Gonna talk about me now.
I've noticed an interesting dynamic here, and trying to talk to Mud about it privately resulted in what you've seen upthread; so at this point, I might as well talk about it publicly.
In my FOO, there were four people; my mother, my father, my sister and me. I found myself, as a child, regularly and predictably [but not continually] ganged up on by my mother and sister, regularly and predictably [but not continually] covertly abused by my mother, and completely unable to obtain any support from my father, or even an admission from him that something very obvious was really going on. I've talked about a number of specific events from my FOO on various occasions here; this stuff went on for decades.
This dynamic has been recreated here several times - I think this is the fourth time since I've joined the board.
I seem to draw fire from female bullies in pairs, here. I've watched one particular female pair off with three different partners, and skirmished with each set.
Just as in my FOO, it isn't continuous; they don't bully everyone, and they don't constantly bully me. And, just as in my FOO, I've been more or less unable to obtain any support from a male claiming to be concerned with my welfare; if anything, I get the opposite. Just as in my FOO.
This, though, isn't my FOO. I'm not a helpless little kid bewildered by behavior I can't even name, let alone begin to comprehend. I'm a perceptive, articulate adult, who has learned to believe what she sees, learned what these behaviors are and what they mean, and can very clearly articulate what she understands.
I've been working very hard to understand the repetition compulsion, because it's hugely at play in this series of events. This is apparently some kind of old familiar pattern for all four players, or it wouldn't set up so strongly here. But any one of the four can choose not to play it anymore. And I am very hopeful that I'm finding the means of eliminating my contribution to this recurring situation. In one of those beautiful paradoxes, I think it's the very fact that I've gone through it repeatedly here, that is going to help me most.
Because this is cyberspace. Our words don't vanish into thin air. Even if someone pulls a thread, if we've kept a copy of our posts, our words remain. We can revisit events exactly as they occurred - this is something that is simply impossible in realspace. We can cool off, calm down, and go back and see for ourselves if we were overreacting to something, or if it was really there.
And we can also go back and see for ourselves how we really behave. How we really react. What we really said to so-and-so before they got so mad at us.
We thus have at least a chance to overcome our own defenses and distortions, and to identify and come to terms with the defenses and distortions of others.
I've said this before, but I haven't gotten to the next part ever. The next part is this.
The way to healing is through mindfulness and detachment. Not merely meditation and prayer type mindfulness and detachment, but the kind of mindfulness and detachment that brings our own unconscious processes and assumptions up to the level of conscious awareness and allows us to actually look at them.
It is possible. People have been pursuing it through journaling, through discussion/support groups, through cognitive therapy, etc.
Well... what is this place, if not a combination journal and discussion group? What better place for the serious practice of mindfulness and detachment than here?
As a result of being and interacting here - here! - I have discovered that one of my 'tragic flaws' is precisely my need to articulate what I find amiss. That desperate, desperate need to 'get through', or merely 'get heard'. Almost invariably, I find that when I try to 'get through' to someone about something this big, this painful, their response is to either abandon me, turn on me, or both. Straight out of my FOO, and I'm sick & tired of it.
Now - this isn't Poor Stormy The Victim talking here. Because I've realized, as a result of the work I've been doing HERE, that one key to stopping my repetition compulsion lies in my tragic flaw. I keep trying to get through to the very people who do not want me getting through to them! It's a learned 'learning disability', I swear to God, just like amnesia for abuse, amnesia for betrayal. And I seem to be unlearning it, finally, although this last bit with Mud et. al. here doesn't seem to suggest that, I know. Bear with me.
Look at how I interacted with The Jercque. I was friendly, receptive to his attentions, reciprocated with attentions of my own, but I did not let him stampede me into too much too soon. I watched how his actions compared to his words. I looked for flags - green as well as red. I didn't start with the assumption that this guy was a jercque; in fact, based on his history and professional background, I started with the opposite assumption, if any.
But I stayed mindful. Somehow. Somehow I didn't let my own loneliness and desire for companionship and all that other good stuff cloud my judgement, I didn't jump, I took my time. And he couldn't sustain the pretense past a certain point, and then I didn't waste effort or energy on 'closure', I just skedaddled.
I've talked to my therapist about this several times. His bottom line, which I'm trying to internalize, is that people who really care about you don't want to hurt you. If they hurt you, they want to know it, and they are going to want to stop. It's up to you [i.e., me] to make sure that you aren't inviting hurt, and that you don't wear your heart on your sleeve inappropriately; but people who genuinely care about you don't want to hurt you, and if they do, they'll want to take responsibility for their contribution to it.
There is a corollary to this, of course. If someone hurts you repeatedly in the same way, skedaddle. You may or may not make some effort to get through to them - if that effort is met with hostility, defensiveness, or some other type of resistance, skedaddle. They've told you what matters most in this situation, and relating to you isn't even close. You don't owe them anything. Scram.
I'm learning to skedaddle, and I'm learning to keep my thoughts to myself, believe it or not, while evaluating skedaddling - this is much more obvious in realspace than it has been here. At the same time, I'm learning to set better external boundaries. It's what I'm substituting for the thing that didn't help, that tired old business of trying to get through to people on the assumption that they care. They don't have to care for me to set boundaries with them. I am learning to save the disclosures for the people who actually do care, and will hear me.
One last thing.
I didn't just skedaddle with the FOO re-enactment here, and there was a reason for that, one that I wasn't consciously aware of until the very last moments myself.
The single most important piece of unfinished business from my FOO was this: I never forced my father to take a stand. I pleaded, I showed him over and over what was going on, but I never demanded that he pick one or the other, me or them. I chose not to, in fact, because I knew that if I forced the issue I would have to leave the family entirely, and that would have broken his heart. [How did I know this? Because I got very sick my last year in college, and the docs thought it was terminal, and he aged 20 years overnight. He literally turned into a stooped, shambling, trembling, pale old man... and when I came home with the good news from the definitive workup, I saw him shed those years while I was I showing him the lab results and telling him what they meant. It is as vivid in my memory as if it happened yesterday. He would have died before me, I believe, if I had indeed had what it first appeared I had.] I couldn't kill my father as the price of attaining my own freedom. I'm not sorry I made that choice - but this time I knew perfectly well it wouldn't kill Mud to take a stand, and this time I had a chance to find out how the story would end if I did insist that 'my father' choose.
Did I use people? Was I unkind? Some might think so. But I was not the sole person responsible for the FOO re-enactment. I didn't go looking for it; I couldn't stop it - God knows I tried. Every person involved was responsible for their role. So I was back in my FOO again, whether or not I wanted to be, and this time I decided to press 'my father' to make his choice - to insist that he choose overtly, in the full light of day. Everyone else involved could have changed their part of the story too. Perhaps if this had happened, we might all have found freedom together.
This is what breakthroughs actually look like. They aren't always pretty. Sometimes they are very painful. Sometimes they involve seeing things we wish to God we could do anything but see. Sometimes they involve saying goodbye to people we would have liked to keep in our lives. The important thing is that we gain by going through them, even if we don't gain the things and connections we hoped to gain.
I am going to go post a reply to Sea Storm on another thread, and then I will be taking a break from the board for awhile. This whole incident and its denouement is bound to stir up feelings in people. I understand that and respect it, but for me, this incident is over now.
I'm also spending more time in realspace recovery groups now, and I think I need to interact with people out there, where we breathe in the same rooms.
I don't think I'm perfect here. I don't think I did everything right. I regret that I didn't understand my 'tragic flaw' much sooner, and that I couldn't find a better way to break the FOO reenactment spell. I'm sorry this has ended with Mud hating my guts. But I freely accept being hated, if that's what it takes to be free. Weirdly, seeing all this, and having it come to a head, has freed me from the negative feelings I was having about it.
Tracks: See how true it is: what is perceived as real, is real in its effects. Was this my FOO? Of course not. Was anyone intending consciously to act like my FOO? I doubt it. But the dynamic was there, all the same, and because it was a replay of my old unfinished business, I have finally, by the grace of God, been able to finish it.
