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.
I remember feeling amazed to learn that there is a different formulation for chemotherapy depending on the type of cancer. I thought there was just a Chemo Recipe, and you got more of it or less of it depending on how advanced or widely spread the cancer was. I was also surprised to learn that where the cancer is found, is not necessarily the type of cancer it is. For example, my mother’s cancer was found in her lungs, but it originated in her ovary, so it was Ovarian Cancer and required the correct chemicals to effectively address it, it was not lung cancer, ever. In her lungs is where it made itself known. If her Treatment Team had not been dedicated and expert at understanding the source, they may have been less effective at addressing it so completely, leaving her Cancer-Free in barely 6 months of treatment for Stage 4 Ovarian Cancer. If they had just treated it as the cancer they first saw in the lungs, as lung cancer, it would never have been cured. They had to name it(correctly) to tame it! (more…)
If you don’t like Christmas, thats okay. You are not alone, or a bad person. People who make you feel like a bad person are bad people.
Shit. Shit. Shit. It is that time of year in which I relive the feelings of fear and anxiety that for me, have defined special and family occasions. It was beyond painful not getting to believe in God or Santa or the Easter bunny, not having fun or meaningful traditions with my mother and family. An utterly faithless existence, really nothing to count on but shame and guilt for being too tense, too skinny, too hungry, too needy, too clumsy, too brown, and angry about being unable to change or deny it all. And then— to still be all those shitty ways on special days in which you are supposed to be and feel all precious and secure and amazing, well that was just a fucken crusher too. So, there is that haunting trauma that I face each year from October through January…that deep longing and awful knowing that if I had been good enough or worthy, my birthdays and holidays might have been different…like the ones that people who are loved and lovable have. right? But guess what recovery teaches me. My mother’s inability to love me is a reflection of her and of course it affected me mentally and emotionally and shaped how I would be in the world—I will grieve that, but no longer take responsibility for it. As I have said, one of my more pronounced failures was that I was not a gracious and mellow abuse getter. My natural reaction was to become an infernal hurricane — a firestorm. (more…)
If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn. If children live with hostility, they learn to fight. If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive. If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves. If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy. If children live with jealousy, they learn what envy is. If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty. Conversely: If children live with tolerance, they learn to be…
Count your blessings if you find any peace and joy at all from being with family, ever. Because for those of us who do not, it is very painful. Holidays illuminate this for US, and do not undo or magically heal the decades of #abuse and #betrayal. When someone, especially a family member, watches you get the beat down and says and does nothing, the beat down goes from betrayal to slaughter. ?A part of you, so deep inside, that wants to hope…
