You better watch out, better not cry, better not pout

Better Not Cry- Better Not Pout

From my earliest days, my high sensitivity to sensory and emotional impact (and therefore differing needs) were identified as trouble-making, a betrayal, a burden, a lack of gratitude, shameful, punishable.  I see now how I presented as the ideal scapegoat, the youngest, the most sensitive, the least able to abide by the optic.  My Grandmother and Uncle frequently warning me how I should smile more and I would be prettier, why must I LOOK so miserable?  These impositions were not born out of a concern for my peace, comfort, joy, mental health.  Rather, requirements to appear happy were to fulfill the needs of others and to insure my belonging.  My inability to do that—to serve in that way, caused the most amount of trouble for me. Our family lore will present this differently and that is OK.  I share only my own experience here.  

I dont super love Christmas music but, like trauma, song lyrics stick with you – and that inside knowing and memory just kicks in— and you sing along without even meaning to.  This morning, for the first time, I noted these lyrics (which we sing without too much thought)–how relevant they are to my struggle and recovery.  “Better not pout, better not cry.”

I now recognize my pain and discomfort from not only being deeply sensitive and, not knowing how to cope or manage the sustained overwhelm, compounded by panick over the price to be paid for failing to effectively mask– to pass for a comfortable, satisfied, secure child—reflective of a healthy home and loving environment.  At a very unconscious level, I recognized and stressed that if I did not lighten tf up, I would pay the high and humiliating price of observable banishment, alienation, and shitty and few gifts.

My discomfort was not the problem but the symptom of unwellness in our family system.  It is intensely painful to recall how my sister would gain traction off of me by seeing to it that I had something to fret-  A belittling comment or cruel threat which only I could hear.  She literally thrived in my despair- and insured for herself in this way that she may shine by comparison.  She enjoyed privately setting me on fire and then also heroically show up as a first responder to point out and tend to the fire.

Today is in fact beautiful(and deeeply painful still) because I spend it with my best friend of fifty years am welcome to be exactly who and how I am. I am tormented though— as I recall not only “family” Christmases past, but also recent ones in which my sister and my sons’ father dedicated effort to arrangements which would alienate my sons from me.  I can not imagine what they had hoped to come of their scheme- how they thought it would play out and with zero regard for the continued cost my sons get to pay– the fall out of their unholy alliance, and elsiting my sons in acts of betrayal to their mother.  What did they think that would do for or teach my sons? 

Who even does that-  Woman survives high conflict marriage and divorce.  Big Sister meets ex-husband post divorce.  And promptly aligns with him to collectively diminish and erase her sister.  There is no other way to spin that.  Seriously. I wished I could forget and just smile so Santa could at last validate me with the gifts and the glory, reserved for the happy and smiling.  Fuck that santa, though.

Holding On– But also letting go

I suspect that I am the only one in my entire lineage (and also the lineage of the person I married and divorced)— able and willing to self reflect and to ask myself, repeatedly:  What could I have done differently for a better outcome?  This may be typical for scapegoats and cycle breakers, and those who have been taken down by narcissists. I get that I am the common variable in each of those systems, and also, it is well documented that trauma survivors seek out people with whom they can relive the familiar dynamic.  Just as loved, nurtured, protected people choose more more of the same for themselves.

To the best of my understanding, my crime was in my failure to kiss the ring and agree to matter less than those who were able and comfortable to do harmful and destabilizing things to those who dissent.

So, what if I am intense, weird, dramatic, desperate, irritating, disappointing, challenging, too sensitive, demanding, needy, crazy, and an overall garbage human?  Which I am not.  Do I matter less?  Is it then ok to systematically work to disable, banish, erase me?  

Ok,  I am definitely some of those things, but could I turn an otherwise kind benevolent and transparent person to do evil and shady shit? I just dont beleive I am that powerful?   My refusal to pretend and to be diminished….is not a crime.  What have I actively done or chosen which qualified me for the highest levels of betrayal? Anguished. I long to know the exact misrepresentations which have been offered as justification for doing the dirtiest and most devastating things.  

Holidays are difficult for survivors. They have alllllways been hard for me. Scary. Painful. I guess the good news is–My pain is historcial and my present circumstance is in fact pretty great, yet I am not able to relax and enjoy. Cuz depression and C-PTSD. How wonderful it would be if letting go of pain was a one and done event, rather than one day at a time. Trauma recovery is like addicition and eating disorder recovery, we get to do it one day at a time —forevvvvvvver.

As always, I will note that I was terrified and unhinged with no coping skills for the first 40 years of my life and I defintley made many hurtful and horrifying choices. I have been owning and amending my broken ass thinking and behavior and would like to boast that I have not done a super fucked up thing TO anyone for 15 years…and I am proud of that. As evidenced by my consistent herculean efforts to resist the urge to retalliate. I do NOT consider sharing what I have lived through to be a form of retaliation.

Goals, Ambition, Mental Health

I’ve been thinking lately about life in survival mode, how it prevented me from setting and working toward/achieving goals. And turns out: Goal achievement plays a large part in mental health and wellness. So, that adds right tf up. The only thing I’ve ever intentionally and consistently worked at and became skillful at, may be my more elevated response to (people) things which have been harmful.

With recovery principles, I no longer allow moods or feelings to justify hurtful choices or reactions, not by me and not by others. I am so fkn proud of my understanding that the intention or reason behind a behavior does not mitigate its negative impact. This shift, so far from what I had been trained to believe about accountability, connection, and goodness, is freaking miraculous.

So basically, my self esteem is at its highest, after someone has hurt me and I have exercised recovery principles over reactive defense or retaliation. And, while it is rewarding, it, in no way, elevates the overall quality of life or hope for a future in which I feel more inspired than exhausted.

As I observe continued (justified) acts of terror by inidviduals and groups, I feel wrecked by what seems an aboslute impossiblity for a shared vision and plan for peace, with any faction dedicated to “their own rightness, winning, and claiming that to which they feel entitled”. There is a heaviness in my soul, over the growing practice of tactical labelling / designating a person or group of people, so as to demonize/dehumanize and license abuse/marginaliztion, and eradication. I know it starts at home, but when and where does it end?

Why must Earth life be so difficult?!?

How Do I Handle This?

The one thing I have most needed to know how to handle, is myself.  I am finally learning to do this– with love and compassion.  Only in recovery, have I been encouraged and taught to navigate and cope with difficult feelings and people.  With the fixed mindset that I was responsible for all bad behavior and words spoken to, about, or near me, I was always on the verge of, or mid- panic/mental breakdown.  I could be counted on to behave like a complete lunatic when faced with stress:  dishonesty, an unkind word, betrayal, dismissal, and most any situation which caused me to feel threatened, ashamed and powerless.  With my volatile vibe and explosive responses, nearly anyone could get away with treating me poorly or unfairly, since my insanity insured  a stealing of the spotlight, taking a person promptly off the hook for foul play.  My unfortunate reactions made it not only possible, but likely and easy for people to righteously demean me. ?? When I stopped reacting, those ☠️relationships, which relied on my sick engagement, ceased.  Old habits and relationships die ⚰️hard.  I let them die—so I can live.

As I write this, as when I do most things, I hear voices of those who neeeeed for me to BE wrong and sick in order that they feel right, good, and well.  As if their only source of traction relies on a contrast to ME.  Those voices are all:  “Oh yeh, poor Magda, as if she is/was some sort of angel snowflake, sooo precious.”  Anyone who genuinely knows me, also knows that I absolutely do not intend to convey a life of absolute innocence.   I neither deny nor make excuses for the less than stellar ways which I have been.  As a result of feeling intensely emotionally charged 24/7, negatively charged, I said and did unreasonable, unkind, and dishonest things.  Fuck, it is all I knew.  I had witnessed neither mercy nor grace (the spiritual kind, not a poised and carefully curated appearance).  When we know better, we do better.  I am learning, a work in progress. (more…)

The Pain We Do Not Heal(re-post from 2018)

Recovery has been a wildly unpopular choice—quite agitating to those threatened by the idea that there is something wrong—other than only my existence.  My healing has been labelled a lie, a show, an attack, a war, a story to get attention. I hear this frequently from others in recovery-“Recovery is a deal-breaker and a relationship ender for those with a need for us to stay sick, sad, broken, afraid, and ashamed.” Those are deals worth breaking. The relationships will either heal along with us or they will die natural (but painful) deaths. Are you ready to feel and heal? Nothing like the gift of desperation—the lightning bolt moment in which it becomes unbearably clear that IT cannnot continue. For me, becoming a mother and experiencing the full gravity of two little ones learning about love and family by observing and experiencing US, as we were-that was my invitation to heal. I will not carry on the lies and legacies of dynamics which rely on shaming, shunning, and contracting to cull the herd.  I will not pass that on.

I believe in a better story for my children.  I choose to learn and do better.

“Pain travels through family lines until someone is ready to heal it in themselves.  By going through the agony of healing, you no longer pass the poison chalice onto the generations that follow.  It is incredibly important and sacred work”

It stops here. I realize that I regularly share about my loveless family and marriage experiences. But today, I recognize how they are Godless more than loveless. I think that making this distinction could alleviate some of the pain. The brand of love and family which I was raised on and then went on to marry, conflicts with all of my basic needs and core truths. Requirements to be revered(as one might a god or ruler), in control, and at the center, made no allowances for personal differences & preferences,healthy curiosity, open communication, intimate/safe/healthy and sustainable connection.  It was killing to my soul and spirit.

Has anyone ever attempted to be your god, not as a source of protection, hope, and comfort—but as THE ONE in charge of punishment and rewards based on how you please them and accommodate their moods and preferences?  —entirely self propelled by pride, ego, agenda. ☠️ Spiritual Recovery teaches me all of the ways in which I need a God-centered life more than I need “that”. It is the choice, I have been left to make. Repeatedly. Get on board or pay the price— after you fuck off. I have not been allowed to fuck off in peace. I have tried. There is no peace with people like this. Capitulation or Reprisal. That manner of engagement is not for me nor my children. We will not abide. Love is the boss of us. We are less afraid of the disapproving and wrathful than we are of losing ourselves. Here is a fun saying I heard recently—“God is god and I am not”  (and neither are you!!) (more…)

If you can’t convince them, confuse them(re-post)

In between wrapping gifts and singing along to Country Christmas, I am taken down by the grief of my sister and my mother, the reality of how they smash and grab– seizing what they want, as they like.  I received the email below, following my direct request to postpone one Sunday dinner– until WE resolve some tensions. 

(more…)

A Different Kind Of Sex(re-post)

So, before divorce and finally sweet Greg, I had experienced sex as an act necessary to make a relationship less shitty (or as a thing to do when intoxicated and lonely, with a stranger, even one who literally was possibly not even kind to me).  Sex out of fear and obligation was easier, as a blackout drinker.  But when I met the man I would marry, I stopped drinking altogether, because I hated him (hated how I felt in his presence—but it was sooo familiar and isnt that frantic tension what some of us come to know as true connection-chemistry) and I tended to more readily speak the most inconvenient and unwelcome truths when drinking.  Also– I wanted that relationship to be the missing piece to the puzzle of my broken family. They like to say the only breakage is me. I am broken– the one born a bad apple. I for shore did get broken.

We married pretty quickly because we both(I assume) sensed if we did not get to it, we would breakup, where marriage could make us last forevvvvver.  Oh yay.  And then I could finally be legitimate and spoken for and figure out with him, what I had not been able to with my sister and my mother.  And then– bring that wisdom to those similarly tragic relationships, where we could finally be a healed and connected family.

Well, that is not at all what happened.  I literally repeated the same corrosive, soul killing patterns with him which I had learned in my family.  Whatever the family narrative about me was, it perpetuated itself in my marriage.  I carried on that exact role.  AND — When I was not useful or if I had a need or a feeling, I was not welcome. Like an old glove, it fit and validated what I knew about love and believed about my worthiness. Now, I understand though, if it feels familiar and deeply recognizable— it is probably not good/healthy for me. I learned many things I am now getting to unlearn in the name of mental health. It is tiresome living always in contrary action. If I naturally think it or want it or feel pulled toward a thing, that is my cue….to step back and check what about it feels all of those ways and what I might do instead of what my programming begs me to do.

So, around a year after filing divorce, I began dating a similar but slightly elevated version of my ususal type.  He was sober. He had his own money and was very generous(in that way, only).  We had what I recognize now as fun sex, a giant improvement from what I had known, but always on his terms.  While staying at a fancy hotel, for a work event,  in Orange County (where he lived), he visited me for lunches, in my room.  One day, he got stuck at a work thing.  But I had my dials set to have the sex.  I thought to myself: now that I have mastered enjoying sex and not doing it for love or approval, I wonder if it is possible to have decent sex with my ex.  I called him immediately, with no pause between thought and action.(I am thrilled by this and not the least bit ashamed)  I told him that I had learned to have sex for enjoyment and without the need for approval or promise for more and wondered if we could ever do it again, like for the sake of science, Like if I did not need for him to love, tell the truth or be kind, was it possible to just have a good roll with a man whom I had only experienced disappointing sex. 

Note: We were not on civil or even speaking terms when I dialed his number to pose my inquiry. He was not amused.  Whatever, I was feeling a lil sex fiendy and bold that day. Plus—the hotel room–Whatever. So, it is not my most dignified move, but I dont waste time trying to appear poised or overly concerned with the disapproving. Plus it was fun letting him know about the pleasurable sex I was finally having.

I am relieved that he did not oblige.  I would definitely regret having done that with him.  One of the great parts of divorce was THE knowing I would never HAVE to be touched by him again.  No amount of obligatory sex with a man who thought so little of me, was ever going to help our marriage be less shitty.

When the last of my money from my home sale was gone and I was no longer willing to soldier through unwanted sex, he declared that he was finished pretending to even try. He promised to never change- the only promise he ever kept and possibly the truest thing he ever said. I was no longer useful to him.

The discard. The silencing. The denying. The efforts to erase me. In front of and to include our young sons. Of all of the actual choices and decisions I have made, I have not made one so damaging to anyone, as what was schemed by my sister and this man, who included my sons in their spiteful, cruel, sneaky, righteous agenda. THERE IS No excuse! Unwell thinking is the only thing which could have made that arrangement seem like a good one. What sort of human persues a relationship with their sister’s ex to make difficulty for her? It literally broke all codes of decency. Girl code, sister code, mom code, family code—all of the codes—-talk about broken !! JiBROlan Catherine Ghoneim Whitney Catherine G Whitney Fayetteville Charlotte NC

NOW: When my teen boys and I discuss sex,drugs and alcohol, my only real wisdom for them is: “Please only experiment and engage alcohol, drugs and sex with and near people whom you absolutely trust and feel safe with.” That is my direction for safe sex and drug experimentation. Love yourself enough! My family’s low opion of me became my own and throwing myself away was all I could think to do–that AND hope to be lucky enough to maybe just find someone who might use me.

Though my ex and sister did not know each other while we were married, they each realized that when my mother rescued me from his financial withholding and sabotage, they both suffered. My sister feeling the loss of money, she felt entitled to, and him feeling stung because he could not sink me. Plus they both get super agitatey over people openly unimpressed, unafraid and also not dependent on their approval. Their alliance was as predcitable as it was nasty. Approaching the anniversary of the first time they gathered without me, this time of year will always be painful- with my son’s birthday as the reminder(I am sure he appreciates that). The terror of having people in close inescapable proximity, who are actively and intentionally harmful to me, can be a lot. Heavy. And the effect of them on my sons is beyond.

Public Service Announcement

So, in recovery, I get to practice not telling people about themselves, under any circumstance, with the exception of my children. This, I can not yet resist, even when I’d like to. Like, unless I am a person’s manager and trying to help them develop, there really is no wholesome reason to do so. In recovery, I also get to learn to NOT (participate in or enable) gossip, which means when someone upsets me, not only do I tell them, when to do so is constructive and necessary, I shall not seek comfort and alliance by detailing for others the wrongs I feel were committed. Avoiding gossip feels easier for me than resisiting urge to enlighten a person–LOL. There are times when I must discuss an upset in order to process it, I share with a trusted other, with the purpose and intent: to work through it and to find relief and acceptance. Acceptance, being, I accept that the thing happened and also that I am powereless over it and dont fucken like it.

So with my painful haircut situation, I am struggling. Like maybe I do not publicly post about his conduct, but share photos of my hair before he handled me, the picture of what I requested, which he agreed to, and the photos of his results. I feel I owe it to women in my area. It is both the most and the least I can do.

I share here about hurtful schemes and maneuvers by my sister and the father of my boys, mostly about my sibling for reasons similar to why I will in fact post my experience with this local stylist. I’d bet money that since I began sharing about her unwholesome affiliation with my sons’ father, that she has begun treating each of her sister in laws and her one niece better (less alienating) than she had for the previous two decades, like being watchful of her step– As well as my aunt and any one with whom she works. I still cringe as i think of her glee-filled story about a woman named Allison whom she enjoyed shunning and reducing and then shrieked with laughter when Allison crashed her car into an ambulance on her last day of work.

Surely, it would feel less comfortable and safe to attempt, in any way to systematically diminish, undermine and shit-talk people(who frustrate her), as she has before…I know the details —only because of her smug sharing of them, with me, as either recreational(for her) gossip or as an intended warning shot to me. Either way, while I was unable to spare myself or my children, others may now benefit a reduced probability of similar underhanded mis-treatment by her. There are likely better ways to do this, but for now, it is the best I can do. Creating a detailed account of my experience of her behaviors is a public service.

I can’t undo or unknow the damage(to more than just my hair) by the stylist, I will do my part to prevent a similar upset for someone else. At first, I felt fearful and ashamed. Like awwww—poor Maggie—the common variable in all of her own pain. Because that is what abusers groom you and others to believe. It is factual that abused people frequently continue to show up for and stay for abuse. It is not a coincidence. Equally true– Even if I were a giant piece of shit, I do not cause or earn or deserve abuse. There is one thing that makes a person abuse… ***that they are an abuser. Only an abusive person would disagree. Jilan Catherine Ghoneim Whitney

And to clarify, before recovery, I too practiced abusive behaviors–exactly as I had learned, fully believing that if a person was upsetting or displeasing enough, that they earned and deservedcaused me to do or say the harmful things. Like I 100 percent was confident that: My harmful actions were brought on only BY THEM. They were responsible!

It is what I knew. I have not chosen to do or say abusive things for 13 years– since learning to do better…not deliberately, anyway. I have surely reacted in harmful ways and promptly made necessary amends. Reactions are hard to manage. Fortuantely, I have a spritual practice which teaches and allows me to amend and move on. My decision to recover from and object to the ways of my sister was a highly unpopular one. Which is fine, as I am not one to hustle for preference or popularity.

Shame and Guilt and Fear

Shame and Guilt and Fear for openly wanting or needing more or different from what is being provided…. It never ends. I waited days to share with Favorite, the details my haircut/abuse because it seems too outrageous, not believable. As with all of my family heartache and struggle, I was always reported to have imagined, exaggerated or caused it.

So I forwarded my post to Favorite because I need her to always know everything, particulalry the more horrifying and painful parts of my life, which beg for me to get small and feel ashamed.

Her immediate response was that she was sorry and the insistence that I blow him up on Yelp and FB and all social media with details of his conduct. I believe photos of my hair alone would damage him. Literally, my son could have done a better job, with his non-dominant hand. I will post nothing for fear of blowback. I saw a few months ago, that Baylor(the stylist) had “liked” me on match.com and wonder now, if he behaved in those ways and fucked up my hair to punish me, put me in my place. After all, who tf do I think I am? Right?

I am feeling very tormented over not only the way I now look, but also, that I still have not managed to recover the parts of myself which would allow me to feel sure that I am safe and worthy and deserve better. I am so tired of the punishers and will never stop feeling crushed by almost my entire family ghosting me for reasons I may never know (definitely to put me in my place((out)) and to show me my worth((lessness))). That is what this brought up for me. Today is a hard day. I think they would be pleased, smiling amongst themselves, nodding in agreement, “serves her right”. Fuck that and them.