Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Deep

It says so right in my sidebar: "lots of anxieties".

That about sums me up for the past month and a bit.

Thinking about parenting, forgiveness, relationships, change, trauma and coping.

A very long time ago, I accepted that being angry at either of my parents for the things (physical and emotional abuse, mild neglect and being left in the care of se/xual predators) that happened to me was pointless, useless and self destructive.

Unfortunately knowing all of that still doesn't make dealing with the fallout that much easier sometimes.

It creeps up on me, and often I don't see it coming at all.
Sometimes I can be in the middle of ....sadness or anger or exhaustion or some other emotional reaction and be just a bit more over the top than is absolutely reasonable for the circumstance and...I will suddenly figure out that in part I am reacting to something from a completely different time. Other times? I don't figure it out until well after.

For me, I think that is the hardest part of all.
Knowing that I probably will never fully be able to prevent that from happening.
Things were stolen from me when I was small and powerless, and although I am big and strong now, those thefts have left an indelible mark on me.

7 comments:

Yondalla said...

Would you believe that today I kept trying to write about forgiving abusive parents. How real forgiveness is impossible because real forgiveness means going back, or agreeing to try to go back to the way it was before, but there is no before for those of us with abusive parents.

The closest we can come to fogiveness is letting go of anger, and how that doesn't heal us. Even if I can forgive him for doing the damage it is still there.

it is just right there.

ipm said...

much love I send to you....

KLee said...

I'm sorry that you had to go through such awful stuff to get where you are today. I find it a good thing that you are strong enough to turn out as well as you have. Life handed you crap, and you turned it into something so right. Bravo to you, and to the people who support you, and allow you time to grieve, heal, and grow.

kazanalion said...

keep on going.. life is not easy...

Scrivener said...

I've been thinking along similar lines of late. What I've been really trying to do, though, is to spend less time worrying about the larger matters (forgiveness, getting past or through all these issues, whatever) and just focus on awareness. I think if I can just get better at seeing myself--which includes identifying my feelings, identifying needs and desires, recognizing patterns, being aware of when I'm reacting from my childhood instead of in the present--then eventually the other stuff will either more or less take care of itself or I will be ready to take on that next stage of working on those issues once I get to to be really aware. Part of the reason to just focus on awareness is that I have such a hard time realizing that I'm reacting to the present from the past without then beating myself up for doing so, which doesn't help anything. So I am really, really trying to just see it and say, "OK, there's one of those moments" and then not to feel the need to *do* anything about it besides notice it. That's the goal at least.

Peace and blessings to you on your journey.

Ampersand said...

(Hey, I commented on this earlier today! At least I thought I did.)

I understand every word of this.

Especially this:

"Things were stolen from me when I was small and powerless, and although I am big and strong now, those thefts have left an indelible mark on me."

I've just recently accepted the "indelible" part.

Blessings and healing to you my friend.

Lionmom said...

I miss you, Gawdess.