An Expression of Joy
I told a joke to my kids the other day. They were sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast, and I was making their school lunches. They take vitamins that are shaped like animals and they love to guess which animal the other child has. There are only four choices and it is spooky how often they are correct. My son has developed some decision-making logic that is incredibly accurate. But this morning, my daughter guessed wrong. And when my son said he had a lion, she looked at me to verify it. And I said, “He’s not lyin’. He has a lion. Get it. Lyin’. Lion.” They looked at me in shock. After the shock wore off, they started to genuinely laugh (and they are old enough to fake it).
But it was the shock that lingered with me. I knew where it came from. I don’t make a lot of jokes. I don’t “goof off” much. I don’t play much. I will dance with them sometimes. I will sing with them. I do love music. But I am not one to let loose and be silly. I think their shock came from the feeling that it was out of place. The kind of shock that left them wondering, “What did you do with our mother?”
Beneath the Surface
To be fair to myself, I come by it honestly. When I was growing up, there were many emotions that were discouraged. It was not safe to cry because it was too vulnerable. It was not safe to be angry because it would provoke the anger of the abusers. But positive emotions were forbidden too. While fake happiness was demanded to uphold the mask of familial perfection, real joy was not allowed.
Joy was a sign that the abusers were not doing their job. Joy was a sign of hopefulness and confidence. If I ever indicated that I was joyful, it let them know that I may have a plan to escape my despair. I may have found a way out. Maybe I was plotting something. Maybe I had told someone who might help me. Or maybe something outside of the family was fulfilling me in some way. No matter what the reason, the vultures would descend to uncover and unravel whatever I thought was going right.
I learned to keep my joy to myself. I learned that if anyone got a sense that I was really happy, it was not going to end well. So as an adult, even when I have felt good, it has always been muted by my inner voices. There was an inner feeling that I had to keep my joy to myself. Any external joy would be met with a heavy hand.
While I never discourage my children from expressing their joy (believe me, they do), I have always had a sense that I could not join in. I have felt like a supervisor over the joy, a spectator in the sport of life. Those beautiful feelings were not available to me. They weren’t allowed. It isn’t that I have never experienced fun things. Despite my trauma, I have had a full life. I have traveled extensively. I have been on many adventures and met many incredible people. But I haven’t allowed myself to be happy about these experiences.
As I work through these old beliefs, I notice myself shifting. I can see my inner child daring to be happy. I can sense my desire to participate in the fun part of life. It is a good feeling, but there are still those lingering questions. Is this safe? Will it be ripped out from under me? Will the other shoe drop?
So I will keep exploring. I will keep venturing outside of my comfort zone to experience life in a different way. After all, this is the essence of recovery. I must dare to see and live life differently. It is scary. It feels unsafe at first. It even feels death-defying sometimes. But I have found that courage is often rewarded with many positive inner experiences like confidence, gratefulness and most importantly, joy.
My virtual workshop, The 7 Habits of Parents with Complex Trauma, can help you become more present in your parenting.
I have felt the same about Joy or happiness. That if I let it show or let my self let it come in me, it would show, it would be crushed or countered with something that would prove that I was not in control of Joy or happiness coming to me-others controlled that. I lived with fearing that joy or happiness would come and then something really bad was going to be attached to it.
Finally I started learning about a lot of things through programs, seminars, books, that showed me paths to understanding and changing that thinking pattern as well as other unhealthy components.
Along side but most importantly of that, I believe that God carried me, taught me, healed me and He continues to do so. I am finally not expecting the other shoe to drop every time there is a good, or joyful, or happy time.
Thank you so much for your comment. I am so glad to hear of your own healing. It is definitely a journey.
You are writing my mother heart out. Thank you! I struggle so much with joining in and I know my kids suffer for the lack of it. I want so much to continue breaking the abuse cycle but the fear of something bad is just around the corner just hasn’t left in my healing journey yet. Maybe it never will completely leave. I struggle most with my connection to my daughter. I know all of the reasons why but the knowing isn’t enough to bring the break through. Fact is, I’ve always been better with adults because I never was a kid and I hated everything about being a kid because it was vulnerable to be small. You called your little people your triggers in another post. I feel terrible that my daughter is such a trigger for me and I want so much for her to have the mother I didn’t. I just need to say out loud to others that parenting is the greatest struggle of my life thus far!
You are not alone in this feeling. I have accomplished many things in my life, but the hardest thing by far has been surviving parenting. Notice I didn’t say that I did it well. I said I survived it … so far. 🙂 This is tough work for those of us with trauma. Actually, I just released a parenting workshop for parents with trauma for this exact reason. There aren’t enough resources on this topic. Here is the link in case you are interested.
This is fascinating as I have recently been struck by just such experiences. It’s hard for me since my abuse was in our home but inflicted by male sitters but never discovered by my parents. They had their own serious angry, contempt driven internal family dynamic… And like you said p.r. Spin on family image.
However now with my own kids my lack of enjoyment and irritation and skittish reactions to their high UNtraumatized childhoods when mine was so emotionally unstable and muted … It breaks my heart but I don’t know what to do with it as it’s so subconscious & slow to fade.
But it’s something that I am going to keep on coming against in my story as I try to find change and healing and recover ways to basically enjoy life.
I completely understand what you are saying here. It is very slow to fade. It seems to fade as I process memories and emotions from the past that may or not be obviously related to this issue. But it is a long-term process. But honestly, our awareness of it will be so helpful in this journey.
I have had a similar experience and history with expressing joy and feeling joyful. I’ve never seen it talked about. Thank you for articulating this.
Thank you for your comment. It can be such a problem. I am glad to start the conversation.
I just wanted to say that I am also very cautious about who I share my joy with. I consider joy a ‘priviledge’ for me and even now anyone who I sense will (as happened in the past) mock or thoughtlessly spoil my joy will rarely, if ever, get to see it. However, my own daughters have helped me to learn that there are people we can trust with our joy. As they grew up I paddled like fury behind the scenes with the responsibility of parenting and keeping everything in their worlds safe and secure. However I was also there to witness their joy, which sometimes they would include me in too. I think they were trusting me with it. (At least that’s how I like to see it). These special moments became more frequent as they got older and I felt so grateful that I was able to hear about and witness their joy, and respond in appropriate and positive ways. Now in their 20’s we have developed a solid bond into which is woven a whole lot of spontaneous joy and when the occasion arises where we all get together again – we not only share our joy but we know the trust is there too.
That is so powerful Olive! I am so happy you are able to share that with your daughters. It makes such a difference to have that trust with others.