What Is that smell? Could it be bullshit?
Transparency is on my mind lately, probably always will be at the fore front after a lifetime of gaslight experiences, always being told that I am not the best narrator of my own emotional and physical experience. Now, the values of clarity, directness, transparency, benevolence are at the top of the list of qualities required for “trusted other” status. These things remain static regardless of mood or desire. Recovery teaches me that catering to erratic moods and desires is not my job, and it is impossible to do with or for people who are not even emotionally honest about their actions and motivations and natural consequences. (more…)
Waking up kid-free, people free, day off, with only my dogs and an invitation to join trusted others without a requirement to do so is niiiice. The fact is I need lots of people-free time to recover. Not to recover from the people I love(ok, well maybe a little from them) but to recover so that I have something good to give them, not just my 48 years of fatigue. I have been learning about trauma. A reality that is taboo, too obscene and scandalous to speak of, yet honest dialog is essential for healing, no matter how many decades have since passed. Time does not heal shit. Truth does. The knowledge of our experience is stored in our bodies. 
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.