Across and Inside my Universe

Running the Gamut

We've been through alot this week.

I've felt all of the following:  Horror, pain, anger, sorrow, indignation, disgust, revulsion, outrage, frustration, sadness, regret, determination, resolve, protectiveness, strength, recrimination, failure, lost, alone, isolated, horrified, nervous, anxious, angry, empathy, and a variety of other things.

Most of all, my heart is broken for someone.  It keeps breaking, over and over.

My husband agrees that about covers it.

 

"Thou Shalt Not Cause Thy Children Pain"

This is the most . . .  intense part of Collin Raye's song, The Eleventh Commandment, for me.  Although the whole song is intense, and the video is harder to watch, than just listening to the song.

The part about the boy getting hit, is also intensely personal for me, since my mom hit me.

Lyrics:

She hears his heavy breathing in the dark
His footsteps coming closer down the hall
She's so ashamed, she's daddy's secret love
She wants to cry, she wants to die, but he can't get enough
The bruises on his face will go away
Mom keeps him home from school till they fade
She's sorry he was born and tells him so
He takes it in, he hangs his chin, he ducks another blow

Did God overlook it
What ought have been written
The eleventh commandment
Honor thy children

He cries for hours, cries and never stops
He shakes so hard his little cradle rocks
He'll never have the chance to be brand new
He'll never walk, he'll never talk, he's addicted too

Did God overlook it
What ought have been written
The eleventh commandment
Honor thy children

Thou shalt not kill
Thou shalt not steal
Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain
Thou shalt not cause thy children pain

God does not overlook it
What ought have been written
The eleventh commandment
Honor thy children
Honor thy children

One quibble I have with the song though, is that many people do bad things to children that aren't theirs.

Another thing I think of when I hear this song, a scripture, in which God did say what happens to people who harm children:

“Whoso shall offend one of these little ones … , it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).

This has been quoted so often by my church leaders without the condensed part, "which believe in me", and in the context of what happens to those who abuse children, that I don't think it matters whether the child is Christian or not.  We believe everyone is a child of God, anyway.  We're all the same. 

But when I recently thought, wait, this scripture would apply to my mother; do I want her to suffer something even worse than if a millstone were hanged about her neck and she were drowned in the depth of the sea?  That's pretty damn harsh.  So is what she did.  It's complicated, though, so I'll trust God will do the right thing, although if I was allowed to plead mercy for her, I'll do that.  Not that I've worked through the abuse yet, but she's my MOM for goodness' sake.  Too bad she didn't have that same regard for me . . .

I still wonder why.  And how she could do it.  How do you break that natural mothering instinct, of protecting and nurturing your child(ren)?  Then again, how do I break my morals and values and integrity, and do what I did?  They aren't near the same; for one, mine involved adults, and hers involved abusing a minor.  Still, I can understand making a big mistake, even if I don't connect emotionally to why.

How could she not only set aside the nurturing instinct, but not only set it aside (in neglect of me as well), but actively go AGAINST it by hurting me, in a variety of ways, but actually hitting me, too?  I don't get it.  And why was I not worth being protected and nurtured, why was I not worth at least not being hit, even if I wasn't worth the protecting instinct, why was I worth so little she put her fist to my face?

 

My Mother Lives In Her Own Reality

My mother posted on Facebook, "My grandchildren are bright, brilliant, and they take after their grandmother."

GAG.

This is the same woman who hit me on a regular basis as a teenager.

This is the same woman who thinks she did a good job counteracting bullying when we were kids.  The subject of bullying came up recently when we were down there, and she said, "When (my sister) was in junior high, there was one time (my sister) was being bullied and I nipped that in the bud!"

She said this like she took care of it ALL.  HEL-lo!  Um, Mom, we younger three kids of the 6 kids were bullied mercilessly for over a decade, EACH!  You think you did GOOD?  You don't even KNOW what was going on!

And, I think she's forgetting the time I and my younger brother were sort of kidnapped; I very fuzzily remember that I think that was one thing she found out about, and my parents talked to one of the teens involved (just one?  why not both?).

She doesn't know I was beat up, several times, and THAT's why my glasses were broken; it wasn't because I slipped and fell in the snow . . . she doesn't know I was whipped with a jumprope with all those sliding plastic thingies on it, and that the pain from that was like a hundred stinging bees . . . and so much other crap.

CLUELESS.  Although she shouldn't be about the hitting thing, but then again at the time she saw nothing wrong with it; why would she now?  Then again, each of us kids holds a part in the fact that she's clueless; our relationship may not have been good enough then for us to want her to know?  But when older, we could have told her . . . I dunno that the relationship has EVER been good enough to tell her, though . . .

UGH ugh UGH.  Keeping my mouth shut when she exhibits her pride in her mothering skills, or anything else I've mentioned, is both hard and easy.  Hard because . . . I'd so love to verbally slap her in the face with reality.  (Hmm, the violent metaphor there, is probably not too hard to figure out why.)  Easy, because . . . she has no idea we look down on her for stuff, that these things happened (or that they were wrong), and we do, and she looks the fool to those of us who know . . .

It's sad, really, that she is so . . . out of touch.  Sad and pathetic . . . although I remember the raging mother coming after me physically and cornering me before whaling on me . . . and then I stop feeling sorry for her.

I dunno.  Empathy is good, but . . . when she throws this stuff in MY face, empathy is the furthest thing from my mind . . .

This whole situation reminds me of something one of the Mythbusters says, "I reject your reality and substitute my own!"  The difference here being that she either doesn't know she's doing it, or any glimmers of what reality is are too painful for her to face, so she lives in a constructed shell of glossed over (maybe painted over) memories.

What You NEED Isn't Always What You WANT

So, a while back I posted for a heat-themed Grand Rounds blog carnival that was being hosted at/on Shrink Rap. http://sarebear.typepad.com/blog/2011/06/when-the-doctorpatient-relationship-becomes-heated.htmlUgh, I tried to insert a link the regular way, and it wouldn't.

This last week, for no reason I can figure out, I was thinking about that post, and how it led me to compare my first and third shrinks, and then further led me to realize that I could stand up to my first one (male) and not my third one (female). They were both strong, intimidating personalities. My second shrink was very laid back and mellow.

I thought to myself, "WHY could I stand up to Doctor Number One, and not to Doctor Number Three?" (Names changed for obvious reasons.)

Within about 10-15 seconds, a quiet, deeply felt thought came to me in response, even though I wasn't expecting a response . . . . "Because it was standing up to your mother that got you on the receiving end of her fist." I instantly felt the deeply personal TRUTH of this, and it felt like I'd connected up an essential puzzle piece.

I pondered then, though, that, "Didn't I already "know" that my problems with her were because she raised the same feelings of fear in me that my mother did? That I had already connected up what my mother did to me, with why I was afraid of Dr. Number Three?" What I realized was, I had intellectually realized the connection between #3 and what my mother did, and I'd even told #3 that I was afraid of her because my mother hit me; however, I'd never FELT this inside. It just made sense to me knowing how transference has shown up in the last 7 years of therapy, it just made SENSE. Yet I didn't FEEL it.

THAT's what the difference was when I had this response, this realization this last week. I FELT the truth of this, and it connected everything up on an emotional and other deep levels. It's one thing to KNOW something with your head; it's another to know it in your heart, in the depths of your being, not to get overly dramatic about it . . .

So, it's been a week since that realization, and I've come to another one because of it, and that is that I can now use the word "abuse" to describe the physical, well, abuse that my mother heaped upon me when I was a young teenager (and maybe pre-teen, but that part's fuzzy). Before this, I said in therapy that I just couldn't approach that word because it felt like it was too big, too painful, that the meaning of what she did to me would crash down on me and I couldn't . . . . I tried the word on, especially after my therapist asked me if I would think what my mom did to me was abuse if I heard of someone doing the same thing to their kid, and I said yes, at first, but after that session, I realized I'd HAVE to say NO, because I couldn't, just couldn't, approach the meaning of the word "abuse" and all the pain denying it was "abuse" was holding back.

I did try to cut through the bull a few days after that session, and say, "Really? Your first instinct was to agree that yes it was abuse for someone else, isn't it just you dancing around what's going on, to later say No?" And I thought, maybe it was, but it just felt too dark and horrible . . . this was about two months or so ago (not counting the first times I avoided approaching "abuse" several years ago when I first brought it up in therapy in more than passing.)

Back to the main point(s) of this post . . . Today I was thinking that I am actually quite GRATEFUL to my most recent psychiatrist, much as I dislike her, for helping me (not consciously on her part, as far as I can tell, given her objection to the notion of transference) to make more progress on a difficult, painful issue than I've ever had. For being what I NEEDED, even if it wasn't what I WANTED.

I realized, and I never thought I'd feel or say this about her, that I am GLAD she was my psychiatrist at this time in my life; things just came together to help me learn from her, and I can take what I've learned and appreciate both it, and the fact that she taught me, willingly or not, something that I'm not sure I'd have learned any other way.

Now, I am moving on and finding another psychiatrist. Could I perhaps have learned further from her, in dealing with her and processing my reactions, about how I feel about what my mom did to me and perhaps some measure of how to get over it? Perhaps. The thing is, I also NEED a psychiatrist I can trust, and I can't trust her to be emotionally safe, or to treat me and my feelings with respect. At this point, I think the "what if" of what I could learn from her is outweighed by my need for a safe psychiatrist; that, and it's an hour round-trip to see her and since I need to ask congregation members for rides to get to appointments sometimes, I really need a closer shrink. This next one is about 15-20 minutes away, which isn't as close as I'd like given I'm asking for rides, but it's better.

I am also quite grateful to the part that Shrink Rap played in my coming to these helpful insights and things; if it weren't for them hosting Grand Rounds, and picking the theme they picked, I'd not have come up with that blog post during the writing of which I realized the things that started off this chain of realizations. So, while they may have played a small part, it is an important part, nonetheless, and I am grateful to them for it. It also teaches me that maybe I should put myself out there more and participate more in things like this . . . Anyway, thanks guys (not that I know if they read my blog or not lol.)