I figured out with my T yesterday that I am not sure I deserve love. After all this time. I feel a sense of failure in many critical parts of my life.
Hops has said it... and I think we can swap out any number of things for the word "love" in what she said. Respect, dignity, happiness, "normalcy" (whatever that is)... and I can relate to that feeling of a sense of failure, too.
Where it comes from - for me - is from the particular configuration of perception that I use to look at "everything", myself included. The more I've learned and observed, about dysfunctional families, relationships... the more it became the context of my perception; how I defined the world... other people; myself... and how I determined the success or failure of my relationships and changing my own self. There is a "language" of healing that becomes the lens of perception, sometimes. It's only one lens, though. There are others. Looking at things with other lenses - really, it's not so bad and those feelings lift some, too. The "absolutes" stretch out further and there are more points on the continuum - outside of the context of the type of perception I've spoken from a lot here and interpreted my experience and world from, while healing.... and learning about this one type of flawed interaction among people.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
I'm too easily pulled into trying to "work on myself"... to reach some brilliant (ha!) understanding... to re-arrange and re-cast myself into some new mold... in a primal attempt to "fix what's wrong with me"... to be loved; to consider my successes and failures in absolute terms... because I've lived all my life with that basic reality between me & my bioNic mom:
nothing I could do, be, become, learn... would ever change the basic, simple fact of her illness that prevents her from caring about others, myself included.
And I accepted that -
but I accepted that as a failure on my part; I accepted the role of victim in my own story (had to, to get the grief and loss out); I accepted that I've internalized a complete set of coping strategies for dealing with "the sick person at the center" - including my own version of controlling; managing her - for the purpose of "staying safe". This acceptance became that lens of perception... how I interpreted my experience; my world - and the people in it.
I kind of slid into this... despite a lot of successes "doing something else". It was subtle and insidious... not wholly volitional - sort of a "default" setting that is equal to my "comfort zone" of old crap; old misery; old patterns; yada-yada-yada... sure, there were triggers and repetitions of old patterns with my bro. Sure my hubs tweaks a lot of my buttons...
but the only reason it's still a "problem" is because I'm still using the old "lens" to define it as another iteration of the "same old, same old". It's as if I've stigmatized myself - carved out my own red letter "A" or tattoo'd it on my forehead... and resigned myself to only this one way of understanding my world and my life. To analyze it all to death... to use the perceptual lens of the victim... as way of understanding "the normal world". And that perception "fits" often enough in that world... that it seemed helpful, useful... and sometimes it is. But not always. And though this one perception is very familiar and has adjusted to fit right right around me like an old pair of slippers - I'm noticing that those slippers really stink! They're frayed around the edges from over-use, dirty past the point of getting clean again... and they no longer provide enough "illusion" of safety anymore; they're no longer as comfortable as they used to be.
My psychological understanding of people and their interactions is just flat out making things more complicated than they need to be. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. My inner perception of myself - my acceptance of a time when I was a victim - isn't relevant anymore. And using that perception to understand and define what's going on around me now - in those terms - doesn't make sense, either. So, I'm left with feeling as though I'm speaking foreign languages... with one foot in one world/perception and one foot in another... and so, I'm making myself feel "not heard"; misunderstood; and re-wounding myself... in both - by not just picking one and going with it. See where it goes and what it is. And I've done this one enough, I think.
Even some of the new things I learned about myself on this journey, have turned out to be wrong. Big example - was that I learned and felt I needed a lot solo time; solitude... and that it was a solid, inflexible boundary that would be stressed by hosting so many people here last summer. Sure, I'm still anxious about this - but no one was hurt and nothing bad happened; I had plenty of personal time and didn't have any ill effects, when I didn't get it. It was hubs who pointed out that boundaries are like fences and that they need gates for people to be invited in... and for me to go out. Somewhere along the process, I also realized that boundaries are always shifting - like wind ripples on a sand dune... and that a better metaphor, is concentric circles - so that there's an "inner circle" and even an "inner-inner circle"... and many outer circles... and that people are constantly shifting between them - of their own volition and my choices; my invitations. You guys are all part of my "inner-inner" circle; the people can I trust to understand even my most convoluted, confused, overly complex ways of thinking about things. Your opinions, experience and feedback and ways of seeing things; understanding things is important to me... along with just the wonderful "who you are".
It's really not all that hard - as long as I remember that RULES and never-changing absolutes only exist in those dysfunctional situations. Where "control" and who has it, is the perceptual lens of interpersonal relationships. Control is way less important in other kinds of situations with other people. When that old perception is let go - the door to other ways of perceiving situations and other emotions and other ways of being and defining the world around me - gets flung wide open and a wonderful fresh breeze blows in and removes all the "old" dust and blows the stinks away.
It's really hard to believe that's possible when one is still eating the bitter pie of grief and loss and all is dark and gloomy, wet and dank... at the beginning or middle parts of one's journey. I've wanted to encourage people... to say "it's worth it!" and "keep going, you're doing great!" because I do care about y'all. In some cases, you've heard me and understood. You've even heard the things I avoid looking at or saying, many times. A couple of times, it's felt like I'm speaking in tongues and I realize that person isn't ready for that yet; can't hear it because of the immediate volume of emotional noise around them or their own lens of perception, way of accepting, or language of healing. Being a persistent cuss and eternally hopeful... I've probably pissed quite a few of you off with my trying! I hope you can forgive me. Maybe it's silly... but I want all of us, each one of us here... to see what I'm seeing about what it's like beyond the "same old, same old"...
because we all deserve that.
Right?
