is.  This should be a feel good stage but it's not.  It is reliving that excruciating pain.  This is unbearable.  I'm going to go try to process this.  I just have to say again that this is so painful.  I'm just laying it all out.  It is so amazing that this place is safe enough to do that.  That is the great gift of Voicelessness - it is safe. 

Safe, secure, safe.  My world has never been safe until now.  I have so feared the lack of security.  I have been so insecure.  This place is safe. I am holding on to safe.  I did not know that I have never known safe.  That word is so powerful to me now.  I know how keen this word is because as I first typed it the tears began to flow.  I have been so lonely and so afraid.  I have known no safety, no safe place, until I found this place.  I am so thankful to be home.  I'm going to say it again, I am so thakful for a place where it is safe for me to put out my pain and to lay out my hopes.

Thanks to the Board - Gaining Strength, just one step back before I head forward again.

[Hops]

Oh (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((GS))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Bravo to you. You are SAFE here with us.
(Don't worry about occasional flareups here if you see one sometime, the board always heals and goes forward.)

I'm sorry you have to go through another wave of griefwork, but I trust your powerful instinct that it is going to liberate you. You are liberating YOURSELF. That's the way grief goes, but I'm sure this won't be just a repeat. New insights, new hope, at just over the crest. And what's wonderful is that it's so clear that you know that, and so you have the courage to go forward.

And slip back. My deep respect to you for your last line especially.

You're doing GREAT. (And helping others while you're about it, too. Esp. me!) THANK YOU for sharing all this. You are chipping away alongside me at my paralysed places, too.

Hugs,
Hops

[teartracks]

(((((((((((((((((((((((SAFE, GAINING STRENGTH))))))))))))))))))))))


(((((((((((((((GRACIOUS HOPS FOR HER WISDOM)))))))))))))))))))))

teartracks

[Gaining Strength]

I am floored at the release I feel having found SAFE.  I went to pick my little boy up from school and came back to check the board.  Reading this again has brought more tears.  I seldom cry so I know this has really touched something in me.

Hops - as always thank you so much for your response and encouragement.  It is a true gift, as real as anything I can hold, a treasure I can spend as currency whenever I am down.

Jac - This is what I believe all the coping mechanisms are for - to keep at bay the fear of death by abandonment.  It is a great and powerful fear of all humans.  It drives that ego.  It is a wretched fear which causes so much pain and dysfunction. 

As I was driving home, I went back in time to my childhood and told my father that I was unable to be bound to him any longer, unable to sit by feigning helplessness because he wanted to render me impotent to his complete control.  Suddenly, I felt so afraid and vulnerable and so I turned and stood on the sure foundation of Christ and then I knew that I could go forth.  I have to gently rebuke my father and FOO because I have lived so many years in rage.  For me I love the image of Tim Gunn on Project Runway.  When he rebuked Keith for having broken verboten rule he did so with kindness, "you have to go tonight. Sorry."  No name calling, no belittling.  Just straight forward - you broke the rules here are your consequences.  Perhaps this appeals to me so much because it resounds with compassion.  I believe that God grieves for us when we turn our backs on him and so that is how I am responding to my FOO.  With sorrowful but certain rebuke.  This is really helping me.  And now I can turn to God, the creator to get what it was that I needed.  I'm not sure how that works but I believe it does. None of us get all we need from our earthly parents and many of us get far too little indeed.

It is such a blessing for me to read this.  It is a blessing and a gift to me and to all the others who contribute here in the spirit of love and growth and learning and understanding.

What a surprise!  How strange indeed.  Somehow, for some reason (unresolved yuck), I expect derision from anyone reading my posts.  So these words help me let go of that concern.  I look forward to having confidence that putting myself out there is what it is and if it enenders derision so be it.  I don't have to own it.  The reaction is owned by it's creator.  The unreasonable sense of being responsible for other's reactions clearly goes back to FOO.  I've known better for many, many years going back to Al Anon - but knowing and incorporating and two different things.

Definitely  Gaining Strength

((((((Hops)))))     (((((jacmac)))))     (((((tt)))))

Many thanks to Dr. G for the gift of this place.

[pennyplant]

Dear ((((((((GS)))))))))))))

You are doing such a great job.  And you are helping me with what you write here.  I can't always find the words for what is happening inside me, and the others here, including you, give me those words and ideas and that helps pieces of my puzzle fall into place too.

As I was driving home, I went back in time to my childhood and told my father that I was unable to be bound to him any longer, unable to sit by feigning helplessness because he wanted to render me impotent to his complete control. 

This above is something I need to do.  It will be hard. And I probably never would have thought of it on my own.

Love, Pennyplant

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

...I know if he's read this, his heart has been made glad.

Thanks, Jac.  I have and it has.

...Many thanks to Dr. G for the gift of this place.

You're welcome, GS.  Glad you're here!

Best,

Richard

[Gaining Strength]

It's so nice to hear from you Dr. G

I am so un-star-struck but none-the-less it really is nice to hear from you Dr. G. 
I love the content of this board but I also greatly admire the format.  It is exceptionally well crafted and such a pleasure to use.  This is an extraordinary service and I am unfeignly thankful.

thanks for your reply jacmac

As always - Gaining Strength

[reallyME]

Gaining Strength,

I am so PROUD of you!  You are making wonderful discoveries about yourself and others and it blesses my heart a lot!

I've waited all these years, to be freed, caught in an unconscious psychological prison.  Now I'm getting it.  For several years I knew that my prison was like the string that held the elephant but I could not find the strength to snap that little binding fiber. 

Excellent description using a simile " like the string that held the elephant"...that really truly describes what N's do to people.  It is as if we are that poor elephant, tethered by only a little chain from childhood, and yet so used to having that chain there, that if it's removed, we still stand only within the length of it, daring not to venture further.  JUST EXCELLENT VISIONARY TALENT IN THIS, GS!

Richard, I want to thank you for not banning me from your board while I figured out how to become part of it with others.  As with any group, there is a silent type of protocol, that if one is wanting to be part of it, one must not try to be part by using an extreme form of individualism.  Those who have seen me over the months, know what I'm talking about.

 I have learned MUCH here and I enjoy all of your comments!

Thank you for this wonderful tool!

~Laura

[Gaining Strength]

Richard, I want to thank you for not banning me from your board while I figured out how to become part of it with others. 

ReallyMe - isn't is great to have a place to work these things out!

GS

[Gaining Strength]

Still sorting -

connecing to source - made the mistake in childhood of connecting to N - seemed choice of survival.  I survived physically but have been in the living dead psychologically.  Past four years I have lived in complete dysfunction but I can be thankful because ir has led me here.  The isolation has been painful but it has forced me to focus in and get to the point.

In buying into the N I took on shame, the entire family's shame.  Of course that became debilitating.  I bought into my Ns whole system - that's what we do as children, we buy our parents system.  On the outside it looked right.  The only problem they could see was me.  I saw me as the problem too.  And so I fell into a neurotic battle - loving and hating myself.  Longing to become the person that my N father would admire - completely unaware that that person was illusive, illusory, unattainable.    In some ways I had the charateristics necessary to be the "goal" person but the feedback I got was shaming and belittling.  Also one of the most devastating in so many ways is that whenever I began to do something well the target would change.  I began to feel like such a failure, a truly bad seed.  As the targets changed and any achievements were belittled, I grew bitter and resentful and angry.  I couldn't see this and of course could not see the source and if I had undestood it would have never been validated.  I kept looking in my parents eyes for the validation I needed in order to know who I was and what I saw was disappointmnt and contempt.  I didn't know that that belonged to them and not to me. 

Early on - by about first grade - I became unfulfilled "potential" - NEVER living up.  Only recently have I been able to see that I lived in utter fear, fear of being rebuked, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of failure.  Tragically I have fulfilled that fear.  But as I have sorted out where this came from and have seen that it is false, at last I can reject it. 

Today I choose to change my focus.  I choose to say no to the direction from my N FOO and I am saying yes to my strengths.  I say yes to compassion, yes to humor, yes to encouragement.  No to perfectionism, No to paralysis.  Yes to planning, yes to structure, yes to creativity.

This is like starting over as an infant with no parents.  I am lost at sea but I have to put my trust in "Source"  put my trust in whatever brought me here. 

I am dragging my feet. It goes against the grain.  I am still acting out of survival instinct.  I must use my will to move out of that instinct.  I choose to leave all that behind and step out, in faith to something better, something completely unseen.  I am diving off the high dive for the first time.  I don't have a voice to follow.  Instinct has served me poorly in the past.  I really have to muster enough courage to just get going.  Once I break out I know I will be free.  With some kind of trepidation I am going to jump.  I'm taking on an explorers attitude, leaving what is known behind.

I'm putting it out there in this post.  Giving it life.  Wish me well. - GS

[Gaining Strength]

As I work - I get overwhelmed by a paralyzing wretched feeling that I call shame.  I recognize this as a product of N projection.  Today I choose to detach from this wretchedness.  I see that "making progress" has never been enough because in my FOO the target goal was always moving.  The closer I got the quicker the target moved - like  magnets of like poles.  Much of the chastisement for failing was silent or behind my back.  This just gave it more power over me.  It became the Panopticon of Foucault's description.  The all seeing prison eye.

The key for me escaping this prison is detaching.  I can not shut off their attitude towards me but I can learn to change the way I react.  I could mourn the loss of "family", that ideal concept of family as loving and supportive.  I could recognize that until I detach I am putting th nails into my own coffin.  This behavior is no longer their destruction of me but it is now self-destructive.  It is much the same as an addiction. 

I can do this.  There is a life for me beyond this darkness.  That shame has a terrible self-entrapping aspect: the shame shuts me down and then I am ashamed at what I cannot accomplish - housework, paperwork, phone calls - whatever.

The perfectionism is just a shaming device.  I haven't figured out how to extricate myself from this yet.  It traps me every single day because it keeps me from figuring out where to begin, especially since I am in such a hole.  It is hard to dig out. 

I'm just touching base to lifeline.  Crawling out bit by bit. - GS

[pennyplant]

You're doing a good job, GS.  You're really looking at this.  As painful as it it, you're still looking and seeing it for what it was.  It may wear you out because it is so hard and so painful.  That is to be expected.  Taking the time to do this will make a difference in your life.

PP

[Certain Hope]

Gaining Strength,

  Just waving hello over here.... and still putting one foot in front of the other. It's good to check in on the board, isn't it?
Helps me to keep going, too. Chores>>> peek in for a bit, errands>>> peek in again, kitchen patrol>>>  well, you get the idea.
Developing a new routine is always a challenge, but you're doing well and I believe that you'll stick with it.

Love,
Hope

[mudpuppy]

Hey GS,

You're at the beginning of a long process. Right now you're concentrating on sorting out and discarding the tares.
I think the best way to know you're making progress is when you find you have stopped looking for the tares and have started looking for the wheat, if you know what I mean. 

mud

[teartracks]

Mud,

Good to have your wisdom in the mix.   Missed you!

I ditto all you said to GS. 

GS, you're doing very well!  Stay sharp and focused.

tt