The Broken Clock

For 4 brutal decades, I was distraught over the confusing swings of mood(with me indicated as THE cause) by my mother, sister, and later my husband/now ex-husband.  At times there would be eye contact, engaging conversation, and something resembling connection– then long periods of averted eyes and zero acknowledgment when addressed, or a surprising character assassination in response to something from months or even years earlier.  Then, compliments, gifts, or initiatives to engage, close on the heels of emotional vacancy or barely contained rage- impossible to discern which.  It is too much.
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Me Too, Tell Me More

My recent exchange with my mother awakened in me the  exact “nature” of my lifelong experience, as her dependent and child.  If I said I was cold, rather than a sweater, snuggle, or blanket, I was offered a reading of the thermostat as proof that I could not feel that way (if I were normal, worthy, and honest).  When I reported  hunger or need a restroom, similarly, I was reminded of having recently eaten or relieved myself, OR that I was just too fucken much.  Support was available only when she shared the sentiment.  When my experience differed, I was reported to be equal parts incorrect and troublesome. I literally learned to doubt myself at a cellular level.  I was wrong about things, over which technically, I would be the ultimate authority:  hunger, exhaustion, fear, sadness, cold, a full bladder.  Right? (more…)

We Who Are Your Closest Friends

we who are

your closest friends

feel the time

has come to tell you

that every Thursday

we have been meeting

as a group

to devise ways

to keep you

in perpetual uncertainty

frustration

discontent and

torture

by neither loving you

as much as you want

nor cutting you adrift

your analyst is

in on it

plus your boyfriend

and your ex-husband

and we have pledged

to disappoint you

as long as you need us

in announcing our

association

we realize we have

placed in your hands

a possible antidote

against uncertainty

indeed against ourselves

but since our Thursday nights

have brought us

to a community of purpose

rare in itself

with you as

the natural center

we feel hopeful you

will continue to make

unreasonable

demands for affection

if not as a consequence

of your

disastrous personality

then for the good of the collective

Phillip Lopate, 1943

I fucken Knew it!  hahaaha

-the gifts of the mentally ill and addicted family–they never stop giving

 

I Wish You Well


After nearly a year of NO Contact-My mother and I have a seat in her living room.

Me: So, lets just get this behind us. What exactly are you confused about, regarding this arrangement with my ex and how it affects me?

Mom: I feel confused that you say you don’t feel safe with us.

Me: Mom, You all hosted a dinner with everyone including my ex, his sister and my kids that excluded me.

Mom: you were invited. I remember.

Me: I found out when the boys called and said they were on their way home from the dinner. I emailed the next day asking why you all would do it. I got a character assassination email telling me all the ways I earned it, but that I was welcome to join any future events, though it is highly unlikely I could ever be a true member of a functioning family. The letter confirmed and justified the plan to exclude me.  All attendees of the dinner were copied on the email.

Mom: Well, you write things on your blog that are outright lies.

Me: I write my experience. You say I was invited to your secret dinner. Is that a lie? Or Is that your experience? Ok, I didn’t come here for this. I see you have no inclination to think or say that you all have behaved in ways that are unsafe for me. Your only issue is why I wont come to dinner still. Mom, I used to sit at tables and fuck people who spoke to me as you do. I don’t anymore. I wont. You using my ex to circumvent our issues and gain access to my young sons is damaging to my family. My boys are footing the bill for that arrangement.

Mom: I don’t believe that to be the case.

Me: Ok, tell yourself that. I am going to go now.  My sons understand that what you all choose hurts their mom, and they do not like you.  They will never trust you.  How sad, for everyone that you are ok with this.

Mom: (Quick to stand and escort me out) Maggie, I wish you well.

Me(Screaming, for the last time at my mother, desperate to be heard, to matter enough): That is a lie. You having an arrangement that divides the boys’ father and me, making it more difficult to work to arrange the most basic of things, is evil-unnecessary stress for my sons, not well wishing. Pure fucken evil.

Miraculously, I turn and close the door without slamming it and I hear it lock behind me.   THE END

Tragic endings are better than tragic continuations.  The truth of her intentions to heal or connect have been made clear, infinitely.  I am grateful.  To have any doubt or false hope removed for me.  Truth and clarity seeking is badass. Needless complexity is just plain bad.

PS–To be clear here, what divides my boys emotionally and spiritually from my mother and sister is the breaking of our code.  We never are silent bystanders to someone being diminished by another.  My boys are well known and praised for this at their school.  They witness the pain this causes me and the the pronounced stress between their father and me.  For now they have no choice.  They are called and their father takes them there. And in their hearts, they know what is happening and that it does not feel healthy for OUR family, their chosen arrangement is harmful.)  My mother can enjoy her shared opinions and values with the like minded.  My boys are not of like mind.  We have different values in our home.  We do not have them AT my family of origin.  We choose to live and love by different codes which are diametrically opposed to their own.  This is an unpleasant fact-not a problem.  Still sad.  People righteously harming others is our cue to speak up and then to step away.  Still too young, they do not currently have that choice.  

 

I wish you well. Ha!

The Miracles of Recovery

  • I am grateful for another brilliant hour of basketball spent with Keyaun and Zekaya.  They are angels…wholesome badass mofos.  My boys get so much good energy from being with them and it is pure magic to observe the engagement.  I love them.  I found Keyaun at our local Y and loved his energy and offered to pay him to play with my boys.  Total Street Basketball.  It is magnificent.
  • I am grateful for a BJJ mom in recovery who I am connecting with.  Her son is in kids class, she is not in mine so we talk during their class and it is just so easy and I of course want to be BFFs always.  Maybe one day we will plan to do something or exchange phone numbers.
  • I am grateful for the nail in my tire that required that I leave my house today to have it repaired.
  • I am grateful that I was foolish and courageous enough to email my mother asking if an honest conversation between us was a possibility?  I either get a yes or I get the chance to tell my children how I responded to her telling them how she wants to see me but does not match her actions to her words which I find painfully confusing.  All I can do is try.  I match my actions to my words and I respond and I choose others who do the same.  That is how I know who is safe for me.   In 22 minutes, I will drive to visit the woman who gave me life- and for nearly 50 years left me wishing for death or any sort of release from THIS. It is still unclear to me who thought less of me.  Her or me?  Things have gotten progressively worse between us as I recover from life in her family. She is 85 fighting cancer and probably not apt to change.  I won’t tolerate abuse.  Apparently my definition of abuse is the problem.  But I will show up and see what is possible.  I am angry that my sister dropped her selfish righteous bomb and left us to clean up unnecessary and extensive damage.  What makes me angriest is that my boys foot the bill.  I am not sure I can forgive, though forgiveness is not being requested.  So, no worries there.

Gratitude Continued

I look forward to the day when my life is not entirely focused on survival and spiritual recovery.  Until then, I will just be grateful for parts of my life I owe to recovery.  Here are some of the items I have shared with my Project Miracle Buddy over the last few months.  Being a loving and often present mother, a kind and generous partner, a reliable employee, a non-homicidal co-parent and sibling are miracles of my program.

  • I am grateful for the non-abuse from my Boys’ father right now.  I wished I could just roll with it and be friendly when he is and then calmly check the fuck out when he ramps it up.  My vulnerability didn’t come with that sort of dimmer switch.
  • I am grateful for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tonight.  So grateful for that first class at Gracie Academy.
  • I am grateful I will be with my boys for Mothers day.
  • I am grateful that Cooper only had 2 seizures last night. They are smaller and less dramatic but closer together. He is such a sweet boy and a good doggy. I am grateful that he is still with me and that I have not chosen the easy way out of this, though I do crave ease.  I have become quite good at holding and soothing him until they pass.
  • I am grateful for a weekend and upcoming week of solitude.  Boy do I need it.  I love my divorce, so much more promising and awesome than our marriage ever was.
  • I am grateful Will is going to orientation today at the Y to learn how to safely use the fitness equipment.  I love his interest in it.
  • I am grateful to have been courageously honest in my match.com profile indicating my need to isolate, and desire to find someone whom would enjoy isolating together.  I revealed that I am intense and highly affected by sensory stimulus and intentionally avoid over-exposure.  I also was generous with examples of my sensitivity to emotional energy.  In sharing openly and authentically, I connected with someone who sees all of me, fiercely loves me and guards my serenity.  Because these are the SHARED terms to which we openly commit, we have been expanding together in all ways for nearly a year and a half.  I can never go back to the other way of being.  No forcing, no pretending.  Just kindness, acceptance, laughter as we acknowledge and forgive ourselves and each other when we are human in the icky ways.
  • I am grateful, not lucky. Just fucken grateful.  Gratitude is wholesome and badass.  Gratitude is paying it forward, every chance we get.  Not for paying back.  That is something entirely different.  Paying back is for deals that are made openly in which the terms are clear and agreed to by all parties.  Transparency is also badass and wholesome and not for everyone.  What are you grateful for?  How do you pay it forward?

    hahahahaha…..just fun to say

Thank you GiGi for your comment about your dad being one of those people whom God gave to you.  I am grateful for you!

Project Miracle

I read, re-read, and listen to all words written or spoken by Anne Lamott.  Nearly two years ago, when I first moved here, I read about a project she did with a friend,  Project Miracle.   I believe it was from Bird by Bird.   For Project Miracle, you commit with a Trusted and Willing Other, each day, before anything else, to email a list of things for which you feel grateful, even the shitty things.  That turned about to be as challenging as it was fun, the shitty things for which to be grateful.  The deal is- you  each exchange lists but….no feedback allowed.  This project may be the only ritualized part of my life to which I have fully committed, since our  dislocation relocation.  As I look back over my sent emails, I see how the act of  ritualistically acknowledging and sharing my first thoughts has helped me to practice acceptance for unpleasant facts. The no feedback or responses policy allows me to express things like:  I am grateful that my mother is not more unkind to me than she is.   Because I don’t want a cheerleader suggestion to see it differently.  That is my space for acknowledging painful truth, on my way to acceptance.   Anyway, below are some items from recent emails:   (more…)

Just Be Happy-Goddammit

My truth is that I mostly do not have a choice about my first thought, but I do have the choice to indulge it or to redirect my thoughts AWAY from obsession or reactive behavior. I learned this practice late in life. Being commanded to lighten up and get over it drove me more deeply into darkness and shame over my complete lack of knowing how.   It was essential that I do so, if I wanted to belong. I see now, that it could not be modeled. You can’t teach someone how to be an entirely different person from whom they are. The message was “Be Different from how you are, dammit”.  To this day, I cannot.  And the miracle is- I do not apologize or even feign an intent to be other than how I am.  I strive to be spiritually stronger, and to engage a closer connection to God.  That will allow me to mature into the person I am meant to be.  Conforming to the will of another human won’t.  I don’t know what makes me a sensitive and expressive empath, picking up on energies around me, while others remain deeply unaffected.  I did not choose it and I cannot un-choose it or judge it.  When having your feelings and truths debated and punished is a pattern, it is time to remove yourself.  Patterns don’t lie. (more…)

Letting Go of Obsession- One Day At A Time

After more than a year of wrestling with the reality of having my family of origin show me for the last time how little I mean to them, I am feeling as if maybe I am ready, to intentionally, for a few minutes each day, focus on doing something physically, mentally, spiritually to elevate the quality of living for myself. It has been difficult to exist in close proximity to people dedicated to erasing and silencing me. My internal fight with this reality has been all-consuming.

Saturday night, my boys and I went for out pizza at a nearly vacant restaurant. We sat – just talking and laughing for quite a while.   And I cannot help but marvel at how profoundly touching these little moments are. It is true that I have been unable to create big eventy moments and adventures/ trips for us. I wished that were different but I don’t feel bad about that. What I don’t feel super about, are all of the little moments forfeited to my suffering, my need for disengagement….engulfed by rehashing & reviewing the data, checking mental lists for assurance of the patterns of unkindness, which are both denied emphatically while at the same time justified. Who wouldn’t feel crazed by this? (more…)

Shame Shifting

No matter how much spiritual and emotional work I do,  I am not able continue in this cycle and simultaneously work toward recovery.  The only sane choice is self-preservation.  My Good Orderly Direction tells me so.  A third way would be nice.  Based on patterns of behaviors and attitudes of my abusers sister and mother, there is no reason to consider that a possibility.  I no longer accept diminishing and divisive words and behaviors as things that I have earned. Nor will I be demanded to take responsibility for the behaviors of others.  That would oppose my primary purpose.  I will continue being mindful of my own words and behaviors and clean up, after myself, when I make a mess.

Coming from long lines of mental illness and untreated addiction, where every non-happy feeling is perceived as anger and responded to with anger, I picked up some unfortunate coping and operating styles.  This wall of tools is the perfect metaphor for the tools for life before and now, with recovery.  The left side needs little explanation.

The dustpan and brush, I need for for cleaning up little messes I make.  Tape for repairing things that are fixable.  Soft gloves, for handling of fragile or prickly things with care.  A measuring tape and timer to help me give space and time between an incident and my response.  Knee pads for the time I spend on my knees waiting and asking for guidance.   A flashlight for times when it feels dark for me or a trusted other.  A needle and thread for sewing back together those things which can be mended.  Love is always the answer.  Accepting my full range of emotions and developing healthy tools for coping are miracles of recovery.  And not accepting shame shifting and continuing the cycle of abuse is wholesome and I think very badass.  Maintaining a habit is much easier than breaking one- 100%

Recovery tools are wholesome and 100%badass.  What are some of your metaphorical tools for life?