Digging In...

"You can't really ask for what you can't imagine.  

You can't ask for what you don't know.  

That was my world.  

It was what I knew." 

~Neil Gaiman~ 

(as told by Amanda Palmer in The Art of Asking)

As I am reading The Art of Asking, I find myself falling more and more in love with AFP.  It truly is a wonderful book--I love her story, I love the way she lays it out, I love how open she is in sharing who she is and where she has been.  And as with any good book, I find hidden truths within myself.  I have laughed, cried, and related deeply to many pieces of this book.  

I asked for this one for Christmas, not sure what to expect.  At one point, I took it back off of my Christmas list because it was pricey at the time.  Christmas morning, I was tickled to discover it tucked in among the other gifts.  What I didn't know was how much I needed this book.  What I didn't know was that I would want everyone else important in my life to read it, as well.  

Most of us struggle with asking for what we need in life--financially, physically, emotionally.  Some of us are so blessed backwards, we don't even know what exactly it is that we need; we just know that something is missing.  Or maybe that a whole lot of things are missing.  Maybe we seek these things out hoping that our friends and partners will intuitively know what we need and will provide it.  

How can we expect others to meet our needs when we ourselves aren't even able to identify what it is that we are searching for?  And the harshest reality, if we can't find it within--it sure as hell isn't going to appear to us from elsewhere.  But this isn't that story--we have all heard that one time and time again, we know that one well.  But how do we know exactly what it is that we need?

Neil is answering Amanda's question in the beginning quote.  She wants to know whether he asked for comfort, when hurt as a child.  His simple answer, he didn't know to ask because quite simply, he knew no other way.  He didn't know that he was missing anything because this was simply as it had always been.  You can't ask for something that you have never seen and if you do not know it exists.

His lack of response, when she was hurting, confused her--feeling like rejection when she was already wounded.  Yet he simply had no idea of her expectations.  He was acting as he believed he was meant to.  He behaved as he had been raised to--to be quiet, to stand back, to leave the person alone.  She interpreted it as abandonment; he interpreted it as what you are supposed to do.

How often do we expect the people in our lives to just know what we need?  To know when they have hurt us?  For them to understand precisely why we are angry?  Do we quit speaking to others believing that they know why?  That they should know why we are hurt, angry, wounded, broken--and if they don't, we are better off without them anyhow--aren't we???

The human existence is so fraught with misunderstanding, communication breakdowns, disagreements, and the inability to see things from the perspective of others.  Add in pride.  Add in stubbornness.  Add in fear.  Add in false beliefs, ignorance, and the inability to apologize.  Humans are pretty ridiculous, at times.  All of us.  It is what we excel at.

There is not a single human alive that can deny having ever misunderstood (or been misunderstood by) someone they loved and had it lead to utter hell for both individuals involved.  This is who we are.  Interacting with others is hard work.  Understanding each other is even more difficult.  We can think that we have clearly gotten our point across, only to discover that it utterly failed.

Friendships end.  Relationships screech to a halt.  Loved ones leave.  Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.  Sometimes we are filled with regret; sometimes with relief.  But at the root of it all?  Pain.  A big chunk of that pain?  Misunderstandings.  Miscommunication.  Not asking for what we needed.  Not knowing what we needed.  You can't ask, if you don't know.

Having not a clue, because we had never been show how.  How to what?  How to communicate?  How to communicate effectively.  How to listen.  How to hear.  It is often said that we listen only in order to respond.  We half-listen, while preparing our response.  We listen with the intent of being heard, while we forget to hear what is actually being spoken.

People yell to be heard.  People scream to be heard.  When this fails, people speak with fists.  But the root is the same.  Wanting to be understood.  Wanting to connect.  Which would you truly prefer, the clinking of glasses as you cheer the one who "gets you" or would you prefer the smashing of glasses as you rage at the one who doesn't?  Depends on the day for some, I guess.

We need to learn how to search inside ourselves and ask what we need.  How to search within and discover what we want.  Beyond those base needs--what is underneath those?  We really aren't as complicated as we like to think that we are.  It doesn't need to be as challenging as we have made it.  But again, some side tangent happened with my message.  How did I land here?

"You can't really ask for what you can't imagine.  

You can't ask for what you don't know.  

That was my world.  

It was what I knew." 

~Neil Gaiman~ 

(as told by Amanda Palmer in The Art of Asking)

Ah, yes.  I meant to be here...

When we are children, we know only what we are born into.  We do not know right from wrong.  We do not understand concepts such as stealing, that others feel pain--we are our only world.  Our parents are our world.  Our siblings, our family--these are all that exist.  The concepts outside of our own body and our own home are, in essence, foreign countries.

We are all taught differently.  Not all of us begin with loving homes.  Not all of us are granted safety, security, and a sense of being loved.  Not all of feel that we are special to our parents--we aren't all raised believeing that we are little princesses or princes.  Some of us are raised to belive that we are monsters.  We are raised to believe that it is our fault.

What is our fault?  Everything.  Maybe it is our fault that he hits her.  Maybe it is our fault that she cries.  Perhaps it is our fault that the grass grows too high and that it is all sloping downward.  Perhaps it is our fault when the cat does the things that cats do.  Whatever it is, you can be assured, it was your fault.  Whatever it is, you are the reason that things are not good.

Because you aren't good.  You are bad.  Everything that you do is bad.  Somehow, yes, you are at fault.  A monster.  It is difficult to fear the monster under the bed when the monster lives in you.  Eventually this turns into anger.  Because you still crave their love--you want to be good--but you aren't.  You aren't lovable.  You are the monster.  It is your fault.

You see the world through frightened eyes because you know that you are the monster.  And as you grow, you find yourself in the land of princesses, princes... and you.  You know that you do not belong.  You know that you make things bad.  You stay quiet.  You learn to be invisible.  You pray to be even more invisible.  Being seen means being a target.  Being a target is bad.

Whether it is the grown ones that see you, whether it is the small ones that see you--being the target is no fun.  Monsters can only be targets.  When it is your fault, you expect to be the target.  These are the laws of the land.  These are the rules that you were taught when others were being told how wonderful and precious they are--how special they are.  Your rules were different.

Yes, this is where I landed.  That was my world.  That was what I knew.  How does it all fit together?  It does.  Of that, I am sure.  Relationships are hard.  Communicating sucks.  We don't all have equal footing.  Your experience differs from mine, which differs from hers, which differs from his.  We all have unique experiences and we can never fully understand what another has lived through.

Be gentle.  Strive to understand.  Forgive.  Forgive those that hurt you most because they were hurting, too.  Whether you were the monster, the target, or the special one--be gentle.  We are all struggling.  We all have wounds.  Seek to understand.  Seek to see their side of it.  Seek to hear.  Listen to hear with all of your heart, not with your own words.

We all want to be understood.  We all want to be loved.  Some of us struggle greatly with these concepts.  I am not sure if it is worse discovering that childhood was a lie and that you, too, deserve love or if it is worse to be raised as a prince or princess only to discover that the rest of the world thinks you are an asshole.  I think I will take my beginnings, to be honest.

Life is hard.  Relationships are harder.  Some you will be better off without--that is okay, too.  Have the wisdom to know which ones and let them go without looking back.  Work for the ones that matter.  We really are all working toward the same goals in the end--learn to see yourself in others.  Allow them to see you, too.  It really never was meant to be this challenging.

"You can't really ask for what you can't imagine.  

You can't ask for what you don't know.  

That was my world.  

It was what I knew." 

~Neil Gaiman~ 

(as told by Amanda Palmer in The Art of Asking)

New Thoughts

I am still planning to maintain this blog.  I know that the past year saw much neglect and very few postings, but honestly, I see this as progress.  This blog was created to assist me with surviving one of the greatest heartbreaks in my life--betrayals from most of my family, many of my friends, and essentially, feeling abandoned by the people that mattered most to me in life.  I needed an outlet for that pain, a way to explore it safely, and a way to make sense of it while healing from it.  I think that I have done that for the most part.  That will always be a dark chapter in my life, but I think that I have moved on enough, for now, that I am ready to begin a new chapter.

There have been several ideas rolling around in my head regarding which direction this blog should now take.  Even though I haven't posted much recently--there are still seventy drafts waiting for me to finish them.  There are 150 finished and shared posts, total--but those other seventy posts are also pertinent to the story and may get finished and added, or they may remain in virtual limbo.  Many of them are hidden from public view because they are even more personal than what I shared publicly.  Some of them were written in so much anger that I didn't wish to put that negativity into the world.  Some would be too hurtful, and even detrimental to others, for me to share.  For now, they are buried and maybe that is for the best.  I am unsure at this time. Time alone will provide that answer.

The truth of the matter is, daily, I am writing in my head.  Daily, I have something that I want to transform into written word and share.  The direction of these thoughts don't readily fit into any of my current blogs and I contemplated beginning yet another, but I wasn't really ready to let this one just "die", either.  Of my blogs, this one is primarily about healing, making sense of the cards that I have been dealt in life, and also, with examining how I chose to play those cards.  To me, this is part of internal and spiritual growth--I have always been an introvert and sometimes putting those internal thoughts into a visible format helps me to process them better.  Generally, when I begin a post, I have an idea in mind, but by the end, I discover that there was actually something else that I needed to address within that I was unaware of.  That is the beauty of writing; it often takes on a life of its own and we are blessed with new, unexpected insights.  That is one of my favorite parts of journaling--simply seeing where the words land and what picture is created in the end.  It is more therapeutic than most people realize and I can honestly say that journaling has been key in my own survival.  I have maintained journals all of my life and often suggest them to my clients; they are a wonderful tool for healing and can be one of the best personal therapists available.

On another note, today is also the 23rd anniversary on my mother's murder.  These past months were more challenging than I expected--starting in November, I really struggled and the holidays were exceedingly difficult.  For anyone that has struggled with great grief, you know that it always remains a part of who you are--it just changes in how you respond, how you survive.  Today, I am actually doing well mentally--however, physical pain has trapped me in bed--which completely changed all of the plans that I had for today.  Sometimes that happens.  I had plans of creating and making art, in different forms.  Instead, I am here, writing--which I can do from bed.  When chronic pain is a part of your life, sometimes plans made simply have to be abandoned and changed.  The easiest way to maintain sanity, when coming to terms with the fact that you are sometimes a prisoner in a body that hurts, is to simply allow mental flexibility.  That was my choice, today.  I will not be creating with my hands in the manner that I hoped and looked forward to, but I can still create and will do so through my words.  My creative outlets are my sanity.  It is that simple.  Writing is another form of healing.

The direction I think I may let this blog now take is in more of a "letter format."  This part may be short-lived or it may take on an entirely new direction--I have no way of knowing.  If it is short-lived and quickly fizzles out, I will worry about it then.  For now, I still have many, many letters that have been written in my head over the years.  Letters that may have saved relationships; letters that may have quietly ended some of them.  Letters that I still examine in my head and fine tune twenty years later, even though not a word has ever been shared on paper.  Letters that can never be sent for one reason or another.  But yet these are letters that clearly still exist within me and as I have discovered in my years of writing, until I create them and unleash them in written form, they will roll around in my head and maintain a loud voice of their own.  Like the rest of my writing, it is time to purge myself of them and be free.  Some of these letters have already been started within those seventy aforementioned drafts--some have just been shouting in my head.  Over the past month, these letters have taken on more intensity and have argued that they need to be shared somewhere, anywhere, just unleash them.  

Like my other posts here, these letters are extremely personal, contain a lot of pain, and like the posts here would fall on deaf ears or the ears simply no longer exist to fall upon.  They are letters to those that have passed to the other side; letters to those that will never again be a part of my life; letters that if I shared them would be mocked, made into a joke, or further misunderstood.  They are letters that as much as my brain wishes to share them--it just truly can't.  I am sharing them here with some hesitation.  I know that some of them would be painful or still misunderstood by the parties that they are intended for.  I know that it may be unfair to share them here, publicly, where they may be stumbled upon and be hurtful.  That isn't my intent, either.  I write and share because I must.  This blog has never been about accusing or pointing fingers--it has always been about release and personal healing.  This part of the journey is no different.  I suspect that this part of the blog will be short-lived and I hope that it may be done gently and with open eyes.  But my heart tells me this is where I need to go next, and it won this round.  So the next book begins...

A Different Turn

I realize that I haven't posted much over the past year.  Overall, while the events that led to this blog were horribly painful and I still bear scars (physically and mentally), I feel much of that chapter has come to a close.  My father is still out of my life; which has led to much growth and finally finding happiness in my life.  Perhaps I would have found it even if he had remained in my life, but I don't think so.  I think much of what has led to my eventual happiness was being able to tune out the internal voice that he gave to me.  While he remained in my life, he was able to reinforce that negative voice and watch over it, ensuring its growth and power.  I have since learned to stomp out those negative thoughts and to replace them with gentler ones.  It is not an easy process and requires completely changing your entire thought process--which having had it for nearly forty years, at that point in time, was no easy feat.  I am not willing to allow him back in, as I previously always seemed to do.  Somehow, I thought that my happiness rode upon his love and approval, which I kept begging for and striving for--always leading to heartbreak.

Accepting that I would never make my father see me for who I truly am; accepting that his love and approval would never be obtained; and most importantly, that my happiness did not ride on any of these factors--I was able to move on.  He still doesn't understand why I left.  He doesn't understand why I cannot see things through his eyes and that is okay.  We have thirty-six years of misunderstanding, hurts, and not being compatible.  I have come to terms with this and accept this.  I have my life; he has his.  He feels that he loves me and does accept me as I am--but that I am just a bitter and hateful person.  Again, I feel that he has never taken the time to know me or how I see the world--that is okay.  I no longer need him to in order to be happy.  I am grateful for this.  I still love him as my father--I accept that he loves me, in his way and by his own terms--but that for now, our book comes to a close.   There are many unfinished blog postings over the past years--I may go back and finish them, adding them in as I go--I have yet to decide.  For now, I think the past postings are essentially "Book One".   I am ready to move onto "Book Two."  So for now, I am considering this post the closing of this chapter of my life.  Moving on now...

Spotting Unhealthy Relationships

If Your Ex Moved On, Gladly Pass The Baton, Here’s Why…

"As you know better than I, he has the ability to take whatever gut feeling, instinct or woman’s intuition I had and turn it around to make me feel sorry for him.  You were right in your letter, when you said nothing would change for him, he is still using women.  He has used my home, car, and everything I own without offering a dime to help out.  I have bought him phones, clothes, food, and paid all expenses without so much as him saying thank you.  He recently received some unexpected EDD money and acted as if he was still broke and let me pay for everything….”

“It broke my heart to know someone I loved and cared for thought so little about me.  He could talk me into believing him and doing everything he wanted within minutes, and if I said anything about anything, I was so verbally abused and manipulated, I just shut down…”

 "It is like trying to understand why a scorpion has stung you after you have loved it like a pet. Why did it sting me? Um, because it is what it is!"

Just an article worthy of sharing.  I found it odd when I left how quickly he had someone else, but later found out that it wasn't as quickly as I thought--she was there all along.  None of that hurts these days, thankfully.  But I do feel bad for his current and future women and hope they recognize the patterns before they are also destroyed emotionally, physically, and financially.  I left the day after Thanksgiving in 2009; by April 2010 a PFA was my only option.  Six year later, I am still picking up the pieces and am still left dumbfounded that one simple choice in my life--dating him--led to such overall insanity and destruction.  Six years later, the damage is still real.

For those that are still trying to sort through a relationship in their own life--maybe it is a coworker, spouse, friend or even a family member--this is a wonderful little guide to helping you sort out what is occurring.  My biggest suggestion?  Trust your intuition.  It is there for a reason and 9 times out of 10, it will be screaming when you are around one of these folks--10 times out of 10, they will make you believe that YOU are the crazy one for even listening to your intuition...  Do it anyway.

7 Ways To Spot A Psychopath

Another Good Article

Signs That You've Been Abused By A Narcissist

Pretty decent list describing life with, and after, having an intimate relationship with a narcissist.  I am a firm believer that education is a strong ally and I have several friends still trapped in these relationships. Leaving a narcissist is terrifying in and of itself, not to mention the confusion and roadblocks that they throw into all areas of your life to prevent you from escaping. The more I talk to individuals that have lived through this experience, the more similarities I find--it is horrible to think that there are so many more than just the one that I dated out there...

"It’s very harrowing to realize that you are different from who you were before the narcissist; FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT. When you are very aware that PTSD has replaced the narcissist, it emotionally drains the target of any hope for being PERMANENTLY NARCISSISTIC FREE. We don’t want to be constantly reminded and aware of the person we escaped. We want to live freely; however, symptoms are a constant reminder that we DON’T."

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."