I M Perfect lady

Tag: mental

  • Action where it matters.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-mental-illness-conversation_n_2311009.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=1306580,b=facebook

    The link above is by a woman who truly understands how tragedy happens…it isn't about the lack of gun laws, nor is it about there being no religion or God association in schools, it is about the delicate balance of the human mind.

    It is about mental illness.  It is about the fact that it isn't easily treated as it would be to change the laws about guns.  It would be easier to put the Pledge of Allegiance back in the schools, compared to coming face to face with dealing successfully with an imbalanced mental health of a child.

    For some reason, it is easier to not look at mental illness.  Yet we all say, "who in their right mind would do such a thing?"  The key is they are not well.  The are no winners in this. The child who is out of control is equally a tragedy.  

    I can't even begin to imagine living the life of this mother…to have a child whose brilliance is so bright and his darkness so dark.  Who do you love and support? Knowing when you lock up the darkness, his sensitive brilliance is compromised.

    As long as we talk about guns and not the mental illnesses and the lack of support and help for this mother and family, we will be guaranteeing more tragedies to come.  We are not learning our lessons.

    Guns are not the problem. God in schools will not be the answer to the mental illnesses that are plaguing these children.  We need to have clarity on where the real root of with these incidences lay.

    These children and their parents are both screaming for help and we are turning them away for there is no room, no program, no solution…etc. 

    Stop looking at the guns and start looking at these children.

    It seems horrific that prison is the answer…and that we don't see the child behind the gun…until it is far far too late.

    We are smarter than how we act.  It would be like banning cars due to drunk driving.

    What can we learn?  How can we help the boys/girls with mental illness…what can we do to save them from themselves…which in turn will stop these tragedies from happening.

    It isn't that these children are out of control, but we are.  We are literally spending time and words arguing about guns. We are not in control when we believe that guns and the lack of God in schools will stop a child with mental illness from acting out the only way his mind will let him.

    He needs us to get back in control.

    Controlling how we see the problem…

    Humanity as a rule sees what it wants to see and disregards the rest. And the rest, is where the solution lies.

    I get this maddening desperation of the mother….while everyone speaks of guns and the lack of God in schools, she has a child out of control.  

    She knows changing gun laws will not stop her son.

    She knows using the word God in school or adding prayer, will not change her son.

    It is time we all see what she sees…and put action where it matters.

  • Get us back

    As I was mowing the grass yesterday, I wondered if all Mental Illnesses mean you are not in reality?  That the meaning of being ill in your mind, is when you can't see or be with reality? While there are different stages of not being in reality, are all various degrees… being removed from what is truly going on?

    What I do know from my experience, is that as a child of abuse, IF you can't speak of it, and must hide it, you are forced to live in an alternate reality…you could say forced to make your mind come up with a nicer version of where you live.  And this is the seed that starts our Mental Illness.

    The beginning of being 'sick' with reality.  

    I think many will focus or see "Mental Illness" as a mind that has gone wrong, but not how or what its causes are.  Just seeing it as a broken mind, but not looking at this from a wider viewpoint, doesn't give the overall picture of what it truly means as an application in life?

    Perception is all we change when we are asked to keep a secret.

    We are not changing the person who has abused us, JUST our perceptions of him/her.

    And this change of perception is the cause or being mental in reality.

    What many have suggested to me, is that I went mental, when I flopped into reality and became unmoveable there.  I would no longer 'change my perception' I became rooted in reality, no matter their pleads, their reasons, their needs….I was like a rock.

    I clung to reality like it was my life line and I refused to let go.  

    Now I know that my life prior was a life of mental illness, where a huge proportion of it was lived with incorrect perceptions.

    What I didn't know is that I was a highly functioning mental lady…at the time.  I was not able to know my perceptions were all wrong about my childhood and family.  

    Knowing this is common place after abuse, makes me normal.

    Here is what Terry Wise wrote in her book, "Waking Up".

    "Does not talking about it allow you to become less aware of it?" (Betsy her therapist asked)

    "I guess not," I replied, suddenly realizing that of course, I was always aware of the things that bothered me.  But, prompting a more extensive discussion about my anxiety by admitting this to Dr. Glaser was another matter. "Regardless, it still feels worse to talk about it," I continued."

    "It may feel worse at first, Terry. But, I believe in facing our feelings head on, not running from them. Talking about the anxiety over and over again will give you a different understanding of it.  If you develop a different understanding, you will eventually feel less anxious," Betsy said, attempting to reassure me."

    "Yes, but that doesn't mean I can't hate talking about how I feel," I replied."

    "What feelings do you hate talking about?"

    "Anxiety and loneliness. Even when I am with people, I feel alone."  I soon learned that the more uncomfortable or anxious I became, the more Betsy pushed. What's more, from this session forward, she always knew when to push, as my discomfort was written in red, all over my face."

    "Do you ever remember feeling like this before?" she asked."

    "Like what:" I stalled."

    "Anxious, alone, or anything else you are feeling right now," Betsy sighed rolling her eyes at having to drag every word out of me."

    "Yes, plenty of times. Except for the years Pete was healthy, I've probably felt like this most of my life.  I've never felt so disconnected," I explained.  My face instantly began to flush again.  I had always been an expert at creating appearances, choosing when and where to maintain my composure. That was over.  My anatomy forced my hand."

    "Terry, why are you so anxious? What haven't you told me?" she persisted. I could hardly hear her words over the pound calypso drums that now inhabited the inside of my heart."

    "I don't want to say."

    "Why not?"

    "Because, then it will become true," I replied, surprising myself with the insight.  Until I voiced this answer, even I had never been fully aware of this fear."

    "I don't understand.  Explain that to me," Betsy demanded.

    "Because saying things out loud is different.  If I don't put some of my thoughts into words, I can still hold onto the chance that my beliefs may not be true,"  I explained. Somehow I had deduced that hearing my thoughts aloud could transform a feeling into a reality."

    "But if you talk about your thoughts, maybe there will be a different way to understand them," Betsy suggested.

    "There isn't any other way.  I already understand exactly what I'm feeling. Believe me Betsy, I know certain things about myself, and they are undeniable no matter how you look at them," I insisted."

    "There are always other ways. Terry, do you remember how you felt when I first talked about Louis and the abuse?  You've felt like this before, but after you talked, your perspectives changed in ways that you hadn't perdicted. What are these 'things' that you know about yourself? What are you so afraid to say out loud?"

    "Anxiety throbbed in every organ of my body. Even my tongue felt like it had a heart of its own.  Throughout my adult life, I had numerous experiences with public speaking. Even if I was rattling inside, my complexion had never changed, and I always remained poised.  Now however, I had no choice but to step forward."

    "Mostly its that I am a fraud," I confessed, inhaling deeply."

    "What do you mean?"

    "I'm not the person that people think I am. There is so much about me that people don't know."

    "What don't they know?" Betsy asked."

    "They don't know how I feel about life or myself. Generally, people think I have my shit together, that I am confident, and self-assured. I've scammed everyone into believing that I'm someone I'm not," I answered.

    "So then tell me, Terry, who are you?" Betsy asked.

    "I would rather not say."

    "Why not?"

    "Because, like I told you, once I say it, it will be for real," I repeated."

    "You mean that as long as you don't say the words, how you feel won't be real?" Betsy would not let up for a moment."

    "I suppose," I answered, feeling her reasoning loosen my stronghold."

    "Please Terry.  I want you to tell me what it is about you that you are so afraid to say," Betsy softly pleaded.  Her persistent kindness gave me a final push."

    "I'm selfish and dishonest," I whispered, slowly peeling back another layer of my appearances."

    "Why do you think you are dishonest?" she asked."

    "Because I've alway needed to feel someone worry about me. When I was younger used to pretend or exaggerate things, so that my friends would be concerned. there is definitely something wrong with me." Until the moment the answer rolled off my tongue, I had always planned on taking this "quality" of mine to my grave. I immediately felt my anxiety rise incrementally with every degree of my body tempature."

    "Why do you think that makes you dishonest?" Betsy was surprisingly unfazed."

    "Because, I did those things for attention, and to feel taken care of.  My feelings are not truthful if I embellish them."

    "Terry, I think if we look closely enough at your history, and the people in your life, you would see that others were not always able to give you what you needed.  This isn't a surprise. Obviously, nobody can get every one of their needs met all the time. But, I think what is remarkable is that you found a way to fill some of them.  This does not mean you were dishonest.  it just means you found a way to get what you were missing," Betsy explained."

    "No, Betsy.  I always felt cared for and loved by the people in my life.  I was born with a sickness.  I know it," I insisted."

    "You could have been cared for and loved, while at the same time, had needs that weren't being met.  It's not black or white, or either-or, Terry," Betsy replied.  "What sickness do you think you were born with?"

    "I don't know. There's something wrong with me because I am the type of person that I am, and the attention I crave."

    "What type of person are you?"

    "I finally decided to brave my most private, defining, character flaw. "It's hard to tell you. But, I guess it doesn't matter saying it, or not saying it, won't change the fact that it's true," I began, inching out from behind one of my most private walls of self-condemnation."

    "What Terry? What's the truth?" Betsy softly asked, trying to cushion my turmoil."

    "The truth is that I am a loser."  My mouth felt like it had produced its own sounds."  Terry Wise.

    This book clearly shows the state we get left in when we are not allowed to be with reality….how we flip reality around and in turn it flips us backwards.

    Instead of my father being bad, I was.

    Instead of my mother being unloving, I was unlovable.

    So, again, it is my humble opinion, that mental illness is not being able to be with reality…we were forced into being mental in order to survive and to be loved.

    I highly recommend reading this book…it is a great exchange between those outside of reality and those who work to get us back.



  • Meaning of Crazy

    I am thinking Crazy is a perception, just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I too think crazy is.

     

    It all depends upon where you are in your life.

     

    When I lived in untruths…truth was crazy.

     

    And now that I live in truths, untruths are crazy.

     

    As a child living with a parent who is seeped in falsehoods, speaking the truth is crazy talk and something to get punished for.

     

    You are taught that truth is crazy…whether overtly or by assumption…so you learn that being truthful is how ‘mental’ people speak.

     

    In my experience, those we call mentally challenged are really pretend challenged.  They simply cannot pretend away the realness of life. They call it like they see it.

     

    I have a very strong suspicion that there is a huge part missing in the mental health system, and that is the truth of the reality these people come from.

     

    It is insane to me that the detective that was in my home collecting evidence to arrest my father for being a pedophile, says to me, “I hope this will not affect your relationship with him.”

     

    That is insane.  You are arresting my father for sexual criminal misconduct with minor girls and are asking me to keep a good relationship with him????

    Is it a wonder I didn’t trust the ‘people in charge’ of bringing him to Justice?

     

    So, crazy is a sliding scale and will appear different depending upon the level of awareness and frank truth you live with.

     

    Crazy to me is not seeing the truth or owning your own truth…living in a land of pretending what isn’t so.

     

    I distanced myself from my mother and the siblings that believe like the detective, that sexual criminal misconduct should stand in the way of a good relationship.

     

    Crazy is as crazy does…isn’t that a saying from somewhere.

     

    I guess like love, we all have our own meaning of Crazy.

  • A Lady with Borders

    I listened to Dr. Laura Berman speak about “Borderline Personality Disorder”. It sounded so similar to where I came from, where the lines between what is your life and what is my life are blended, and how you can flip between like and hate in relationships, blaming the other for your actions. She was speaking to a woman whose husband had this and the husband blamed the wife for his cheating.

    Dr. Laura’s advice to the woman was that even if you are the only one that is sane and all are calling you insane, you are still sane. That for her to grab a hold of reality and not let go for it seems we can get sucked into their twisted reality and get very confused. And usually these types of individuals are married to or in a relationship with co-dependents who live to make you happy.

    I was glad to hear of this Borderline Personality Disorder, and I feel that it mirrors own life in how I used to blame my poor behavior as a mother on misbehaving children and how I also have lived on the other side of the coin, being a good daughter to make a good mother.

    This was an interesting view of my family and how they still are using each other to behave.

    I will get a good sister IF I be a good sister.
    I will get a good mother if I be a good daughter.

    This conjoined way of living is very weird to me now, and the insanity that ensues mind blowing, for they literally believe that they can control another’s behavior by their behavior.

    I am stunned to know that finding reality and separating bodies is what is needed, to stop bleeding into others lives or having their lives bleed into yours, that we need to find a way to stay completely in your own power.

    I also listened to Mark Nepo who wrote “The Book of Awakening,” and he spoke of a time when he lost his job and found out he had cancer, and at the moment when his life seemed to all fall apart at once, he found his soul, a part of him that remained untouched by the chaos.

    I get that.

    I felt that at the time my whole world fell apart that inside of me my soul awoke or I awoke to my soul. It was the only thing dysfunction hadn’t touched.

    I can’t be certain what my overall mental status was for 46 years or what conditions all in my family have, but this Borderline Personality Disorder seems to explain the sense of guilt I had when I wasn’t able to make them better, or the shame I felt for my father’s deeds, like we were all one big ameba.

    I woke up as a woman without borders!

    The past six years have been constructing fences, separating my flesh from theirs, my emotions and feelings being shanghaied by their lives, and learning how to be a lady with borders.

    IMG_5609

  • My mind’s point of view.

    Byron Katie says, “There are no mistakes” and I have to agree. We do that which we do with the knowledge and awareness we have at the time, when we know better or believe differently we do better.

    It isn’t a mistake it is a level of understanding.

    I even looked up the word Mistake and here is the definition,

    An error or fault resulting from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness. 2. A misconception or misunderstanding.

    Some how we were taught that mistakes were bad, yet in reality it is a case of deficient knowledge and defective jugement.

    We can only act at the level of understanding, it is impossible to be above your level of knowing, it simply can’t happen.

    Byron Katie’s passion is to question stressful thoughts, to go after the thoughts that make us suffer.

    Mostly I think we suffer believing we are supposed to be where we are not, doing things we didn’t know how to do.

    We are where we are.

    We know what we know.

    And we can’t know what we don’t know.

    And once we know we can’t not know.

    It seems that life is all about being here and agreeing with what you know now, accepting yourself in this moment fully.

    Looking backwards you can see with your new found wisdom the places you missed the mark, but due to your level of understanding in that moment, it makes perfect sense, so no mistake, just the lack of knowing.

    On that dreadful day when I woke up to the fact that all I knew was not all there was to know, I found that I knew much less than there was to know.

    My greatest strength was being able to let go of all I knew to begin to learn about the things I didn’t.

    I simply sat down in the fact that I lived a life at the tip of the iceberg and it was to my own benefit to get to know me. Imagine living as me but knowing me.
    An incredible frightful place to find yourself living as someone you don’t know.

    My first step was to admit to myself I didn’t know me, know where I came from who the people I called family were, I began looking at my life as a stranger would.

    I began from the stance of I know nothing.

    And by doing so was able to be open to everything.

    I had lost confidence in all I knew and had no pre-sets or standards to adhere to, I was standing naked in an open space willing to see reality without my minds concepts.

    Mindless I stood.

    The landscape I then discovered didn’t match my old mind at all.

    We then danced this dance between reality and my old mind, like a game of old maid, trying to see what matched and what did not.

    In the end my mind lost only but 100% of the time.

    As Byron Katie says, reality is God and God is reality.

    I guess we could say the only mistake is believing an unchallenged mind.

    For I challenged my mind against reality, nothing was too sacred for the test, no family member, no title, no past cute deeds, all I dragged into the game of matching mind to reality.

    My mind was so far off the mark, that I began to understand that I fell into reality with a broken mind.

    Or you could say I went out of my mind on that day when I discovered a pedophile instead of a dad.

    And I did.

    My mind had a story that didn’t match reality, a story that I held sacred was an illusion, it couldn’t walk in reality.

    All my love, my life and my way was poured into an illusion that wasn’t even true.

    At 46 I awoke in the middle of a nightmare, in a play where I was the star but it was based upon lies, lies that I called truth. My fantasy world crumbled and a nightmare slid in place.

    Harsh reality boldly took over where my pretend mind stood.

    Yet this reality was actually kind to me, it affirmed my path, it resonated with my body, and it set me free from the mental mind.

    If your mind is not clear and you can’t see reality, you are then living in a foreign land, once removed from reality.

    You can live there for a lifetime and not touch reality.

    I know this seems insane and it is, to be in reality and not know it.

    I lived for 46 years in a mind that was blind to what is.

    Doing things that no one in their right mind would do.
    Saying and believing things that only an insane person would do.

    Yet there are no mistakes in my past.

    My past life was lived from my mind’s point of view.

  • Perfectly you!

    The reason I began this blog or writing for that matter, was that I found myself upside down in an upright world, my insides didn’t match reality, my dysfunction led me around the world not me.

    This me, I called the mental woman and she resided in me, in my thoughts and in my beliefs, she had ownership of this vessel and steered my actions from a fear based setting.

    I lived governed by fear and did most things to ward off the impending doom, for if and when the doom arrived, I would die.

    You see, once upon a time, a little girl was in a delightful safe world and out of nowhere, in the midst of her caring kindness an ugly monster appeared, plunging her into a state of terror.

    Once this terror is felt and no one releases you from it, you then set forth with the Fight or Flight Switch always on ON.

    My past six years has been to re-set that switch, to not respond in terror, but in love.

    When my daughter’s psyche hung in the balance, when I could see the abuse’s affects, my Mental Lady, my Wounded child, and My Loving Awareness all arose.

    It was the epic battle within me.

    One moment I was writhing in terror, frozen, feet ice cold dripping in sweat, a child without a way out.

    The next I was a mental woman taking control with needs that overshadow my daughter, fear that I had somehow allowed this to happen, it was my fault.

    And the most wonderful delightful experience I have ever felt was to be present with my child, to sit with her and her pain and see nothing but innocence, feel nothing but love.

    The contrast of these three individuals that I vacillated between had me swing to the highest of highs to the lowest of lows.

    It was like my past ghosts and my present awareness engaged in many battles, taking me on a wild life review.

    My views of her, my views of self, my extraordinary view of my husband, was like an epic play and I played each role.

    I feel utterly blessed and filled with gratitude that the most predominate woman within me is Loving Awareness.

    To live the rest of my life in this mode, riding behind
    Big as a house Heart, means to me that the Universal love, the essence of nature, the God Spirit, is leading me forward, that the clutches of evil and fear have been released.

    I am a woman who has been to the depths of hell and have emerged brighter, more loving and kind to my self.

    I know if I can travel this road, than my daughter and all girls and women who find them selves like I did, can do it.

    You do it by loving your Imperfections until they become perfectly you!

  • I was Missing?

    One theme of fear that has nagged at me in the past six years is; I don’t belong.

    I don’t match, I don’t fit in, I am different, I am at odds with those around me. I stand out; I walked away, leaving behind many.

    I see them fitting together and me fitting out.

    I see a flock of people being in life in harmony and then me, singing off tune.

    The feeling inside was one of separation, loneliness, not belonging, forever standing on the fringe.

    What I failed to do was take one more step back and see the completed picture.

    My focus has been on the group, not on me, my view is from this odd angle of group mentality.

    Understandably so, for I was raised to be a group member, but not an individual and I excelled at this.

    I was a superior group member, outstanding in blending in, merging my life into the group, that I simply disappeared.

    Each time I felt the separation I felt lonely and not whole and grew smaller and smaller.

    I seemed to disappear from their life while my own life seemed to loom larger and larger.

    If you could see me from both views, you would see me growing fainter in their light but if you stood on my side you could see me growing bigger and brighter.

    My success or failure depends on where you are standing.

    If you are expecting me to return and become a group member, you will see me fading, growing weaker and farther away.

    And if you jump over to the side of individual your view will totally change.

    You will see a person standing up for her own feelings, her own passions and truths, a separated soul finding its own self worth.

    I too fall victim to the group view, to see me in their eyes and each time I do, I feel less.

    However, when I stand inside myself and witnessed my life from the inside out, I feel my uniqueness and my independence of free will.

    A group no longer owns me.

    As a child I was taught to give up my body, my feelings, my life and my individual stakes for a group called family, which was governed by religion and undermined by abuse.

    They took ownership of me piece by piece.

    Or I gave them pieces of me little by little, believing the more I gave the more I would become.

    I gave til I was gone.

    It has taken me a long while to remove the sense of self from the views of a group and see myself within my self, to feel my self as self.

    To weigh and measure myself by my own ruler, to no longer feel my value is defined by the Ruler of the group.

    This separated wholeness I see of me outside the group is to see and feel something I am not familiar with, a self beyond the group.
    My favorite image or saying is, “I am going to go find myself, and I don’t know who I am or even that I am missing…”

    I had no idea who I was separated from a group.

    I had no individual view of self.

    I was nothing out side alone.

    My whole composition of self was defined by their needs of me.

    My fear of being alone was that alone I am nothing.

    I recall being scared spit less to the point of frozen immobility, to be naked without a group.

    The group I had woken up in was filled with filth, untruths, lies and cover-ups, forgiveness of sins, a mess.

    It was me!

    The group looked liked me, talked like me, walked like me, it was a direct reflection, a bird with the same feathers.

    There was no dividing line between it and me.

    I found me, lost, brainwashed, blind, abused, broken, confused, mental…I was upside down and tilted away from reality.

    It’s denial and mine were equal.

    My long walk back to find myself and see myself in reality has not been an easy road, but one that has set me free to stand alone belonging to me.

    Isn’t it funny I found myself exactly as I felt, Lost but not knowing I was missing?

  • I snapped

    I am thinking that the term, “she just snapped” or “she way flipped out” is used when we have a mental breakdown or a loss of control, and is seen as a negative explosion in your world.

    But what is it really?

    What have we been flipped out of or what has snapped within us, or what is breaking down?

    In the middle of a breaking down or when you are flipping out and are in the midst of the agony and turmoil, when all that was normal is now gone, it is hard to see the wonderment of what is actually going on.

    As I stood eyebrow deep in denial, when my illusions snapped and broke open, all hell broke lose, a waterfall of truth fell into my life.

    And I flipped out.

    I literally became undone.

    I am sure I acted, sounded and appeared mentally unstable, and I was.

    It seems to me, the more falsehoods your life holds, and the more things you fail to pay attention to, the bigger the waterfall when truth arrives.

    What is so odd is that we don’t know we are building a tower of untruths, for that is what denial is, ‘a refusal to believe in something’

    What we fail at most is believing in something that doesn’t exist.

    Imagine that?

    I believed in something that didn’t exit.

    I built a whole life upon it, and I react violently when I discover the truth and my whole tower of denial came tumbling down.

    It shook the foundation of who I was and it was from there I had to start fresh.

    Putting me back together one piece at a time, like reconfiguring a puzzle, I had to look at what I failed to see, feel what I didn’t want to feel, and then recreate from there.

    You would think the waterfall would be full of illusion type things, but instead it contained only truths.

    Truths that I had not believed in.

    That I had overlooked, looked around, let slide, turned way from, didn’t want to feel, didn’t want to see, didn’t dig into, all of them lay there.

    Each and every thing I thought was behind me was actually within me waiting.

    They washed over me and in a landslide type motion.

    I became inundated with feelings, truths and understanding, seeing all that I had not believed in.

    For me, flipping out was a good thing.

    I flipped, snapped or broke into reality or what was/is.

    For 46 years I had fully supported and lived for something that didn’t exist.

    How grateful am I that I snapped!

  • Tamper with Reality.

    I was asked after my last blog, if others will think I am crazy, and perhaps they will. However, unless you have lived a life deeply in denial where your head view of life is not what is actually going on, where you body is experiencing one thing and you are telling yourself something totally different, you will not get my post, my blog or my experiences.

    What I feel happened to me was that when I found out my father was a pedophile my body’s feelings made sense, although in my head there was no evidence of it.

    The totally extreme opposites of what I thought life was compared to what it really was was mind blowing.

    It blew all my beliefs, thoughts and views to pieces and I was left with a head that had to relearn how to see reality.

    I taught my head by how my body felt, instead of allowing it access to create a scenario that opposed reality.

    If I sound crazy, well that is okay for I was for 46 years, and it is crazy to go back and discover the way I was formed, how my mind made things up, how it was detached, how it and my body saw life drastically different.

    I feel that the root of all madness or insanity is to live a life where the mind and body are not aligned.

    In cases of child abuse or where the adult says one thing but does another, is where insanity or madness begins.

    Love hurts is an example.
    Relying on someone who repeatedly lets you down.
    Where we are unable to put up boundaries we then make up stories to live with instead.

    So much so, that we live in an alternative reality.

    If at anytime you let your feelings down, by not voicing them, by fooling your self that you don’t feel what you feel, you are dabbling in insanity.

    What I learned most in these 6 years, is that I not only have the right, it is best if I walk hand and hand with my feelings, and my thoughts and beliefs will follow.

    I have learned that by watching actions and feeling the sensations in my body, I can navigate myself in reality and be authentic in words, thoughts, feelings and actions, we all agree.

    Sanity does not have to pretend a feeling doesn’t exist.

    What some call social niceties are close to insane allowances, pretending to pretend not to see/feel/know what you know.

    I again feel that some of what we call ‘Mentally Handicapped’, are actually more sane than most, for they don’t seem to have the flipping switch to pretend.

    They call life as they see it, as do little children, they are not looking to spare another’s feelings; they are just calling it like it is.

    Sparing another’s feelings by making up a lie…just seems odd to me, are we not making up a new reality?

    Anyway, call me crazy I don’t mind, but I am no longer interested in sparing someone’s feelings.

    I spared my father, I didn’t want to disappoint him, to make him unhappy, and look where it led?

    I would rather hurt your feelings than tamper with reality.

  • Against my Mind.

    What an odd Christmas I had, it was almost like an out of body experience, certainly out of control, where Christmas joy seemed to mock me outside, yet inside lay a storm of hurt, anger, sorrow, confusion, resentment, more confusion a mess of wires all tangled up with beauty everywhere.

    It is odd to be so riled up inside and the outside appearing picture perfect.

    Looking inside our home last night, you would see a beautiful family and a wonderful Christmas scene; the only dark cloud was fuming around me.

    Today I didn’t know how my day would go, if I would be able to get out from under the cloud, if the fog would leave so I could sit in peace.

    Sit and just breathe in the day.

    My family watched me cautiously, wary and on tippy toes and eggshells, as I did my self.

    Wondering at my own sense of mental balance.

    This mental dysfunction of co-dependency can strike at any time, a hook is caught upon another’s action and blame and resentment ensue.

    If I could know that a snag was coming, I could head it off at the pass, but I am surprised as the ones I am snagged onto, unconsciously a lesson is arriving unbeknownst to me.

    I stay hooked as long as I blame the other, the only way I can work my way free is to see where my responsibility and actions led to the hookup.

    My freedom comes when I can stay aware in the midst of the snag and wise enough to know it isn’t all their fault, that it takes two to tangle.

    And what I usually find, is that they are doing their thing and I hop on wanting, wishing, dreaming that they will drop their life to satisfy mine.

    Oddly enough while it may have been the worst Christmas Eve ever, it also is a template to model the rest by, using it to design free Christmas activities in the future.

    Today, as the dinner preps were needed, I asked.

    I asked for help.
    I asked for specifics.
    I asked and it was met with no resistance, no complaints.

    Now this can’t be a real test, for they were so not wanting a Johnny raincloud on Christmas day or at the dinner table.

    My tone was different, the manic need was gone, there seemed to be a team spirit, a tone of many helping hands.

    Again, I know that they were coming, that we were coming off of a bad experience, where my manic mood stole Christmas joy, so I can’t be sure the atmosphere changed permanently, but a change was from deep dark fear to neutral.

    I will not say I was filled with joy or filled with gratitude or love or peace, but I was out of the depths of hell.

    Even in neutral the rest could feel their own joy, I wasn’t stealing their peace.

    How awful to witness the affects one dark rain cloud can have on a party, and to be it.

    It’s like the party planner; the event coordinator creates this wonderful display, great food, and then sits and stews in the midst like a bad stench spreading it everywhere.

    Like Dr. Jill Bolte says, “you are responsible for the energy you bring into the room.”

    Yet I felt so out of control.

    What I can do next time is just state how out of control, how angry, hurt, confused, resentful I am and it is best that I be excused.

    Taking my dark insides with me.

    Christmas for me was seeing the damage that darkness of co-dependency can do, how it changes the feelings of the others in the room, how it takes out joy.

    It is scary that I still have episodes of this.

    Yet I feel that each time I learn more about myself and hopefully be wiser next time.

    It left us all happy with neutral, no over joyful or dreaded darkness, just an idle.

    My mental dysfunctional co-dependency bouts start with a small item and pick up speed and volume if left unchecked, its almost like I got drunk on negative energy.

    Today I felt hung over and depleted from being strung so tight my head and jaw in a vice, muscles taunt, breath shallow, vision clouded.

    Braced to fight my misconstrued expectations to the death, while wanting desperately to be free and relaxed and calm and accepting, bending to the change in plans.

    Instead I put support beams of thoughts around the expectations built upon nothing.

    Like fluff on a cloud.

    Nothing supporting nothing.

    Mental thoughts being planned by a mental mind.

    The left side of my head is bruised, my jaw in pain, my left neck and shoulder ache, all a stiff from my struggle with reality.

    What I want most is to relax, to breathe, and to process this episode to my DNA.

    What I caught a few hour glimpse of is my old life, a spirit of Christmas pasts.

    My life review brought to life in reality.
    I had just been thinking a few weeks ago, that our home hasn’t had me go ‘crazy’ in a long while, and there I was in full living color, out of reality, crazy.

    Tonight I am grateful that I visit this state now, but don’t live there full time.

    How incredibly hard that life is.
    How separated, how desolate, how fearful, how lonely…

    What I think now is that this mental dysfunctional co-dependency, is something to manage, never cured.

    That it can sneak in and steal my peace at any time, that the more I set the stage, by voicing my concerns, needs, desires, the less opportunity it has to grab on and hijack my life.

    My antidote is flexibility and freedom.
    Theirs and mine, against my mind.