The patterns I still carry, the ways old experiences can show up in the present, and my effort to sort out what I am remembering from what is actually happening now. Recovery, pattern recognition, regulation, and slowly gathering new evidence.
Things I struggle with—all special days. Mother’s Day reminded me of the last time I sat with my mother and sister. I have a framed picture from that dinner, which I sometimes want to smash with a hammer. It was Mother’s Day, four years ago. I had been invited to a graduation dinner three weeks in advance—on the same night we already had tickets to a concert. Sweet Greg bought the tickets in February as a Valentine’s gift. They had…
In my family of origin, people seemed to get ranked by intellect and like mindedness (or different mindedness). There were decent people(worthy of kindness and respect) -- highly credentialed and like minded. And then everyone else: "morons and sons of bitches"---that is how people were frequently categorized. Morons were people of non-superior intellect as well as anyone foolish enough to inconvenience us by being themselves rather than who we needed for them to be. Sons of bitches were those who did and believed all…
Most of us (if only a little) are impressed by fine clothes, cars, homes, overall attractiveness, and status. -Totally normal to unconsciously attach meaning to what we see and to feel influenced by a desire for nice things. When a person holds a position of trust or authority and/or appears well put together, we feel influenced, readily accepting their gossip information as truth and an adequate basis for judgment. For example, there is an inherent assumption of credibility by children-- for family, clergy, police,…
So interesting, I enjoyed a wonderful day off work all to myself and then, while relaxing with an audio book, I was reminded of the crippling self doubt on which I was raised. Before finding the rooms of recovery at age 40, I had always deeply believed in my own unworthiness: that the world (particularly my angry brown non-Christian family and my angry white Christian community) would be better off without me, did not want me, and was rooting against…
