Tag: Dysfunctional

• In My Mother’s Eyes

  Being in this moment of time and healing my childhood wounds requires me to make changes now what I was incapable of doing back then.

  It is like living in two places at once, or being a grown woman and a little girl at the same time, my past is brought to the present to be healed or the presence goes back to the past to feel, heal and deal.

  What I failed to understand about the term, “healing your childhood wounds”, was that you literally are bringing forward the stuck emotions.

  Meaning you are made to revisit emotions that are stuck on, or places you are stuck and not free.

  Where you carry fear that is unreasonable as a mature woman.

  It is incredible to be a big lady in her own home, feeling feelings of being a ‘bad’ little girl, disappointing or displeasing, hurting her mother.

  How I don’t have this right. This option is not available.

  How the fear of her reaction seems to overshadow my independence and freedom.

  Yet, if I capitulated to the fears, I get stuck in the place emotionally being afraid of my mother’s reaction.

  It is her reaction that I fear.

  This is a very strong iron clad idea that I am not to upset my mother’s world, but what I also didn’t want to see is her reaction.

  It is twofold.

  That there is an unspoken rule, “thou shall not displease thy mother, for there will be a consequence IF you do.”

  It is perhaps the consequence… of what will happen or what do I not want to know?

  There seems to be more than just fear of her reacting badly, but rather seeing what’s beneath.

  In a dysfunctional home, I bet we know that the depth of love for us is very shallow, that we can’t push them very far and we will fall off the ledge of love.

  For in a dysfunctional home, the love of child seems to be last, the very last, in the furthest reaches, out beyond selfish needs, addictions and desires, and what we don’t want to know for sure is that this is true.

  That it is true we are barely seen.

  That we come behind a long list of things that matter more, that even with all the physical evidence to the contrary, we just don’t want to know, our well being comes second, third, or tenth on the list.

  Speaking up, making my wishes known, is to go against our usual dance.

  I am putting down my co-dependent wand.

  My greatest fear is that when I stand and offer to her that my well-being come before hers, that I will be seen as useless to her.

  That my value drops to zero.

  In My Mother’s eyes.

  December 1, 2010

  abuse, child, daughter, Dysfunctional, mother, self, value, worth

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• Peace In the Present Moment

  A book by Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle

  “The most important, the primordial relationship in your life is your relationship with the Now, or rather with whatever form the Now takes, that is to say what is or what happens. If your relationship with the Now is dysfunctional, that dysfunction will be reflected in every relationship and every situation you encounter. The ego could be defined simply in this way; a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment. It is at this moment that you can decide what kind of relationship you want to have with this present moment.”
  Eckhart

  “If your relationship with the Now is dysfunctional, that dysfunction will be reflected in every relationship and every situation!” I know this is true.

  The word dysfunctional almost covers up what is actually happening, it is like a cover deflecting the actual event.

  People fail to notice that by not being with what is actually happening, they are having a dysfunctional relationship to what is, no matter what it is and that alone makes them dysfunctional.

  They are not functioning as one with reality.

  I love how simple he breaks down dysfunction.

  In my head it was all one big vast tangle mess, when it happens little at a time.

  A moment in time presenting itself to you and you changing it into what you need it to be…

  What is so exciting about all of this is that you can stop the dysfunction by greeting what is as it is Now.

  Dysfunction begins each moment in time you fail to see the beauty of what is.

  The darkest beauty as well as its opposite.

  “The simple truth of it is that what happens is the best thing that can happen. People who can’t see this are simply believing their own thoughts, and have to stay stuck in the illusion of a limited world, lost in the war with what is. It’s a war they’ll always lose, because it argues with reality, and reality is always benevolent. When you argue with reality, you lose – but only 100 percent of the time.”
  Byron Katie

  November 9, 2010

  arguing, byron Katie, Dysfunctional, Eckhart Tolle, ego, events, in, moment, now, peace, present, reality, relationships, The, war

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• The Voices are Silent

  I finished the Quiet Room by Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennett. What an inspiring story of girl with a broken mind; a schizophrenia mind.

  She had voices in her head that were finally silenced with the proper medication, treatment and her tenacity to continue working on herself.

  She explains, “I still hear the Voices from time to time. I try to take my own advice. I distract myself, lecture myself, and focus on the outside world. I have taught myself to use a little mantra when they reappear: “These Voices are not real. Don’t be frightened. Don’t get upset. They are not real. Don’t let them overcome you. Try and think of what happened just before you heard them. Is there some emotion you can isolate that will help explain why they are here now? They are not real. It’s okay. Don’t be afraid.”

  “When I hear the Voices, I shake myself back to reality by using all my senses. If I am riding the train to Manhattan for example, I concentrate on the taste of Diet Coke and the smell of the perfume I am wearing. I look out the window at the changing view, and listen carefully to the sound of the conductor collecting tickets. I feel my own ticket flipping back and forth between my fingers.”
  Lori Schiller

  Even though I am not schizophrenic, I can relate to using reality to keep me on the path to wellness, how my voices were alive and walking in reality, voices of the dysfunctional family I left behind.

  Medication was able to reduce the voices mostly and when they returned, she formulated ways to not believe them.

  My experiences of walking out a dysfunctional family had the Voices on the outside in reality that were beckoning me backwards, and there wasn’t medication that would silence them, instead I had to be silent.

  My Voices were sisters, brothers and mother, my father’s voice never appeared.

  Voices and laughter, seemingly vanilla requests urging me to stop being so mental, so frightened, so weird, so odd, so standoffish, so separated, so cold, so heartless, so mean, so unkind…just like her voices in Lori’s head, mine too rose against me.

  The only medication I have to silence their voices is my truth; it seems to keep them far away.

  It is odd that my Voices are real and in living color and they too can threaten my newfound wellness, and perhaps tear little holes in my confidences, eroding newfound peace, as they bounce around like hysterical laughter, wanting me to join in the false hilarity.

  There is a small part of me that longs for the old group, yet a much larger part of me overcomes that, knowing what I would be joining.

  It is almost like I was raised in a Mental Hospital, and that I escaped into normal, and the old patients are beckoning me back.

  And the patients in the Mental Hospital were told that they were living normal, and see me as going into a land of total insanity.

  There are even times that I like Lori, have to concentrate on the smells, sights and sounds around me to keep me with reality, to know that I am okay, I am not the one with mental issues or dysfunctional patterns controlling my life, that I have done the due diligence to get me here.

  Here the voices are silent.

  October 30, 2010

  Amanda Bennett, backwards, Dysfunctional, families, head, hysterical, illness, insanity, laughter, Lori Schilling, mental, mind, patterns, schizophrenic, The Quiet Room, thoughts, urging, voices

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• Cheering for the Butterfly!

  We would rather be ruined than changed;
  We would rather die in our dread
  Than climb the cross of the moment
  And let our illusions die.

  ~W.H. Auden

   

  As I sit in the graveyard of my illusions, I am left with merging emotions, crashing upon each other, overlapping – sorrow and freedom, sadness and joy, feeling left out and being spared, all swaying within like ghosts.

   

  Memories of happier times try to overpower awareness of reality’s raw experiences; a game of pretend almost arises, like an abused woman who refuses to see the man who beat her, by focusing on the good times.

   

  Hope plans a future that isn’t to be, sorrow knowing you can never go home.

   

  Being sprung free and yearning for the cage.

   

  Celebrating while crying.

   

  Unable to firmly grasp one without feeling the loss of the other.

   

  It feels like I am dying while alive, grieving for my own self.

   

  Having one foot in the grave of my old life, while learning to walk in my new.

   

  The hardest part is to let me die, to be strong and keep killing the illusion, the dysfunctional relationships, letting them go on without me.

   

  I wish I could say I am tough and this is easy to feel the sorrow and pain as another section of my life dies…and I am left in the space of empty.

   

  The wise say that without change we would have no butterflies.

   

  But the time between caterpillar and butterfly is you are neither, suspended in time…

   

  You don’t fit with the caterpillars anymore, and you still have no wings to fly.

   

  In a cocoon I live, one life not finished and new one not fully begun.

   

  Suspended in soup of transition.

   

  Crying for the caterpillar and cheering for the Butterfly!

   

  October 1, 2010

  abuse, butterfly, caterpillars, change, changes, Dysfunctional, life, of, out, patterns, transitions

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• Annihilate My Truth

  My brother wrote about the word annihilation and I had never looked at what it meant, yet I too have used the word, but now I want to see how it is applied.

   

  Words to me are much more than words, they seem to have power in and behind them, and it’s feelings that give words energy, not the word itself.

   

  We use words to describe feelings, to express how the body feels.  Words to me are secondary in living life; they are the running commentator to what is actually going on. 

   

  Often times it seems people’s commentators are liars and they speak the opposite of their feelings, in kindness, to spare another their true feelings, or to spare themselves making light of what is bad.

   

  When the feelings and the comment about the feelings don’t match, you are lying in words but your feelings are still there unchanged and unexpressed.

   

  "Annihilation is defined as "total destruction" or "complete obliteration" of an object; having its root in the Latin nihil (nothing). A literal translation is "to make into nothing"."

   

  When I spoke of my experience of fear/terror of my father, it never felt like it was taken serious and that I could easily transfer words back to make things right.

   

  And when I use the word rape and abuse, or pedophile instead of father, or neglect instead of mothering, I have the problem.  I am using the wrong words.

   

  The word annihilation is even a kind word for liar.

   

  My family prefers liars and will annihilate those who use the incorrect words.

   

  The word family covers up the feelings of incest, rape, neglect, and I am annihilated when I dare expose what lay beneath the word father.

   

  It seems the greatest error is to annihilate the truth, to make into nothing my truths.

   

  I am not annihilated, the truth is.

   

  To be a truthful commentator means you have to walk and act in harmony with your feelings.

   

  Which is why I had asked my sisters if they too recalled feelings similar to mine, for if they didn’t, I could greatly understand their comments of father.

  I am made into nothing due to being abused.

   

  Here is the choice, being annihilated by my family for speaking my feelings or becoming a liar.

   

  Annihilation is their action, being a liar would be mine.

   

  I would have to lie to return to the family and annihilate my truth.

   

  September 27, 2010

  abuse, annihilation, Dysfunctional, family, liars, truth, words

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• Held On So Tightly…

  I awoke at 4:00 am, with my right hand tightly clenched, my arm sore.

   

  A dream flooded my awareness.

   

  I was at a beach, and saw a young girl pour gasoline into the front seat of my car, I hollered, and she looked at me and continued to pour.

   

  When I arrived at the car, she was still standing there smiling and pouring gas in my car, I caught her hand.

   

  And held on.

   

  We were connected for hours, while I tried to call the police, while we waited for them to arrive, while we waited for them to do something.  For the whole long day, I had to hold on to this unruly defiant child, this young girl who did everything in her power to get a way.

   

  I went from hanging on tightly with one hand to at times keeping her in a double arm hug/hold.

   

  She had friends who came by and made snide comments to me, while they tried to get her free from my grasp, yet I held on tighter. 

   

  Her mother and family also happened by, and the mother said, go ahead see if you can do something…

   

  All day long this longhaired, thin as a rail girl and I were joined, she wanting so desperately to get away and I as so determined to hold her.

   

  When I awoke, I realized this is a great metaphor for holding on to wishing someone would change.

   

  It took all my energy, attention, concentration, to hold on to this girl who wanted to no part of what I wanted, and I wouldn’t let go.

   

  Neither of us allowed to be free.

   

  All it takes is one person to change their direction of struggle, it only takes one and we are both free.

   

  As I look upon the last few days, and me trying to get my sisters to see my point of view….this struggle depicts it perfectly.

   

  I am trying to convince them against their will.

   

  When I went to bed last night, I recalled how my mother always focused on who didn’t arrive; who didn’t send a card, who didn’t treat her well, and then wasn’t able to be aware of who did. 

  Her habit became my habit, I too lose many hours of precious time focusing on a segment of people who are in my mental mind’s opinion, not doing what they ‘need’ to do.

   

  I felt a long line of misunderstanding unravel last night as I lay in bed, and then the dream filled my sleeping hours.

   

  If you are so busy working with those struggling against you, you can’t play and enjoy those with you.

   

  I am letting them go…

   

  In my dream, as the long day ended, when we were both tired, I took her information down on how to reach her, and I let her go.

   

  My last sight of her was her walking away free, adjusting her clothes and shrugging and correcting herself, like a dog shaking its self once free from a leash.

   

   

  And I sat there rubbing my hand that had held on so tightly….

   

   

   

  September 4, 2010

  choices, defiance, differences, dreams, Dysfunctional, family, habits, holding, letting go, meanings, opinions, sisters, struggles

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• Bubble Of Pretend

  I was told yesterday that hypochondria was a disease, that somebody with an imaginary illness, is ill.

   

  I had never considered that just believing in something nonexistent made you sick.

   

  It is a belief in something that isn’t there, an imaginary idea, and the belief is what makes you ill.

   

  In denial you refuse to acknowledge existence of something and being a hypochondriac you believe in something imaginary.

   

  The two seem like kissing cousins, related in an odd way, where both are removed from what is truly going on, and both cases, it is a belief that keeps them ill.

   

  Within a dysfunctional family we have relationship hypochondriacs (or the opposites), for they believe in something imaginary; believing things to be better than they truly are, and unable to see the illnesses that surround them.

   

  The coorelation between the two is remarkable.

   

  I am surprised I didn’t realize that just believing in something imaginary is in itself an illness.

   

  While the hypochondriac is convinced things are worse than they are, a person in a dysfunctional relationship are convinced things are much better than they are.

   

  I wish they had a name for the opposite of a hypochondriac.  When I looked it up on Yahoo here is what I found.

   

  “The opposite is a MAN! Most men will think nothing is wrong with them even if the tumor is growing out of their head!”

   

  I guess the opposite is thinking nothing is wrong in the face of evidence to the contrary.

   

  Both sides are caught in a belief that keeps them from seeing what is true, and that in itself is the illness.

   

  Stuck in a belief that doesn’t exist in real life.

   

  Living in a bubble of pretend.

   

   

  September 2, 2010

  beliefs, Dysfunctional, families, hypochondriacs, illness, relationships, stuck, untrue

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• What I Mirrored.

  Continuing on from “Codependent No More” by Melody Beatte, she writes.

   

  “Gradually, I began to climb out of my black abyss.  Along the way, I developed a passionate interest in the subject of codependency.  As a counselor (although I no longer worked full-time in that field, I still considered myself one) and as a writer, my curiosity was provoked. As a “flaming, careening codependent” (a phrase borrowed from an Al-Anon member) who needed help, I also had a personal stake in the subject. What happens to people like me?  How does this happen?  Why?  Most important, what do codependents need to do to feel better?  And stay that way?

   

  I talked to counselors, therapists, and codependents.  I read the few available books on the subject and related topics. I reread the basic – the therapy books that have stood the test of time- looking for ideas that applied.  I went to Al-Anon meetings, a self-help group based on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous but geared toward the person who has been affected by another person’s drinking.

   

  Eventually, I found what I was seeking.  I began to see, understand and change.  My life started working again. Soon, I was conducting another group for codependents at another Minneapolis treatment center. But this time, I had a vague notion of what I was doing.

   

  I still found codependents hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, and all the things that I had found them before.  I still saw all the peculiar twists of personality I previously saw.  But, I saw deeper.

   

  I saw people who were hostile; that had felt so much hurt that hostility was their only defense against being crushed again.  They were that angry because anyone who had tolerated what they had would be that angry.

   

  They were controlling because everything around and inside them was out of control. Always, the dam of their lives and the lives threatened to burst and spew harmful consequence on everyone. And nobody but them seemed to notice or care.

   

  I saw people who manipulated because manipulation appeared to be the only way to get anything done.  I worked with people who were indirect because the systems they lived in seemed incapable of tolerating honesty.

   

  I worked with people who thought they were going crazy because they had believed so many lies they didn’t know what reality was.

  I saw people who had gotten so absorbed in other people’s problems they didn’t have time to identify or solve their own.  These were people who had cared so deeply, and often destructively about other people that they had forgotten how to care about themselves. The codependents felt responsible for so much because the people around them felt responsible for so little; they were just picking up the slack.

   

  I saw hurting, confused people who needed comfort, understanding, and information.  I saw victims of alcoholism who didn’t drink but were nonetheless victimized by alcohol.  I saw victims struggling desperately to gain some kind of power over their perpetrators.  They learned from me, and I learned from them.

   

  Soon, I began to subscribe to some new beliefs about codependents. Codependents aren’t crazier or sicker than alcoholics.  But they hurt as much or more. They haven’t cornered the market on agony, but have gone through their pain without the anesthetizing effects of alcohol or other drugs, or the other high states achieved by people with compulsive disorders. And the pain that comes from loving someone who’s in trouble can be profound.

   

  “The chemically dependent partner numbs the feelings and the non-abuser is doubled over in pain – relieved only by anger and occasional fantasies,” wrote Janet Geringer Woititz in an article from the book Co-Dependency, An Emerging Issue.

   

  Codependents are that way sober because they went through what they did sober.

   

  No wonder codependents are so crazy. Who wouldn’t be, after living with the people they’ve lived with?

   

  It’s been difficult for codependents to get the information and practical help they need and deserve. It’s tough enough to convince alcoholics (or other disturbed people) to seek help.  It’s more difficult to convince codependents – those who by comparison look, but don’t feel, normal – that they have problems.

   

  Codependents suffered in the backdrop of the sick person.  If they recovered, they did that in the background too.  Until recently, many counselors (like me) didn’t know what to do to help them.  Some times the codependents were blamed; sometimes they were ignored; sometimes they were expected to magically shape up ( an archaic attitude that has not worked with alcoholics and doesn’t help codependents either.)  Rarely were codependents treated as individuals who needed help to get better. Rarely were they given a personalized recovery program for their problems and their pain.  Yet, by its nature, alcoholism and other compulsive disorders turn everyone affected by the illness into victims- people who need help even if they are not drinking, using other drugs, gambling, overeating, or overdoing a compulsion.”

                  Melody Beatte

   

  What I love is that she sees how the codependents were formed…and in my experience it matches to what I know to be true for me.

   

  I love how she says we suffered sober…for indeed we did…My perpetrator wasn’t an alcoholic, but a sexual predator, yet the outcome is still the same.

   

  My mother’s codependency of my father is what I mirrored.

   

  August 21, 2010

  Al Anon, caring, child, codependent, Dysfunctional, legacy, Melody Beatte, more, no, pain, Recovery, sober

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• My Rights Move Me.

  From the book, “Healing the Child Within, by Charles Whitfield. Personal Bill of Rights is compilation of rights that several groups have created.

   

  BILL OF RIGHTS

   

  1.     I have numerous choices in my life beyond mere survival.

  2.     I have the right to discover and know my Child within.

  3.     I have a right to grieve over what I didn’t get that I needed or what I got that I didn’t need or want.

  4.     I have a right to follow my own values and standards.

  5.     I have a right to recognize and accept my own value system as appropriate.

  6.     I have a right to say no to anything when I feel I am not ready, it is unsafe or violates my values.

  7.     I have a right to dignity and respect.

  8.     I have a right to make decisions.

  9.     I have a right to determine and honor my own priorities.

  10.    I have a right to have my needs and wants respected by others.

  11.    I have the right to terminate conversations with people who make me feel put down and humiliated.

  12.    I have the right not to be responsible for other’s behavior, actions, feelings or problems.

  13.    I have a right to make mistakes and not have to be perfect.

  14.    I have a right to expect honesty from others.

  15.    I have a right to all of my feelings.

  16.    I have a right to be angry at someone I love.

  17.    I have a right to be uniquely me, without feeling that I’m not good enough.

  18.    I have a right to feel scared and to say, “I am afraid.”

  19.    I have the right to experience and then let go of fear, guilt and shame.

  20.    I have a right to make decisions based on my feelings, my judgment or any reason that I chose.

  21.    I have a right to change my mind at any time.

  22.    I have the right to be happy.

  23.    I have a right to stability- roots and stable  healthy relationships of my choice.

  24.    I have the right to my own personal space and time needs.

  25.    There is no need to smile when I cry.

  26.    It is okay to be relaxed, playful and frivolous.

  27.    I have the right to be flexible and be comfortable with doing so.

  28.    I have the right to change and grow.

  29.    I have the right to be open to improve communication skills so that I may be understood.

  30.    I have the right to make friends and be comfortable around people.

  31.    I have a right to be in a non-abusive environment.

  32.    I can be healthier than those around me.

  33.    I can take care of myself, no matter what.

  34.    I have the right to grieve over actual or threatened losses.

  35.    I have the right to trust others who earn my trust.

  36.    I have the right to forgive others and to forgive myself.

  37.    I have the right to give and to receive unconditional love.

  You may wish to consider whether you have any of these rights.  My belief is that every human being has every one of these rights and more.

   

  As we transform, we begin to integrate our transformations into our lives.

                  Charles Whitfield.

   

  How interesting this was to read and to agree full heartedly that we do indeed have our own personal rights.

   

  I have the right to me, my body and my life, my choices and my feelings.  I also freely give the same rights to those who I engage with or even the folks who no longer want to engage with me.  I honor their choices; I honor their voices and their wishes.  For we all have the same rights.

   

  What I have come to see and know is that very few use these rights; instead another’s rights are using them.

   

  I was near 50 years old before I utilized my rights, before I even knew that I had a list of rights within me, that I had the option to say yes or no, to come or go, to speak my feelings, up and until then I was a robot moving by the rights of others.

   

  I am so grateful to have my own rights.

  I love my rights.

  I love that I am free to use my rights.

  I am the only one who can give up my rights; they can only be taken with my permission.

   

  It is my intention to live the next 50 years with my rights in hand!

   

  When you own your own rights, you are no longer co-dependent and being moved by another's rights.

   

  My rights move me!

  
  

   

   

  August 7, 2010

  being, Dysfunctional, free of co-dependency, human, rights, self, separate

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• She is watching you always!

  As I have been pondering, tossing and turning around in my head, how it is possible that the 4^th generation is just beginning a relationship with the same pedophile, it occurred to me it was love and compassion that has kept this legacy going.

   

  I know it sounds nuts that such a kind sentiment can be the cause of this legacy continuing on, but it is.

   

  The third generation is just following the path of the second and the second of the first, the first being my mother.

   

  As my nephew goes to visit his grandpa, he is only doing what he has witnessed his mother do and his grandmother do since he was born.

   

  There is nothing unusual in his steps.

   

  His daughter will also watch and see how her father engages with this man and will follow his lead.  Her steps will echo his.

   

  There doesn’t need to be any words spoken, written or shouted to the moon, nope, just seeing how the adults in the room treat her great-grandfather is all she needs, she will mimic them all.

   

  Does it matter if her great-grandfather is on the sexual predator list, that he needs to be supervised around her, or that he has a long history of damaged little girls behind him?

   

  Nope, none of that information will stack up against the fact that her father is okay with this man, that her grandmother is fine having a relationship with him, and that is all that matters. 

   

  She will use them as her gauge, her monitor and her guide in what is acceptable in life and what is not.  She is being groomed to be comfortable with a pedophile, she is being taught not to fear him and she won’t.

   

  This one fact alone is what has allowed him to continue on, no one fears him they all love him.

   

  The ones that love him allow him access now, then and always, for they love without conditions.

   

  While most are looking at my father and his actions and watching diligently for him to make his move, no one is looking at the ones he is with.

   

  My mother was the first adult to know of his actions within our family tree, and her reaction were what we all followed to a tee.

  She never left him, had a consequence for his behavior within their relationship, she didn’t warn us of his disease, there were no outward signs in her behavior that would have sent us a signal, not one.

   

  Not once as far as my limited memory serves me did she ever act in fear of this man, not one time, never.

   

  What she instead always showed, was love, respect and normal petty complaints that two married people have, she never once suggested to me that his disease was ruining our lives, that it had ruined many, that the potential was there, that she feared for the safety of her girls, their girls and their girls, and their friends….

   

  Not once.

   

  Her actions have always been to love and support him, to show him compassion and caring, always.

   

  We only see actions, actions, actions.

  Words are meaningless unless and until an action follows.

   

  So as you tell me my fears are unfounded, that I have no reason to worry, I will tell you this.

   

  You are your mother’s daughter, you are doing exactly as she did and you will receive the same exact outcome.

   

  The legacy continues through you, your children and now your grandchildren.

   

  You are the one teaching them NOT to fear a pedophile, know it and own it.

   

  The little baby is without words but she is learning much already, she is watching you always!

   

  
  

  July 15, 2010

  baby, child abuse, compassion, Dysfunctional, generations, legacy, love, mimic, pedophiles

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