My Truth

[Meh]

On the topic of “I have a right to be here”…and being very SELF CONSCIOUS
(warning this is sort of a boring, rambling post)

Today I was in a lovely park and decided to do some basic tai chi-stances/movements. I noticed that when people walk by I have the impulse to do one of the following things: Stop and sit on a near by bench and stare into space until they pass by, OR  Stop and pretend like I’m doing something other then tai-chi such as looking at the bushes, OR stop and sit down cross legged on the grass and fake-smile at them, OR stop and walk away to another part of the park so I can find a more secluded place, AND I also think about how they might interpret my facial expression and I wonder how fake this smile is I’m making, a little fake, or a lot fake. As I’m writing this, I think this sounds absurd, yet it is what my mind is going through.   

The reason why I noticed my impulsive thoughts today was because Hops started the post on the phrase “I have a right to be here”.. Thank you Hops!….

I know that my impulses are probably irrational. The park that I was practicing in today is a very, very, large park, acres worth of park. So there is ample room for me. I’m not in anyone’s way. It’s more of a stroll-through park, and there are only a few of these passers-by, it’s not bustling at all. There is no one playing Frisbee or catch. Yet I still feel like I have to not draw attention to myself, or something. Maybe I’m so fearful of being judged, in my mind people are thinking that I’m doing something the wrong way or that I’m bad at it or I’m eccentric. Maybe there is some part of me that does not think I have the right to just do my own thing. Who knows what the heck is going on inside me..Maybe I feel so self conscious because I was around people who were overly-critical about too many petty arbitrary things and it has driven me to being bonkers. Who f’n knows.   

I know that the park people are not going to throw tomatoes at me. In fact Tai-chi has the effect of calming down the surrounding environment. People are pretty mellow when they walk by me they really don’t care. So why am I so self-conscious?
 
Until today I didn’t notice the depth of my self-consciousness, how hard it is for me to relax around other people. So, I know that this is dumb. I know I shouldn’t be so self conscious. But I just am. Maybe I feel like I can walk through the park but I’m not allowed to do anything other then walk through the park since that would be different then what the average person is doing. So I said to myself:

 “I have a right to be here, there is enough space for me, it’s perfectly ok for me to do tai chi in this park”.  Now that I’m writing this it seems absurd to me that I would even have to say that to myself. How weird is that.

It did help, whenever a person would walk by, I would say to myself “I have a right to be here”. After saying it I could then stay in my own body, in my own space.

At first my attention wants to go to whoever is walking by. After a while though I was able to pay more attention to my own space and not get carried away by the people walking by. That is how I felt around some Nar-people, that they demanded my full attention and I just could not bring my focus back to myself. I was always feeling self conscious wondering when they would attack next. On guard all the time not able to relax into my own being.

I’m an animal of prey constantly monitoring the environment for signs of danger.   

Just the thought of the word SELF CONSCIOUS makes me feel exhausted.
So worried about what other people will think of me, Oh no! They will see my imperfectness! Oh no! I’m waving my arms around in the air, they are going to think I’m crazy!” The crazy part is not what I’m doing (The Tai-Chi), instead the crazy part is the agony that my psyche goes through just to stand in the park.

Maybe this seems like a self-absorbed post, but I do think there is something to be learned from noticing my thoughts and breaking them down and then really looking at them and trying to find any truth in them or seeing the falseness of these thoughts.

Ok maybe this all makes me sound weird, I am maybe a little weird, but I assure you not as weird as it sounds. It’s not like I’m dressed up as a bush so that I can blend in with the foliage or anything.

I am peeling my fingers off of the keyboard… RIGHT NOW!

[Ami]

Dear ((Helen))
 Thanks for bringing it up and SO  beautifully expressed ,too!
This was part of my angst at the "Golf Party". Would I be weird if I didn't watch golf and went to my room?Would I be a weird anti-social?
 I think shame is under it cuz if we get one more assault we will "crack", we think.
 We have been shamed up to the tip top. It hurt so much that we monitor ourselves so we can avoid it,now.
 I think we have to find a way to let the shame out like  steam in a pressure cooker.
      Ami
   

[Meh]

Re: Ami       So, during your golf party, you had an internal tug-of-war going on? And your mental thoughts maybe even distracted you from enjoying other people's company a bit?

Ami: "We monitor ourselves to avoid the shame"   This statement is interesting to me Ami.

It's like the self monitoring is part of anxiety. It makes sense.


P.S.
I had a family party that I went to a long time ago, I had to travel there directly after work so I was wearing my work clothes.
When I got to the party some woman did a snotty up and down look at me and I thought "screw it", I just went up stairs into a spare bedroom and fell quickly asleep. I felt like a weirdo for doing it but I also spared myself the agony of a bad party. My uncle was bragging about his new toilet seat cover...uh it really was a bad party.

[Ami]

 Dear Helen
  I will tell you about my thoughts.I was  watching Golf, frozen  cuz I wanted to leave but did not want to seem weird, a loner, anti-social.
 I had a background tug between wanting to be an independent person and say," I don't like golf,  I will come back later" and "You are a selfish, immature baby for not being able to place your OWN  needs behind other peoples.
 You are BAD if you go against the crowd. "
 I think that may have been under your Tai Chi experience, too,going against "normal" people who walk in the park--not" abnormal "people who do Tai Chi.
  Anyway, I went to my room BUT I felt like a really bad loser. My H came and told me"Be social" so I felt worse.
  I came out and people had stopped watching golf and were getting ready to leave SO I felt worse like *I* had driven them out--LOL.
   *I* could not shake the "BAD".
  My friend  said, "You were beating yourself up cuz you were less than "perfect".  You felt  BAD and SELFISH to do s/thing for yourself like leave the room The NM demands total allegiance like a dictator. If you do anything for yourself, she unleashes wrath and humiliation on you like you had  with the dinner at her house.         Ami
 


PS I think we were hit with a board so many times for having our own identity and/or  being "selfish' that we are brainwashed with t "bad" for doing either. I think it is a brainwashing like cult members.
 I can hear my internal voice get me when I want to be independent and/or take care of my own needs.

[Meh]

I can see that lack of intimacy(emotional) would hurt the heart. When s/one says s/thing really sweet to me, my heart squeezes--something really warm, tender and loving.
  Have you ever had this?          Ami     
 

To answer your question, um I'm not sure, I don't recall my heart squeezing in a tender warm way. Usually the feeling I associate with a squeezing heart is more of a diminishing/shrinking field of space that gets smaller out of fear.
 
Ok, so I notice as I'm answering this post, I'm feeling embarrassed.

I once had cranio-sacral therapy, it's very gentle and subtle, the therapist actually said to me that when she put her hand near my heart, my heart tries to move away from her. I didn't feel it on my end, but if she says she noticed it she probably did. 

The heart area of my chest actually tries to squirm away! My poor little heart, I never realized how messed up it is!

[Ami]

Oh (((Helen))))
 I strated noticing my actual heart after Scott died b/c it literally hurt. It was  an actual physical ache.  I became attuned to  how it felt with different emotions.
 Last week,my friend said  "I will love you when you get old"
 That made my heart squeeze.
  I think warmth and intimacy feed the literal heart.However, you have to get rid of shame before you can risk intimacy so it is hard when you have our type of M's. You have to find the right people to grow with.
      Ami
 

PS I think our NM's literally broke our hearts.

[Meh]

Ami, I see you as an adult who has her own likes and dislikes. I see that you do not especially derive pleasure from watching golf especially when what you really want to do is converse. I see you as a person who knows exactly what she wants.

I don't see the "Bad" or "the selfish cry baby".

[Ami]

Ami, I see you as an adult who has her own likes and dislikes. I see that you do not especially derive pleasure from watching golf especially when what you really want to do is converse. I see you as a person who knows exactly what she wants.

I don't see the "Bad" or "the selfish cry baby".

I see YOU that way, too.I think we have distortions about ourselves more than other people. That is probably the root of our problems. That is why my "program" now is to try to see "reality" as it is not as my distortions TELL me it is.KWIM?       Ami
 

[Hopalong]

It’s not like I’m dressed up as a bush so that I can blend in with the foliage or anything.

I am peeling my fingers off of the keyboard…

Imo, there's nothing more endearing than a neurotic (meant in an affectionate way, from one to another  ) with a sense of humor!

Thank you for making this story a delight to read, even though it was no delight for you to feel. I think you got to a great place, when you occupied your space and felt pleasure and belonging.

It won't always be so hard. It's just about practicing.

Will you do it again? I hope so.

hugs
Hops

[Meh]

More of my "Stuff"...Me rambling on about my childhood.

There are a couple of parents that I know with a little girl. These parents of course brag about her accomplishments almost incessantly as if she really is the smartest and most talented child on the planet. These parents also know about what she is learning in school in each subject they have a gauge for her progress. They take a keen interest in her development of skills and abilities. They ask her to recite what she knows to the people around them as if people really would want to know. The parents assume that everyone adores their child as much as they do. They try to expose her to as much as they can in life I guess so she is cultured or something. They celebrate her when she is a “winner”, they also protect her in situations where she is not a “winner”. The parents would never call her a loser although they will call other children losers without restraint. She goes to special schools, I once went over her homework with her as requested by her parents and I was surprised at the level of work she was working on. She was adopted, her fate would probably had been much worse had she been left unadopted. To listen to the parents, one would think that the child was somehow inherently superior to all other children because she belongs to them. Of course they forget that she is not even genetically theirs.


I recall when I was a kid, a friend of the family who asked me to see my school books and papers. My binder was disorganized I guess, so this friend of the family told me that the binder was disorganized and helped me organize it. This person also tested me on the things that I should know at that point in school and I was informed as well as my father was, that I was “way behind”. This is the one and only single time I remember an adult taking direct interest in my schoolwork.

I'm just noticing the differences here, the reality of my childhood and how it was not the same as all childhoods on many levels.

My father did seem to expect me to achieve and fail at the same time. This was very confusing to me. I remember once he said to me that I was flailing. Flailing means to wave and thrash the limbs around wildly and helplessly. This comment sticks with me.

Sometimes my parents were busy with work it's true, but more often they were physically there but not mentally there. My mother would prefer to veg-out in front of the television then look at my school work. I recall no time when my mother ever took an interest in my school work, never asked me about it or looked at it, nothing at all.
School work was never discussed at the dinner table, I don't remember what was, some sort of underhanded conflict probably was always brewing at the dinner table, some personal attacks from her boyfriend, him claiming that there was something wrong about me. 

I know this is all in the past, it just helps me put my childhood into context.
As a kid I did not know what I was missing out on, I knew that I was sad but did not understand why, I felt wrong for being sad. 

[Meh]

Ruminating:

Some say don't sit around feeling sorry for yourself, don't have a pity party for yourself. Who are these people who say these things?
Why is it any of their f'n business. I hear this in my mind, a force pressuring me not to pity myself. That feeling sorry for myself is weak. On the contrary, looking back and having compassion for myself for the first time, that is not weak. I deserve to try to find compassion for all parts of me in the past and the present that were ignored for so long. I have the right to give attention to the parts of me that were ignored. In fact now it is my sole responsibility to do that.

I'm looking back at my childhood and seeing that my child's-mind did not understand what was going on, what was happening to me, I am only now understanding what was happening to me. I am ruminating, I have a right to ruminate, I have a right to figure out the truth of my past. The world wants us to go out and achieve and to do..

Don't just do something, sit there..

I'm not feeling sad for myself, I'm trying to forgive myself, I'm trying to console myself, I'm trying to fix myself, I'm trying to give to myself what my parents didn't give to me. The only way I can give to myself is to really understand what was missing. I'm trying to find the real me. I have the right to find the real me, no matter what I've got to do to find her. I'm trying to undo the badness.
I wish I could go back and nurture that kid I use to be.

You know what, maybe I am feeling sad for myself? Maybe that is exactly what I need to do is to FEEL sad for mySELF.

If I only Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the positive and eliminate the negative then I'm eliminating big sections of myself.

I know that not everyone can "get this", I've got these neighbors that are always goofing and laughing almost always, I bet there is not a day that goes by that they are not laughing with each other. They are not struggling inside. Life is a big joke and a big game and they are confident that they will win at it. They never have to say to themselves "I have a right to be here". There is not a single cell in their body that believes it does not have the right.

Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha,...yeah well F'you.

Ok, I know I'm being a snot, but that is how I feel sometimes.

At least I know why I'm a grouch.

[sKePTiKal]

I hear "processing". That's good. Sometimes what we remember is earth-shatteringly important; sometimes it's just more of the same old, same old. It ALL has to be processed: picked up, examined under the microscope, seeing if a pattern is developing... Processing is what helps us get beyond being "stuck". That's not the same as "unglued", mind you. Stuck is when we can't stop processing the same old crap - the same way - over & over.

Un-stuck is like being free from old emotional/mental habits... and breathing deeply of fresh, stimulating air... and deciding what to do next.

[sKePTiKal]

OK - our posts crossed in the cyber-ether...

It's OK to feel sorry for yourself... for the awful things that happened to you... and for the things you didn't have. It's grieving... a great human loss... and I think you'll find that grief has it's own schedule; it's own agenda; and that finally, at the end of the process you'll have a great sense of peace... and wholeness.

I keep thinking about that picture of the beautiful little girl... do you ever meditate on the picture? Try to see her? Is she trying to tell you something?

[Meh]

Un-stuck is like being free from old emotional/mental habits... and breathing deeply of fresh, stimulating air... and deciding what to do next.

You mean "unglued" is like being free?

Processing is interesting, it has it's own darn path like a winding snake and I can't see where it's going, but yes sometimes I do get to a destination that seems worthwhile.

[Ami]

Dear Helen
 You express what *I* think and feel so beautifully, much better than I could. When I hear you talk, I say "Yes". I "get' what you are saying.
 *I* could have written it if I were as eloquent.            Ami