43rd "Anniversary" Mumblings

[sKePTiKal]

Ya know, Guest... the type of misunderstandings we're having is proving to be quite helpful to me! I hope it is for you too. Maybe it'll help desensitive me to the potential for "conflict", too. Lower my anxiety about it... I mean.

After reading your last post, I kinda left it to germinate a bit. And while going about normal day... this thought just barges right into my head... completely out of context with anything I was thinking or doing at that moment:

the REASON - the "why" - behind why I struggle with self-care, and always retreat into withdrawal or self-abuse whenever engaged in something emotional... is quite simply because this is how my mother responded to my emotional needs. That's it - nothing fancy... or complex... it's what I was used to... and so I mothered myself the same way - either heaping insult on injury or total neglect. I guess it was the beelzebub I knew... and because everything "normal" felt so strange and unfamiliar and awkward... I might give it a try or experiment with it for a little bit... but then any amount of stress (good or bad) would send me right back to the old familiar "ways".

But there isn't any solution in that type of mothering... no comfort... no meeting emotional needs... it's not effective, in other words. And I've not been able to separate physical care (or abuse) from those emotional needs... because - duh - my mom didn't. And so it always appeared that I didn't trust myself - and wouldn't commit myself - to basic long-term physical changes... when I did force myself to make an attempt to exercise, quit smoking, eat better food, etc. It APPEARED that way, because what I was really seeking - and couldn't clarify for myself; didn't understand - was that I was trying to meet an emotional need... with food or cigarettes... MORE COFFEE!

I know to a lot of folks here - this is like a given; but for me and the way I finally "saw" this - it's a total revelation. Sure my brain knew this... but my body didn't... and so my pavlovian physical cells kept on demanding the same old responses to emotional upset, concern or needs even when my WANT and my brain kept telling me it didn't make any sense. My body doesn't have sense enough to "want" what's good for it... because it was never trained to. It was trained on the self-destructive bullet train to hell.

Because doing that was safer - for me... my mom wasn't jealous or angry or accusing me of thinking I was better than...   her.

So I guess I'm ready to move to the other topic rattling around my head - the mind-body connection in healing. It's been tugging at me for a while but I felt there was something still in the way... and I think it might be this odd connection of bad physical things and out & out neglect, being used to bandage, coverup, disguise - emotional wounds or holes or needs that was the problem.

[Hopalong]

I've not been able to separate physical care (or abuse) from those emotional needs... because - duh - my mom didn't.

Badda-bing! Kudos, PR.

Only if I edited the entire world (still reading the Help Wanteds) I'd take out the "duh" because you are NOT stupid, and it is a recognition that is as slippery as a two-days gone guppy.

For a lot of humans. For a lot of brilliant, cerebral, fluent, educated folks. For a lot of people with common sense, poor-luck life all over their faces, wisdom from having wanted and let go.

Ain't no "duh". What was modeled for you was what made sense and you learned it well. And you are UNlearning it just as well, which is what makes your journey such an exciting one.

School, backward.

hugs,
Hops

[Guest]

Question:

which is what makes your journey such an exciting one.

for whom, Hops?

Exciting?

[sKePTiKal]

Aw, hell Guest...

I'm still such a reassurance and approval seeker I spill my guts here about where/what I'm doing... Hops (et al) has always been my champion for my small breakthroughs and revelations... so it's probably exciting for both of us when I can report some progress in my "un-learning", as Hops calls it. These days, any good news (for me) stands out as more significant than it probably is in the great scheme of things... because there just seems to be so much negativity out there in the wide world.

And more good news:

It seems my Ds are breaking the repetition of the impacts of abuse in their own lives - becoming amazons themselves. Even the one who recently left an abusive husband seems to have "woken up" from a long, boundary-less, self-destructive trance... and is more solidly herself and navigating her own path to a smoother life highway, than I've ever seen her. This "un-learning" stuff is powerful and has a lot of positive "unintended consequences". Or so I'm hoping, anyway...

It's been a very, very long time since I've had something positive to validate in this D... and that's a wonderful new experience. She was quite dangerous for me in the past and I'm still wary - but there are beginning to be buds of trust develop that just couldn't be allowed to bloom before... because she always broke them off. That's changing, in a genuiine way. She's building her SELF now...

[lighter]

Yay! Yay!

Very cool post, Amber: )

I'm so glad your D's are stepping into their Amazon slippers.

Lighter

[Gaining Strength]

I am reading this thread but I only get snippets of time and I find your writing so evocative that I get frustrated (caught in a tangle of perfectionism - wanting to read it all before I comment and losing some threads of thought by the time I get through and finding so much in each of your paragraphs - my overload brain is not able to order it all and ... - well you get my drift.)

[sKePTiKal]

S'OK GS...

I suspect that all this was the long way to getting to confidence in my intuitive feeling that I can be "less attached" to the emotional parts of my story - less caught up in that side of it - so that I can begin the next phase: dealing with all the physical stuff and that mind-body thread I talked about a few weeks - or was it months? - ago. You've got time to process my yakking...

I've got some tummy bug and a new business project... and it'll be a little bit before I'm ready to dive into the next phase. For now, just playing and celebrating a little... even tho' I am under the weather.

[Guest]

Thanks for the explanation Amber, which I understand.

Hops, no need to reply, Amber explained 'exciting' pretty well.

It's not a word I use much, and i wouldn't use it in this context at all, but, you know, language and all that.

Sorry to hear about your bug Amber and hey, celebrate if you can. Why the heck not?!

[Guest]

I'll explain my problem with 'exciting'. Who knows, something may come of it. To me it suggests investment, a sharing companion on the journey, so sharing that this is a companion who knows your mind, who is part of it with you, who knows it as well as you do (or thinks they do) - and that, is impossible, to me, because of my particular worldview. Noone knows another's mind that closely. To want to know someone that closely reminds me of things that were very dysfunctional.

Now Hops! You did not say that, I know that. This is my own personal vibe from a few simple words. Those words are still in my head, for good reason.

Well at least I know what I'm talking about.

[Hopalong]

Guest,
I think you have a good point and I can understand the boundary-invasion that word suggested.

I sense there's truth here so thank you for saying it.

Hops

[sKePTiKal]

I know what you're talking about, as well.

For me, it's the words love and intimacy... of all things... that's associated with the over-close, projecting, controlling and self-denying/destroying memories of what can be lumped together into the category of "boundary intrusion". And it SUCKS. I'm fortunate that hubby is an understanding patient man. He whines about this a lot... understandably. He's allowed... while I keep working on removing the old pattern of association of that kind of emotional abuse from a LONG TIME AGO... and reminding my brain's auto-fear reflexes that this is a completely different situation, different circumstances and different people involved.

It's slow work. But I imagine that one day, it'll pay off... like the day I "decided" that a good percentage of what I was calling "anxiety" - and experiencing as a "bad thing"... was really excitement - which is a happier, anticipatory looking forward to... instead of fear and dread. But that I'd been "trained" to see those feelings in that negative light (probably because my emotions were inconvenient or unsettling to the bioNic mom)... and because I wasn't allowed to have boundaries, where my feelings might differ from bioNic mom's... I didn't get to decide which side of the yin/yang equation the feeling really was, you know?

But now I do. The interesting thing to me, is how both of those feelings are experienced in body sensation and are almost identical... and it's only the positive/negative association of my mind (and that fuzzy emotional "decider") which determines which one I'm feeling. I suspect - that because it wasn't possible for bioNic mom to understand that people can feel BOTH the positive/negative versions of that feeling at one time (which I know I did/do)... she insisted on "naming" my emotional state the single one she experienced. This is the functional aspect of what cognitive psych calls "reframing", I guess. And reframing can go either way...

To me it suggests investment, a sharing companion on the journey, so sharing that this is a companion who knows your mind, who is part of it with you, who knows it as well as you do (or thinks they do) - and that, is impossible, to me, because of my particular worldview. Noone knows another's mind that closely. To want to know someone that closely reminds me of things that were very dysfunctional.

What you wrote, Guest, describes for me what I know I absolutely long for - and fear - at the same time. Yes, I have one set of memories of a specific time period... where I experienced the dysfunctional side of this. Later, I had problems letting my girls grow up, individuate, and separate from me (much better now)... because I had no language, no defined experience of "boundaries". In fact, I was convinced boundaries weren't supposed to exist in intimate relationships - because of bioNic mom's training. So I couldn't understand - and drove myself crazy; stressed myself out - wondering what was wrong with me because I just wasn't comfortable with that much closeness.

But at the same time, another part of me is 24/7 seeking out exactly that kind of "oneness" or closeness... because the dysfunctional kind interrupts and prevents the positive version of that - the "attunement" of mother to child, who knows exactly what the child needs and provides it in a pleasant, comforting, protective way. That "attunement" - that level of intimacy - can exist in a positive, respectful of boundaries, way between two people. My hubby said one day, when I was talking about boundaries... that sure, fences make good neighbors... but fences have gates in them and those good neighbors are invited through the gate or are free to pass through the gate, without going through a TSA patdown. (did I get lucky with hubs or WHAT???? how many men would actually "get this"????)

[Guest]

I'm glad I made some sense, thanks Hops and Amber. I was thinking some more on it, and imagining a journey as a spectator sport (in a good way). There would be watching, occasional cheering and yes, some feeling of investment, empathy with the lows and so on. The problem (in my mind) happens when the subject very slightly becomes an object: at which point that might happen (and I'm not saying it happens here at all, this is theory in progress ), at the point when it might happen is when the observer becomes too involved in the outcome? Expectation and investment turn empathy back to the self to fulfil something for the observer? I think I might be talking about something that happens every day, which i can certainly feel myself doing (say in a simple convo where I'm genuinely interested in the speaker's story but a subtle shift and I'm then changed to (say) wanting to solve their problem. The problem becomes the focus and it ignores the subject....who becomes an object problem-carrier I guess. It's about attention and self-attention and that's not easy to maintain. Ha. Not that i know much about it but that's how it seems.

Interesting what you say about excitement/anxiety Amber. i think i can get what you mean. I can generally tell the difference but can imagine not doing so. I'm happy to not completely know another's mind! But very happy to get know one person very well, and perhaps a few more well enough. Attunement works for me.

[Gaining Strength]

I am replying to your first post, that portion in which you are writing about your conversation.

I take such great comfort in knowing that you have strong reactions to such daily life incidents.  At times, I feel so alone in my reactions.

After that description you move into a conversation about a wounded infant and how the reaction to the wounding is met with even more wounding.  I have been aware of such a dynamic for some time.  Just teh thought of it causes me grave pain - I feel my inner most being roaring in agony just thinking about it. 

A phrase that has been rolling around in  my brain for some time is that there are some threads that I want to cut but they are made up of so many fibers and each of the fibers needs to be cut one at a time and yet it is so very difficult to isolate the individual ones.  I think they are each made up of events like the one described in the thread I stared yesterday. 

I want to access those and even though I believe I know how to get there, the actions that it will take themselves seem kept from me in much the same way as the writing was kept from that person.  It all seems to fall in on itself - in a way that the very healing things that I can access evoke pain and horror like that Miss Silver.

I have no doubt that my father made certain that any safe harbor was kept from me or was punished in some way.  That is part of that intentionality factor that was revealed to me days before his death.  I suppose it is not unlike in function (though not scale) of the Lybian woman who burst into the hotel room with international journalists to report her rape and she is now being punished more severely (if possible) for trying to get justice brought to herself and others in Libya.  Seeking justice evoke more pain and punishment.  That makes it very difficult to free the mind from this bind.

[sKePTiKal]

Guest:

I'm quite happy to get to know you and how your mind processes things - your worldview - what makes you YOU. Like I said previous, even our misunderstandings are quite interesting! I enjoy seeing things from someone else's shoes... I know my perception is limited to my own predisposition and mindset... that's not always a good thing, limitations and all, you know? But I don't often find someone with the patience to explain to me what I've misinterpreted or misunderstood - without all the consequent offense and insult.... and getting too personal.

I do appreciate this give & take.... (((((Guest)))))

[sKePTiKal]

My dear GS,

When you're ready, we'll start exploring that attachment theory stuff - infants, bonding, moms, and unintentional emotional abuse. It sounds like you've enough on your plate dealing with the intentional stuff, right now. When you're ready, I'm gonna have a lot to say... tho most of it is already here in this thread.

Little by little, gradually, over time... I'm letting go of bitterness, blame, justice seeking, revenge, and anger... and forgiving myself for not being THEN who I am NOW - and knowing what I know now. It's been a fuzzy, convoluted process - foggy - and I've stumbled more times than I've gained a foot of progress - rough terrain, you know?

There isn't any "right way" to do this. The way I did... was the way I did. It's not special and doesn't have anything to recommend it. You'll find your way, too. You'll find, probably, that while the pain doesn't necessarily "go away"... one gets used to it. OH THAT AGAIN... YAWWWWWN. Sort of like re-runs of House Hunters...

So it's important to focus on YOU. Not your Dad - not your mom. Not on what THEY did/didn't do. Believe it or not, it doesn't matter now. Now, it's all up to you and you are ALREADY FREE to do what you need/want to do. (yes, I was stubborn and really, really pissed and it took me a LOOOOOnnng time to get that). And it's OK that you didn't notice... hey! that's what pavlovian programming is all about, you know? I oughta know... sigh!!

Focus on YOU, kiddo - not them; not what they did or didn't do. You are smart, strong, resiliant and determined. Put them out of your mind... and perhaps they'll "get out of your way" too.