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Two days ago, I was reading a book, Healing the Shame that Binds You, and learned some interesting insights into recovery from abuse. Mainly, I realized that I probably did not get a whole lot of physical affection when I was very young. I remember wanting to be held but my mom being too busy or not wanting to. Perhaps in those times, it took its toll.
While I was traveling back from getting my dinner, I thought about an exercise that the therapist in the book suggested. I don’t know how effective his method is, but I did glean my own ideas from his. I realized part of the process of healing is rewiring my neural passageways, or as the Bible puts it, renewing my mind. So, as I drove, I thought back to a childhood memory I had of when I was in the fourth grade.
When I was in elementary school, I would play with my friend, Rebekah, every morning. Most of our play involved some type of gymnastic. Often, I would get rugburn on my knees from falling down from a handstand or some such thing.
This memory was one of those times. I ran crying to my mom because it hurt. All I remember about my run-in with her was her lack of sympathy. I think it was because I got injured so much she just didn’t want to deal with it at that time. I felt very rejected.
When it was time to go to class, I walked in and started bawling, mainly because my mom didn’t hug me or comfort me. I do remember my teacher looking at me with sympathy in her eyes and taking time to clean my wound and put a band aid on it.
While thinking about the memory, I did a little theophostics and replaced the memory of the painful rejection with a mental picture of crawling into Jesus’ lap once I walked into the room and had him take my pain away. It worked. I don’t have pain when I think about that memory anymore.
But it did bring up some deep grief. I came home and knew I needed a hug, so my roommate hugged me while I wept on her shoulder.
And this was all tied to food! Food has been my comfort these past 20+ years. I’m just now working toward finding my comfort in other things. It was a good start, though.
EQ. My brother doesn’t have much of it. I don’t know much about the technical definitions of Emotional Intelligence, but I do know it when I don’t see it. For years, I’ve thought of my brother as insensitive and hard-hearted, but really, he just can’t understand other people’s emotions and interpret them correctly.
A few months ago, he cornered me in the guest room of my parents’ house to ask me questions about my future career as a journalist. Except, when my brother asks questions, I never really feel the familial affection dripping from each word. Instead, I feel like a captured convict in an interrogation room, with one of those dramatic lightbulbs hanging directly over my head, spotlighting the sweat marring my forehead. When I told him that I feel attacked when he asks me questions like that, he just looked at me, puzzled, and mumbled something about him not attacking me. When I asked him to leave, he went off mumbling. I immediately felt shame for hurting his feelings. But after talking to my counselor and realizing he was just confused, my whole perception of him changed.
And then I felt further alienated from him – just one more trait to prevent us from connecting with each other.
I began working on my my eating disorder yesterday. I felt quite successful today. My goal is to continue not restricting myself but with a few guidelines. I’m trying to either sit at the dining room table, the bar in the kitchen or on my couch (if the latter 2 are taken). My goal is to sit quietly either with silence or classical music playing, and then savor every… single… bite… I eat, taking breaks between each bite to let it settle. Mostly, this is to disallow my emotions from being in control while I eat. Usually, my emotions are in full swing and I literally scarf down what I eat, ignoring when my stomach says stop and pretty much trying to consume to stuff down emotions.
Yesterday was not a challenge because I didn’t have any triggers. Today I did. I did not feed myself on a regular schedule, so it was almost five hours before I ate again. When I was coming home, I passed a homeless woman on the street corner and felt conflicted because I didn’t want to give her anything but felt bad for not doing it. I also have 2 writing assignments I have to complete, and I was getting anxious about starting them. When I came home, my roommate was in the kitchen listening to this really loud preacher that sounds kind of hellfire and brimstone-y. And then she was shouting her assent to the kitchen cabinets. Both of those frayed my nerves to the point that I went upstairs with my lunch and just had to sit to calm my emotions down. But it worked! I sat there listening to my classical music, then started to eat. And I only ate half of my food! I was quite proud of myself. Point one for side Victory today.
A bunch of random things that I haven’t blogged about yet:
I got on medication for my anxiety! It’s been so helpful not having the adrenaline rushes that I’ve been having for so many years. I realize now how debilitating they’ve been now that adrenaline is absent from my general makeup.
I’ve been doing a lot of grieving. A big one happened during Thanksgiving. We had the actual meal on Friday instead of Thursday at Leigh Ann’s house. I went with Kaydene to buy ginger for ginger beer and on the way back, I just started weeping. It was grief over how I have not been kind to my body and the abuse that it’s been under by both my and my mother. Lots of tears there.
Black Friday was fun, though. We got up at 4 am and went to Target and Kohl’s. I really like traditions.
I grieved again this past Tuesday over the loss of a father. Darden has really been kind of a father figure to me while sitting in his class, so I’ve been leaving his class kind of weepy the past few weeks. This time, the tear eeked out and I lost it in my car, mourning over the pain of my loss.
In the past month, I’ve realized that I fear men. More pointedly, I fear their rejection. Since the main four men in my life rejected me on some level, I feel very rejected and don’t like putting myself out there to be “abused” further by them. Right now, I have absolutely no desire to get married. It’s very freeing, admitting that to myself.
I fear money, too. I fear having to be accountable for what I’ve spent. That’s why I avoid paying bills and looking at my account balance.
Geez. I’m feeling dysfunctional writing all this stuff.
When I’ve had to characterize my childhood, it has always been wrapped up in one major memory – night after night of my mom and brother yelling at each other behind his closed door while my dad went off by himself into the office or his room. And then there was me.
By myself.
But I know there have to be good memories of my childhood somewhere, albeit few and far between. So, when I think of them, here they will be remembered:
Since it’s close to Halloween, I was thinking about my childhood memories of that occasion. I only went trick or treating once. My parents were really religious, so they always took my brother and I to an event at church where I would get all the candy I ever wanted. Or needed. And that was fine, but I don’t necessarily have any impactful memories of those moments.
My best Halloween memory, though, was one when my dad and brother were gone to the farm. My mom decided to allow us to make chocolate chip cookies, something she rarely ever did. We only ever had sweets like that when she was in the mood for them, not when we wanted them.
So, we baked our chocolate chip cookies. I’m pretty sure they were the slice and bake kind, but I really didn’t care because I was so excited she let us eat them. We put them on a plate, carried them upstairs to the guest room, turning out all the lights behind us, and watched the movie Beethoven (the one about the dog), with only the TV light on and all the window shades pulled.
It was almost an adventure, hiding from the trick or treaters. And it was really fun getting to do it with my mom, who rarely let her frivolous side out and would bake cookies and watch movies with me.
Good times.
It’s not necessarily a rebirth, now that I think about it. It’s more a realization.
Connecting to myself is AWESOME! It’s been so theraputic validating and comforting myself whenever I feel foolish feeling a certain way.
What I was thinking more about today was the fact that the corner I’ve turned with all this connection is more qualified as learning how to cope rather than finding a new self.
When I first began this journey, I didn’t really know how to cope with all the emotions that were rising up within me. I would get frustrated when emotions would bury themselves right below my sternum, a really weird, uncomfortable feeling. But it all came as a result of conditioning myself to stuff and stuffing because I was feeling all these negative emotions about myself.
Now, I know and have tools for coping. I always hope that my issues will just magically disappear like food does when it’s around kids. Or dogs. But I’m finally admitting to myself that Jesus is not just to make things magically disappear but to form Christ within me.
And he can’t do that unless I go through the pain of seeing truth. Truth is pain. It hurts to see what is buried deep within, covered with justifications and logical reasonings. But I know how to cope with the pain now. I know that my inner-child just needs to be validated and shown compassion, and then I won’t spontaneously combust when it comes to the pain that rises up.
Fact is, I still have a ton of transformation left. I’m still overeating, using it as a coping mechanism. I’m still anxious. I’m still not completely uncovered.
But I can work through the pain now that I can see where I need to comfort myself and show compassion. And that’s good enough for now.
October 21, 2010. My second birth-day.
I feel like a new person. It all started this past weekend when I got a huge revelation. If I love when people in my life show grace toward me and validate my emotions, why not do that for myself?
And so I did.
During a presentation, one of the students started frontin’. It hurt. I felt very attacked and wanted to cower. After I got him to clarify why he was saying the things he was, I understood him better. But I was still hurt and felt shameful.
My usual response to that is to reason with myself and say, “But that’s ridiculous! He really wasn’t attacking you. It was just an emotional response (with the idea that it was a stupid emotional response).”
Instead, I had this mental image of my adult-self picking up my wounded, abused child-self and comforting her. “It’s OK, baby. I know that hurt your feelings, and that’s OK. It’s totally understandable. You were feeling the same way you did when you were a kid and your mom and brother did that to you. Pobrecita.”
And then the tears were able to come.
But it was a weird moment. I almost felt dissociated from myself since I was seeing myself as a separate person from my child-self. But it made me feel better and the shame went away.
As I was processing this with my counselor today, I realized that this response is helping me connect with myself. It’s as if I have relegated myself to be Little Jack Horner who sat in a corner. I’ve shunned myself. There’s a part of myself that I’ve rejected because I felt shame about that part of me. And I felt shame because that part of me was never accepted by my mom.
But every time I pick up that child-self and comfort her in my “arms,” I’m validating and expressing compassion for the part of me that was never given those things.
And my compartmentalized self gains a connection to myself. And I become more whole.
I really would like to fully understand how that concept ties into spiritual reality, but I haven’t gotten there yet. I will just continue to love my child-self and see me connect into one self again, like I was created to be.
And celebrate that my Whole Self is being birthed in the transformative process that I continue to submit to.
Happy Birthday to me.
Friday was the day from hell.
Since I’ve been working through my issues, I’ve found that I have many, many mountains to which I need to speak. You know, the huge issues in your life that prevent you from continuing on in the journey and look so voluminous, so ominous, that you fear they will topple upon you at a moment’s notice.
My mountains come in the form of people pleasing, anxiety, shame, and fear of failure. They’re all interconnected, but they all taunt me, imprison me.
So, I am determined to tell them to go throw themselves into the sea. And that’s what I did yesterday. It was absolutely exhausting.
Friday and Saturday were two major due dates. On Friday, I had my story for Focus due, and on Saturday, I was to give a presentation at a Poverty Summit. I only ended up doing one of them.
The entire day was anxiety-ridden. Much of my time was spend desperately trying to “Darth Vader-breathe” in order to reduce the amount of anxiety that would build up in me at any given moment.
Now, the source of my anxiety is a hazy, almost indiscernable path. Very hard to understand fully at this moment. What I’ve concluded is that at the basis of myself is shame. Having been shamed for the majority of my childhood, different things will trigger the shame. In abused families, I read that everyone has a role to play in order to maintain the equilibrium in the household so there is calm. My role was the Placater/Pacifier. And it has become my identity. It has become such a part of me, that I feel great amounts of shame, and, in turn, anxiety if I am not pleasing everyone around me. Can I tell you how exhausting it is to try to keep that up? I mean, I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.
So, the hell that was my Friday all stemmed from the fact that I was not able to please and placate everyone in my life.
I’ve had about 3 or 4 weeks to work on my story for Focus. Perhaps, if I’d been more focused, I would have gotten things done sooner, but I would honestly like to not take the blame for most of it. I had only one contact person for the whole story, and I could not get names from her until the beginning of the week. So, I pretty much had to interview 5 out of the 7 people this past week. All in one week. Then I spent Thursday night and Friday morning transcribing the interviews so I could get information out of it to congeal into a story.
I feel like I did a good job of putting the story together in my head as I went along, but it really didn’t come together as swiftly as I would have liked it to.
Friday began with me sleeping 2 hours past my alarm since the power went off that morning. Two hours less to work on my story. The deadline was for 5 o’clock that day. I finished transcribing, while taking far more breaks than I really wanted to in order to “darth vader breathe” through my anxiety. I was successful in keeping it from steadily releasing as fast as it could have in the past, but it was still my constant companion the whole day.
At lunch, I hit my first massive mountain. I had a fight with my roommate. I never fight. That was a victory in itself that I was speaking up for myself. She was mad that I was using her precious bowl to make potatoes in. Instead of being able to hear her concern and exchange the bowl, I immediately felt shame and did what I’ve always done when I feel that way – try to cover it up. So, I kept using it, all the while pissed at her for treating me like a 5-year-old. And she kept coming at me verbally, and I kept trying to fight back, but was getting very frustrated and very hurt. I hate being treated like a little kid! Finally, I started yelling at her. She was a bit confounded my my reaction, but I realized that I had never yelled at someone like that since I was a kid. It was actually very freeing. But I had hurt her in the process.
So, instead of having a smooth, anxiety-free afternoon of story-writing, I had to take a 45-min break to work through my pain from that encounter. I did have some major revelations, though. I realized that Kim wasn’t treating me like a child. Instead, I felt like a child because the incident transported me back a time when I was very young and would make me feel ashamed for doing something I didn’t know better to do. I didn’t know the bowl was from Siberia and had nostalgia-value to it, just like I didn’t know when I was young that was doing something wrong! I was reacting out of the pain of being shamed into feeling incompetent.
After I worked through that, I kept writing and realized that I was not going to get the story done by 5. Huge waves of anxiety rolled over me when I realized that I was going to “fail” by not getting the story done on time and not “pleasing” my editors. Instead of wallowing, I decided to call my editor and ask for an extension. She was concerned for my reasons, but ended up agreeing to an hour extension. I didn’t get the story completed until 9 that night. That also caused me much anxiety because I was also “letting down” my professor who had given us the 5 o’clock deadline, too. Logically, none of that was true, of course, but “failing” them was producing large amounts of shame because I couldn’t please them.
On top of that, I was supposed to have dinner with Chelsea at 6. I had to call her, too, and though I wasn’t planning on canceling on her, she did it for me. I was grateful. When I realized the story was not going to be completed any time soon, I also new that I had a decision to make.
The next day was my presentation of a paper that I had not yet written. In fact, I had only read 6 out of the 20 articles. I was either going to have to stay up all night reading, synthesizing, summarizing, and creating a power point for my 1:30 deadline, or I could call my teacher and ask him if I could not present. I really didn’t want to call him. But I did anyway. And he was fine with it.
Another mountain thrown into the sea.
After my story was done, I thought my night was completed. No more anxiety! So, I celebrated by getting ice cream with my roommate. On the way there, I was explaining the situation with Kim earlier in the day (since she was upstairs at the time and could hear it). After I was through explaining, she was said to me, “I wish you would take responsibility for your sins.” I was blown away! But instead of spiraling down into shame and becoming passive, I spoke up and said that she had made me feel shameful. My thought was, “So, you’re going to blame me for the fact that I was abused my whole life?! It was my fault?!” I wanted to yell at her and say, “Look, bitch! You have no understanding of the pain that just caused me! If you did, you would have kept your mouth shut!” But I didn’t.
We talked through it, and I was somewhat able to formulate sensible responses to her questions. The entire conversation was very emotionless. It felt weird. We parted amicably, but I still couldn’t really figure out what page she was on.
In analyzing it this morning, I realize that she’s just using different (and I feel harsher) language than what I would use. It gave me perspective when I thought about the Israelites worshipping the golden calf. When Moses came down off the mountain, he was enraged to find them doing what had been modeled for them in Egypt. I can completely identify with them. They had been living under abuse for 500 frickin’ years! They did not have the wherewithal to function normally after being shamed for so long. Yes, they probably knew that it was wrong to worship the calf, but they did it anyway, but it was a conditioned response to their circumstances. I know that trying to please people is wrong, but it’s a conditioned response. I really can’t control the shame that is triggered by not pleasing people because I have been shamed for the bulk of my existence to feel that shame when I don’t please people.
But the wrath of God caused them to repent. And for me, since I live in the New Covenant, I feel like the wisdom and revelation talked about in Ephesians 1 is the New Testament version of God’s wrath. If His wrath is for the purpose of cleansing and causing things to be made new, then that is what wisdom and revelation is doing for me every time I speak to my mountains and do not cower in fear. So, I am casting down idols in my heart every time I gain more wisdom and revelation. I just don’t really consider them idols. And the sin nature has no part of me anymore except the remnants of it’s grip on my mind and emotions. But I am not a slave to the sin nature, it just still feels that way.
Anyway, after going through that incredibly horrendous emotional assault, I settle down with my ice cream to watch some Glee. Halfway through, Andrea comes in and asks if “she can talk with me.” I’m thinking, “Really? REALLY?!!!” HOW MUCH MORE CAN I HANDLE TODAY?!!!! Dammit!!!!! But I very calmly say yes, and she begins to berate me for not helping her move her stuff. Earlier, she had asked me if I could take a few seconds to help her move her bed, and I told her that I couldn’t today but would love to help her tomorrow. I didn’t explain why, I just spoke up for myself and very politely said no. I think she might have asked me again later, and I tried then to explain to her why, but she shut me down and didn’t let me continue. So, when she comes to me and says she’s offended that I didn’t take time out to help her but did have time to get ice cream and watch TV, my only thought was (which I was very proud of myself for), “I am not responsible for your happiness!” That has become my mantra and fit very well into that whole exchange. But I thought it would be too harsh to tell that to her face.
Once again, I felt assaulted for something that wasn’t my fault. This is my own life and I can damn well do what I want with it! I was also proud of myself for not immediately spiraling down into shame and not feeling guilty for not making her happy. I guess after 4 major times earlier in the day of not making people happy, it was easier for me to see the logic. But it wasn’t any less easy emotionally. She accused me of lying to her that I had things to do, and so I told her what I’d been wanting to tell her for months – I don’t feel safe confronting her because she reacts so negatively to it and gives me the silent treatment.
Thankfully, the exchange ended amicably, as it did with Holly, but by then I had had it! All I wanted to do was run away because my emotions were completely shot! I called Kaydene after I walked outside and just lost it. I wept horribly. My emotions had no strength left. After crying and explaining my very long day, I felt a whole lot better. But I was absolutely, entirely exhausted. I slept for 11 hours that night.
But I’m proud of myself. It’s getting easier to stand up for myself and create boundaries. At my last counseling appointment, my counselor said that saying no is setting the boundaries that create the outline of who I am. As I journal and analyze moments like I did with the encounter with Kim, I’m filling in the picture of who I am.
Because after years of living as the Placater/Pacifier, I have no idea who I am! I cannot see myself. I feel invisible. But I’m fading in, slowly but surely, and these moments, although too much for me in one day, will be the path that will lead me past my mountains into a life of success and confidence.
What does it mean to have no voice? Immediately, laryngitis comes to mind. People lose their voice. But if they lose their voice, then that means they had to possess one to begin with.
Then there’s the mute. They never had one to begin with, always wanting to say something but never with the automatic avenue we are born with – our mouth and vocal chords.
But there’s also those that are simply not given a voice. They have all the tools they need to and inborn ability to speak, but no one has ever given them the opportunity to do so.
That’s where I find myself. In the category of suppression. I’ve had a voice – have been pretty good at using it when I do use it. But perhaps that’s the problem. NO ONE HAS EVER GIVEN ME PERMISSION TO SPEAK. So I suppress. And stuff. And withhold giving voice to what’s inside me so that other people can speak instead.
That makes sense because of my mom. She has a very dominant voice. Actually, her voice has always overwhelmed me. I used to cower sometimes when she would speak loudly because I was overwhelmed by her decibel.
I remember after college sitting in the kitchen with my roommates, wanting to talk, but having a hard time using my voice to butt in on what other people say. I finally did, and we all laughed about it, but it was very hard to speak loudly in the face of other voices.
I have a hard time making decisions because I’m too concerned with what other people’s opinions are. I don’t feel like my voice is important.
Somehow I’ve misconstrued “being considerate” for voice suppression.
Is that why I have such a hard time writing stories, because I cannot hear my own voice on the matter?
It seems like it has to be connected somehow to being paralyzed by fear in cold calling people.
Voices. They can be overpowering. They can be overwhelming. And I can’t hear my own.
I know I have a voice. I know it’s there. But suppression seems to be the appropros term.
Perhaps that explains why I’m so timid in large groups of people. I really like being around a lot of people, but I’m so timid when I start talking with people I don’t know. My suppression has visited itself on my interactions with others, and I had no idea.
My voice is like a scholarly article instead of a feature, couched in hidden terms, possibilities, but no action noun/verb agreements.
So my journey: I was created to be a a verb. I just have to find the kinetic action that’s been locked away in potential.
