MY DANCE WITH ANGER

Years ago, before therapy, I would tell folks that, "I never get angry".  And I'd mean it.  There were only 1 or 2 incidents in my whole life in which I had raised my voice to anyone.  I couldn't remember a time when I had even openly disagreed with a person.  It wasn't my style.  "I was just an easy-going person". 

However....whenever my therapist heard me say this, I'd get a raised eyebrow, a small smile, and sometimes the comment that, on the contrary, I was a very angry person.  I didn't argue with him (because, as we all know, therapists can see into our souls), but I totally disagreed with him.  I really never felt anger! I just didn't get "mad" 

So........from early childhood, I had been raped, abused, lied to, and manipulated by those whom I should have been able to trust...and I felt no anger!  How could this be?  Why didn't I feel this most understandable emotion? 

One of the reasons is that anger, as well as other strong emotions, was forbidden in my family.  In our household, only a "bad" person showed strong emotions, and only a foolish or stupid person strayed from the family paradigm.  In either the case, the punishment was to be shunned, rejected, and ridiculed.  Even as adults, all of my siblings and I get extremely uncomfortable around boisterous or outspoken people.

Of course, the anger was inside of me.  It manifested itself as sarcasm, "sniping," secretiveness, manipulation, self harm, and sickness.  I was passive-aggressive.  I would guard myself against intimacy and maintain a secret world, hidden even from my own conscious mind, of mistrust, anger, hatred, fear, and silence.  I would look for people's weaknesses so I would have a bit of power over them if I felt threatened.  I was a very angry woman!  It was very difficult for me to admit to this and to and accept this side of myself.  It brought a lot of shame and a lot of fear.  Anger equals bad, right?  If I was angry, I must be bad.  The old family rule. 

Slowly, I learned about degrees of anger and how to manage my feelings and how to allow ever stronger emotions into my comfort zone.  I learned that to be angry at someone is not to hate or despise them.  The emotion of anger passes, it can be resolved. 

I still have a tendancy to turn my emotions inward and to keep my opinions to myself, and I pay for that physically.  My immune system doesn't like that at all!  But, I'm learning.  Most of the time, I like myself just fine.  I even admire myself at times.  I would no longer characterize myself as an angry person. 

But now, unlike before, sometimes I just get mad......for a while. :-) 

Looking in the Mirror

While watching a show on TV this evening I was reminded of a conversation I had with my therapist a few years ago.  I made some off-hand remark about being old and he, in typical fashion, asked if I was afraid of aging.  I told him no, I wasn't afraid of getting old - in fact, I planned to live to a ripe old age as my relatives have been wont to do.  I told him, however, that when I looked in the mirror and saw myself as a "mature" woman instead of a young and beautiful girl, I invariably felt ugly and unlovable.  I said that, as a child and young woman, I had  come to believe that my only value was in my beauty and youth. If I wasn't young and attractive, I was of no value at all - I was nothing. 

It was, and is today, still jarring to see my reflection in the mirror. 

I know that being "selected" by my father and the minister, being used by them to satisfy their own needs, is what brought my young mind to these conclusions.  What I wonder about now is, why have I held so doggedly to those "lies" all these years, after so much introspection, therapy, and healing.  I know the truth -that I am innately beautiful just being myself - so, why is it so hard to let the old ideas go and embrace the truth?

Am I afraid? 

I don't think so. 

I think I'm just "comfortable."  I know that sounds silly but don't we always tend to stay with what we know?  I know that it will take effort to change my perceptions of myself.  Every day I must look in the mirror and make peace with what I see - admire my attributes, forgive my shortcomings, and claim MY SELF.  It's the same with other feelings and perceptions (lies) that were fed to me as truth by my abusers.  It takes work to move away from them and toward the truth.

So, am I lazy?

I don't think so,

In order to survive as a child, I withdrew inside myself and made the best of a bad situation.  I didn't fight, I didn't think, I didn't feel.  So now, I have to learn how to fight.  I have to use my mind and my energy and my emotions to notice and challenge the lies that I took to be truths.  I'm not afraid and I'm not lazy.  But, now and then, I have to shake myself out of my comfort zone and break down the lies and learn to live in my own truth.

I write these feelings as an encouragement to myself, and also as an encouragement to others. I suspect that these struggles are common to all survivors of abuse and trauma.  Fighting for the truth my be difficult at times, but it's sooooo much better than being lost in the lies.  Hang in there with me - we're not alone - and it's worth it!

Avoiding What I Want and Need

Did you ever start out to do some"dreaded" task and then get sidetracked by a completely different chore, like cleaning out a closet or straightening up your music CDs?  I think we've all done that at some time or another.  It's perfectly natural .  We put off the thing we don't want to do by substituting another useful job in its place. 

I've just become aware of something in myself that's related to this idea.  I was recently encouraged to ask myself what I really wanted - what I wanted to be, to do, to become. I had never really asked that question before. I had always asked what others wanted for me.  I had tried to measure up, to be adequate, to produce what was expected.

So, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and consulted my inner self .  Here's what I came up with.  My body is built to be sturdy and strong.  I want to be that.  I have a playful, curious spirit. I want to play and explore, to make things and do things. My personality is one of giving, caring, listening, supporting.  I want to be that.  I want to draw and paint.  I want to write.  I want to be calm and centered.  I want my own personal beauty to show through.

However, although I love baked fish and fresh veggies, I choose to eat pizza, snacks, and massive amounts of sweets.  My "strong and sturdy" body is overfed, underexercised, and plopped in front of the computer for hours on end.  Instead of taking the time to draw or write, I watch TV with my husband in order to "be with him" - a noble idea, but one he does not require.  I make excuses to my friends when I'm invited out.  I declare myself too busy or too tired to explore new activities.  In other words, I'm replacing what I WANT FOR MYSELF with meaningless or harmful activities.  WHY???

Have I given my real desires the label of  "dreaded tasks?"  Sort of. 

More accurately, I think I have labeled them as "you don't deserve this" or "only bad people want things for themselves" or "you're being selfish" or "you have no right to be yourself."  So, for all these years, I've muddled along instead of enjoying my life. I was believing and internalizing dreadful lies which caused me to fight against myself and deny myself  what I needed and wanted. 

Thinking about what I really wanted for myself was a new experience for me.  I suspect that many (most?) people affected by childhood sexual abuse or other forms of trauma have felt this way.  But, once we see the lies, we no longer need to accept them.  How to challenge these deep-set beliefs?? I think that the strongest way to attack them is by concentrating on the truth.  I'm going to remind myself daily of the things that I really want for myself.  I may have to close my eyes and look inward again each time in order to know the truth, but I'm willing to do that so that I can become ME!!!  All of me--as God intended. 

As always, share your thoughts and questions if this was meaningful to you.

Lost Innocence? Lost Hope?

Drifting toward wakefulness, I found myself thinking about my grandmother. At 5' tall and 300 lbs. she was very soft to hug. She was also crude, snappish, and prone to cursing. She was kind of strange, but she wasn't scary - at least not to me. She had songbirds in cages at her house, and I thought that was very cool!



Then I thought about other memories of my early childhood. I liked the red-headed girl in first grade, and I introduced myself to her the first day so we could be friends. I was sad to find a beautiful little dead bird in the yard and I took it to school for "Show and Tell." I contentedly drew streets in the dirt and played with little cars with my brothers and sisters. Daddy put us up on his shoulders, and read the "funnies" out loud. Mommy sang when she ironed, and laughed when my aunts and uncles visited.

By the time I was fully awake, I was profoundly grateful for those early childhood experiences. I realized that I had been a truely innocent, happy, carefree child, full of wonder, energy, and curiosity. I can actually look back and see what I was - my potential, my magic, even my style. Wow!



Of course, things changed. My father "got saved" and my mother followed (sort of). Suddenly, there were no more kitchen-table card games, no Saturday night beer with uncles, no dancing, no movies, no smoking.........and no laughter. I don't think religeon was to blame. I think the church atmosphere just happened to be fertile ground for the fear, anger, confusion, insecurity (and who knows what else) that had always been there. Mom continued to smoke and curse --and she tried desperately to please Dad. Dad constantly demeaned her, making it clear that she would never measure up -- and he became more and more imperial and dictatorial. Before second grade was over, before any overt sexual abuse, I had already become secretive, guarded, and grasping for approval.

But, what about the children who were rejected, raped, tortured, when they were 6 months old, 2 years old, 4 years old?  Because they were too young to develop memories of innocence, are they now doomed to go through life wondering who they are and why life is so difficult?  How do these children, now adults, find their way out of the maze of feelings, misperceptions, and lies that where there as far back as they can remember? I ache for those children - for the "grown ups" they have become. I want to tell them that they too were innocent, open children once, even though they can't remember it.  I want to tell them to keep trying to find their own path to healing.  I want to tell them that it's not too late to to claim a new life of wonder, energy, and curiousity - to discover their potential, their style and their own special magic.    

I'm grateful that I can remember an innocent time in my life. I cannot go back to that time or that innocence. But I can give to myself what I wish for others.  I can embrace the potential, the magic, and the style that is uniquely ME, as best I can. 

Eyes Wide Open

Have you ever noticed how some people close their eyes when they speak?  I can't imagine myself ever doing that. However, I do often close my eyes while waiting in medical offices, sitting through boring lectures, listening to music, or planning my day.  It always feels safe, quiet, and restful in this private internal darkness. I've been aware of  this tendency for some time, but I've only recently decided to explore it more deeply, thanks in part to the example set by the writers at OvecomingSexualAbuse.com.

I think that feeling safer with closed eyes stems from the initial trauma  (as well as the daily threat) of the sexual abuse I suffered as a child.  When the situation was too frightening and I found myself helpless to make it stop,  I tried to shut it out.  I closed my eyes.  It seemed to make the horror less real if I couldn't see it (him).  I felt safer with my eyes closed. As an adult, I think that closing my eyes now and then to find a peaceful place is fine.  It can be restful, centering, and calming. 

On the other hand, if I find myself trying to "shut out" or "close my eyes" to difficult thoughts and emotions through food, sleep, compulsive behavior, or other methods, I know that I need to take notice.  I'm fooling myself and not helping my healing process.  I'm reminded of the child who hides his head behind a sofa thinking that you can't see him (because he can't see you), when in fact his body is in plain view.  The thoughts and emotions are still there in plain view, whether I "close my eyes" to  them or not.  And, if I don't look at them, they can weigh me down and continue to have power over me. 

Many of us have held the believe that, because this life is full of danger, it is safer to peer out at it with our hands metaphorically over our eyes.  We want to be safe from the horrors of  suffering, death, abuse, disease, poverty, and war.  But, if you think about it, with our hands over our eyes (or with our eyes closed) we are actually less able to see approaching danger.  I've come to believe that it's much safer to have our eyes WIDE open, taking everything in. That way we can not only see approaching danger, but we can also more clearly see the life and beauty we've been missing all around us.

Thank You Gratitude for Making Me Smile

Some mornings, in that fuzzy time as I'm moving from sleep to wakefulness, I feel an old familiar heaviness.  It's not exactly sadness, or fear, or dread....and yet it is all of those things in a kind of wordless, physical sensation.  If you have suffered trauma, neglect, or abuse you are probably familiar with this experience.  What can cause this reaction?  Sometimes it only takes a word, a look, an embarrassment, or an affront to trigger these feelings.  (Or maybe too much pizza the night before).

When this happens to me, my first foggy reaction is usually, "Ugh, I don't want to get up.  I can't deal with this today. Just let me hide under the covers and make the world go away."  I used to try to figure out why I felt so bad.  I'd feel like a failure, broken, impaired, and ashamed of my weakness.  I'd berate myself or try to "psyche" myself up to face the day.

But, I've found a wonderful, new technique that dispels the gloom EVERY TIME! On those days that I wake up all sloggy and down, I still have my little "Ugh" reaction, but now, instead of struggling, I start saying "thank you."  Really.  It's as simple as that.  I think of what I am grateful for, and I begin to speak sentences like; "I'm so grateful that _____," and "Thank you, Lord, for _____,"  etc. 

Here are two of my favorites which you might find amusing. 

1.  Thank you, Lord, for giving me a strong body.
 (I'm a short little overweight 63 year old woman with Hepatitis C, breast cancer, psoriasis, and who knows what else!). 
2.  I'm so grateful that I have a wonderful, comfortable home.
(We live in a 1000 square ft. house filled with mis-matched furniture, 2 cats, and aging appliances).

And I mean every word of it!  It makes me smile.  I take a deep breath, and then I'm ready to face the new day.

I'm sharing this because I think it might work for everyone.  If the early morning "dreads" are just relics of old thought processes or the very understandable reflections of past traumas, then we don't need to analyze them or give them much space or consideration.  These vague, unbidden emotions can be gently pushed aside and then we will have more energy, and be better prepared to deal with and learn from the real issues of the day.

So, give it a try.......and give me feedback.  Wishing you many happy wakings!!