No Contact

It is Not About You

My sister would frequently snap:  “Not everything is about you” when I expressed anything difficult or needing.  And it made me confused in a sad and shameful way. Like it never addressed anything but the collective need for me to shut up and be different.  Under the guidance of my older sister, parents, and extended family I failed to learn about me, myself, in relation to whom I am, only in relation to how pleasing or displeasing they found me to be, mostly the latter. For example, my birthday gifts and foods weren’t about me, weren’t on my list of things I liked or wanted. I was informed that those were expressions of whom they were and what they wanted to share with me and that I should be grateful…yet their raging and diminishing behaviors were purely about me AND I should remain unaffected. I still do not really get it.  I have stopped trying–as that made me want to not live. (more…)

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Name it To Tame it

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…)

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Winners Change and Grow, Staying the Same is for the Others

I honestly had such flawed thinking and attitudes growing up.  I often felt the victim and would lash out, because in my experience with my family, I heard over and over how I made other people do and say bad things.  So naturally it stands to reason that, well, when I am forced into misconduct, it is also the fault of someone else.  Right?  Ugh.  Horrifying to look at– but so amazing to see how far I have come and what I have unlearned and managed to impart to my sons. I have been able to develop a boundary for myself to keep myself safe from attitudes towards me that are unfair, unkind, and diminishing to me.  I learned to take care of myself.  Finally.

There were no clear, consistent boundaries or routines discernible to me in my childhood home and family life.  This was confusing for me and, I believe, played a role in inhibiting me from developing vision and purpose in my life.  It prevented me from knowing what I wanted and liked.  Sustaining a state of perpetual vigilance and shame–I pinballed through life running from pain and blame and chasing anything resembling connection, without learning healthy coping, thriving, or promising relationship skills. (more…)

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It’s That Time of Year

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…)

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