I M Perfect lady

Tag: behavior

  • Nothing Can Sway Them…

    Today as I rode along in the mail jeep, I listened to "Sway" The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior…by Ori Brafman.

    A very interesting look at what is behind the irrational behavior. 

    In the beginning of the book, he speaks of two very compelling reasons why people don't change their minds or the direction of their lives.  

    One is the "Aversion to Loss"…where they will hold on to a sinking ship, rather than lose it.  It isn't even about what they are holding on to, it is that they just are simply repulsed by the thought of Loss. They live life from the NOT losing perspective and fail to see life from a view point of gaining something new. They literally are not even able to see a new way, for their sole focus is on NOT LOSING what they have.  This one factor will lead to all kinds of irrational behavior.

    Now couple it with an added vice, "commitment"…and you have the makings of insane behavior. 

    They made a commitment and that commitment overshadows any facts that fly in the face of that.  Their commitment binds the NOT Losing sentiment into a circle that they can't escape from.  No rational directives can penetrate the tightly woven Beliefs they hold.

    I highly recommend reading this book, if you have irrational folks in your world and you simply can't figure them out.  The experiments alone are very interesting to see how the human rationality works.

    What this has helped me see is that if your mind set is on NOT LOSING, you will not be able to see a new way.  For you are holding tight to the thought that you can't lose what you have…it isn't what you have, but losing.

    This of course brings me to my siblings and how they don't want to lose the family and even how they are committed to the roles of brother/sister/son/daughter, they acted irrationally from my point of view, because they couldn't lose.

    Loss becomes the larger meaning…than what you holding on to.

    This is why I couldn't understand why they were so dead set against letting go…they didn't want to lose…and their commitment to that family stood higher than the family they were committed to.

    I don't know if I can adequately explain this, but if you read the book, you will see how we give up being rational in irrational ways due to holding on to a secondary meaning.

    Oh, and there is one about "Value"…where if your first impression is that person or thing is valuable, you will not change your mind easily…and in fact, you will disregard information that tries to lessen the value.

    The first impression of valuable stands against all facts to the contrary.

    These three different examples dove tail in nicely to abuse and it explains how folks refuse to budge in a new direction.

    Lots of the abuse is happening in families whose 'reputations' proceed them, and it is extremely difficult to change the minds from the first impression of valuable…our minds can't be swayed.

    It works in the opposite direction too.  If you are labeled as less or worthless, you can't get people to believe otherwise. And it even works if people label you worthless, you begin to believe them EVEN if you have facts that dispute it.

    We simply can't be swayed by facts, for in front of the facts, stands our first impressions…or fears of loss…or our ironclad promise of commitment.

    Losing family….failing to honor your commitment to the family and changing your Values of them stand in the way of navigating rationally in the face of abuse.

    In my experience, this explains the behaviors of my family…they are a strong bunch; nothing can sway them.

     

  • A Pattern without Abuse.

    “Two wrongs don’t make it right…” came to mind yesterday and I can see clearly how a child gets so lost after being abused, how the negative energies keep piling up.

     ‘Good’ folks who are unaware of what their actions are saying to the child make matters worse and don’t even know it, know it.  They just are doing what their parents did unquestioning.

    The cycle repeats itself, by each generations same behavior.

     Yesterday while listening to a novel on CD, a sentence was spoken with awe, “She sure is her mother’s daughter…” and I thought sadly I am not, and felt sad pride.

     It was bittersweet to know that I didn’t have a mother who acted like me, that I have forged this new behavior alone without a pattern to follow.

    Not only no pattern, but I created this with no support from my family of origin…

    The patterns of abuse were not followed by m me, nor did I act according to family’s wishes, instead I did the complete opposite and it has brought me much disdain.

    Here is how I built a new pattern, I responded negatively to the abusers and I did what was positive for me. 

    This wasn’t a preconceived agenda, but rather an instinctual deep inside calling.

    I was not a child at the time of being aware of my abuse, but I still mothered myself.

     I was the mother and I was the wounded child.

    In each situation I would ask myself what would be best for the abused little girl inside of me, and each time I would then respond that way, paying no heed to the ramifications that decision would cause to the folks around me.

    My little girl inside was my number one focus and I never, not once did something that I felt would cause her more harm.

    While it seems counterintuitive, stepping away from my father and mother was the best thing for my little girl.

    Neither had taken good care of her.

    Once I learned to step aside from those who hurt me; that was my pattern.

    I step away from folks who hurt me. 

    It is plain, it is simple and it has had a positive change for me. 

    It matters not to me what their title is, all that mattered was how I felt in their presence and if it didn’t feel safe, warm, loving, joyful, then I would make my move.

    My inner wellness had to matter more than anything in the world.  It became my compass.  Like a very very stubborn child, even a bullhead, I continued with this new pattern. 

    If it hurts or feels bad, I move away.

    If it requires me to overlook or look around their negative behaviors, I move away. 

    If they are not accountable for their own actions, I move away.

    If it gives them more power and leaves me powerless, I move away.

    If they belittle and make snide remarks about my needs, I move away.

    If they holler and scream I am insane, crazy, not well, I move away.

    I have been given the luxury and freedom that most abused children do not have.  I am an adult with a voice and a choice.  I can support myself…I don’t’ have to put my survival in the hands of those who hurt me.

    Children of abuse are not given this new pattern to follow, in fact they are ‘forced’ to do the opposite of what I have done.

    They are made to succumb and return to ‘normal’ to get back in line of the family pattern, most often in order to survive. They are not self supporting.

    How their abuse affects the family shows the pattern from generations before. 

    If a child’s abuse doesn’t shatter the family…it is the normal pattern and the way things are in this particular family tree.

    If the child’s welfare isn’t put at the top of the list, the family’s pattern most likely is that the children’s needs are last, EVEN if the child has been abused.  They will do what feels best or fits best in the family pattern.

    It seems preposterous, but this I have witness first hand.  I seen my father’s case through the eyes of the wounded child, and what I saw was all positive for my father and very negative for me.

    Little by little I watched how my mother and siblings acted and how they responded, and who they took care of, spoke for and who they argued for, while I watched my father do nothing.

    He didn’t take one teeny tiny move that showed he felt remorse or that he wanted to get out from under his disease…he didn’t have to lift a finger; all were doing the heavy lifting for him.

    I watched and I witnessed this all with the eyes of the wounded child.

    I kept my view as a wounded child, not as a daughter or sister…

    I saw the family pattern being played out perfectly.  I witnessed how this abuse continues on. 

    The only way childhood sexual abuse can continue on is with the consent and knowledge of the adults or heads of households.

    Children depend on the adults for survival, cannot sway the family tree to act differently, their very food and shelter depend upon it.

     I acted against the pattern and look at where I am sitting.

     Alone in my own home… I am free of those who abused me.

     A child doesn’t have this luxury, they are held captive until they can support themselves. 

    They are subjected to years and years of abuse and live a few feet away from themselves, trying to survive they have to be disconnected…

    The sad part is, most are not able to reconnect.

    They have learned to be this untreated abused person.

    Learned to survive by blocking out their feelings, separating themselves from themselves.  Living as a person that isn’t who they are.

    I am not certain why I had the privilege to reconnect to my self, to walk with my wounded girl until we walked free.  But I have and I have carved out a new pattern…a pattern without abuse.

     

     

     

     

  • Normal Results.

    “What is your motive for Telling…” is a phrase that lends it self to much debate.  The simple fact that a child is then put in a position of feeling ‘bad’ for squealing stops many from coming forth.

     No one wants to be a squealer.

    Squealing is seen and incurred as to being weak or bad and that you should not say anything, IF you don’t have anything kind to say…

    It is seen as soiling someone’s reputation. 

    How is it that the squealer is the one who is in charge of that?  Surely it wasn’t the little girl’s fault that in Telling on Ray, he would then be made to ‘look bad’. 

    He was bad each moment he forcibly made a girl touch him.

    She was telling to stop an action, she wasn’t concerned how it looks or how it would fit into others lives.  She just wanted it to stop. 

    In order for things to stop, reputations will change color, past ideals of a person will take on a new tone, lives and relationships will hang in the balance, things will not go on as “Normal”.

    For now an abnormal behavior has entered in.

    Insanity ensues if you continue to act normal when abnormal walks and talks in your world and you don’t tell or pay attention to it, to see it like it is. 

    It seems preposterous that you would carry on life as usual with this oddity in your midst, that you would pretend to pretend to pretend that there is nothing amiss, that you would try harder to be normal instead of addressing the abnormal behavior.

    But take it from me, we do.

    In fact, in home this was not abnormal, but normal.  I come from a long line of sexual abuse…and the way they treated it was to do nothing, but carry on as usual.

    When the adults in my childhood life didn’t see abnormal, I then became abnormal.  I had to become abnormal to fit in.

    What I had thought was that only our home acted abnormal to normal abuse, but come to find out there is a sea of people willing to sweep abnormal under the rug to keep up with their normal lives, normal religions, normal families, normal marriages, normal relationships.

    It isn’t abuse that is the problem, but holding on to normal.

    Holding on to normal, all will discount, overlook, and under react in order to keep their own normal lives. 

    What is so incredulous to me is that they hang on to normal in their minds only.  For abnormal has now come to live with them and the longer they don’t see abnormal, the more abnormal becomes their family.

    I lived and learned that abnormal was the normal way to be.

    How grateful and blessed I am, that I was finally able to see that what I had stood for and championed was not normal.  What a gift to see my abnormalities.

    Most are not given this awareness.  I am speaking out and shouting out and pointing out what others are failing to see.

    Since I lived for 46 years believing I had a ‘normal’ family but that I was abnormal, I want to share my experience.  I am not a squealer, but a person who is telling to help stop abuse…for people to start seeing that what they think or want to believe is normal is so abnormal.

     Being raised in abnormal it is hard to know normal.

    Sometimes doing the complete opposite of what you were taught will bring in normal results. 

     

     

     

  • Wearing a Tag, “Family”.

    My daughter waved her hand above her head in a crazy type way in explanation to who I am… Nuts.

    Yep, nuts…over zealous about abuse, that I will give up family for it, that I will sever relationships for it.  I am WAAAY out there… 

    Yep, that’s me.

    I felt she had me pegged completely; there was no argument there.

    While perhaps I would not categorize myself as insane, when it comes to dealing ‘rationally’ with abuse, I guess I am nuts.

    I will not tolerate it at all.  No matter from whom and especially when it comes to my kids.  I am overboard certifiably nuts.

    I tried to explain to her my viewpoint, but it is near impossible to explain, it is the old adage, you had to be there. 

    While I do believe we had a reasonable conversation, I felt she tried to come over to my side… it was impossible for her, and I am grateful.

    In order to see abuse like I see abuse, you would have to have been abused like me…she never tasted abuse like I have…her abuse was delivered to her by me.

    I told her the only abuse she has ever had came from me.

    I was irrational, unreasonable, and way more nuts when they were young compared to how I am today. 

    She said I am okay now, unless it comes to abuse, then I go nuts.  So, I have changed.

    In the past I was okay with abuse and went Nuts in the normal day-to-day living.  I love this.

    Do you get it?  I am seen as being nuts for going insane about abuse, by talking of it, warning others of it, writing my way free of it, seeing it when it appears, I am focused and relentless when it comes to abuse. 

    She said, you go way out there and am unreasonable about abuse, and I smiled and said, “yes that is me, I do do that!”

    I tried to explain to her that her grandmother was ‘reasonable’ with abuse. She didn’t want to lose her family so she was kind and ‘rational’ with abuse. 

    That I am okay being nuts when it comes to abuse. 

    I truly don’t mind the name calling and the finger pointing, the shunning and anger that is directed toward me as I staunchly remain unreasonable with abuse.

    I told her it matters not how they see me. What matters the most is that my children see a mother who will not sit down and be friendly with abuse.  I want them to see how to treat abuse by watching me.

    Abuse is not my friend.  

    I will lose relationships to step away from abuse.  I will not put ‘family’ above it.

    Meaning that just because my father was family, I should over look his abuse. Just because my mother is family, I should overlook the years she overlooked abuse.  Just because my brother is family, I should overlook his supporting abuse.

    To see family first …is what abuse is relying on.

    For if you see the family first, abuse slips by unnoticed.

    I am nuts about this, I refuse to let abuse slip by even wearing a tag “Family”.

     

  • Art

    The contrasts in life are incredible and their depths unimaginable, the reach between them are so they do not touch nor do they brush up against each other, two drastically different worlds, yet on the same planet living and breathing in the same time frame.

     

    I had a short Artist Date followed by a conversation reporting more abuse in the FALC’s congregation; more horror of insidious acts perpetrated against children by highly regarded church members.  Tales whose reflection echoes my parents…and a friend’s suicide explained 25 years after it happened.  Swinging from Art to Horror within minutes.

     

    The Artist within me, just moments before had feasted upon colors and fabulously soft textures, from the curly silken softness of alpaca wool to real silk spun by a worm and then dyed by Artist’s hands…my spirit was alive and alert to new things dreaming of how they can be used in an upcoming project…visions of color and me.  I then was plunged into the harsh stark reality of abuse and its long term affects, my Artist disappears and my abused self arises, listening to the details of evil.

     

    The contrast of embracing and working with my Artist self while healing from sexual abuse as well as unhinging myself from a brainwashed mind is equally on the far ends of the spectrum, yet closely related.

     

    It almost seems like my artist self was hijacked by abuse and that religion; so in order to become my most artful self, I have to fully understand from whence I came.

     

    The horror stories of childhood abuse, and how it affected the life afterwards is horrific, but equally is the ‘normal’ presentation of the perpetrators and their warm reception by the folks of the church, it seems more profound.

     

    I told my brother I had more respect for the Klu Klux Klan folks for their agenda was front and center.

     

    Whereas the hierarchy of the church sells an agenda of high morals and values, setting limits on the evils of the world and how their congregations are made to adhere to rules forbidding pretty harmless sins.

     

    Watching of Television, to watching a movie, to nail polish, hair coloring, yet while the circles of abuse grow ever widening, while more and more children are born into the centers of crime, this seems violently insane.

     

    Sexual predators sit on the board and behind the pulpit, and false evils are handed out, while behind the scenes, children face the repressed darkness, alone.

     

    The singing in the pews can never be loud enough or sweet enough to heal the children who have been raped repeatedly, whose brainwashed state leaves them helpless for alternatives, who some find release in suicide or drugs and alcohol.

     

    The face of the church that is presented to the public is like the white sheet the Klu Klux Klan hid behind…  We are all fooled that the sheet is the man/woman instead of what lies behind.

     

    What lies behind is the pile of sins, the unhealed wounds of their own childhood, the eroded brain from too much washing, the unreality of life…who needs the trappings of the church in order to hide.

     

    I have often wondered of the deep-rooted fear that many struggle with about leaving the church, and I may have figured it out.  It isn’t the fear of going to Hell that keeps them there, but the covering of the sheet.

     

    They are too afraid to stand alone outside of the pews of the church.

     

    They need the covering of religion offers.

     

    They need the pretty faces of singing voices.

     

    They need it all to cover up what lies beneath.

     

    And what lies beneath un-addressed is the monster that continues to rape children and do extremely horrific deeds.  And this sheet, they believe, has the magic to bless it all away, that they can literally hid behind its whiteness.

     

    Sadly, it is true.

     

    For no one speaks of the filth underneath, nor do they address it, and haul it into the court of the land.  There are a few lonely voices trying to speak of above the hymns they sing so loudly as to not hear the cries…

     

    I do not know what it will take before their sheets fall once and for all, when the children unite and yank them off, when this vicious insanity will stop. 

     

    I get so incensed with the idea that this is called a ‘church’.

     

    It is the devils playground where children’s lives are sacrificed, where pedophiles reign supreme, and the brainwashed walk their narrow path, unquestioning, unchallenging, and unseeing to their final destination Heaven, to afraid of Hell to stop.  Yet no one tells them they are in Hell.

     

    The swing from Art to the harsh reality of sexual abuse hidden behind the white church…shows the distance I traveled, the valley of death that I traversed to be able to stand and ponder, Art.

     

     

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    Art is the complete opposite of that Hell.
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    The soul recognizes its worth in the wonder of Art.

     

  • One Verse

    Life seems to unfold flatly in front of us and some will half close their eyes to bring in a fuzzy sorta kinda picture, so not to see its pure untouched nakedness.

    Raw life.

    Life without words, just life arriving unshackled, free and unbound.

    Reality.

    Worldwide realty show where there is no re-shooting or voice over, just life coming to us live!

    Life coming to us live and in living color!

    Yet how often do we see/hear and get what is playing out in front of us, the untouched version?

    How often do we excuse, dismiss, and let be behaviors due to some long held relationship we feel unable to dissolve?

    How often do we respond authentically to what is actually happening, or do we look the other way?

    When we turn, does the reality show make a sharp left with us?

    Do reality and its history not get recorded due to us blinking instead of responding in kind?

    Sometimes living in raw life I find myself brushing up against people who seem unaware that life is a live living breathing moving event.

    These are not actors, but actual people living life, it is not a rehearsal or a bad game show.

    This is your life.

    This is your moment in time, the here and the now, and each little tiny raw life moment is comprising your life, they all get tagged and stored into your history.

    What you do today is a day in the life of you.

    What you see today and respond to today is a recorded response in the life of you.

    How you respond to raw life builds the character called you.

    We can either work harder on keeping reality back or succumb to the rawness of life.

    Welcoming life exactly as the Universe created it, accepting the darkness as dark, the light as light, love as love, fear as fear…allowing each its own perfection.

    Love as love, not fear.
    Fear as fear, not love.
    Seeing the darkness as dark.

    Seeing the dance of Life as One….The Universe. One Verse.