I M Perfect lady

Tag: direct

  • Parents Call Family.

    I came across this paragraph in "Codependent No More" by Melody Beatte. 

    "Codependents are indirect. We don't say what mean, we don't mean what we say.  We don't do this on purpose. We do it because we've learned to communicate this way. At some point, either in our childhood or adult family, we learned it was wrong to talk about problems, express feelings, and express opinions. We've learned it was wrong to directly state what we want and need. It was certainly wrong to say no, and stand for ourselves. An alcoholic (abusive) parent or spouse will be glad to teach these rules; we have been too willing to learn and accept them." MB

    Communicating poorly was taught to us.

    To NOT communicate how we felt was demanded of us, expected of us.  This was dictated by the abusive parent who needed us to not mention how their behavior felt to us.  Or god forbid, speak of it to another person, share our experience, express our feelings… and communicate about abuse.  

    Even the spouse of the abuser will follow the rules.  They too will not talk about the 'problems' and the child then has no adult to which he/she can communicate directly.  

    Direct communication becomes extinct.

    If you communicate directly to these such folks, (abusers and their partners) you will be snuffed out, silenced, tossed to the curb, annihilated from their lives.  They will easily get rid of you so as not to hear a direct communication about a 'problem'.

    Their problem, their abusive behavior, their cover up, their lack of paying attention, their lack of doing nothing, their lacks in allowing abuse to continue on.  They certainly don't want to hear about it OR how it has affected the lives of so many and how it is now trickling down into the next generation. 

    Abuse has its own island, and while we were born upon that island, we can't tell anyone what happened there, how we lived, who was there and what happened…it is like we fell from the sky, but not raised in abuse. 

    Yet we spent the first 18 years of our lives there…and it is as if 'nothing' happened.  As if our early years are meaningless.  Our parents don't want to know that they indeed left a permanent scar

    Our battle scars are wounds that go unhealed, for the very thing we need to heal is forbidden.  We are not allowed treatment.

    Imagine, one parent wounds you and the other refuses to treat you…a child is left on the island unable to communicate, or it will be tossed out to sea, the sea of estrangement.

    And guess what, it matters not how many years pass on, whether you are now married with children, IF you ever dare speak of your life on the Island of Abuse, you will be banished…

    Many feel it is better to live among those on the Island and speak indirectly and without meaning, than to speak their truth and fall into the sea.

    Those are our two damn choices. 

    Pick one.

    The sea of estrangement brought me back to me.

    I still see the Island and hear about the Islanders, their parties and their lives…and in the early days of swimming alone, I longed to go back, but each and every time I considered it, I knew that I would have to leave the new me behind.

    The rules on the Island forbade the use of direct communication or expression of ones feelings or to discuss problems.  If I were to go back, I go back as a voiceless, choiceless, indirect and meaning not what I say girl.  I can't.

    Once you get used to swimming in the sea of freedom and truth, it is impossible to be happy on the Island of Abuse.  

    Which I know is why many parents are scared spit-less for their children to speak up and be direct, for it means they are heading to the open sea…and when they get a taste of being free, they will never return to the dark Island of Abuse. 

    One that the parents call family.

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  • Living Vicariously.

    In the last blog post about Authoritarian child rearing…where the child is taught to listen to the parent, always…and forget how IT feels and how the parents are not open to a new way of seeing the world, PERHAPS from the child's eyes…leads to the greatest downfall of human kind; The separation from your own feelings…your truth.

    And actually, it isn't that we are separated from them, but we are taught to disregard them.  And in the disregarding of your own feelings, you are raised to live BY the feelings of others.

    Instead of a seeing eye dog to lead the blind around, we are given a Feeling Like I, person that we follow.

    We are taught NOT to use the wonderful instrument called the human body, but to disassociate from it….and hop on the backs of someone else's feelings and live from there.

    Living vicariously through their lives.

    I had to look up the definition of Vicarious….

    indirectly, as, by, or through a substitute; "she enjoyed the wedding vicariously". 

    Imagine, we are taught to live Indirectly and not directly in our own lives.

    I spent 46 vicarious years on the backs of my parents, my church, my friends…you name them and I was there in their lives…contributing and giving to make their lives 'happier' or whatever, meanwhile, I was nowhere to be found in my own.

    I was substituting their life for my own.

    When we are raised to not be directly with our feelings, we are then taught to not feel, that which we feel and to give up our feelings for the sake and happiness of another's feelings.

    We are brought up to live outside of our own bodies…and it doesn't help when we are abused, for in that moment too, it isn't about our feelings, but the feelings and needs of our abusers.  We assume this is life as usual, for our feelings have never mattered.  

    How is sexual abuse different from physical or verbal, when our feelings don't matter?

    Abuse compounds the authoritarian parenting style.

    Or perhaps, abuse is the outcome of trying to hijack another life and make it your own.  

    My demeanor was very dark as I mothered as an authoritarian…I was stealing lives just as my mother did.  Raiding their feelings to make me feel better.  Insanity and incredibly selfish.

    The only reason I let go of being the Authoritarian, is that I learned what I had the authority over….Abuse.

    My power, my control, my high handedness was all to keep abuse flowing freely and protecting and pouring loving feelings into a dark pit…a vortex of unending demand.

    I was a key player in keeping the Play called Family alive and when in reality, it wasn't family, it was abuse.  

    So, I had taken the same power and control and worked it sadistic magic to steal my children's feelings, hijacking them to make me feel good, just as I was taught as a child.  And we called this love.

    It was only when I seen the Reality Play and the Characters without the masks I was continually providing, did I stop acting.

    It was my acting that kept this all alive…I acted differently than I felt.  I acted in ways that made my parents smile, made them happy, even if it was allowing abuse. 

    Once I seen what the script I was reading from was really doing, I was horrified.  It wasn't about a loving family, it was all choreographed to keep a pedophile operating.

    By Acting against my feelings and by keeping the family script going, I was not seeing or feeling what was really going on…and in doing so, was blind to the abuse.

    What still haunts me is the depth of my blindness and the breadth of my believability…how naively I was born upon this stage and began speaking in double speak, going the opposite direction of my feelings.

    And in doing so, gave me a life that was the opposite of reality.

    I am now an authoritarian about my feelings.

    I live directly with them and will not stray away from how they feel.

    If you can't be direct with how you feel, most likely you are living vicariously.