Tag: normal

Deviating from What is Standard.

Our training last night was so revealing to me on so many levels.

We do role playing on the phones. Meaning, a person is the caller and we are the liners (on the crisis line) and we then get a feel for the type of a calls and what is helpful and what is not.

What came out last night was very interesting. How as you sit listening, you yourself and your experience history can become a block for the person on the line. Unknowingly, you are not as free to explore their pain.

This unconscious belief is there, and it blocks you from moving, and you don't even know it…until it is pointed out.

As one person is in the hot seat (being a liner) the rest of us are watching. And being a witness to the call and not on it, you are so wise, for your unconscious issues are not threatened.

What I thought about as I was falling to sleep, is that we all can solve issues and problems in anothers life, especially just witnessing it and not being actively engaged in it. However, become engaged, and your unconscious pain and wounds will not let you respond freely, you will hit a wall.

You will only explore as far as you yourself have gone…you move up to the wall of uncomfortable, but not beyond it. And, if you are watching the dialogue, BUT not in it, you are free to explore options, for your own unconsciousness is not engaged.

But, put yourself into the scene, and you freeze.

Wildly intriguing to see…and extremely telling in how we operate in life. Very good at knowing what to do as long as we are not engaged in real life.

I can see as a therapist, that they will unknowingly have blocks that will block exits and pathways to healing, depending upon their own life experiences.

If you are seeing a therapist and it feels like you are making no progress, IT very well may be because, they can only take you so far.

And, it also came to me, that if your support system is all from the same stock, you may just stir the pot, but never find a solution or healing way out.

I can see I missed my calling or perhaps I am just entering into it. I thoroughly am engrossed in the how abuse is spoken of, not spoken of, how it manifests in lives, how it is treated, how abused individuals act and how it is best to respond, etc.

Widening the circle of understanding the human psyche and how abuse impacts your living and the unconscious beliefs that stunt your growth and turns your life into an anomaly.

I looked up the word, Anomaly…making sure I had the correct meaning.

"Something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected."

This anomaly…my father deviating from what is normal, then created in me the same. I became an anomaly when I didn't act as expected or what is normal or standard. Meaning, I didn't run screaming and report it.

However, I do have this one memory that I did tell…well, I showed, my private parts to my mother in severe pain…And she deviated from what was standard, normal or expected. Nothing was done. She didn't leave my father or bring him to the court of the land. When they didn't act as expected, I learned that in our home, our normal was to act different from the standards or what is expected.

It wasn't that the child didn't act normal, she did, but she witnessed how abuse was dealt with, how others responded. They didn't act like she did…while her alarm screamed in pain, they were the opposite. No reaction.

It is this non-reaction that we notice. That it is our three alarm fire, not theirs. We are acting incorrectly. When my mother didn't respond in kind, I had to as a child read the message that all was okay. No reason for panic. Settle down, it is all right.

Her deviation from a standard mother's response, is all it took for me to take cues in how to react to abusive behavior…calmly as if it is okay…no more than a scrapped knee.

Her reactions programmed mine.

This anomaly is the set point for our family…deviating from what is standard.

May 17, 2012

abuse, anomaly, help, life, line, normal, self
Normal Results.

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

No one wants to be a squealer.

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

It is seen as soiling someone’s reputation.

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

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

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

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

For now an abnormal behavior has entered in.

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

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

But take it from me, we do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being raised in abnormal it is hard to know normal.

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

September 21, 2011

abnormal, abuse, behavior, childhood, normal, reputations, squealing, telling
Wearing a Tag, “Family”.

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

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

Yep, that’s me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abuse is not my friend.

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

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

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

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

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

August 19, 2011

abuse, behavior, childhood, excuse, family, For, incest, keep, normal, peace, sexual
Right or True

A new young friend of mine wrote about Normal in her blog (http://www.erinstales.blogspot.com/) and it led me to the point of just because it is normal doesn’t mean it is right.

Somehow we believe that normal equates right, just because most are doing it.

We somehow have fallen into compliance with the majority and forget to have independent thoughts and even worse separate actions, we tend to find comfort in moving in huge numbers and then call it normal.

No matter what the swarm is doing.

Fitting in seems to be the way of it instead of fitting out.

Even if fitting in means you must do something wrong or go against your inner compass.

I love that normal only means the majority…okay, here is the definition from her blog.

nor-mal
adjective
1. conforming to the standard or common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural,
2. serving to establish a standard.

What is standard for cult like religions? What is standard or common for dysfunctional families? It is this that is their normal, but it doesn’t make it right or healthy or anything.

Somehow normalcy has slipped by us as a character of being good, when in fact it simply means a repetitive behavior, but not the content of it.

When my life was turned upside down and I went in search of normal, it was illusive. I didn’t know who I was nor could I find a template of normal anywhere, nor perfection.

Normal changed for each person and in each situation and again, ruled by the majority.

What I had thought were ‘standards’ of my old religion, were just behaviors all succumbed to…but they were lacking of content…or when put to practice fell apart. Their only strength came from the number of people believing in them, not in the actual belief itself.

I am certain this is true for most things.

My father is being held up by the volume of people who call him father, but not by his own content.

I am very wary now of what is called normal…for it could be a lens that changes what lies behind.

I am also very happy to say, I am not a ‘normal’ member of my family of origin.

Normal doesn’t make anything right or true.

August 6, 2011

group, normal, right, self, truth, wrong
And Me

Today my husband and I leave for a few days, just him and I and the 1983 Chevy truck.

While it may not seem like a big thing, what kind of car you drive, we do however have a few vehicles that bring out the date in you, and the Big Blue Truck is one.

It doesn’t see the open road much, it rarely has plates on it and surely not insurance. It is used mainly for plowing snow and is kept in the barn on hay…well actually beach sand, but I kid him.

He bought it brand new in 1982, the fall he and I began dating. He has had it painted, a new engine, running boards and running lights, chrome wheels, loud mufflers etc. It is a well-loved truck…a truck of young boys dream.

Before taking it out on the open road, he had a few things to fix, rear breaks, led to new break lines, led to wheel bearings, and to things called spider gears (well we may let that go and pray for the best), but he won’t back out of our driveway until he is assured it is good running shape…. I have no idea what these things look like, but his concern for the truck equals his care for the things he loves.

Overall, it is his care that has kept the truck going, our love going, our family going. He is a man who pays attention to the details. He catches things before they are way far-gone, he hears little sounds the truck makes telling him which part needs his attention, just as he notices when any of us are just a hair off.

If he had his way, we would all be kept on hay in a barn, safe, sound and out of harms way…only to be taken out for joy rides.

I am so thrilled to be going on a joy ride with a man who loves, who cares and who shows it.

He has taught me how to care, how to love…we have traveled far and are very lucky that we can dip back into our earlier years and enjoy dating.

Today is his birthday…and he will be like a young kid again driving along in his big blue truck…28 years since he bought it he still loving it, and me!

My husband just came back from the parts store, the part we were waiting on did not come in. He was able to get a part for my Mail Jeep…a wheel bearing that too has been making noises. So, we will continue on…leaving the Chevy for dates near home.

This is our first time taking the Jeep on vacation…it will be a good cool ride. Air.

July 2, 2011

caring, family, father, husband, life, love, normal
Unravel

In the past few months my teeth have been falling apart, broken teeth, fillings falling out and just this past Monday a root canal, all signs that my eating machine was breaking down.

At one point I had 6 teeth with issues, both sides of my mouth and top and bottom, which created new challenges in eating, I could no longer just eat, I had to be aware of what and how.

How interesting that I became aware of this Pac Man like eating machine only when it broke.

And it took 7 broken teeth to get my attention and one root canal, but I am seeing it now. It slowed me down the only way it could by busting the Pac Man…the eating machine.

When the eating machine was broken I saw my eating in slow motion.

The frenzy pace was brought into focus…I became aware of how much I was unaware.

How incredible is it that the Pac Man is the control center of eating instead of it being a team of mind, body and soul…this cavity of teeth and tongue is the ruler and the rest of me a victim of its poorly developed palate?

Changing the palate to fit the fitness of my body is my latest adventure, to begin eating from the body and using the teeth instead of the teeth using me.

I am sure in an uncontrollable environment, we control what we can, and eating uncontrollably gave us control, as well as the feeling of being satisfied in an unsatisfied world.

What also linger at the fringes of my out of control eating are recollections of me being out alone with my father. I don’t recall anything but us eating alone. I was young, I was special I was out on a date. Yet, knowing he is a pedophile, this isn’t a nice scene…however the food was normal or more normal than what happened before or after…was I bought by a malt, was that my price? Did my life become normal again with food? It is funny how I can’t recall the abuse, but I can recall the food and can picture the restaurants and booths and even the swirling stools…

Each part of my world is complicated with abuse.

How I used food to normalize or control myself is the mystery I will unravel.

April 20, 2011

abnormal, abuse, anger, control, devouring, diets, dysfunction, feelings, food, issues, mouth, normal, rage, tearing, teeth, uncontrollable
Growing Me.

There is another word that has screwed up more people than being perfect, and that is being normal.

What is normal?

Can you spot a normal person in a lineup?

Inside of us isn’t there a specifically designed normal for us, one that is specially made by the path that we walked?

Normal in the dictionary says to conform to the standard.

What is the standard?

Who designed the standard in each situation and can the standards change?

I had to look up standard; it says the level of quality.

Quality of what?

How can we know the best quality and isn’t our best the best quality?

Do we have to measure ourselves against others standards?

So normal is conforming to standards of quality.

But who are the quality makers?

Who decides whether I reached the level called normal?

To me, this seems like perfect recipe for failing to always be looking outward to the judges of quality for the nod of approval, instead of creating a normal for you.

It is normal for me to run, from groups that seem to enjoy brainwashing conformity, as a newly freed mind!

It is normal for me to embrace all things free after being held captive by a mental mind for 40 years.

Yet is this normal?

Perhaps I did overshoot the mark and I have landed in a land beyond normal.

Some feel ‘normal’ in abusive situations for that is all they ever have known, to them that’s normal’.

That is the only quality or standard they know.

Maybe it is only when you no longer like that standard or that quality that you strive for a higher level, a new normal for you.

This new normal for you is personal, societies standards, nor your friends or parents don’t measure it, it is an inside job.

Inside of you, something tells you that you are ready for a new normal.

You no longer are comfortable doing that which you have done, and want to raise the standard by which you live.

You then move to a new normal for you.

What is normal is conforming to standards you now have.

I feel we re-set our standards time and time again, the more we learn the more re-setting we do.

I had previously set standards by my parents, until I saw their standards, and then I began creating my own standards.

What was normal for me for 46 years was their standard, not mine.

Now I have a new normal and in this new normal, I reset my standards all the time, they seem to be fluid and life changing.

There is no mark that I will hit and say “Bingo” I am now stuck at this normal.

My life and me are normally changing, we are not stuck unchanging like a plastic flower, we are like a real live growing me.

I love that I am not done growing, for I think that is dead.

I am a normal growing me.

January 27, 2011

by, changes, changing, expanding, growing, learning, live, me, normal, standards
The Quiet Room

I am reading “The Quiet Room” by Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennett.

What is so interesting is that her parents don’t want to accept her illness, and deny it by looking repeatedly for ‘normal’ behavior and are more concerned about how she ‘got’ this illness, they are fearful they caused it.

Yet the mother had a mother with the same illness and didn’t know it until her daughter displayed the same behavior, then her mother made sense.

She was mentally ill.

I know how odd this is that you can’t recognize sickness, especially if you called it normal all along and it is only after the fact that looking back the red flags are waving wildly all about.

Even Lori herself, believes we all have manic voices in our heads telling us to do things, bad talking esteem wrecking talk…and we do, just not to the degree she did.

The first half of the book is about looking for normal when normal is nowhere to be found, how everyone wants her to not be sick while she is.

How awful to have to live pretending or working hard to pretend, that nothing is wrong, how much kinder a ride to be a mentally ill person as you are mentally ill.

To stand in the truth, no matter what truth you have to stand in is much easier, than trying to be something you can’t be.

Even if her family didn’t accept it, it was there.
She was expected to be the one to be the strongest to lead the way, while being mentally ill.

Like having the blind lead, the deaf listen for us.

I can’t wait to compete the story and see how she was finally able to see that she was sick and then to convince others of this fact.

How much easier to just be yourself in whatever state you find yourself in…

October 25, 2010

denial, family, illness, Lori, mental, normal, Schilling, sickness, The Quiet Room, treatments
Originality is the New Norm.

As I thought about compassionate or empathetic picketers, I wondered what their signs would say, and if I were to join, what message would my sign display.

I think my sign would be for those who were abused as children, for those who grew to be mental due to the nature of being hurt by those they loved.

My sign would encourage them speak their truth and walk strong, knowing that you get stronger with each voiced memory and feeling, airing out the long held secrets.

I would dispel the belief that there is a normal, a perfect way to be, and instead show them my imperfect me.

I could begin a group of I M Perfect people.

People who have walked in the darkness, been lost in mental confusion, denial and pain, who are tired of trying to be something they can never be.

Normal.

Trying to be normal is trying to be not you.

Normal.

What is Normal?

Who is the measure and rule of normal?

I have yet to meet one normal person.

I think it is a myth.

Maybe my sign would say, “There is No Normal” or “This is My Normal.”

I will picket normal.

If we get rid of normal, we can get rid of all the prejudices against abnormal people.

By taking normal out of the picture, we all become abnormal.

Well, I had to look up ‘Normal’.

1.                   usual: conforming to the usual standard, type, or custom

2.                   healthy: physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy

3.                   occurring naturally: maintained or occurring in a natural state.

What is the usual standard anymore? Is there truly one?

I have to look up ‘abnormal’.

Not normal; not typical or usual or regular or conforming to a norm.

What we call abnormal is not conforming to a norm?

But what if we can’t conform to norm, because we didn’t have a norm to conform to? Then what?

Are we abnormal?

I would hasten to bet that there are more abnormal folks than normal.

Did you know that 20% of the homes have a mom and dad? Yet we still call that ‘typical’ even when 80% of homes are not that.

I bet reality has changed, but we forgot to change the norms.

There are no Norms in reality only originality.

Originality is the new Norm.

October 8, 2010

abnormal, changes, conformity, life, nonconformity, normal, originality, typical
Driving on the Right Side

To see my route from a few feet higher and a foot to the right was a whole new view.

I seen the inside of mailboxes I have never seen, for their bottoms were even to the car top, and now I can look right in. I will even be able to make sure all out going mail is out going!

I feel like I have grown up and that I can now do this job like it is meant to be done, instead of with a handicap of being too short.

Instead of everything being a struggle and barely in reach, it is right there. Now I am noticing the really low ones, that were low for the car, are almost out of reach, but they are an exception.

The relaxed nature of my car’s steering wheel allowed for a few degrees in each direction before it would follow, in the jeep, it responds immediately. It kept me on my toes, no more looking for packages while driving!

I only went to the passenger side a few times looking to drive from there, a reflex that has to be broken.

The shifting will take some time, for the wipers came on a few times and I didn’t move an inch, but was surprised to see the washer fluid squirting up!

Inside the jeep will also take time for me to get used to, as I find a sequence of how things will flow, when and where lunch will be served, where the stamps fit best, where out going mail basket fits best, where the small packages are easily reached, where the pen and small change will be kept, like moving into a new office space!

And believe it or not, my right hip and leg were sore from all the leg work it now had to do, no more just kicking back while the left leg did it all. Only one time, did I get in and put my right leg out to straighten me in the seat, and gun the motor, for I had stepped on the gas, and looked around for the ‘racing’ car…and it was Me.

It is amazing what our bodies get used to and how creatures of habit we become.

This just shows me how unaware you can become when you are in the same routine, until you change something that makes you do things differently.

In a short while I will feel normal driving on the right side.

October 6, 2010

changes, delivering, drive, jeep, Mail, normal, perspective, right hand, rural, short, view