Blackie/Whitie

[Ami]

Hug  Kung-fu

Ki---AHHH!  (Bruce Lee chicken sound effect here)


No but really, Ami, I hope you are OK, it looks like you are in a bit of a tizzy, very overwhelmed with feelings.

Maybe just take life one little step at a time?

Hug   Hug   Hug

I am so scared,((( Helen))). I want to run ,screaming in my yard,"Does ANYONE know how to do life?  You mean *I* am supposed to be the adult? When did that happen-huh? Where was *I* when that happened? Isn't there some training that is supposed to go along with this----seriously?
 You mean I am left alone in life with THIS head and supposed to not be road kill? How do you go  from here to there -huh?
  I am numb, a numb person. How does a numb person do life? Where do I start?  I have been dependent for so long. I am Dependency Personality Disorder, diagnosed by me.
 If I ever get fully functioning, it will be a milagro. Pray to the saints. There is a saint for the fucked up,isn't there?                              xxxxxxooooo  Ami            
                            Ami

[Ami]

 Does any parent teach a kid how  life is?Maybe, if you leave the kid alone to figure it out , he could.I think I could have rolled with the punches if I was  left alone:maybe that is a pipe dream ,though, revisionist history.
   Whitie will try to see life as it is. She is gonna write honest things that people might not like but no one really "likes " honesty in the sense that real life and real people are not always  very pretty.
 Whitie herself will be the first to say that she is not always pretty and that is where the rest of the story lies, I think.

Whitie has a BAD : everyone else does ,too. That is Whitie's third or fourth lesson from the drinking group. Whitie's mother must have really believed it : telling Whitie there were perfect OR flawed  people.Even a nano flaw made you BAD. Your nano flaw could  be in thinking or feeling. Do you see how I got so screwed up? Could Superwoman have endured this and stayed  sane?
 Do kids believe in good and BAD?
 My kids would ask "Is she nice?" That would mean good ,through and through. I guess that is the childlike thinking, the through and through part, not allowing for shades of gray, subtleties.
 I am good, bad, medium, selfish, giving, mean, nice, babyish, mature, sweet,negative. Can you believe this? All this from the Queen of BAD? Helen's prayers  to the saint must be working. I guess we just  had to find the right saint.

[Ami]

                                                 Punishing Yourself

Whitie   made the vow to be honest. She wishes she could keep the smiling face   and make herself  look good.
 She is saying the mantra---You can't save your face and your ass at the same time. You can't save your face and your ass at the same time. Choose one.
Whitie chooses ass.
Whitie is noticing that she  un-does herself  i.e. punishes  herself. If Whitie goes forward two steps , she must punish herself by going back a step and a half :maybe so she won't get so uppity.
 Today, she felt joy about her trip and punished herself by eating the whole Egg's Benedict . When her stomach hurts, she feels Mommy is close. It is a ritual. If she can get sick enough, Mommy may  come this time.
  Whitie isn't the weirdest person in creation, is she?
We humans are very fragile, are we not?
Whitie is seeing how she punishes herself for feeling  joy .She feels stupid for being joyful. "What are YOU so happy about?" She would rather live in her  private cave than have her joyful face slapped.

[Ami]

Punishing herself has a history.  Miss Uppity was the one who said,"No Way, Jose. You want me to do thaaaaat ????""
 So, with Miss Uppity  gone, Whitie was open to all sorts of bad influences even if they came under the guise of beautiful houses, trips and clothes.
 Whitie was bought, perhaps sold ,a long, long time ago.
You can't lose your basic  pride AND claws and expect to be much in this world. You will be road kill and Whitie was.
  Whitie had lost that part of her that put her hands on her hips and said, 'No"
 Abuse is gradual.  He doesn't send you to the hospital on the first night. He calls you a name, is slightly disrespectful ,perhaps. You can ignore it. He could be right.
You think of how your mother always said you were.........(fill in the blanks).  You feel happy you have SOMEONE who meets some sort of criteria.After all, you know what you are, down deep : BAD.
 



 

[Ami]

Today, Whitie was driving to the restaurant with a joyful song in her head," I am BAD. I am BAD"
 It was a pivotal moment. She was touching her deepest insides and not hurting herself. She couldn't save Mother. She tried. She gave all she had of her life and Mother never changed.
 If she built up Mother and made herself little,"Why didn't Mother change?"
 Why couldn't she change Mother? Why? Why?
 Does she have to punish herself from now to eternity cuz Mother stayed the same?

Today, if she called Mother, Mother would be the same: dumb face, dumb answers,  general clueless idiocy. Does Whitie have to be forever looking for others to be her mother?
Whitie is tired of giving her  self away. Why can't she keep it? Who says she can't?

[Ami]

So, perhaps Miss Uppity could come back. She has to come back before Blackie does.. Blackie is younger. Blackie says,"F You". Miss Uppity has  more grown up language.
 Blackie is fine if you need nuclear but Whitie and Miss Uppity have to figure out what to use before they send Blackie out.Then Blackie can go for it . They will cheer her on : You Go Girl.

That is why Blackie wouldn't come first . It had to follow the proper sequence.
 Miss Uppity is born.
Helen, we can have that party.  It is  dress up. I will have a champagne brunch with Eggs Benedict from the restaurant up the street.
Miss Uppity is born with much ado and fanfare. Life seems different. Miss Uppity is nice, has a smile on her face, is not confrontational but if you mess with her, she will let you know.
 I like that about her.She does not have to get nasty, but she can if she needs to. Whitie respects her .
 Miss Uppity is a respectable woman. She dresses simply, casually, is friendly, not overly effusive but warm, concerned with others, not cutting up their food or nothing(Blackie stop it!)




 

[Ami]

 Blackie is the teen. She has the teen's insouciance.Everything is OK in Blackies world if she can dress up, go out with her friends, laugh, and have a good time.
 She is confident, egocentric(DOESN'T the whole world revolve around Meeeeeee?).  It is embarrassing to say but that is Blackie.
 She is what she is. Don't judge.
 When Blackie was 13, she was standing in front of her friends house wondering  HOW could a woman be abused and still stay .
That moment must have been  prophetic  unless everyone thinks  that way.


 


 

[Ami]

I remember  Blackie's last party. She was dressed in a one piece jump suit, navy with  red and white stripes on the top ,with her cute  teen age figure. She was thinking,'*I* can handle what happens. I know who *I* am."
Isn't that something that those were her very thoughts when in less than a year she would have ejected herself from her body. There is only so much a mind can take before it fractures.
 Ray and I were talking about that yesterday.
 Ray said that you could die of a broken heart .



                            
                                

[Ami]

Blackie was afraid to shine. "Who do you think YOUOOO are?" could come down from the sky like a lightening bolt and that would be very embarrassing, if not deadly.
  Blackie just could not do it anymore. She couldn't have the carefree confidence, trust in her own reflexes and general spirit for life that she kept up until that time.
 She was just too afraid  and it was too much.
  Does this happen to everyone? Perhaps, their Blackie just joins the other parts of the whole and comes up to dance, laugh, get zany , make music and to  love.I bet that is what happens.

 
 
 

[Ami]

Blackie  is not ready to come out. She has her own timing. It is about safety.  Blackie is under age.
Blackies mother hated her. Blackie was everything her mother was not. Blackie was innocent, loving, funny, self centered as teens are, confident, strong, assertive and had an identity.'
 Her mother wanted to destroy her as you would exterminate ants, cold and hard ,with ant spray.
 It is horrible for a mother to hate a daughter .
 

Her mother loved her, too, but it was so confusing  as to how she could stay loved and not hated. She could never find the magic line to walk and always fell in to the BAD pile . Then one day she never could get back. That is how BAD started, if you were curious.
 
 

[Ami]

Letting Blackie speak is very exciting. Life seems a little more fun , a little less dire. If Blackie can speak and is not BAD, there are all sorts of exciting possibilities
Blackie is very perceptive,  psychic, really. She is.  It is  commonplace to her  like seeing with your regular eyes.
  Blackie knows things that Whitie  doesn't . If Whitie always listened to Blackie , she would not be in this pickle .Blackie screamed at her not to marry her husband but damned Whitie took over and wanted safety, safety, safety so we ended up like this.
 

[Ami]

Whitie's mother sent her a card. Whitie started sobbing . It is a card you could send to a lover about missing s/one from you heart.Whitie misses her that way, too.
 It is a horrible battle, to tear yourself away from your mother .
 I guess Whitie's mother loved her. On the eve of the retreat, Whitie got the beautiful card. Whitie would LIKE to feel loved.
 Whitie wants to think she was loved but her mother was stupid. Maybe that is it. Mother just sees what she wants. Whitie was not a person.When Whitie said she was being abused, mother just said,"Poo, that Whitie." and then befriended the abuser. Could that be?

[Ami]

Whitie realizes she needs boundaries. She has read about boundaries, boundaries , boundaries. "Stay away from my boundary" she would say and then give in the next second when someone would get mad at her.
 So, she gave up more or less. She was never ALONE ,before. That was the problem. She was a Siamese twin with Mother. How could she have a boundary when the twin needed one, too.
  


The twin shrieked and smirked  ,"Be independent." The twin was so big and so GOOD.Whitie had already turned BAD .What was she to do?   Once BAD stuck on you, it was like high powered super glue.
BAD was like velcro from Hell.

The biggest thing Mother smirked at was dependency. The smirk could get going nuclear if Mother saw any dependency in Whitie. That was a biggie along with fears , needing love , being sick, and other  things.

Whitie tried to be GOOD  but things kept getting in the way like wanting to be hugged, talked to softly. Whitie wanted  to hang on Mother : to have Mother big and strong .

[Ami]

Mother would get to be such a weird-o ,though. Whitie did not know what to do. Maybe if she were GOOD enough, Mother would turn normal like the mother's from books and TV and her Aunt. She loved to go to her Aunt's house.Her Aunt had a smaller house than Whtie's big house but it was  warm and cozy. Her Aunt did not become weird and icky like Whitie's mother.
 She loved her Aunt who was like a magical fairy princess.
 She wanted her Aunt to see how special Whitie was but her Aunt was busy.


Her Aunt had three kids. The kids were magical too. They did magical things like go on school trips when Whitie was too afraid. She managed to get out of things in clever ways. Things were too hard to handle cuz fears started bearing down on her.
 She was always afraid something bad would happen and things would go out of control. She was afraid she would get sick, hurt,look bad, be bad and then what?
 She never knew what to do so she tried to get out of any things that could cause problems.

[Ami]

Whitie was always afraid to make Mother mad. Mother being mad was  the scariest thing in Whitie's life.
 She would cower and wait to see what Mother would do. It was always a grab bag but Mother never hit her. Whitie would cower and wait , though.
 Whitie endured. That was her life, enduring.


Whitie developed early. That was all she needed with the rest of the mess but maybe stress puts your hormones in high gear. Whitie had 36 C breasts in fourth  grade. Whitie hated those breasts with a fervor.
 She had an elaborate system to hide them. She even wore a wool blazer in the summer when she played kick ball with the kids. She wouldn't take it off.

It must have looked wierd, a little kid stuffed in to layers of winter clothes in the summer but she only saw the need to cover, cover, cover.

She remembers her camp counselor, who had her same name, telling her to take the blazer off. She held to it  for dear life. They let her wear it for softball, archery and  the other camp activities.She wore it over the camp uniform, a white shirt and blue shorts with Camp Monroe written on them.