I M Perfect lady

Tag: Dysfunctional

  • Alive but unaware!

    What an incredible ride, what an awe-inspiring journey, I feel an immense amount of gratitude to be given the opportunity to live beyond the bubble, to find a life outside of denial.

     

    Unless and until you have been totally snowed under by a false belief, where you and reality are an ocean apart, you will not understand the enormity of dissolving denial.

     

    First of all you are the one standing neck deep in denial, and it is from there that you have to dig yourself out, not knowing what is real; your denial or reality. 

     

    When I began this journey, when my bubble burst, I thought my reality changed, when in actuality it was my denial that had sprung a leak or collapsed, leaving me without protection.

     

    My husband said that I was like a scared rabbit, and I was.  I had no place to hide, to run to or escape, all I saw was the harsh reality in front of me.

     

    Actions that I had previously denied stood enormously obvious!  I had no choice now but to see and to feel what each action felt like.

     

    Living with all your nerves exposed, with no shield to protect you, a turtle without its shell.

     

    What I believe is while you are in denial; you deny your emotions a life.  You can’t feel them.  They don’t exist in the bubble, for that is why we built the bubble to escape feelings; they were far to terrifying to feel.

     

    Emotionally immature is how we get left. 

     

    We left our emotions behind and our bodies grew. 

     

    Emotionally stunted we live awkwardly in this world.

     

    The picture I now have, the overview and the application of denial, the land that we build and live in, leaves me in utter disbelief.

     

    Abuse while hurtful to the physical body, is nothing compared to being sentenced into the land of denial.

     

    What I am now seeing is that some get a life sentence and some 40 plus years. 

     

    I do not know what makes the denial bubble burst, how some have a stronger bubble than others, but denial is built from the inside out and I am thinking that it is the only way out.

     

    The one who built it is the one who takes it down.

     

    I sit in awe, I sit in gratitude, I sit in reality bubble-less.

     

    The definition of denial, refusal to acknowledge existence of something: a refusal to believe in something or admit that something exists.

     

    What we have to admit to is the bubble we live in and not the reality that has always been there.

     

    What we ultimately deny is our self.

     

    Alive but unaware, that is denial!

     

  • The Cost of my Peace!

    I finally figured out what I can’t accept in having to accept.

     

    I can’t accept that someone can’t change.

     

    And I guess that is not the meaning of acceptance.  I want acceptance with a clause.

     

    I want to accept who you are, but that you can change.

     

    This is incredibly insane. 

    This isn’t acceptance it’s conditional acceptance.

     

    It seems to be hopeless to accept others as they are.

    I am not sure if you can follow this, but in my head it makes sense as to why I am forever waiting and hoping, for I believe to the depth of my being that changes are possible.

     

    Even if the other person has yet to make one step, I am of thinking, ‘they can’.

     

    Yet can they?

     

    It almost seems like I have to become a pessimist or at very least, a realist and see who they are, not their potential with change.

     

    Imagine, “their potential with change” that is so not accepting who they are in this moment, but dreaming and believing that who they are isn’t who they want to be.

     

    Instead who they are ISN’T who I want them to be.

     

    I want them to be different.

    I want them to change to satisfy my ideas of what would make them a better this or a better that.

     

    This is an ongoing problem with me living in the land of potential changes, instead of being real right now.

     

    It is what it is.  I had said a million times.  But what I felt is, ‘it is what it is, until it isn’t’!

     

    Living in a hopeful state that someone will change, leaves you feeling hopeless.

     

    Somehow I have to work on accepting others not ever changing, and by seeing it is I with the problem, not them. 

     

    They are quite happy being as they are.

    As Byron Katie says, “who are you to ruin a good buzz, they are happy drinking!”

     

    I am the one that struggles with accepting that they are okay where they are, that they have no thoughts of changing, and have told me so repeatedly in words, thoughts and deeds!

     

    UGH.

     

    This will sit with me today.

    I accept who they are, but that they can change.

    Which is totally counterintuitive!

     

    I will only accept what is if what is changes!

     

    It would be funny if it wasn’t such a tragedy and if it hadn’t cost me so much peace.

     

    Believing in changes at the cost of my peace!

     

     

  • Chain of Co-dependency

    “The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.  She never existed before.  The woman existed, but the mother, never.  A mother is something absolutely new. “          

    ~Rajneesh

     

    It is incredible that a mother is born the same day a child is born, that is all it takes to be a mom.  Most never stop to think that we are handing over children to be mothered by someone who has never mothered!  Up and until then she was just a woman.

     

    And this woman is now in charge of another being beside herself. 

     

    We mother from the self we are.

     

    The same woman who arrives at the hospital to have a baby is the same one that mothers; we are not given any magic potion to make us a mother. 

     

    How I treated myself, how I was in relationships, was how I mothered.  I mothered with that same self.

     

    I simply didn’t have a separated self that mothered.  I mothered as me!

     

    All my deficiencies fell onto my children, all my fears trickled into their worlds, and my insecurities were filled by how they behaved.

     

    To totally raise a child that is balanced and independent, you yourself need to be balanced and independent.

     

    My co-dependent nature didn’t allow them to be separated from me.  I had a voice in every choice they made.

    It was like we were the oddest set of Siamese twins.

     

    Attached by an emotional dysfunctional tether, like a layer of skin we lived in each other’s lives connected always by how the other behaved, how they felt affected us, very little degree of separation.

     

    Somehow subconsciously I was weaving us together to be totally dependent upon the other, which deprived both of us from living independent strong lives.

     

    It was scary cutting the ties and letting go of control and not being the most important voice in their lives, and allowing them to be themselves, but I did it.

     

    Instead I focused all my attentions on my self and learning how to mother, or more importantly how to be a strong separated self.

     

    It is incredible to me how we focus on the children, how we want the children to be this and that, so than we can claim we were a good parent.

     

    If you instead focus on the parent, you will see that the lacks in the child all are flowing from the parent.

     

    They are as strong as our weakest link.

     

    It is easier to blame the child than it is to fix our weak link.

     

    I had many weak links, a chain that was falling apart.

     

    Each time I repaired a section; I give my child another link to freedom and self worth.

     

    My chain and my legacy pattern are to be a separated self and to break the chain of co-dependency.

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  • Leading Me In Truth.

    “Never apologize for showing feeling.  When you do so, you apologize for the truth.”  ~Benjamin Disraeli

     

    My feelings and I are great friends; I truly understand them, now.  Each come with their own identity and behind each lies a truth, and I no longer mix up my feelings.

     

    My dysfunctional childhood had me way confused as to what each feeling meant. 

     

    Somehow I loved what I feared, and now know that fear and love don’t share the same feeling, they are separate feelings. 

     

    When you separate the two feelings, only one gets to stay in the reality of what is, the other is seen as the false one.

     

    I don’t mix up my feelings with your feelings.

     

    We each have our own set of feelings.  You get to do with yours as you see fit, and I then get to be with mine.

     

    Being with my feelings brings me great comfort; it is my inner guiding system, a way of leading me in truth.

     

     

     

  • It Best Not Be Me!

    I am irresponsible with my Light, with my self, with my body, with all the giggles, delight and pleasures, inspiration, free spirit feelings, art, my peace, my joy and my love, I leave them to suffer with others!

     

    I am irresponsible in not wholly feeling, owning, and enjoying with abandon, me.

     

    “Enjoying with abandon” strikes me as an odd choice of words that came out.

     

    I literally do feel that I abandon ‘someone’ if I simply and totally enjoy myself!  That it is wrong to focus on just me.  Just me

     

    Living my life separate and free. 

     

    How is it that I feel so much like I am abandoning others when I do this?

     

    The feeling of doing wrong while doing right has plagued me since I left my dysfunctional family.  It is the thread that has run through every thing.

     

    The abandoning I am doing is actually a good thing; I am separating myself, my life from themselves and their lives. 

    No one tells you that as you walk out of co-dependent behavior YOU will feel like you are abandoning him or her. 

     

    Abandoning, I had to go look up the definition.

     

    1.    leave somebody behind: to leave somebody or something behind for others to look after, especially somebody or something meant to be a personal responsibility

    2.    leave place because of danger: to leave a place or vehicle, especially for reasons of safety and without intending to return soon

    3.    renounce something: to renounce or reject something previously done or used

    Synonyms: dump, ditch, discard, dispose of, throw out, throw away

     

    The only reason I can feel like I am abandoning others is that I feel responsible for others.

     

    You simply can’t abandon something you are not responsible for!

     

    Yet each time I am sucked into feeling responsible for another’s feelings, I am abandoning my own feelings.

     

    If I have to abandon someone, it best not be me!

     

    “If I pick you up, I put me down!”

        Carl and Beth

     

  • Control of our Selves.

    FEAR;

    -feeling of anxiety: an unpleasant feeling of anxiety or apprehension caused by the presence or anticipation of danger.- frightening thought: an idea, thought, or other entity that causes feelings of fear- reverence: respect or awe for somebody or something.

    TERROR;

     

    the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
    2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
    3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government

     

    My brother and I had a discussion on whether he should have to do something that he fears or is the fear a way of telling him, not to continue.

     

    There seems to be two kinds of fears, one where there is danger and the other that has you feeling as if danger is present.

     

    I remember reading Fear is False Events Appearing Real.

     

    How do you know if your body’s signaling a false event or a real threat?  Is it possible that our bodies are protecting us falsely?

     

    Are there fears that you should not attempt to conquer and are there fears that keep you feeling less empowered and they should be faced, and how can you discern what is what?

     

    Feelings of terror seem to be fear and submission or being coerced to do something you don’t want to do.

     

    That is interesting, being forced to do something you don’t want to do.

     

    Isn’t that the nuts and bolts of being abused, especially sexually?  Would it then make sense that our ‘terror’ button has been activated at a very young age? 

     

    Now even as a big adult, when we get into situations we can’t control, we feel the imbalance and fear arises, and our terror button goes into overdrive.

     

    Due to the fact of undeniable trauma in early childhood we have an unreasonable relationship with fear and terror.  We bring into each new experience the unfounded terror or maybe misplaced fear.

     

    What is unfounded terror? What is misplaced fear?

    Or maybe what is more real is that our perceptions have us believing we will lose our power and control.

     

    It is very terrifying to be placed in a spot where you have no power.

     

    What does that mean to be powerless?  Does that mean controlling others and all situations?  Is that possible?

     

    What is the difference between surrender and submission?

     

    Submission; The act of submitting to the power of another.

     

    Surrender; To give up in favor of another. 3. To give up or give back (something that has been granted): surrender a contractual right. 4. To give up or abandon: surrender all hope. 5. To give over or resign (oneself) to something, as to an emotion: surrendered himself to grief.

     

    It seems that submission is giving your power to another.

    Surrender is to give up in favor of another, to surrender all hope stands out to me.   What comes to mind is Martha Beck’s quote, “Forgiveness is accepting that the past will not change.”

     

    I surrendered to the past, I did not become submissive and a let the past have power over me.

     

    There seems to be a fear and terror that rules my brother, that stands in front of realities that appear harmless, yet to him feel harmful.

     

    How can you correct or right yourself if you have terror of ‘normal’ things and then not fear what most do?

     

    Is it possible to be a victim with power?

    That seems like an oxymoron.

     

    Either you have power or you become victim to situations that you fear.

     

    What came to mind is how women become prostitutes.  It seems that we will control ourselves to be controlled.

     

    Does that make sense to anyone but me?

     

    It is like talking yourself into be powerless and being ok or powerful in the mode of powerless.

     

    Do you all recall seeing the faces of the women in the Religious Cult, and how they stated, “we are free to leave, but we choose not to.”

     

    Who but themselves believe that? 

     

    I recall feeling so shaky and inept to take the wheel of my mind, to be the only one standing there making choices.  No one or nothing stood between my reality and me.

     

    I had no rulebooks, and all past feelings were based upon a past that wasn’t grounded in normal, so I couldn’t even trust them!

     

    What was bad in the past was now good and what was good was now bad!

     

    Picture the ladies of the religious cult coming out in the world of so called sin and devil making.  How they feel ‘normal’ and even of purer status to be behind gates and subjected to being controlled.

     

    Isn’t it a tragedy that we fear the fearless and can eat Sunday dinners with a pedophile and be able to swallow.

     

    Our fear and terror button has a totally faulty sensor.

     

    I don’t know how my brother can flip his switch to off in places that are not harmful and then readjust the switch for places that are.

     

    How overwhelming it is to be so wrong in such a right situation.

     

    Yet we were trained that way.  Imagine being trained backwards.  Just as the ladies in the cult believe that they are doing ‘god’s will’ when in fact they are playing with the devil himself.

     

    The devil has his hands on the fear switch and is pushing it in places that he will lose control.

     

    How could the Serial Pedophiles of the Cult Religions have control, if the gates were open wide, if the ladies could talk and share with other normal people of the world, or if the world could come in and see what is hidden behind the gates?

     

    Are the gates to keep the ladies/girls in or the world out?

     

    It was spoken often and suggested firmly that we curtail all relationships with folks outside of our religion. 

     

    The devil was anyone outside of the religion.  Put the Fear Of God in us.  And isn’t that true?

     

    We feared God, but were faithful to the devil himself.

     

    Astounding to me even now.

     

    All I can say to my brother is to continue to walk into ‘devil realities’ and look again with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, to experience life and readjust your fear switch.

     

    It is broken and shattered and has been that way since you were four.

     

    You be the one to reset it, you can now freely say what it is you fear, for the devil is controlling it now.

     

    This is what happens when someone you love, trust and have faith in molests you, rapes you, and makes you be submissive to acts that are deviant.  You make real fear fearless and then take the fearless and make it fear.

     

    When an ‘uncle’ sexually abuses you, you are set backwards in fear from hence forth.

     

    You feel in control in uncontrollable places, having control in being a victim.

     

    And fear more the power of being free.

     

    Like the rats in the shock box, like the ladies behind the gates of the devil’s religion, more at home in places where real fear lives.

     

    “You are more afraid of your brightness, than your darkness,” says Marianne Williamson.

     

    It is like we were raised with the Devil and thought it was God, and we now have to totally flip every last thing around.

     

    Our journey to heaven turns out to be one to hell.

     

    It is like being kicked out of the compound and you now have to learn to live alone.

     

    What is fear and what is love, what is normal and what is not normal, what is functional and what is not functional.

     

    Little did we know that all our switches are not functioning?

     

    That is what it means to be dysfunctional.

     

    In order to become functional we will rewire our switch by walking fearlessly into normal situations, to have fear but go in anyway, to take back the control of our selves.

     

  • I Held Up Me.

     

    My brother’s blog, www.messyguru.typepad.com spoke of his disappointment of my father, well our father.

     

    How will a child ever be happy or content with a pedophile for a father, having a serial abuser for a parent, and feeling proud, is that possible?

     

    There is such disappointment and such a falling of pride to discover that your father is a pedophile, that your father has ruined many a life, destroyed self-esteem, self love, stolen faith and love from many a small girl, not to mention the lack of being a father to his sons.

     

    It is so huge to grab onto, to stand up against the volume of pain that one man caused, and we have to call him dad.

     

    We have to call him dad and be related to a man who reigns terror upon little girls, the meanest of all men, the one who in prisons get killed, his crime is the worst of the worst, and we have to call him dad.

     

    That is preposterous at best, insane and beyond what a child can hold no matter what his age.

     

    We have a father, but a father that isn’t a father by definition, but we can’t exchange him for another, and that leaves us dirty by association.

     

    In fact my brother was astonished that I used the term dad or father, for I haven’t really used that term much, I resorted to calling him by his first name, like he no longer was my dad.

     

    What do you do with a pedophile for a father, you are left with something that has no hope of becoming better.

     

    It seems like we were the winner of the worst father ever, a man that murderers feel justified in destroying, and the rest of the planet would cheer.

     

    That is our dad.

     

    And then it gets worse, for he had a wife, she is our mother, she stood by this man, well not only stood by, but protected and built him up into something he could never attain, never letting go of the image of her first love.

     

    The two role models we have are tarnished, broken, shattered and a crumpled mess. That is what we have.  We cannot change them, it is the hand we were dealt.

     

    When you are standing before your family tree of insanity, seeing, really seeing what is standing there, what choice do we have but to then look down at where we stand.

     

    Then who am I?

     

    What you fear the most has been realized, what we hated most in them was lying deep inside of us.  Our worst secrets lay bare.

     

    It is a selfish response to take the focus off of them and instead shine the microscope inside, yet what courage that takes.

     

    To shine a bright light and expose all the fears you overlooked, all the feelings left unfelt, all the places where you just never took the time or effort to think a new thought.

     

    Inside of you lay years and years of places where you could have should have would have done better.

     

    A vault of all your sins, a well of remorse, and now you have to pick up each morsel and correct where you were so wrong.

     

    To hold up a father and find a pedophile, leaves you breathless and without center post.  To then pick up a mother and find no love and comfort there leaves you weak and alone.

     

    To then turn in the mirror and see yourself in all your glory leaves you empty and dead, it is then you get to rebirth your self, define your self, not by where you came from but instead by where it is you are going.

     

    Perhaps the biggest disappointment is with the self to know that all your efforts were to support insanity.

     

    I didn’t know if I could turn a 360, to take a sharp turn to get out of the rut, but I knew that who I was in the mirror was not someone I could be with.

     

    I recall telling Paul, “at least you can walk away from me, but she is me, I can’t leave!”

     

    I killed that girl with the mental mind, one step at a time, It was not a merciful death, but painfully slow, and it seemed she had a million lives, for just when I thought, whew that is the last mental mess I have to untangle, she would burst fourth and take hold of me once again.

     

    Perhaps it was being witness to what would happen if we did nothing but stand in the forest of insanity that gave us the courage to at least try.

     

    For like my brother said, his father didn’t even try.  Nor do I think our mother made any attempt except to forgive his weakness.

     

    So it was by their example of not trying that I found my willingness to at least try.  I guess she taught me well to hold up the hopeless, in the end I held up me.

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  • The Web Called Life!

    I now know what it is like to come home from a long day of work, to be relieved of the stress of wondering if your car will make it through the day, (my breaks are barely working) ready to sit and sigh, and instead be assaulted by the mail.

     

    The mail lies on the counter, in a seemingly harmless pile and in the midst I see her handwriting again, I shove aside the bill on top, to expose the recipient’s name, relived, it is not mine.  Addressed to my son, his yearly card, the one time she singles him out, his birthday card.

     

    I know that assaulted is a strong word, and that perhaps I am being dramatic again, but it seems that it literally can pierce and intrude into my world. 

     

    Her handwriting is like a scream into my house.  I may be over sensitive, but like a ghost from the past, it arises when I least expect it.

     

    And then last night she appears in my dream.  In the dream we happen to be reaching for a grocery cart at the same time and she comes to hug me and tell me that my ‘dad’ misses me.  In the dream I move away, mumbling something incoherent to both of us……I wake up, it is near morning.

     

    My family ghosts are free spirits, they can and do pop up whenever they please, unleashed and unbounded, they plop into my world and I then bobble for a while as they steal this present moment, flooding it with a jumble of past and future daydreams.

     

    While doing this new mail route, I delivered mail to a younger brother, and while sharing that info, the other carrier said that he knew my oldest brother real well, in fact just spoke on the phone to him for a long while.

     

    I simply said, “Oh.”

     

    The carrier lived near my brother’s place before my brother sold it and headed out of town to live near my dad. 

     

    What can I do or say about that?  Luckily my silence was chalked up to concentrating on where the mail goes.  Instead in my head I had to continue to push away the thoughts of him and fight to keep the focus on the mail.

     

    Isn’t it peculiar that a mention of a name can open the floodgates of so many thoughts and emotions, that by simply seeing handwriting it brings forth a volume of words that hold stories upon stories?

     

    It may be my naivety where the trouble lies, for some reason I am surprised always when I happen upon a sister or hear a brother’s name, or see my mother’s handwriting.  What am I expecting?

     

    Isn’t it like being shocked that there are bears in the woods, fish in the sea, and birds in the air.  I live in the same place, and not much has changed physically, just that my relationships have been greatly altered.

     

    How divorce parents make it is beyond me.  I guess we will forge this new non-relationship and until that becomes familiar, this will be odd and assaulting to me, until I get used to it.

     

    Isn’t that like getting used to being slapped?  How will I become used to that? 

     

    Is it better to explain and to point out to strangers that I no longer speak to that brother, for that brother paid the defense fees when my father was in jail for sexual abuse! Isn’t that cruel and unusual punishment to the stranger?

     

    What would be a way we can both stand in that spot, this man who seems to like and admire my brother and me who shudders to think how off balance he truly is?  Is there a mutual spot?

     

    It always leaves me silent.  How does my life’s drama fit into a normal day learning a new job? 

     

    When we enter into new places and are introduced to new people we immediately try and find out if we have common ground between us, and in my case, my ground is unusual at best.

     

    You know the term, “it is a small world after all” it truly is. 

     

    How the connections continue to spread like a matrix around us, that no matter where you go, no matter what group you attend, there will be someone in there who has ties to your family.

     

    There are 16 in my immediate family counting me, so the matrix is spread far and wide, like a spider’s web.

     

    Oh the web we weave……I think that was when we are lying, but we weave webs just living life day to day, we make pathways and alleyways, we build and demolish roads, my web has to be a real tangled mess.

     

    Instead of the spider that is weaving it, I feel like the fly, or a very dizzy spider, with disconnecting lines!

    Do spiders plan their webs or do they just continue going around and around and in the end there is this wonderful tapestry that glistens with dew drops in the morning sun?

     

    Do they have a pattern they are following?  Are spider webs like snowflakes, no two alike?

     

    I guess we spew out the same tiny threads as we walk along in this life, a matrix is being tied in behind us, we are leaving a trail, by word and deed, a fragrance of who we are, the web called life.