You Got What You Deserved

I heard it expressed frequently by my family of origin– which led to my own false belief that we may each enforce our truths and wills on those who disturb us.  Thank good gawd almighty that I was able to unlearn this in time to raise children- and to break the cycle of unwholesome thinking and behavior.  Unless it is being said to/of someone for achievement recognition, a promotion, or a high score well earned, it is bullshit.  Nobody deserves harm.  NOBODY.

Cruelty is not a natural consequence nor is it corrective or constructive.  When a person is cruel, it is because they are broken, not because something or someone has earned it.  Cruelty is a choice.

Another person’s vulnerability, fragility, ignorance, even meanness is not an invitation or free pass to do them harm.  There is a difference between being corrective and being hateful.  Defense from legitimate danger  differs vastly from attacking.  Malevolence is the work of the mentally unwell.  There is help for that.  Good news, vigilantes:  It is never too late to seek help and to change.

I had to unlearn the sick thinking so I could practice behaving like the person I am meant to be.  This requires rigorous resisting of my natural urges and reactions to stress and threat.  Much of the wreckage of my life stems from the myth that cruelty and abuse are well earned and justifiable reactions, rightfully directed at those “askin for it”.  Before understanding the practices of  kindness and compassion, my only known tools were shaming, blaming, judging, retaliating.  If you got in the way of the way of how I believed things should be, you would fucken pay.  Shaking my head at having thought this way well into my 30s.  When we know better we do better. Kindness, previously, was a reward for having pleased me or met my needs.  Ach!  We do learn what we live.

All beings deserve comfort and kindness.  Anyone believing otherwise is scary AF.  TRUTH:  Those requiring less of us are easier to love in that conditional ego-centric sort of way.  Many years ago, as a rookie teacher, still deep in a state of un-knowing,  I (possibly in some ways) preferred students arriving to class on time, smelling Downy fresh, well behaved, able to listen and learn (do as I say).  They would be fine no matter what kind of person or teacher I was.  They made my job easy while making me look good, right?  Ugh.  With experience, came my recognition of the strugglers as my people, and my love for them drove me to try harder to become what they needed and deserved.  I was not always fair and kind to them(or anyone) because I had not yet been introduced to principles illuminating what is and is not ok to say and to do.  I believed that you get what you deserve and that I was fit to decide and impose that.  If you challenge me too much and I have the authority and the means, I will diminish you.  I wish I could reach out to my students from my first days of teaching so I could say to them, “I did not know how to do better, but you ALL always always deserved better.  Please forgive me for anything I said and did that indicated otherwise.  It was only ever my defectiveness that made me act badly.”

Short skirts •crossing the border •being sexually confused or different •smelling bad • having a different or no religious/political affiliation • showing sensitivity • objecting to a thing that feels wrong • standing up for something that feels right:   People feeling called to diminish or attack for things like this, probably won’t get what they deserve.  And yet, it remains true, that their diminishing behavior speaks ONLY to their brokenness and darkness, not to the worthiness of their targets.  Vilifying others is their choice, not a natural consequence.

As Harold Kushner says, not all punished people are bad, not all bad people are punished.  Bad things happen to good people and good things happen for bad people.  Some shit just happens.  Proof of God is in the showing up of the helpers.  I am so grateful to finally know how to be in this world in a kinder, gentler way.  I am a work in progress.

Six Things

  1. Frankly, little mattered to me before motherhood.
  2. Life has has never, NOT felt incredibly difficult and unnatural for me.  Having sensory issues is difficult. Even the smell and feel of foods I enjoy, can nauseate me.  An avocado smear on a plate or worse, on my hand, gags me…and I really like avocados, provided I do not have to touch them outside of my mouth.  I am not wired and regulated like a typical person.  I can enjoy the taste of a food and be unnerved by the sight, smell, and feel of it.  AND how I feel about a food is changing constantly, depending on how much rest, space, and exercise I get.  I cannot bear the sensation of most anything on my hands.  The feel and smell of the kitchen sponge or a wet dish towel stress me.  I do not mean I dislike them because washing dishes is not fun, but my adrenaline surges when I handle things with my hands that feel bad to me or that have a smell that I dislike.   The sensations stay with me even after the experience is over.  I experience all things at a cellular level.   Music with saxophone or a classical vibe make my heart race and adrenaline pump, fight or flight in full swing and don’t even get me started on opera.  Repetitive or erratic sounds are also deeply troubling to me and I do not possess that dimmer switch in my brain, which would regulate how affected I am—-unable to tune anything out.  I am sooooo overly tuned in, and being in the world with people and all of the stimulus can be too much.   And I require time which is free from all stimulus to recover.   Sleeping with a 17 pound weighted blanket in addition to my covers is immense comfort and relief, even when it is hot.  The pressure and weight regulate and calm me.  My bed is my favorite most safest place.   I am sensory defensive.  It is not a choice.  I will leave the matter of my emotional intensity for another day, but let’s just say that is a whole other balla wax and it is a tough combination…but guess what….none of this makes me an asshole or a defect.  I struggle to remain calm near given sources of sensory and emotional intensity. So, now I avoid them.   Learning to parent a child with sensory integration issues, diagnosed at 18 months, along with my program of recovery taught me not only the value of, but the wisdom for how to seek serenity and to teach my son to do so without apology or shame.  Less sensitive and more controlling people might call all of this pickiness or-just being a pain in the ass.  To them, we offer space. We wear soft clothes with no tags, enjoy sitting beneath weighted blankets with no overhead lighting, minimal sounds, and smells.  Limiting ourselves to small groups of trusted others is also a choice we practice making.
  3. We have two sweet rescue dogs, each of whom teach us daily about unconditional love, loyalty, and patience.  It is a little hostagey at times and it is not completely clear who the hostages are in our home, us or the dogs,when I say us, I mostly mean me.
  4. One of the things that brings me joy, a sense of belonging and infinite connection is- inside jokes and situational nicknames that are wholesome and infinitely funny, like they will not ever get old.  This insideyness did not exist for me with my family of origin or in my failed marriage, I was never inside.  What I see now, is that if I am not free to cry and find comfort with you, I will never relax or relate enough to laugh deeply with you.  Laughter is the balm!  Good wholesome, silly and often sophisticated jokes tend to evolve, usually in moments in which somebody is expressing an objection.  In chosen relationships, we all get to object and say no without it being a secret or a fight.  I believe— this is what is referred to as genuine intimacy.  Boundaries and laughter…YES!!
  5. I stopped drinking when I met my husband, because I wanted to love him.  I wanted us to love each other, but it was hopeless and loveless, and when I drink I am more likely to speak truths that are otherwise too hard to say.  I hated the way I felt with him, but it was familiar, the same feeling/love I experienced in my family.  It was not the right kind of love for me.  Maybe it wasn’t loveless, just not a love I wanted to keep trying to master or survive.
  6. I just returned from a work trip in which I fucked up and said something insensitive.  I offended someone, innocent, but not harmless.  I owned it and apologized but still feel sick from it and hope to not lose another night of sleep to it.   I am still learning about how to be in the world.  I am a work in progress.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

I have been finding healing and comfort in re-reading and listening to When Bad Things Happen to Good People( a book I first borrowed from my mother, after my father’s passing ) on Audible by Rabbi Harold Kushner.  Because the concepts of God, love, and forgiveness had been distorted, I am now getting to do what seems to be a lifetime’s worth of rigorous unlearning.  I am an unchurched person, raised in a volatile home, in which religious people were mocked and judged, in which I was regularly shamed and humiliated in response to not knowing how to properly express my pain- by those whom I counted on for comfort and nurturing. Having been vested as the “sorry one”, each of those concepts became twisted, for me.  Love was diminishing,conditional, and scary.  God was for the ignorant.  To forgive meant to pretend as if IT never happened or was a thing which only I sought, from those who expressed near constant disturbance by the actual being of me.  If I were sorry or grateful enough, wouldn’t I just transform into someone entirely different? If I were good enough, God and my mother would favor me, but since I was not, pain and suffering were my due.

When I claim to have been “vested as the sorry one”, my only sliver of hope was- to apologize and be deeply sorry for having and expressing difficult feelings as well as for causing all difficult feelings and behaviors of others.  If done correctly, I might, for brief moments, be forgiven for being a total fuck-up at a cellular level.  I would literally apologize for anything just to be exonerated for sucking so badly.  I did not know how to stop sucking but I sure knew how to be sorry.  Meanwhile, the only apologies I ever received began with the words “I am sorry that you feel______”  or just “I am sorry that you______”.  What recovery teaches me is that to be genuinely repentant is to own and amend behaviors that are harmful.  See, I was apologizing for wrong things, for wrong reasons– all of the time.  If part of an amends needs to be an apology, it should begin with the words  “I am sorry that I____ and I will do better or I will not do that again.  What can I do to make things better?”  That is how compromised connections may be restored.  But when there is no connection…scapegoat image and quote

As the scapegoat and black sheep, I later learned to practice bullshit crafty apologies to gain advantage in certain situations, intended to subtly diminish another person while taking myself off the hook…Someone had to be wrong and sorry while someone else got to be right and victorious.  All relations were strained and volatile in this zero-sum game.  I do not want a winner and a loser in my relationships.  If I win, I don’t feel good about you and if I lose I don’t feel good about you and there is no WE or US, just me vs. you.   That dynamic literally makes me ill.  I am out.  I decline.  I choose connection with those who share the value.  You need to win???  Ok, I forfeit.  Bye.  You want to pose as gracious/martyr and allow me to have my way…fuck that also….same situation.  No, thank you.  Not playing.  You want to have a vulnerable conversation where we look at our own contributions, listen and ask what is needed?  I am in 100%.  In my healing journey, I have learned that all pain will be felt, the pain, we refuse to feel, we knowingly or unknowingly offload that onto our children, families, service providers.  Pain demands to be felt.  

Anyway,  Rabbi Kushner illuminates examples of how not all good people are rewarded and not all bad people are punished, or maybe that there are not bad people at all, just bad things.  AND Not all rewarded people have been blessed and favored by God while broken and needy people are suffering God’s choice for them.  God is not doling our punishments and rewards based on merit or need.  What kind of God would that be?  Glennon said it well last week, when she said “some of us are born on third base believing we hit a triple,  while others stand outside the ballpark starving”.  We are all children of God and we belong to each other.  These are beliefs I find to be promising, wholesome, comforting.  There are no such things as “other people’s children”.  How could we possibly want so many good things for ourselves and our children and not want them for everyone?  What makes people think that everyone is getting what they deserve?  I think it is those people, very much who should thank their lucky stars that they have not gotten what they deserve.

Very bad shit happens.  People do and say bad things.  Natural disasters happen.  Those are not works of God.  Miracles also happen–also not God’s work.  People don’t get cancer because it is part of God’s plan, just as some do not heal or die from the cancer because God has elected that they do so.  Proof of God is in the people who show up for us and with us to show solidarity, compassion, empathy, joy– the constant and intentnional message:  You are not alone, punished, invisible.  Our pains are real and undeserved.  We are together and wanting the best possible outcome for each other.

The gods of my first forty; were fear, rage, shame,guilt.  I was full with those, counted on and driven by those, believing only in those things: in abundance and perpetuity.

For some reason, I appear to be the only one in my family of origin for whom this culture did not work.  I thought that was because I was an asshole troublemaker.  Right?  And later, I sure did behave in assholey troubling ways….just doin what I knew, being sorry, punitive, ashamed, angry—the differentiator was that it all made me very sad and I was not taught and did not intuitively know how to cope.

I once had a sponsor who shared the story of a perfect little mama squirrel, who gave birth to a perfect little baby bunny. Mama Squirrel offered Baby Bunny squirrel food while trying to teach it squirrel things.  But Baby Bunny did not respond well to the squirrel way of life.  Frustrated and perplexed, even humiliated–Mama Squirrel labelled Bunny- a defective squirrel.  But see, both creatures were exactly as they were meant to be.  There were similarities but they were mostly incompatible.  Neither was wrong.

While in a state of NO Contact with both my mother and sister, after hearing of my mother’s illness, I relayed this story- not nearly as well as my sponsor had, with them, in hopes of creating a safer environment for us to connect-where nobody had to be wrong or sorry for who and how they were. Almost in unison, they responded:  “What does that have to do with anything?  What are you talking about?”   Apparently this is a parable more well suited for bunnies, as my recovery buddies all understood immediately.

I was a bunny (just trynuh get my bunny needs met), not an asshole.  They are squirrels who treat me as if I am a  naughty, defective squirrel.  I was 100% broken from having bought into that thinking, but I am not defective or naughty(anymore).  I did not EVER earn or deserve mistreatment.  Until we can all agree on this one fact- there is nothing to do but to stay close to the warren and sanctuary of other bunnies and more compatible species.  This is self-preservation, not an imposed sanction or punishment. Now that I know how to care for my bunny self and my bunny children, I do these things, as if our lives depend on it, because they kinda totally do.

I offer this gift to myself and my children…and anyone else clearly invested in being in OUR lives.

All people are worthy of having their needs met, feeling safe, connected, love, and a sense of belonging.  Not one of us is more important or worthy than another.  Not in our warren.  We go where the love is, where it is safe, where we belong, where we feel nourished and protected.  Nothing less will do.  In chosen relationships, this is the standard.  Obviously in the workplace, school, and world at large, we have less control over to what and whom we expose ourselves.

Bunnies and squirrels kick ass, just maybe not together.  Right?

 

Check Your Self- Sometimes You Are the Toxic Person

I love knowing that if I am willing to see where I have failed, hurt, or harmed, I get to learn from and transcend that.  I knew I had to file for divorce as my husband and I were arguing and he said to me, actually declared: “There is nothing wrong with me or the way I do things, I will never change.”  Certain that these were the truest most honest words he had ever spoken to me, I shuddered; wow–if I had to stay the same forever, I would kill myself, right now. Like plants, we are either growing or dying…but maybe for some, growing has more to do with size and power. I am here to learn, grow and change.  What else could be the point? I attributed that to me being effed up and him-not at all.  His emotional vacancy/composure had always confused me for emotional stoicism and maturity.  Either way, our marriage  was officially no longer a promising or safe space for either of us.  Me desperate for change and him committing  to NEVER.

If it is ever safe and prudent, I would love to share with him all of the ways I now see how I was unfair or unreasonable, even unkind.  But I was arrogant and broken mostly believing I too, needed to be right.  More than anything, I needed to be connected and have at least one shared truth between us, besides that “I was the problem and if I found the right tactics, level of horniness, reverence for him and his sisters, therapy, that we would be ok.”  With two little guys watching and learning about life and love from us, I could not abide.  Devastated, I filed for divorce the following day.  I could list countless unfair and damaging things he has said and done to me.  But it will get me no-where.  As I was raised, if you shared those things enough times with enough people, you could get people on your side and be right.  Oh yay.  and then….

In recovery, I learned to look at myself, my patterns, my beliefs, my reactions.  I learned to take responsibility for those things and to no longer assume or accept responsibility for the behaviors of others.  Recovery definitely results in sick relationships dying natural deaths.  When you check yourself and keep your side of the street clean and own your shit, there is nothing to fight about.  And when there is nothing to try to be right about, in these relationships,  it goes silent.  And that is hard AF.  Because unhealthy engagement, for so long, posed as connection.  But it was really entanglement and no longer would be counted for anything but a source of hopeless pain.  I have learned to surrender that entanglement, one day at a time, applying the tools and principles of my program.

Recovery connects me with others on a spiritual path, but also divides me from those too uncomfortable with with the constant and rigorous emotional honestly that is an essential term of engagement.  Emotional honesty: doing wholesome things for wholesome reasons with wholesome attitudes(or maybe even a knowingly unwholesome attitude before you are feeling it but doing it anyway since we can no longer let our feelings lead us).  Emotional honesty is transparency of purpose, full disclosure.  Not everybody is ready for that.  I became ready, only after I watched my marriage to a man, who was nearly identical morally and emotionally to my mother and sister, crumble.  The end became clear as I no longer was willing to fight,pretend, or soldier through sex.  Without those dynamics, there was nothing but resentment and division of labor between us.  This is not how my boys would learn about love, partnership, and marriage.

During our marriage, my husband’s sister’s were in and out of our lives.  This was difficult for him.  Because he submitted to them and I would beg him to stand up for himself or our family and then they would fall out after he expressed a boundary or discontent OR we would fight because he expected me to submit to them.  He has one sister they all pretend does not exist (when they are not discussing all the ways she got herself on the outside of their group).  With 3 aunts taking turns being in and out of their lives, there seemed no good reason to mention to our sons that they had another one here in NC.  Wanting to preserve their innocence and keep them from the reality of conditional love, was doable before divorce and our move East.  Now our sons have 2 conditionally loving aunts on dad’s side and one on mine.  And the one with the soul, whom we were close to while their father and been banished by the two others, is an unmentionable.  It is heartbreaking.  I hope our sons will know her again one day.  She and their dad were very close, growing up, but ultimately, she had less to give him in later years and so aligning with sisters who had more $$ to offer is what he chose.  He could never seem to have his two sisters and me close at the same time.  AND Never the other sister and the two sisters at the same time.  Triangulation is part of his tradition and programming.  I worry how our sons may unknowingly adopt triangulation as a way of managing.   I believe their father is the more evolved of them all.  But change is hard and he feels punished and inferior when he is not being overtly praised and rewarded by those vested with the powers to reward and punish.  I sense, he is at times, for moments, changing for our sons, probably not intentionally, but still.  He needs to be perceived as right, perfect, and in charge or favored.  That opposes every spiritual teaching and all that I value in my core.  I believe in equals and connection, maybe not possible in the world at large or in a  work place, but in chosen relationships, this is a core value.  Authenticity, expansion, unity–Spirit over ego.

Feed the spirit, not the ego.

 

Mental Health–We all have mental health.

It is exhausting to observe people pretending as if we all come into this world with the same chances.  We do not.  Our wiring, brain chemistry, genetics, upbringing, community, talents, strengths, lack of identifiable talent or strength, connection, disconnection.  How can so many people insist that all people should be able to bootstrap their way out of depression? Boot strap your way out of cancer, ok?   To suggest this, is offensive, ignorant, harsh, and perpetuates the shame and stigma.  It is more natural for people to judge and to shame/blame than it is to have compassion and to ask “but what is needed, what can I do?”  If you blame and shame, there is nothing left to do–you are off the hook.

If a woman as educated, talented, happily married, and successful as Kate Spade can not find peace, comfort, hope or reason to hold on for another day, it is worth considering what might be like for those without any of those trappings– shackled and maybe even defined only by mental health issues that are too shameful to  mention and too costly to address.

I believe Kate Spade’s suicide is fueling the much needed dialog around mental health awareness, as much as her talents impacted the world of fashion and style. It is my hunch that millions of women seeking refuge in the illusion of perfection that the impeccable Kate Spade style and brand offer, these are women who may be likely to judge themselves as harshly as they do others.   But, maybe now will come a willingness to consider looking through a new lens; of intentional interest and compassion at those who struggle.

Today at my older son’s  elementary school graduation, I began weeping at the onset of the ceremony, melting as the Special Ed Students received their certifications. The gravity of my compassion and (I admit) gratitude for the fact that our children are functional, felt crushing.  God bless those teachers, parents, and children.  Life is difficult AF—even when you are Sensational Kate Fucken Spade.

I cried at how my innocent lil guy is and how hard he tries at all that he does, so lovable and and, funny, and hardworking.  I cried as he stared directly into his dad’s eyes as he was singing the tribute song.  It was one intensely beautiful moment after another.  I wept and am now spent and I cannot help but wonder how the fuck I made it out of a family who would judge and sneer at my persisting emotional intensity.  Asking me and each other if maybe there may be “something” I can take for THIS.  I feel it all, all of the time.
Being judged, banished, and gossiped about for feeling the wrong things at the wrong times for the wrong reasons really fucked me up.  THEY they claim I am a historical revisionist refusing to remember the good.  But maybe it wasn’t that fucken good for me.  Maybe my experience and wiring are different and not wrong.  I could not experience and enjoy anything because I was terrified about when I might have my next wrong feeling.  For that, I was directed to lighten up, quit being such a sourpuss and frequently asked “Why must you ruin all things?”.
Clearly, I do not relate to any part of Kate Spade’s existence– except for this one very big thing, the daily battle to feel ok and to show up even when I do not.  Sometimes life is too painful and difficult and feels utterly hopeless.  I pray, that as I enter into my 50s, I do not experience the added bonus of hormone intensified anxiety and depression.  I will say this unapologetically, anytime to anyone:  “If there is a pill, therapy, or program that helps to strengthen and support my thrive, count me in.  If there is a person, place or thing that threatens that, count me out.”  I love you Kate spade.  I am sorry for your pain and your struggle and grateful that you have fanned the fires of this conversation.  More people will be willing to look and listen differently now.  NOW–as we acknowledge the loss of another mighty warrior to mental health issues.  Be free.    You dont have to suffer anymore.  You are still helping people and making the world a better place. The world is better because you were here.
All she wanted was to feel pink and sparkly and joyful.

How to Achieve Menschdom by Guy Kawasaki

Mensch–What is a mensch???

The Transformation continues…I never understood the magic of this concept.  So simply and beautifully explained by Guy Kawasaki. Simple tips to living our best lives.  I was raised in a family that boasts brutal honesty, and I note now, more brutality than genuine and pure honesty, because the WHY behind what is said and done, bears as much gravity, if not more, than WHAT we say and do.  Ambiguity and Incongruity have been life long sources of confusion and pain for me.  I am only now learning now of purity of purpose and intent.  For now, my recovery requires I limit proximity to given sources of brutal, incongruous, ambiguous.  I am not yet resilient enough to navigate those but quite skillful at spotting and removing myself from that energy.

Listening to Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki affirming, for me, the things that matter, about being in this world and living a life of intention. Recovery has taught me to seek and to strive for emotional honesty with myself and others; transparency and full disclosure of intentions. Anything less is red flag behavior.  I am a work in progress, unlearning and learning a new, one day at a time.

I love having more language and terminology as points of reference and a compass; more Good Orderly Direction—This↓ from Guy Kawasaki.

“Here is my humble attempt to help you achieve menschdom.

  1. Help people who cannot help you. A mensch helps people who cannot ever return the favor. He doesn’t care if the recipient is rich, famous, or powerful. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t help rich, famous, or powerful people (indeed, they may need the most help), but you shouldn’t help only rich, famous, and powerful people.
  2. Help without the expectation of return. A mensch helps people without the expectation of return–at least in this life. What’s the payoff? Not that there has to be a payoff, but the payoff is the pure satisfaction of helping others. Nothing more, nothing less.
  3. Help many people. Menschdom is a numbers game: you should help many people, so you don’t hide your generosity under a bushel. (Of course, not even a mensch can help everyone. To try to do so would mean failing to help anyone.)
  4. Do the right thing the right way. A mensch always does the right thing the right way. She would never cop an attitude like, “We’re not as bad as Enron.” There is a bright, clear line between right and wrong, and a mensch never crosses that line.
  5. Pay back society. A mensch realizes that he’s blessed. For example, entrepreneurs are blessed with vision and passion plus the ability to recruit, raise money, and change the world. These blessings come with the obligation to pay back society. The baseline is that we owe something to society–we’re not a doing a favor by paying back society.

I hope this helps you become a mensch. No need to thank me if it does–helping you is reward enough–ie, “Don’t menschion it.”

When we behave as mensches, we all win.  Less wholesome vibes result in a winner and a loser. Mensches focus on goodwill, no matter who is watching.  Be a mensch:  Honest, Kind, Fair, Transparent.  Who were your Mensche Models?  Mensches  NOT wenches!?

What is Love?

About 5 years ago, still living in Los Angeles, while driving down 91, we passed a billboard that said I love Compton.  Puzzled, my boys were like “Why would anybody love Compton? ” They had been there a few times for doctors appointments, during our harder times and at times, for my work.  They knew it to be run down, scary-ish.  Many homeless people and loose dogs in need.  That question was such a blessing and opening to a profound conversation.  I surprised myself by being able able to explain to them the difference between liking a person, place, or thing and loving it.  I explained how sometimes we do not like each other one bit, but we always want what is best for each other and value working towards the best possible outcome. That this billboard is paid for by a group of people committed to elevating the quality of life for all people in this struggling community.  Love is a verb and often has little to do with our feelings and more to do with our values.  Love is honest, and kind–it is a way of being in the world.  Some people LOVE tacos or burgers and fast cars.  While we might enjoy these things, we love and care for people, places, and things because it is right and it is our purpose.  Some people run around HATING snakes, bugs, and broccoli.  But we do not hate, maybe just do not prefer.  We do not wish ill on them or need to destroy them.  We hate unkindness and dishonesty.  And yet we can love others(maybe from a safe distance) who behave in these ways.  We belong to each other.  All of us.  Everyone and all living things deserve to have their most basic needs met.  To get in the way of that is spiteful unloving. (more…)

A Letter to My Sons

To My Darling Sons,

Love is a promise, not an emotionIt hurts knowing how I burden you daily with my deep seeded angst from having come from the family, which I do.  And yet, I cannot unhook from it enough to do otherwise.  I fled here/them half my life ago committed to not returning to this and them.  I rarely spoke of my mother and never of my sister because I wanted to spare you the knowledge of the dysfunction from which you come.  But since our relocation to this side of the country and proximity to them, you have not been spared.  You recognized at the onset they were not safe and I am not proud to have bribed and begged you to hug and be physically close to them-hoping pathetically, that if they could fully feeeeel the magic of you…maybe it would soften them.  And that was, in a way, using you.  I never threatened, shamed, or guilted you for not wanting to touch and be touched to but I did encourage something I very much disagree with, unwanted touching.  It is never acceptable or necessary.  EVER.

Choose peace. Work for Peace and Connection.

I was sad and angry in ways that defy articulation, for most of my life, and had been raised to judge that, rather than to examine and heal from it.  With your father’s sisters in and out of his and each other’s lives for years at a time, I did not want you to add anyone to your world who might re-enforce the idea that people will love you and leave you when you displease them.   It is why I waited more than a year to share you with Sweet Greg.  I know beyond doubt, that he will only love you and me, and he will do so unconditionally.  With him, I am 100% certain.  He is safe, wholesome, kind, benevolent beyond words, abnormally so.

While I cannot give you a happier mother and I cannot provide you a different family experience, I hope you will always remember the relationships and loving people I intentionally brought into our lives. I have surrounded you with only deeply trusted others, who would do anything for you and for us as a family. I am so sorry I cannot heal fast enough to spare you my depression and anxiety of more than 40 years.  I am sorry I have leaked on to you the depth of my pain, along with the frequently spoken commitment to make certain I tell you again and again that IT IS NOT YOU.  It is me, my brokenness–and it is THEM.   You did not cause or imagine it and you can not fix it, no matter how  wonderful you are.

Over exposure to people who don’t mind hurting you will break a person.  Please continue believing your gut.  You know what feels good, right, kind, and true.  Your bodies and your spirits know.  Because of life-long debilitating sadness, I have had to learn many things late in life about how to care for myself so I can live a better life and share with you a better way than the one in which I was raised.  To do this, I must have space from those who not only make me sad, but then judge and persecute me for my grieving process.  I am sorry for the loss of your

I believe I began as a very kind and sensitive child. I remained sensitive but learned some very cruel ways of being. So grateful to be unlearning. Breaking the cycle and raising lil love warriors and citizens of humanity.  Stay kind and true, sweet boys.

innocence and the conflict you must face each time THEY choose to gather as if it is normal and loving.  I know it hurts you to participate in the divisive and unwholesome arrangement.  Sadly, your only choices afterwards, are: to keep it from me –which would separate us and weaken our bond or to share it and helplessly witness my reaction of pain.  I have to believe the lessons here are valuable to each of us, at least to those of us open to learning(each of you and me)  I love you so much.  If I could change one thing, it would be my inability to stop myself from suffering, not because I can’t take it but because it costs you when mommy is too tangled up in despair to make room for joy.  How can I lead you into joyful lives when I, myself, cannot model one for you?

I am a work in progress. I love you.  I will make better mistakes today than yesterday.  Tons of them.  I will always be willing to change and do better, and never blame you for who I am or how I handle myself. I am sorry that your families create this conflict and confusion for you.  I am powerless to change that.   I will never give up on changing the things I can.

I treasure how much we laugh together, how much of me you do get to know, our countless and always funny inside jokes, as well as our talks through things that are more difficult than funny.  I hope I don’t ruin that with my despair—since apparently that is how I forfeitted my family of origin.

I do believe that you know whom you can count on and go to with your most precious tender thoughts and fears.  You know who OUR people are.  They are the ones who support us as a family and would do nothing to further divide us. Wholesome benevolent love is much greater than blood.  So sad that your grandmother and two aunts have positioned them selves as walls and not bridges for our little family.  It is all that they know and the best they can do.  It is very hurtful and I wished I could protect you from it.  Because they are entrenched in a culture where there are the excluders and the excluded.  I wish to be neither, just as I wish for you to choose neither.  I understand why your dad works to remain in the good graces of the collective.  I feel bad for him too.  Of them all, he seems the only one with hope to rise above.

I love you.  I will continue, for all of my days changing the things I can and trying to accept the unacceptable and the unchangeable.

Love you,

Mommy

Abuse is Abuse

Sound Familiar? These are Big Red Flag StatementsSound familiar? So, this is my modified version of the Narcissists Prayer. I have re-evaluated my need to label others as addicts or narcissists.  In my attempt to recover, I found myself needing to know “but whyyyyy???”  And the singular answer of “because I suck” is no longer acceptable to me.  My upbringing taught me over decades of collective attitudes and actions, that any harsh treatment of me was either →imagined →fabricated, or →well earned.  And that is 100% deranged and untrue.  AND–It stands to reason that if I am willing to believe I can earn abuse or cause someone else to mistreat me, you know what else I believe…that another person may earn abuse or cause me to mistreat them.  

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A Letter From My Sons

Dear Aunt Catherine,

Spending time with you makes us feel bad; bad about you, bad about our mom, our grandmother, your daughters, and bad about our dad.  Being in the middle stinks.  Upending our family in this way makes you enemy#1–we would have preferred  a different experience of you. Required participation in something that causes our mother pain–  Being made repeatedly to hug and to sit close, while sternly encouraged by our dad to  smile on command also feels awful.  We believe that hugs are reserved for people of trust.  How can we trust someone who does this to our mother, OUR family?  We are just children.  Why would you bring us into this?  Do you have any idea how much pain you bring to everyone but you and our dad?

Also, we find your behavior towards him embarrassing.  We get it.   You like him and want him to like you back.  He probably enjoys spending time with you because you have expensive things and guns  AND it mostly, it feels like another win for him in divorce.  He still enjoys winning, over our mom.  We don’t want him to win or make her lose…we want them to work together as our parents.  We deserve cohesive co-parents.  Right?  Your behavior suggests to us that we do not.

A letter from you to our mother, when after her miscarriage while visiting in 2007, she declined the invite to your trick or treat parade– and you responded with this. Quit dividing people.  Try being kind.  Please.

Your relationship with our dad adds tension between our mother and father and escalates their difficulty to co-parent us as a team.  They are divorced. It is hard enough!  You didn’t even know our dad before our parents awful divorce and our move here.  Developing a relationship with him while not speaking to our mom makes no good sense. It can be explained as nothing wholesome at all.  Purely divisive and hostile, very damaging to our parents as a unit.

Betrayal. He likes to spend time with you, because he does not know anyone here in Charlotte and you are the only woman consistently fawning over him.  Maybe if you left him alone, he would meet someone.  With your

daughters, we can not feel close to them because our energy goes entirely into pretending that we are behaving as normal and loving.  And why must we, talk to you– but your daughters not to our mom?   It all seems very intentionally mean-spirited- spiteful.  Bullyish.  We are reprimanded when we don’t smile and act happy FOR you, so we do our best to please our dad which means performing for you…then we go home feeling crummy about it– to a mother who tries and mostly fails to accept what is happening.  All she would like is to be able to parent us with our dad without added stress.

Your mom is yours.  You belong to each other.  We get it.  Go Be family.  Enjoy.

You possibly think you are creating closeness for us with you and our grandmother.  Maybe you honestly cannot see how it is not possible for us– to feel love and connection with people who divide our tiny family further and whom don’t mind alienating and wrecking our mom.  Her greatest fear is that we will grow up believing that it is ok for brothers/siblings/family to do things of this nature—to anyone.

Make things right with our mother or let US be.  Any connection to our dad’s family is totally inappropriate.  Our mother deserves peace.  Anyone thinking otherwise, is not genuinely interested in loving US.  Please.  Just stop.  Just because you can do a thing, does not mean you should do it.

You can do better.  We cannot.  We don’t get a choice.  You are hurting us.  Respect us enough to STOP.

FROM: Our mother’s sons