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.

Yeah.

I am still in my pajamas!
It is one minute before noon.
They are pink flannel pajamas with cows and moons on them, the shirt part has a cartoon cow with a night cap on and the words Pasture Bedtime on it.

Three of my kids are in the basement playroom.
I have no idea what they are doing, except that a moment ago, Oldest Son came up and said, "Hey, OD and YS are bonding in the basement."
After turning that over in my head carefully to make sure that he hadn't said that there was "bondage" going on - I said "Oh...is that a good thing?".

He gave me a weird look and said that yeah of course it was and then back down he went.

The fourth kid, YD is on the computer playing something, I'm not sure what and I really don't know if I am going to go and check, and has been for an hour.

I have done absolutely no working out, but I did eat a delicious poached egg on toast with a goat cheese bechamel sauce, and I have no plans to make lunch anytime soon.

It is oddly contenting (I know I made it up and no it doesn't mean camping with convicts) to know that I have nothing to do for the rest of the day.

Okay, yeah the kid's bathroom upstairs really does need some work but I don't actually have to leave the house until about 5:45pm.

Ahhhhhhhh.

I don't actually want to think about going out tonight.
In keeping with my theme of all glamour all the time, my husband and I have an appointment with our marriage counsellor - wooohoooo.
It's been going okay, at least up until the last session two weeks ago.
During which the therapist got all "you are a traumatized person" on me.

Like, I know - I was the one who told her.
I've done the tour - out patient, month long every day intensive group therapy, followed up with 7 months of weekly one on one.
Been there and relived that and it isn't the kind of thing that you forget.

Besides what being a traumatized person has to do with me talking about something that my husband does that drives me crazy - other than make me feel that what I am saying isn't valid and that everything that goes wrong in our relationship is all my fault - I don't know.

Seriously though it knocked me for a loop and hard.

I know a fair amount about who I am and why.

I don't like people touching me, unless I really know them and feel we have a trusting relationship.
I don't deal well with being startled by loud noises or being bumped into, it takes a huge amount of control to manage my flight or fight impulses in those cases.
I NEVER want to live that life of being powerless and victimized, ever again.

I also want everyone to like me and I want to make everyone happy and I want to inspect everything and every interaction completely and exhaustively to make sure that I am not the cause of other people's unhappiness. I am way too hard on myself because I think that somehow being perfect or as close to it as possible will give me some sort of a sense of control over my life. Which I know is artificial but that is where it is at.

A blog post, only not here

"But we have to go out to the park this afternoon, don't we?".

You have to forgive her, Oldest Daughter only just got up, yes, it is ten minutes after noon, but that is just the way it is.

Nope. We don't have to go anywhere today. Not when it's minus 30.5 C before you even factor in the windchill, and you should and the roads are still a disaster from the storm yesterday.

She sighs a big, breathy gust of relief.

A good sign.

She is even supportive of this picture and post over at my 365 blog (a photo a day for the year).

Maybe you will be too.

Regular Programming

My husband took the story book I had just read to the congregation, out of my hands - as I was on my way down to teach Sunday School.

He smiled a happy, little smile as he looked from it up to me and I shrugged and left it with him.

Last night, he brought it into the kitchen where our 14 year old daughter was poking about and asked her if he could read it to her.

"DAD!!" She said in that loud, aggrieved way that only teenagers in the centre of the heart of darkness can.

"Just a page or two," he begged, "and if you really can't stand it, that will be it...okay?"

He told her about how when he saw it at church, it brought back so many memories of him reading it to her when she was little and that she was still his little girl and he would like to read it to her again.

Perched side by side on the tall stools in the kitchen, he carefully read each page - "Katy was a beautiful red crawler tractor. She was very big and very strong and she could do a lot of things." Then he would tell our daughter how he loved that description and it always made him think of her.

Sitting on the couch in the living room, I could overhear all this
and
I
was
so
moved.

That this man realizes the gift that he has in his children and takes the time to show them how much he loves them.

How lucky they are and how right this is.

Blog For Choice LOOK AWAY! But isn't that the problem right there in a nutshell?

How many years ago was it?
I know actually, how many years, how many months, how many days - I am not stupid and despite what I was told from the beginning, I have never been stupid.

I have been young, ignorant, unaware, overwhelmed and in over my head - struggling with the fallout of being sexually, physically and emotionally abused.

I spent too much time trying to find my value in what other people thought of me.
But I didn't know it at the time.

I thought that was what I was supposed to do, try and make other people happy no matter what it cost.

That is what I had been trained to do.

I have been pregnant when I didn't want to be.

And I made choices as to what to do about it, that were based on everything I knew about myself and all my experiences.

No one else could do that. No one else should do that.
The presumption that anyone else could or should, is about controlling and owning someone else's body and that is slavery.

Be it an individual who wants to do that or a church or the state.
And that is shameful.

I don't see abortions as shameful.

Private, yes.

Emotionally excoriating, yes.

But so have each of the times that I have chosen to have children.

Even if I had grown up in the most supportive of families and societies, with love and support and knowledge of risks and how to stay safe - even if I had been that woman - perhaps a woman like my daughters will grow up to be - even then -

the decisions about my body should be mine.

I'm glad it was, I will fight for it to be that way for other women now and in the future.

respite

I would give my eye teeth (whatever they are, I will look it up sometime) for respite care.

Or some other not completely essential part of my anatomy could be put to the cause.

But I won't send my kids out for it.
I can't.
I have nothing against families and providers who offer respite in their homes, it is just not the right fit for my kids and my family.

So that leaves us with in house care and I just don't have that.

Or rather I do, My friend N. is experienced and capable and likes the kids and knows them and they know her and are comfortable with her - but she is not available and probably won't be for a while because of family issues.

For now we will just have to hold steady I guess and try and forge ahead.

We even have funding for it, that it isn't a problem, which is nice of course - it is just trying to figure out where to find someone who meets all the above criteria.

It would be great if that happened sometime soon - before I get stretched too thin.

Good Morning Mom

When my youngest child calls those words at me down the stairs - my inner response is usually one of irritation, or anger or resignation.

Sick? Yeah.

But if that is what you're thinking, you probably don't have a kid with the gaping holes in her attachment like mine has.

At least, I think it is mostly the attachment troubles that are at the root of most of her manipulative behaviours.

For my daughter, the good morning almost never seems to be a genuine greeting. More, it is a throwing down of a gauntlet. Sometimes I get the sense that she is angry or annoyed that I am up and downstairs, possibly spending time with someone other than her.

A big chunk of it could be all in my head too - I know that and I want to work on it some more except that sometimes I also just don't want to have too.

Deeply moving and thoughtful post, huh?