I M Perfect lady

Category: FALC

  • Awareness of Your Unconsciousness

    "I don't address Ellen as a victim or "survivor" but as a subject. She is the subject of her own unconsciousness, and, as a subject, she knows where to lead me, and she can become responsible for the havoc and suffering and choices of her own unconscious life. Even as a child, when she's eleven, this process of listening to the unconscious and becoming responsible can begin. From my point of view she is responsible for not telling, which doesn't mean she's to blame."  Annie G. Rogers

    A lot is being said in these few sentences.  

    Changing the words and veiwpoints from being a victim or survivor of abuse to being the Subject of your own Unconsciousness is not only huge, but accurate.

    It is about exploring the deep inner workings of how you live the way you live.  

    You are the subject that you are exploring and learning about, NOT the abuse.  You can't get free of being unconsciously moved about, unless and until you can see it. See it and understand the whys.

    By hiding from yourself, you are in the dark about so many things.  And yet, your actions are showing.  

    Somehow we believe that if we do not go deeply into our histories and delve into the actions of our parents, we will escape.  But in fact it is the opposite. You are held prisoner of your past when you fail to see it.

    The words victim and survivor didn't explain me as much as an explorer of my unconsciousness.  I had to know how I was able to live a life clueless of my abuse…for 46 years.

    I had to dig up what was going on in my childhood, the lay of the land, and to see who was doing what to whom and what was the response, in order to see how I grew to be the way I was.

    Just the fact, that I could live for 46 years unaware of my abuse, shows that I was unconscious of the truth of my own life.

    Knowing this startling fact, was where I began my search to know about me.  In learning about me, I was also learning about my family.  I wasn't created in a vacuum.

    I was born into a play that was already going.  I had to learn the language of my parents home.  

    In reading Annie G. Roger's book, "Unsayable"…I clearly was guided sublimibly.

    In order to keep their play going, I had my part.  It wasn't about my life, but theirs.

    Their play is still running, even after a few of us left the stage, the players are still maintaining the lead roles as accurate, even if the truth disputes it.

    In order for me to go back into the family, I would have to become unconscious again, which is impossible.  For once you know, you can't not know.

    Listening to my unconsciousness is what guided me to find me.  First I found me mental and broken, and could clearly see how I had to be in order to keep their story going. And once I seen how my behaviors were for them and for hiding abuse, I was then able to make new choices.

    I also love how she says, "she is responsible for not telling, which doesn't mean she's to blame."

    What is so confusing, is that if we tell, we are then accused of breaking apart a family and if we don't tell, we are then blamed for hiding abuse.  Which of the two evils do you want to pick?  Neither are the truth.  Yet somehow society has the person who has experienced the abuse, as the one who is responsible.

    Never is the abuser blamed for either.  When in fact he/she holds the responsiblity of doing both.  

    Tearing a family apart happens when the abuse occurrs…and it is for their personal benefit to keep it hidden.  It is their unconsciousness being exposed.

    If we all can start the language and conversations about exploring our unconsciousness, we can begin to find answers to abusive behaviors.  

    Abuse is our unconsciousness speaking to us. When we turn our backs or hide, or if we deny it, it doesn't go away.  It will continue to run and spread.

    My father's uncosncioussness was telling a story in his actions.  Those who refused to believe what he was saying, allowed him to speak it again.  If, the courts of the land understood this.  They would put him away so his truth didn't hurt another…and begin the process of having him explore his own life to reconcile his own childhood truths.

    There is only one way abuse can stop its cycle, and that is by awareness of your unconsciousness.




  • Care to Know.

    I finished Annie G. Roger's Book, "The Unsayable" and I found it had tons of information packed into it in a wildly compact messy way…not unlike how abuse feels in the body.  How she is trying to show clearly that which isn't clear.

    It is very complex and hidden…how it begins, how it is disguised and how it repeats and appears behind the facade of illusion we create.

    I believe we, as humans, would like to put abuse into a tiny package and keep it separated and isolated; so it not drip into our own lives. We would like to see it as only the issue of the perperator…that evil exists out there, and not see the strains within our own lives.  To see that our lives are weaved by those who came before us…all their unresolved issues, become our DNA.

    What I learned most from this book, is that way abuse flows from generation to generation.  How it appears and how it is overlooked, due to the blindness of what abuse is or how to read the language of the unsayable.  And even more importantly, how we continue to look outward and blame others for our own language…and how we don't pay attention to the signals and signs of our unconsciousness…screaming to gain our attention.  

    I do know that it takes great courage to go inward. Especially where abuse is.  You have to see where it came and how it grew you.

    I find her work remarkable in its accuracy and how it seems to settle her clients when they are being seen in their true natures. Even as Annie helps to show them their unsayable language it makes sense. 

    Highly remarkable, and not an easy read.  But, then so are we who have been abused.  

    Annie's closing remarks.

    "I've written this book with the hope of making some concepts clear to any reader, but especially to people who have clinical practices and those who come to us to trust us with their suffering. And, in the end, there are at least three things to glean from this book." 

    The first of these is that in America we've watered down and neutralized Freud's concept of the unconscious to such a degree that we no longer know how to listen as he listened. What's taken its place is a practice that in fact closes down the unconscious and its great gifts to us. We diagnose, medicate, remove symptoms, change cognitions, change behavior, and understand relationships, and yet we ignore the unconscious—its otherness—because we're frightened of it and have no access to it in the way we practice. I hope my efforts here awaken an interest in Freud, the original, daring Freud, and his idea of the unconscious.  

    The second idea is close to the first: The unconscious insists, repeats, and practically breaks down the door, to be heard. The only way to hear it, to invite it into the room, is to stop imposing something over it—mostly in the form of your own ideas—and instead listen for the unsayable, which is everywhere, in speech, in enactments, in dreams, and in the body. And the third idea is the simplest and requires the most courage: to befriend your own unconscious—its signifiers, symptoms, and quirky logic—or it will play havoc in the work you do with patients, no matter your intentions, no matter your degrees and qualifications."  Annie

    While she is writing this for her fellow therapists, I would like to encourage others who have been abused to read this.  It will make you feel normal in how you came to be, having lived unseen.  And how it was impossible for you to speak, when there was no one there capable to hear.

    She clearly shows how untreated incidents of abuse manifest in our lives. How the trauma doesn't go away, it is in plain view for all to read and hear…if they are willing.

    What she clearly shows as well as the deafness of the parents, how they too are contributing factors in our having to make a second hidden language…which appears not so hidden, if you care to know.



     

  • Language of Abuse.

    I am reading "The Unsayable" by Annie G. Rogers.  It is her view of how abused children live their lives after the trauma, when it goes unnoticed, unheard and unaddressed, how we live our lives in code, repeating the abuse over and over to be heard.

    I know it sounds insane, but the unconscious wants to be seen, to be reconciled with the reality of what was, and is relentless so that you and your life are at peace, where the columns are in harmony; where negative is in the negative column and positive stands under positive.

    "Trauma is so much like tipping a snow globe and watching the snow descend on the same scene in the same way. Whatever is unresolved and unsayable repeats."  Annie

    This is what is so tricky and so relenting, that it doesn't matter if you accept and acknowledge and fully bring in the abuse; you will repeat it, until you fully understand all the nuiances of it.  

    What is incredible to me that even if you are not willing to talk about it, and will not resolve your life, your life will reflect that which you are not wanting to see.  It is there in full view.

    You are living your unconscious truths, even if you your self are not willing to know you.  It is there in full living color each day. 

    "She tacked back and forth between resistance and speaking and I saw that it wasn't simply that she didn't want to speak or remember. Tasha wanted to speak and to avoid speaking (and remembering) simultaneously.  I began to hear the "unsayable" as something that moves toward speech and away from speech at the same time."  Annie

    What Annie is so briliant at, is to hear and discern what isn't being said and to read the code by behavior and even the words that are repeated in the context of talking about that which you don't want to talk about.

    I do get this.  I notice what excuses are being used, how we speak but don't say…yet say by what we do.  What people are drawn to and away from…all are messages.

    If this sounds confusing it clearly is. But, it also clearly shows how most of us live.

    I found great comfort in that the actions after the trauma are here to be heard, that we don't repeat this behavior for no other reason.  That the truth is working its way into our awareness, if you are willing to see who you truly are.  How you were built and why.

    She also says how we are born into this language….

    "While every child is assigned a place in language by being given a name, and every child is born to fill what Lacan calls a "Lack", an unconscious hole left by a previous generation, the lack Ellen was required to fill was born of horror.  Her very name, its "el" sound, pointed back to Helen and Helene. Ellen arrived to fill a hole or lack in her mother, passed down from her mother, by her grandmother."

    This does make sense to me.  I saw and felt that we were there to serve thy mother…and not to have our own life.  It is that there is a gapping hole that needs to be filled and taken care of, before you are free to live your life.  But, only to find out while you are filling her hole, your own hole is left empty.  And her hole will never be full. She will always need. That is the language.

    Not only is there a hole to fill, but we use our children to fill it up.

    My emptiness was my children's problem. My insecurities were theirs to make better. The insanity would have continued, if I hadn't become aware of my unawareness and what it was trying to tell me.

    I lived the language I was born into until I understood the language. Once I understood that my actions were serving to keep abuse alive and well, and that I was an active participant by not seeing etc….I had to begin speaking differently in all my words and deeds…and to be extremely aware of what my feelings were and what I expected of others.

    I wasn't free until I was free from believing that others need to fill my hole.

    Until I recognized that I was responsible for building me…and for tearing down the old me. 

    Her books are brilliant not only in showing how we were built, but also in de-coding and how to live differently.

    I love how it explains me…and how it explains how abuse thrives.  It is the language of abuse.




  • Talking Crazy!

    I watched the movie, "The Celebration" twice…although once through would have been enough… it is brilliant in depicting the dynamics of how covering up abuse is impossible; only the eye of denial sees it as gone.  For in reality you can't cover up how you have been altered…your untreated wounds continue to rule your life. 

    I saw denial at its truest form being played out within the family…its response is what clearly marks its insanity.

    How the truth enters in and then the response.  A response clearly rehearsed from eons past…expected.  Demanded.  Needed.

    The orchestration of denial has everyone playing their part, except one.

    One is singing off key….

    He is the problem.  

    He isn't following the family plot.

    He dares to stand up and say what everyone is trying so hard to not say, while screaming it.

    He becomes the problem…a bigger problem than the one they are all working to keep hidden.

    He becomes the source of their wrath and anger, physically or silently opposing…for their very lives depend upon silence, and denial.  Denial is who they are. They don't have another person to change into.  Who would they be without the pretty story that they overlaid upon the wretched truth?

    To see the abusers mother singing a haunting religious melody…echoes the FALC.

    To see the wife focusing on the 30 year marriage, that she has always gotten what she needed.  

    To know that the weakest, or perhaps the strongest killed herself to exit out of the false reality.

    To be the one called crazy for standing up and saying the truth. 

    The truth wasn't challenged.

    But, the person uttering it was…he had to be crazier than the truth.

    At the end, the abuser apologized and knew he would be left alone outside of the family, the wife let him go, alone and she stayed with her children…. LIKE HE was the ONLY Problem….Not her.

    Not her who witnessed her son being abused….and did nothing.  

    The siblings did an about face in a couple of hours….and all was well with thee.  

    What it doesn't show is how you then have to work like hell to eradicate the denial files in your head, your beliefs and your relationships.  How your denial self is all you have and you then have to walk and find your true self.

    Who am I if I am not acting to cover up abuse in my childhood?  Who am I when I am not crippled by the affects of not being with my own truth?

    It shows a family in complete agreement that "one man" is the problem, when in fact the wife is his equal and the children who hold the secret their army.  

    All soldiers giving up their lives in order to preserve the father's innocence….and mother's.  To Honor, Love, and Obey thy parents…always and forever.  To never ever say the truth about what happened to you.  

    In your silence you hold their honor. It isn't so much that you speak for them, but rather that you don't speak for me.  You don't not call me crazy.

    Yet the silence of words does not matter when it comes to the picture of the family.

    The movie shows the actions of the adult children of abuse, how it SCREAMS I am abused, confused and wounded.

    No matter how we close our mouths, the abuse leaks out by what we have to do to cover it up.

    What this movie left me with the most, is that no matter if you say it out loud or not, it is running your life, by how your denial has to be stronger than the abuse.

    The sister who took her own life, couldn't find nothing strong enough to cover up her abuse.

    It kept shining through.  In her dreams, it happened time and time again.

    What I know, is that if you accept the truth, the truth will not haunt you.

    What I would love all Huhta's to do is to watch this film and see who they resemble…see who matches your behavior?  And how do you feel our story ended, in comparison to how this movie ended.

    It is not a realistic ending.  The years of denial have left deep ruts into the psyche of generations of a family, and it can't be undone over night.  It is years in the correcting.  Yet, if you are willing to start leaning towards the truth and away from abuse, the Universe will support you. 

    The difference between this movie and my truth speaking, is that I was asked to leave, by the silence.  No one stood up and asked my father to leave.  Instead, they paid his defense fees, they drove his truck, provide him with a home to live in, they did everything for him.  I was the one who knew I would not see them again.

    Not as long as I was talking crazy.

     

     

  • Files you Mislabeled.

    "In any treatment situation, it is the therapist who is responsible for holding two stories, or two plays, together. The work of sustaining a therapeutic relationship demands a two-sided or perspective in order to understand both stories. And the deepening of this relationship over time demands honesty and intimacy and sometimes extraordinary courage. Knowing that we are human, and therefore limited in our understanding and courage, we can be overwhelmed by these responsibilities. We can then create a greater distance to protect ourselves, and even appear to be unmoved by our patients’ responses to that distance. But the effect on our patients is deadening whenever we show them that they do not affect us. Or, alternatively, we can create an illusion of intimacy by making false promises, unwittingly seducing patients to reveal their deepest and oldest wishes, as if we could somehow mete out the right responses and withhold what would be harmful, as if we really knew that difference. But neither of these strategies really protects us from the terrible responsibility of holding another’s heart in our hands, at least for a time, while not forsaking ourselves.
    
    As I write this sketch of my observations about clinical practice, I see that, rather obviously, they carry the story of the book as a whole. I hope that others—parents, teachers, patients of every age, but clinicians especially—will read this story as if standing outside a house at a window at night, peering into a room at once familiar and unfamiliar, and watching an unfolding drama that adumbrates their own knowledge of relationships in psychotherapy."
    From Annie G Rogers, "A Shining Affliction - A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy"

    To me, it isn't just in the world of therapy, but in life in general. We are both responsible for holding the story and play of our lives together.  Being engaged with another human is to be fully present, to be the witness of their truths…to have the courage to be true.

    What is so amazing about Annie, is that she was a victim, she healed her wounds and can now be extremely affective as a therapist, for she can know what is helpful, what is needed…and that she must show up completely.

    The key is always…I see you.  And in my experience, until I saw myself completely, there was no way I could see others.  We see only as far as we see ourself.

    There are victims out there who are trying to help others, who have not dealt with their whole lives, especially perpetrators who focused only on their victim days and did not address their abusive ways.  If you can't see how your past is playing out in your present, you are not aware…and are repeating the past in the present.

    This is how the legacy continues.  The lack of seeing the past, the past shows up in the present to be seen. You don't see it, and the pattern goes on and on.

    The only way to stop the past from repeating is to see it.

    See what actually happened there, not what your mind would like you to believe.  To see reality in the past, will stop the past from living in your present day.

    I know this will be argued, but look around.  And see in families the dynamics being played out verbatium.

    If you can find a therapist who will challenge your past in your present, you will be on the road to recovery. Recovering your past and correcting all the files you mislabeled.


  • Wearing the Label “Therapist”.

    I just finished Annie G Rogers book "A Shining Affliction – A story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy"…it is brilliant in the understanding of how the past arrives in the present, until the past is corrected, and it shows the delicate balance between therapist and client.  How the truth can be manipulated by either side…

    Healing will take two people facing the truth.

    "The psychotherapy relationship is two-sided, whether we acknowledge it is or not. Each person brings to that relationship whatever is unrecognized, unknown, and unapproachable in her or his life, and a wish for knowledge of truths and wholeness."  Annie

    This alone is the key as to why some therapy works and others don't.  It isn't the total blame of the client, it is a relationship, where one person fails to show up fully, authentically…and I wonder what is the percentage of failures…Client or Therapist?

    Blaming the client only will no longer be acceptable.  How many folks have a relationship with the 'crazy' one and who are not truthful?  How many times does the 'crazy' one get left standing alone, unsubstantiated?

    What truly drives us crazy is not so much the actual facts of our history, but rather the lack of integrity of those who are 'helping' us….or our family and friends.  It is easier to put me into the category crazy, by my self.  But, it has more to do about their story than mine.

    I love the title, HARM and Healing.  

    For what most automatically believe is "If she would just get therapy, she would be healed"…and not take into the equation the other person in the therapy relationship…that there can be more harm being done in therapy, if the therapist doesn't see the client. 

    It is amazing that you can continue on your path of being a victim….just being victimized by the therapy world.  Ugh. How can you know?

    I instinctively have hung back from therapist, well actually from people…as someone I could rely on to tell me my truth.  I had followed folks for my first 46 years and they led me astray from reality.  Now, I was hell bent on going it alone.  Forcing myself to see that which I hadn't seen, feel what I had pushed away. Being aware instead of blindly following.

    I love how Annie shows the nuances of the client and then the harmful behaviors of the therapist as well as what is healing.

    It is my belief, that we are now on the cusp of recognizing that the crazy one isn't the only one who is misleading the healing, but that rather it is at the mercy of courage of the therapist.

    In the past, the one with the most college credits or the one who sat behind the desk was seen as the wisest.  

    That no longer will be the case.

    I am thrilled that there are books like this one out there.

    To show the way of not only how the past is repeated in our present, but how to get out of the cycle….and that it will take the right kind of person wearing the label "Therapist".



  • Without their Approval

    Sometimes you don't know what you miss until you get that which you are missing. 

    I didn't know that it mattered if my mother approved of my actions, when in fact I was blatantly out here doing the opposite of her approval, yet underneath buried deep was the longing for approval.

    I then sought it in others.

    Others are supposed to give to me that which was lacking from my mother.

    Feeling the complete void where her approval should be, is the space where others are filling in.

    Not that I openly sought it, but underneath each new encounter was this fear of not getting their approval.

    I approved of me, and yet there still was a piece of me that was waiting and it came alive in the presence of others…to be fed.

    There is a weird play going on…I am doing that which I know is not going to get approval from my mother, yet waiting for it.  It was the feelings of not being able to share my upcoming speaking event with family members, to have their support. Instead I step out and do exactly that which they don't approve of…but, a false belief system craves their approval.

    I guess her approval would mean that I am loved and accepted.

    So, even if the world accepts me, the little girl, the wounded one, still wishes for a mother's approval. When, the only way she can get it is to disregard her truths.

    This juxtaposition is the agonizing choice we make.

    Our truth or her approval…which really means 'love' and acceptance.

    The abused child absolutely cannot have both.

    Pick one.

    As I sit only days away from going more public with my truth, I feel the expanse between us widening, the valley floor moving.  

    I didn't realize I needed her to be proud of me, until another woman was.

    I am doing the opposite of what used to bring me love and approval…I now am doing this for me.

    I approve.

    I love the woman I am. 

    I will go up there and speak without their approval.

  • Bond of Our Whole Truth.

    "Trauma into Truth – Gutsy Healing and Why It's Worth It" By Rythea Lee

    This book is small but packed full of affirmations for my journey…and she sees what I see, feels what I have felt…makes me feel normal through her sharing of her own experiences.

    She answers the question, "Who are your witnesses?"

    "I found an enlightened witness when I was most unnerved. She looked quite normal but she had this unusual capacity to let me unravel.  I came apart somewhat dramatically and it was almost as if she smiled because she knew I was coming together. But she didn't smile, she made a space so large and quiet that when she spoke, it reverberated into my suspicion.  She was unafraid and that was a gift."

    "It has become clear to me through the years that anyone can become a therapist. Anyone can go to graduate school, graduate with a degree, obtain a license, and saddle up with top-notch theories. Anyone can charge a bundle, sit on a wicker chair and look interested.  I've met some of these anyones."

    "My first official therapist assisted me in retrieving a repressed memory, rallied me through the grueling process of naming the face of my tormentor, and then announced that she didn't believe me. After devastating consequences, I came to learn that she did this with her clients as a regular practice. How lovely!"

    "I swore off therapy for life but then in desperation began interviewing professionals like a mad woman.  The process of asking questions and screening down the finalists lead me to a single question posed to each candidate, "Have you done your own healing?"  Out of the large number of therapists, one woman told me then and there that a healer cannot heal unless she has healed herself first.  Over many years of rock solid support, she proved to me how true that statement was."  Rythea

     

    My initial gut instinct as to be wary, very wary okay downright suspicious of therapists.  I intuitively understood that if they hadn't traveled via experience into their own childhoods searching for the truth, how in the world could they help me with mine.  

    It didn't mean that they had to walk my same journey, but that they had to have walked theirs.  Book learning doesn't equal experience.  

    Reading about betrayal, pain, or suffering, certainly doesn't equate with being a first hand learner of it. And it isn't so much experiencing or feeling the expressions of emotions, but then how did you right your world?  How did you free yourself from the grips of dysfunction?  How were you able to be a separated being?

    What we do need is someone who can let us unravel without them being afraid…knowing we are not falling apart and breaking, but that we are "coming together"…and willing to witness and let us be our truth, no matter what it is.


    Under the question "What if I don't want to remember what it was like to be a child?", she writes.

    "You were a baby, you were a toddler, you were a young child, a teenager a budding adult.  On a physiological level you remember it all.  Each moment is stored somewhere in your brain, every cough, whisper, and breath, whether you consciously remember it or not."

    "Sometimes I look at a friend or client and see the little girl or boy they once were.  Their laugh, facial expression, or gesture has distinct childish qualities that are unmistakable.  Even a person's voice can change from responsible adult to a higher pitched tone and there it is, that innocence."

    "Alice Miller is one of my heroes.  She has written prolifically on the subject of child abuse and how it gets passed down from one generation to the next through cultural and familial denial.  She asserts that any individual who has not spent time unearthing the child they once were, coming to understand what it was like to be defenseless and vulnerable, will pass unresolved remembrances onto their children or loved ones.  She has made it her life's work to prove that this is so."

    "They did the best they could" is a phrase people use to dismiss the betrayals, abandonment, and violations they suffered.  They do not want to go back and feel the raw emotion from the past.  They believe it is easier to forget.  But if you take a good look at someone's life, someone who doesn't want to look into their past, you can usually see the consequences of that choice.  They are usually running scared, sprinting as fast as they can from what is screaming the loudest."  Rythea Lee


    I love that we both agree with Alice Miller a very controversial therapist of her time and I believe she still is so today.  I too feel that this is my life's work, to share what I can about the pathology of abuse, how the patterns and legacy are repeated out of not dealing with the truth of YOUR parents.  If you can't see them in their true light, you will never begin to heal from the abuse.  

    Whether you agree with Alice Miller or Rythea Lee, reality has proven these two women to be correct.  Our society at large is paying the consequences of therapy practices that don't demand going back and feeling the truth of our childhoods. 

    By eliminating this one very crucial step, we have the repetition of our parents lives being played out…due not only to familial denial, cultural denial but that our therapist may be taught lots of theories in books, but are not made to travel back and heal their own childhoods.

    Perhaps our planet would be better served if the prerequisite for being a therapist was to have corrected your familial denial.  For, how can you possibly expect another to do what you haven't done, OR help them to get where you haven't been?

    I love that I am in good company, that these two women are echoing my sentiments…and that we are not in the majority, but the minority. It truly is the path least traveled…and the one that can stop the legacy from dripping into the generations beneath us.  We are the only ones who can stop the dysfunctional pattern of our parents from bleeding on to our children.  

    When asked if Rythea was healed, she answered this way.

    "Yes, I am.  My history no longer dictates how I live my life or how I feel about myself." I smiled because some evolved part of me had answered the question."

    "I still hurt, I still struggle, I still have inner mulch to make art about (relationships, politics, potato chips), but now there is a place I tap into that is absolutely independent of my wounds and sufferings.  The process of coming to full-bodied grips with my past has tipped the scales from unconscious reactions to a reality that moves from a deeper unscarred knowing. This is my evidence that there is rhyme and reason to dismantling our false beliefs, getting to the bottom of our self blame." Rythea

    Perhaps healing is having two places within you…the wound and the space where you can now react to life, instead of being in the swirling patterns of a dysfunctional legacy.

    IMG_3178

    We can't take the wound out of us, but we can learn to live life consciously creating a new pattern.

    A pattern called truth.  

    Where our mind, body and soul are all joined together by the strong bond; our whole truth.

     

  • Wreckage We Called Family.

    Rythea Lee's book, "Trauma into Truth – Gutsy Healing and Why It's Worth It."

    She has words and her Art…she answers questions that she was asked most often…it is an artful book.

    Here is one section that popped out to me, having just experienced an encounter with my mother.  Rythea knows my view.

    The question: "Was it Lonely?"

    "Lonely like a solitary walk down a long wooded pathway.  Lonely like the sting of cold air when your warm hand lets go of mine.  Lonely as if I am entering a park full of busy unrecognizable people.  I have felt this sweet kind of lonely."

    "Then there was the lonely of sitting across the dinner table looking at my mother and sensing something was wrong. A wall, an electric fence, a city of buildings, an entire continent between us. She had hurt me early on but now she was smiling at me.  Her arms had not held me when I was tiny and crying but now she smiled at me as if we were close.  I told myself lies in order to feel one with her.  I said she would never hurt me, she didn't mean to, it never happened, I'm crazy, and clearly we are close, look at how her eyes water when she smiles at me.  I created vats of fantasies setting off warm fuzzies within me, living inside them completely."

    " All the fantasies in the world could not eradicate my terror. That kind of loneliness was deadly.  The loneliness of sitting across from someone who supposedly adores you and feeling sheer terror.  That kind of loneliness would undo me.  So I went away and learned to live with a lonely that had congruence.  I was alone, I was without the woman who had given birth to me. I was leaping into a void of unknown solitude but I could live with that loneliness.  It was a lonely that made sense." Rythea

    I get what Rythea means.  I love that she can separate the two lonely places…and how one makes sense and the other is sheer terror.  

    Underneath the question, "Is healing a selfish Act?" she writes.

    "There have been countless days when I wanted my life to be different. I wanted my parents to be different parents, my siblings to be different siblings, my path to be a different path.  I went so far as to pretend the abuse I suffered did not exist.  I was willing to blot out any inkling of unrest just to have a family, to be part of the only home I had ever known."

    "Was it selfish to choose the truth above all else, even security?  Was it selfish to dive into years of grief and longing to give birth to the only self available to me, me?"

    "Selfish would have been passing the abuse on to my children, my loved ones, my partner.  Selfish would have been carrying the denial into the next generation. Selfish would have been becoming angry, scared, small, withheld person who never healed, who did not find her clear unique voice."

    "If I did not choose to remember the violence, the sexual abuse, the loss, the crazy-making epicenter of my childhood, I would not know who I am.  I would not have have harbored the tools of self-responsibility that enabled me to be in service to other survivors.  I would not have grasped, down to the bone, the kind of atrocities people live through and been able to offer my understanding."

    "The time it has taken to recover my essence has been a long, indescribably challenging road. I wanted to skip the journey and go into hiding.  I craved addictions and self destructive acts that would turn off the stark reality of what people do to children. But then, in the quiet place of faith, I sensed that love was growing.  Every day it grew in the compost of my terror. Amidst the wreckage of what people call "The American Family" stood a figure unafraid.  I had something to give and it had not died."  Rythea.

    I so know the feelings of being thought of as being selfish, as I don't wave, as I drive past, as I keep my eyes, mind and soul focused on healing. How my behavior today and my actions are cited as being worse than my fathers abuse, I know.

    I know what it means to dive into years of grief and longing.  Only those who have sought healing know the pain and echoing feelings of craving family…when you head out to save the only one you can….you.

    I also know that it would have been very selfish and self absorbing to not at least try and change the pattern…to protect the generations below you, to stop the legacy from continuing to your children's children.  It wasn't for me, that I began this journey, my sights originally were upon my children. For me…it seemed it was too late.  Yet, in being self less, I found me.

    In finding me, I am setting up a new pattern…one where when I look into my children's eyes, they will not shudder in fear…nor will I sit in guilt for not doing something.

    Rythea is another huge affirmation on my journey…

    I love too, how she felt the love begin to grow. Feeling that love, and experiencing joy, is truly what keeps us going.  Through the days and weeks and years of grieving about the wreckage we called family.

    Thanks again Rythea for understanding me.  Now I know, for you are me.


  • Result of Hostility.

    The chance encounter with my mother, was a snapshot of my relationship with her, the fleeting casual wave as she drove on…into her destination where she wasn't challenged, but rather accepted without question from the little girls.

    Driving by the one who wants, okay demands the truth.  Wanting her voice and her history to reflect reality, wanting my mother to stop and ask…she toddle lu waves and heads into the driveway where it is now easier to be a grandmother than mother, let alone woman.  Pushing past the uncomfortable for comfort from the children.

    I looked up the word estrangement.  "Alienation: separation resulting from hostility."  I believe I have been looking upon my estrangement as something that started with me.  That I 'decided' to leave…but not that I was leaving due to the hostile environment. My separation came as a result from hostility.  I didn't create the hostility I left due to the hostility.

    I didn't leave my parents due to a difference of opinions.  I left and separate resulting from hostility.

    I looked up Hostility too. "Hostile behavior; unfriendliness or opposition."

    Beneath it were the synonyms of animosity, antagonism, ill will.

    I knew that I was pushing back while hollering loudly… backing up and leaving, BUT those behaviors were due to what I was feeling there.  I was feeling the hostility, unfriendliness and ill will.  I wasn't backing up because there was too much love.

    I was backing up because there was no love.

    The attention was on me backing up, MY Estrangement, not why I was separating even though I knew the cause.  Like my nephew used to say when he was a little boy, "This isn't my poor choice!"  

    I also believe that in dysfunctional families that hostility is the answer to the truth.

    We are afraid to say our truths for the way others will react.  It isn't the truth we are afraid of but, the Hostility to follow.

    In loving homes, truth isn't met with hostility.  

    I wasn't able to bring my truth in…not without there being hostility.

    Even among my sisters, some turned very hostile, when I continued and still continue to speak of reality. While they are defending their parents and saying they did their best, they don't know they are being hostile to me.

    The way of dysfunctional families is to turn hostile on the truth in defense of the lies and illusions.

    I separted from my family as the result of hostility.