I said I'd write about this process here. I just checked the web and I see nothing formally written on it which surprises me. Because, like, everything's on the web now, right?
So basically this is what I would do before, when I was deep in therapy for childhood issues and resolution, forgiveness, understanding and attempts to reinvent myself as a worthwhile person.
This is an actual example from an old journal:
I dread having my father coming to stay with me every year.
Because?
I am always tense and afraid around him.
Because?
I am angry at the way he treats me.
Because?
I could never stand up for myself when he abused me.
Because?
I am afraid he will hit me and shout more abuse at me.
Because?
He is an angry and abusive man
Because?
He doesn't know how to be loving and kind towards me.
Because?
He never learned when he was growing up
Because?
He was born
Because?
There was love.
So then a decision had to be made. I return to self-love. I could show him love but I made the decision not to have him for extended stays in my home anymore as he continued his modus operandi which was to strongly favour one of my children over the other and abuse me verbally if I did not give him enough attention when we holidayed together. He was unable to show me love.
So applying it to today and my physical challenges:
I hate not being able to run and hike and walk anywhere.
Because?
My legs and back and now my neck hurt.
Because?
I smoked like a savage for 25 years
Because?
I had an addiction to nicotine
Because?
Nicotine is the only known antidote to anger
Because?
I had unexpressed rage
Because?
I was abused as a child
Because?
I was born.
Because?
There was love.
Decision time: I was born. There was love. I return to love. I deserve a good life. I am disabled. Say the word again. I am disabled. I dealt with my past life in the only way I knew how. I was strong: I chose addiction over suicide. I now choose to say I was born out of love and I am now disabled. I will ask for help. I will treat myself with love and care. And not anger. I will put systems and items and people in place to support me in my disability. And embrace my limitations.
It's like coming out of a closet full of mangled emotions and disagreeable resistance and an inability to express what's really going on beneath a pile-on of inarticulation.
This aging business is a journey, and has endless possibilities once I face my own limitations head on and return to love, of self, others and this wonderful experience called life.
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ReplyDeleteSometimes it helps to put distance between you and your father, but the memories still haunt you, don't they? I can empathize, because I have the same problem with my mother of all people. She is dead, but she is till on my mind. And not in a good way.
ReplyDeleteYes you're right Gigi, the memories can haunt even though we have made an internal resolution to move away. Lasting impact, but not as severe as in the past.
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Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteAs I have written both of my parents haunt me. But I have a choice. Their choices do not have to be mine. And they are not.
Yes, my body is treacherous, but it still does (slowly, painfully) much of what I want/need. And I am grateful.
Even on the bad days there is beauty. And I am grateful.
Gratitude and an addiction to beauty are MY choices. And, I think, the right ones.
Yes, I agree EC, being aware of the beauty and the love around us is a true gift and helps to alleviate the pain and also gives us the empathy for others similarly afflicted.
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Dear Wisewebwoman and Friends, abusive family...sadly, there seems go be so much of it going on..."without natural affection..." Yayy, that people are speaking out.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is good to speak out even if it's only to just show others they are not alone and I find it healing also. I am so very glad that major issues like sexual abusers are now being called out and convicted.
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I suppose some of us had perfect parents, but I don't really know of anyone, certainly not mine. Some self loving for you in the nicest way is your due.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, none are perfect, I certainly wasn't, but given an understanding of our parents lives and the impact they had on OUR parenting is a great start to healing.
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What you had to endure in early life must have ben dreadful, WWW - I cannot empathise, I can only imagine how awful it would have been, and the memories of such things never leave, I feel sure. I was one of the lucky ones, I guess - though my mother and I did fight (not physically) at times, it was mild as compared to your experiences.
ReplyDeleteSorry to read of your recent bad days, healthwise, too - I'm a late comer again, having sat myself in front of the TV more than in front of the computer in past week or so. I do hope you are feeling better, stronger now. xox
Coming to terms, T, with my disabilities has been a challenge and I kept fighting it and not digging deeper until this because thing was mentioned at an online meeting and it all clicked. Now I've turned a corner and have become willing to make the adaptations I need to accept and come some way to embracing it.
DeleteI hear you on the TV, I tend to faceplant onto series like Fleabag and the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
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I have so little, nothing to add. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteYou are such an inspiration Joanne and I derive much learning from you.
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Oh my. I must have been one of the lucky ones having good parents. Not perfect but good. I hope I have taught that to my nieces and nephews and now my grand nieces and nephews...love is the what.
ReplyDeleteI've known a few with excellent parents, encouraging, kind, non-judgmental. I observe excellent parenting in Sister, Niece and Daughter did a great job as a single mother, inspiring and supportive so yes, my heart fills with gratitude at such wonderful examples of the way it should be.
DeleteAnd I believe I am an excellent grandmother.
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"My legs and back and now my neck hurt.
ReplyDeleteBecause?
I smoked like a savage for 25 years"
That seems so unfair for you, when millions of others smoke and live happily until they're 90, with little ill effect.
It's like me being the one child to never smoke, yet have asthma because all those around me smoked.
Like is a trickster.
I'm glad you've chosen to love yourself and treat yourself kindly, you deserve to be happy.
PVD in my case was directly related to smoking River. I know 90 years puffing happily away and hiking a mile or so. But they are rare and we all know it.
DeleteI think my running saved my health for a long time but then a bad fall kept me immobilized and the deterioration in my legs became evident.
Whatever though. I have to accept and make the best of it, rather than fight it and that is where I am today.
Thank you for the kind words.
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A very wise post. Take care xxx
ReplyDeleteThanks Anne - I read your previous comment on my android in bed last night, and thank you for that too.
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Years ago I read this quote (from After the Fall, Arthur Miller) and it spoke to me. I wrote down the last sentence on a piece of paper and stuck it in my wallet; every time I went to pay for something there it was. It made me cry but it was a good cry..
ReplyDelete"I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self. One day the house smells of fresh bread, the next of smoke and blood. One day you faint because the gardener cuts his finger off, within a week you're climbing over corpses of children bombed in a subway. What hope can there be if that is so? I tried to die near the end of the war. The same dream returned each night until I dared not to go to sleep and grew quite ill. I dreamed I had a child, and even in the dream I saw it was my life, and it was an idiot, and I ran away. But it always crept onto my lap again, clutched at my clothes. Until I thought, if I could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps I could sleep. And I bent to its broken face, and it was horrible...but I kissed it. I think one must finally take one's life in one's arms."
OMG Annie, how powerful is that? Profound. And it takes a long, long time to embrace our lives. To even celebrate them. We are all worthy of celebration. Co-incidentally, I had an older friend who died during Covid, she was 94, a very strong, independent woman, much disliked as she was easily irritated and unforgiving and not much of a mother to her six sons. But she befriended me and I was enthralled with her life story. So I phoned her daughter in law and asked if I could speak of my friendship with her at and when her funeral and wake is happening. She was worth celebrating. We all are.
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Ah, the cathartic shift of moral inventorying. While it brings about relief to emotional states, the body often has its own message to deliver and by and by one learns to live with it. The trick is, I am not fully there yet, to detach one's self from the body and simply observe its sensations dispassionately.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's a long journey indeed, Ramana, and we are never finally at the gates of understanding all but the travelling is a delight at times, I am experiencing that now. I had quite a shift which I am so very grateful for.
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Dear WWW, this is a testament to your resiliency!
ReplyDeleteThank you Charlotte!
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I like that the exercise always returns you to the fact that there was love.
ReplyDeleteI find it quite effective SAW, as exercises go. Quite grounding.
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we are so much alike
ReplyDeleteand
know in your heart
these simple words
"I love you"
and wish you lived near.
Thank you Ernestine. One of my joys would be to sit and have a cup of tea with you and spend the day chatting.
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It is all so very hard to do, to come to terms with, to forgive oneself and others.
ReplyDeleteI do so much want to love myself, so to be able to love others; why are some of us forever working at the past and the future instead of today.
I have missed you but my lack of love (yes, I think that’s what it is) has sent me into a dark space, crawling out slowly.
You introduced me to McCormack, “if there’s anything” has made me choke over a lump in my throat.
Friko I am so glad you are writing again, it relieves a lot of the alone-ness. Yes, you are still grieving the love of your life and it is so challenging.
DeleteYour writing is so exquisite and I speak for myself when I say that we need to put more of this stuff out there so that others are not alone either.
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