Just a Bunch of Numbers

Maybe it is silly, but I keep waiting for one of my birthdays to bother me.  Everyone told me that 30 would make me cry and that I would lock myself away for a week or two.  So I made sure that I was in CA for my thirtieth, surrounded by friends--nope, just another day. I thought maybe 40 would bring tears--nope, nothing.  Friends tell me their own horror stories and the trauma surrounding getting older; I still just shrug my shoulders, as the birthdays come and go, and I wait for my own turn at tears...

Aging doesn't bother me. Maybe along with my biological clock, that is just one of my missing pieces. I would say that perhaps there is a connection between my missing biological clock and not caring about my age, except that the biggest tweakers that I have seen regarding moodiness, getting older, and birthdays have been men.  

I dated the PFA-ex through his 37th through 39th birthdays.  All I can say is when his fortieth hit in 2011, I was beyond grateful to have a PFA.  He was a miserable bastard for the entire month of February and a good chunk of March, each year.  And I say this with the knowledge that he wasn't overly pleasant at any time--but there was a definite added layer of evil for a good six weeks surrounding each of his birthdays, even in the beginning before I saw his other face.  But he certainly isn't the only man that I have seen crumble and sink into a pit of despair with their birthdays--I have known many that simply can not cope with getting older.  But that is neither here, nor there, in relation to today's post.

 

A few weeks ago, I turned 42.  

42; the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.  I believe that Douglas Adams may have been onto something here.  Maybe it meant the simple balance of 42 years of life.  By 42, you have a clue.  By 42, you finally have an idea where you are going and which road will take you there.  By 42, you know how things work and you can make them work to your advantage.  42 is a blessing.  42 is good.  The ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything? Quite possibly.

Despite all of this, 42 is the birthday that I have been waiting for and well, yes, dreading.   42 is also how old my mom was when she died.  I was worried that turning 42, myself, would be difficult, so far *knock on wood*, it is fine.  Everything I have read told me that when we reach the age that our same-sex parent died, we are faced with our own mortality.  Many studies suggest that folks go off the deep end, end up having a mid-life crisis or some such--maybe since I was prepared, I was able to dodge it?  My mom was around two months shy of her 43rd birthday when she was murdered, so there is still the possibility that I will struggle in another ten months, but I don't think that I will.

I doubt that 45 will bring tears.  It will mean that I beat the sudden, early deaths that took the last two generations of women on my mom's side.  My maternal grandmother was 41--unknown if murder or suicide; my mother was 42--murdered; so if I make it to 44, I figure I will have beat it.  But I guess potentially, this may mean that 43 will be my flake out year since that should be my year to go, if I allow myself to believe in such patterns.  Again, I feel that awareness of what may potentially lurk in our subconscious, whether we believe in such notions or not, helps to battle those types of demons. 

Maybe aging doesn't bother me because I have always gravitated toward folks older than myself; I have always adored the elderly and have never seen age as a definer of what makes a person awesome.  Many of the folks that I loved most when I was little were senior citizens, so maybe it is just that acceptance that the most amazing people in life came with white hair, wrinkles and were over 70.  Maybe it is because the folks that gave me hope and kept me going during my teen years were mostly folks decades older than me.  I don't know. Maybe it is because I have always looked decades older than I really was and I am finally growing into my own face.  Truly, I have no idea why acceptance is always waiting with each birthday. 

It probably also has a bit to do with the fact that I intensely disliked life before the age of 28, which means I don't look back at youth with nostalgia.  There were more than a few years in my mid-thirties that were awful--from 2009-2011 it was a bitter struggle to just keep going.  Maybe aging doesn't feel as bad when the years prior were not "the glory days"?  Each decade below 40 had pieces that I could not be paid to go back to.  Birth to ten?  Hated it.  Ten to twenty?  Wanted to die.  Twenty to thirty? Some pretty awful stuff in there.  Thirty to forty?  Some of the worst years that I have experienced and well, quite frankly, this blog wouldn't exist without the events that occurred from the age of 35-37, so that says a bit about how much of a struggle those years were. 

I guess I will just wait and see if there is a birthday down the road that makes me sad.  I don't think there will be, but I could certainly be wrong.  Honestly, I never thought that I would live to see 42, so I can't say how I will feel with any of them.  So far, forty and beyond has been good.  I know life ebbs and flows, but I have made life changes since those events in 2010 that have been very positive and also preventative in nature--namely, removing toxic people.  I can't guarantee that my years from here on out will be all calm and stormless, but I know removing some of the common denominators will help.

Carl Jung said it best: "The afternoon of life is just as full of meaning as the morning; only, its meaning and purpose are different." and his better known: "Life really does begin at 40.  Up until then, you are just doing research."  Age has always just been a number to me and I have to agree with Carl and Douglas on this one.

Great Article! Please Read!

 7 Ways To Avoid Re-Traumatizing A Trauma Victim

This is a great read--whether you work with clients that have had trauma, whether someone you love suffers from trauma and you wish to help or if you, yourself are struggling. I wish I could get everyone out there to read and understand this article.  One of my biggest pet peeves is when the insurance company or crisis tries to jump up client hours when the reality is, more therapy isn't the answer for all people.  Often, trauma victims have to go at their own pace and they won't get better faster simply because they have more hours.

"Trauma affects every part of who we are – our brain, our health, our emotions, our worldview, our ability to cope, our social connections and ability to socialize, our ability to heal, etc. You cannot rush healing, no matter how long ago the trauma happened. The body, emotions, and mind often goes through a grieving and loss period which often includes symptoms of fear and anxiety. Once this period ends (or becomes more tolerable for the victim), other symptoms might arise or one’s viewpoint might change. Behaviors and moods change as well. Trauma is not easy to deal with."

An Alternate View...

I stumbled across this one, today, and found that it struck a cord.

I generally don't regret much in my past--good or bad--because it has all had an influence on who I am today.  If our past choices make us who we are; the world's responses to those choices shape us to perhaps an even greater degree. 

Despite this, I couldn't help but agree with this one.  When I glance back to the folks that I thought were my life prior to 2010 and see how much time, love and resources I devoted to people that were not equally invested, and some that were actually more devoted to my demise, when I truly loved them--it is difficult to not regret the intimacy that I openly gave them. 

I would like to say that I learned something from trusting those that didn't deserve it.  That maybe now I am more careful in who I open up to.   But I think I have always been pretty guarded.  If anything, I think I regret that I allowed myself to be fooled into believing those folks actually cared, too and maybe even more so, that I was unable to see them for who they really were but instead allowed myself to love the facade that they presented me with. 

Love is a funny thing.  I don't mean just romantic love.  I love many people in my life.  But when you have loved those that actually meant you harm; when their smiles and hugs were nothing more than lures and traps, it takes longer to recover.  When hindsight shows you the flaws and you still miss the people that you believed them to be: surrogate sisters and mothers, brothers, family, friends--people that you loved with all of your being--it is sometimes difficult to see the lies and understand.  

Mayhaps it is just difficult to see your own innocence and forgive yourself for loving the wrong people...

Childhood Trauma Across a Lifetime

This is just amazing--please watch when you get a few minutes:  How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across A Lifetime

"Childhood trauma isn’t something you just get over as you grow up. Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the repeated stress of abuse, neglect and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain. This unfolds across a lifetime, to the point where those who’ve experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart disease and lung cancer. An impassioned plea for pediatric medicine to confront the prevention and treatment of trauma, head-on." 

As a child, my pediatrician first mentioned that she believed that I was suicidal around age ten and she warned my family to keep an eye on me, due to this.  Since I was ten in 1983, there weren't as many resources available for a child like me and I am not sure that my parents took it seriously, either way.  Honestly, I  don't remember a lot below the age of ten but what I do remember is quite unpleasant.  Also, as someone that has suffered from lifelong depression, including multiple suicide attempts (with my first attempt occurring at age sixteen and my last attempt being somewhere in my early twenties)--this video rang true on a lot of levels.  Very powerful video and message....

Thought for the Day

Follow your heart.  Your true friends and family will stand behind you, no matter what your choice is. No matter what you do in life--from your simplest choices to your most complicated ones, there will always be critics, folks that don't understand and people that simply won't tolerate you, as a person, for whatever reasons.  That being said, always follow your heart.  It is your journey and nobody needs to understand or accept your choices, other than you.   We weren't meant to have the human experience miserable--we are to follow our own path and find peace in our hearts.  Some of us just have very different paths than others and that is part of what makes us beautiful.

Blow-By-Blow

It has been almost five years now since my entire world shifted.  I know that sounds dramatic, but in reality, there is no other way to describe what happened.  Five years ago, I had a family that I loved. I had numerous friends. I had a great support network. I had a salaried career. I had normalcy.  I was, however, attempting to remove myself from a relationship was very emotionally abusive, financially abusive and while he had not yet hurt me physically, he had hurt my pets to frightening levels and the line toward physical abuse directed at me was moving closer and closer, daily.

Honestly, when he hurt my pets, it was a thousand times harder on me than if he had actually physically abused me.  I know not all people understand that concept, but I do not have children; my pets are my children.  When he would put my puppy in the trunk of his car and drive erratically; when he would beat her; when he broke a metal pole over her back and I couldn't find her for nearly an hour (I did not know if he had killed her or if he had broken her back)--these events were more traumatic than if he had done them directly to me.  When he hurt one of my ferrets (I do not know if he hit her or bit her--he claimed not to remember; he claimed that he was "too mad and lost control")--her head and face were swollen for days and she was unable to even open her eyes during that time--people tell me these things were okay.  He wasn't abusive because he didn't hit me.  Had it been human children that he was doing these things to, people may have understood and may have been supportive when I left.  But because it was my pets being physically abused, not me directly, I was "being childish".  I was "running away from a great guy that just had a few anger issues". Of course, there was a lot more abuse during my time with him, but bottom line, I wasn't willing to stay with someone that hurt my pets--no matter what anyone else thought.

By the time I gathered the strength to leave, I was already an empty shell of my former self.   When I left him, I thought that I would be regaining my life and my sanity.  I expected to still have my family, my friends, my support network, my career.  Normalcy. Normalcy would return, with time.  I truly believed all that would change in my life is that he would be gone and I could go about returning to the person that I was before he entered my life.  I thought that my world would basically return to what it was before I met him.  That is how breakups normally work, yes?

Over the past months, I have been reading a lot of material regarding narcissists, leaving them and the commonalities that survivors experience while with them and when piecing their self-esteem back together.  Today, I found a blog with an amazing list of previous posts that I have yet to read even a fraction of, but wished to pass on here so that others may benefit, as well.  The blog is called Esteemology by Savannah Grey and in particular, the first posting that I discovered was: Breaking Free: Why Breaking Up With A Narcissist Is Not Your Average Break Up.  Finally!  Someone else that got it!  Someone else that understood a piece of what I had lived through!  However, it was this one: Tools of the Trade: A Narcissists Guide to Crazy Making that really hit home. These four "tools" were so much a part of my daily life that I would swear the author dated my ex at some point, too (and probably, like so many others, while I was still with him).  

For those of you that know me in real life and for those that follow this blog, you know that I wasn't just able to walk away.  The more I tried to remove him from my life, the crazier he got and eventually I sought a PFA (Protection from Abuse) which meant that legally, if he didn't stay away from me, he could face jail time.  I was granted a three-year PFA in April of 2010.  Like everything else regarding that relationship, it wasn't that simple.  He couldn't communicate with me due to the PFA, but he still had access to my family and friends.  While he could no longer emotionally control me or abuse me--he could manipulate the others in my life and was still able to hurt me through them.

Since April of 2010, I have been estranged from my father and many other family members.  My youngest brother, whom I had always considered more like a son and whom I also considered my best friend, also sided with my ex and forbid me to have contact with him or his children.  We reconciled about a year later, but he said and did many hurtful things to me in that first year and I can't say that our relationship remained as close.  In fact, my brother and his children have since moved out-of-state and despite calls, I have not heard from him since sometime prior to October 2014.  I am not sure of the reasons but am learning again, to live without them.  The friends and support network that I believed to exist prior to April 2010 were never really mine, but I didn't realize that until I needed them.  The salaried position, I gave up by choice due to dealing with the stress that came with this entire situation--honestly, I was not able to deal with the amount of stress my career caused on top of what was occurring in my personal life. 

I had one other experience that flipped my world over and shattered my illusions of reality--that was when my mother was murdered.  I was nineteen when that happened and prior to her death, I felt that I had a lot of friends.  I discovered that I had about three.  Despite those three friends, I still felt more alone than I could tolerate and each day that I awoke seemed to be another bitter blow.  I didn't want to live.  I wanted to be with my mother, my best friend, the only one that truly understood me.

My father's actions in 2010 and the other events that occurred because I chose to walk away from a relationship that was more horrible and destructive than anyone will ever know, outside of him and me--I almost didn't recover from that blow, either.  As I approach the five year anniversary of that madness, I can't help but look back and reflect on who I was, what I lost and where I am now.  I know that living in the past prevents us from succeeding in the present and future, but I cannot blindly turn my back to it, either.  There are simply some events that shape us more than others and that contribute greatly to who we currently are in life.  My mother being murdered in 1993 and the events that resulted due to leaving an abusive ex in 2010 were, without doubt, full of more suffering than I thought possible to live through.  I am sometimes still amazed that I made it...

Ringing True

"If they made a monster out of you because you walked away from their drama, so be it. Let them deal with what they have created. Be at peace with yourself, and stay out of the conflict." ~Dodinsky~