Today's Hurdles

[Izzy_*now*]

I'm laughing out loud, waking myself up...happened again this morning.

If I were to try to tell the dream, it would be in spurts and not at all funny, but then I drop back to sleep, continue the dream and wake myself up agaiin, still laughing.....and again if I don't force myself fully awake to put a stop to it....then chuckle all the way to the kitchen.

I am just cracking up, all alone in bed (I wonder if my neighbour can hear me?)

This has been happening on and off for a few months.

Hmmm? Happen to anyone else ever?

[gjazz]

Well, you know Borat was a really nice guy.  And good looking, once he was out of that body-thong thing.  And quite virile I might add.  But we didn't consummate our fledgling relationship, alas.  He decided he had to be true to his fiancee, "Alison," who called him on his cell while I was sitting on his lap (yes, clothed, people).  I didn't wake up actually laughing, but pretty close.

[Gaining Strength]

I want to share something that I am experiencing today.  It is built on that insight I had about the two types of anger: helplessness rage and "driven" anger.

I had one of my most productive sessions with my therapist today.  I briefly mentioned the four dreams to him and the words associated with 3 of them: sabotage; abandonment/rejection; and over-responsibility (responsible for Other people or things out of my control) and the image of MY house that was brilliantly white and in which stood my father and a servant.

My T's wise counsel was that as a child I used "resistance" against my father as a protection and that mechanism has turned against me.  Instantaneously I saw it - I resist my father's Judgment and Any Servant like activities - cooking, house cleaning and others.

I felt such rage at the judgment - indescribable rage and as I drove away I worked to harness that rage and transform it from "helpless" rage to activating, driven anger.  Only time will tell as my day is a busy one and no time to try it out.

I went from therapist to a prayer group and there came upon a verse from the bible that gave me yet another tool - In Corinthians Paul is writing to the people of Corinth and telling them that he will not listen and take on their judgment of him but that the only judge that matters to him is God. 

SO - after a difficult day of paralysis yesterday, today I am moving forward and making yet another enormous leap.  I now know that another layer of this paralysis is "resistance" to my father's judgment/condemnation/sabotage which is complicated because all the while I was also loving him and longing for a connection and to please him, completely unconscious of the dark side of his projected shadow self onto me.  I now know that a HUGE portion of this paralysis has to do with having been pushed into a servant role (which in and of itself is not negative but in the context of my family it is and that is what is critical to me at this jucture) which was a lesser than and unvalued role in my father's mind.

NOW I can experience the rage and channel it into standing up against the judgment that I have been trapped into resisting.  I have more sorting out to do with this information but I am certain that this will cause another significant shift - and of course more "stuff" will be revealed to be sorted out still.

[Gaining Strength]

I have much to do and cannot afford to linger here today as I want to do.  But I recognize that common fear that I will not be able to accomplish what I must do - the fear of failure.  I believe that fear is slowly losing power.  After so many years, I am getting strength to face down these paralyzing fears.  Thank God for that strength.

[Gaining Strength]

I don't think I am going to be understood about this but I am need to write about it here anyway.  I have a profound need to share it and feel a degree of safety and protection here.

I am connecting with some experiences from my earliest memories - about age 2.  But this synthesis of these memories continued through out my life.  There are two prongs of this pain: 1) is the pain/hurt/wound from my father's utter lack of love and 2) my inability to relate that to anyone else, to convey to another human being how wrong it was, how much it hurt, and why it still matters.  The 2nd issue is just as pain inducing as the first at this time.  IOW, I really must deal with this 2nd issue and cut through that pain in order to get to the 1st.

I AM, not I was but I AM that 2 year old and that 4 year old who longed, yearned to be held, loved, adored by my father, who would have done anything, include supress, repress the very being who I was, in order to be close to, to be in with that larger than life human being.  I AM that 2 year old, that 4 year old who is longing to conform to , match up to, distort my soul in order to fit some twisted concept that he demanded - an impossible, inhuman form that kept shifting, changing, that was designed specifically to exclude me.  The "____" that I tried to fit in order to be accepted was just like guessing the number of jelly beans in the jar so I could vote - the number always shifted specifically to make sure that NOONE subject to the test COULD vote.  THAT is what my father did to me. Set me up, Sabotaged me - to shut me out - all the while pretending - (only) on the surface - that I had a chance of being loved - if ONLY I would just ... ... ... ... ...

Joke is on me - I am still trying to guess what those dots mean - nevermind that the train has left the track - HELLO!!!  YooHOo - GS - you missed the whole thing - you got fooled - you're a patsy - jokes on you -  look over there - see all those folks - they are having a good laugh at your expense.  I feel the horror and shame and rush of adrenaline.  I go back to the dots - what else can I do - I am standing naked before the world with no where to hide and my very own family, my very own mother, my very own father is there leading the hoots and howls, doubled over laughing.  Jokes on me - I loved them and I was born and I needed love.  Jokes on me.

Pull up your boot straps you say.               I can't.  I don't have any boots.

[Gaining Strength]

figured this out - posting really for myself - probably won't make sense to anyone else.

The pain is horrible - but I see now that I did not do this to myself.  I will
be frozen only as long as I accept the humiliation.  But the shame does not
belong to me - it belongs to my family and to all those who laughed and thought
it was funny.  All of them are projecting their shame out onto me but there is
ONE in the crowd who is not and that one is enough.  I can let go of the shame
and move on.
Hold the image of the one .  The one is the portal to another land of being, the land where I do belong and am cherished and it is a wonderful, opulent land far surpassing what I fear leaving behind here, what I hate being shut out of.  That is the fear - that I was shut out of the only good one.  That is why I have not been able to let go.

Not so - but I cannot have the good one until I let go of the horrific one.  So obvious and yet not at all.

[ann3]

Hi GS,

this is really important stuff.  IMO, don't think we can heal until we go thru what you're going thru, so BRAVO!!!!

I'm reading a book which I really like & think it could help (get it at Amazon):

Why Can't I Ever Be Good Enough? Escaping the Limits of Your Childhood Roles (Paperback)
by Joan Rubin-Deutsch

Here's part of a review:

This is a truly amazing and wonderful book! Rubin-Deutsch writes that "you can be the person YOU choose to be . . ." and offers a step-by-step guide to discovery and realization. She makes it easy to grasp the often unconscious patterns we form as children in response to our parents and families by using the idea of contracts-and then shows how to "re-write" these contracts from a healthy and adult point of view. The book contains clear explanations of the concepts, with examples, and is also a workbook with exercises to complete. It is definitely not something to rush through, but requires some serious thought in order to really achieve personal growth.

You wrote:
I AM that 2 year old, that 4 year old who is longing to conform to , match up to, distort my soul in order to fit some twisted concept that he demanded - an impossible, inhuman form that kept shifting, changing, that was designed specifically to exclude me.  The "____" that I tried to fit in order to be accepted was just like guessing the number of jelly beans in the jar so I could vote - the number always shifted specifically to make sure that NOONE subject to the test COULD vote.  THAT is what my father did to me. Set me up, Sabotaged me - to shut me out - all the while pretending - (only) on the surface - that I had a chance of being loved - if ONLY I would just ... ... ... ... ...

GS, as per this book, you are describing a 'contract' you made with your father.  Now that you recognize the terms & conditions of that contract, you now must break that contract.  Please get the book.  It cost about $10.  $10 to give you peace of mind and a new life:  PRICELESS!!!!!!!

love,
ann

[sKePTiKal]

Another word for contract is conditions.... and they usually include an expectation of result for meeting or not meeting the conditions.  We all know the unfulfilled, conditional promises: do this & I'll love you. I can't imagine how awful, how horrible it must have been, GS... to fulfill the conditions only to be told the conditions have changed... and then, be laughed at.

I've said it before: these people are monsters. NOT parents... even though biologically responsible for your existence.

I can tell you that I wouldn't have laughed with them. I'd have been horrified for you, then angry with them for being so cruel. I know the pain of that kind of betrayal. It wasn't just you that was laughed at. Made fun of. Dismissed. You don't need to pretend they were "parents", in the usual sense.