Posts exploring family scapegoating, golden child dynamics, sibling betrayal, protected family roles, triangulation, and the ways family systems can organize around one person as the problem while protecting another.
And so I rise from godless, shame-filled decades of anger and despair as I learn and recover from the traumatic effects of the covert abuse dynamics. I am developing faith…
FOOD & TRUTH–Two things I was starved and desperate for, much of my life. Naturally, I developed food and trust issues which manifested in some pretty destructive ways. Living in a perpetual state of fear, uncertainty, and hunger will drive some very desperate thinking. Being frightened and hungry also made it difficult to fully get adequate rest. Like Winnie the Pooh says “going to bed with a full head and an empty stomach” is rough. So then, throw sleep deprivation in the mix within a home, pulsing with unspeakable rage and shame—what a mess. My inability to manage was viewed as the problem rather than the symptom– typical in these arrangements. I was the canary, scapegoat, black sheep. (I will add here, that truth can be subjective. However, TRUST is what I offer my boys truth and trust- stability.) My experience, coming up in the world doubting myself and all others, especially those I counted on. That was a difficult row to hoe. The way we live and love, in our home, is rooted in immense trust in each other and faith in goodness. This way of living, loving, and parenting is one of the many miracles of recovery. (more…)
Our attitudes are usually conveyed to other people by what we say and do–and how, if the attitudes really reflect what we feel. Gentle actions and soft, courteous words may only counterfeit our true feelings. We may even think we have overcome resentment, self-righteousness and self-pity, but if they are still there inside us, they will in some mysterious way emanate from us and deny what we try to convey by our play-acting.
Some people won't love you, no matter what you do. Some people won't STOP loving you, no matter what you do. Go where the love is. Unlearning, reparenting myself, redefining…