Sometimes his column on Salon.com is so amazing I want to print it here. Usually, as with this one, I find the responses from Salon's active letter-writers to be even moreso. This one seemed unusally apt to much of what we discuss here. If you'd like to read the column and more letters on it, go to
www.salon.com, when the ad comes up wait a beat and you'll see Enter Salon at the top right corner, just click on that and you can access the whole site free. His column is called Since You Asked, and the letters are accessed from a link at the bottom of it. Scroll down....
Just wanted to share it with y'all. Here's one of the letters, below...
love,
Hops
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<i>Acceptance and separation worked for me.
You know, I thought quite a bit about my own childhood when I read this. My Dad, a scary pedophile, chased me around the house from the age of 4 or 5 along with my big sister. He was frightening beyond my ability to describe and much of my childhood was full of outright fear and pain. I believed as I grew up that there would be no way for me to really ever live as a "normal" person. And truthfully, it took a long, long time to get through the years of self-actualization to the unbelievably rewarding life I now live. But I'm here.
Part of how I got here, along with supportive mentors, incredible therapists (including an EMD specialist) was by breaking off family relationships that were toxic, or by taking a break from relationships that I had to leave for a while in order to come back and form a new bond. I never speak to my older sister, nor do I feel any residual pain from that. She was so hurt and damaged by my Father, and she deserves all of my compassion, but she could never figure out how to keep from taking her pain and inflicting serious pain on others. I can understand her without having to experience any of her toxic ways. I don't have to sacrifice myself. Ever.
My Mother could not undertand how she had helped my Father stalk me and my sister. I had to swallow horrible feelings of hate and anger every time I saw her, for years. So, at the age of 35 when the flashbacks were so bad I couldn't sleep, I finally told her I had to stop talking to her for a while. She was really mad and really hurt, and I was really shaken. A year and a half later I went back to see her. She took the day off, turned off her phone and sent her husband golfing and before I said a word, she apologized for never understanding....turns out she had been doing her research. Our relationship will not be what some mothers and daughters have, but it is ours, and when I talk to her now I only experience the present.
There is so much more to tell...but now I am 41, and every choice I made to try and find a path through the emotional pain initially caused me more pain, and then finally strength, acceptance and eventual happiness. Real happiness, which, by the way takes practice after being emotionally stretched over a drama barrel for so long.
It is okay to make choices that give you space and peace and a way forward. It is also okay to experience and accept that others have inflicted great pain on you. Acceptance, oddly enough, sometimes causes grief and the re-experience of pain, but also allows your body to act as a filter and rework the construct of your life into the shape that fits your future.
The very best of peace to you.
-- Freedom Rocks <i/>
