I hate today. It’s my mother’s birthday. While I would never ever contact her, it is a reminder that she has made it one more journey around the sun. Why do the biggest monsters seem to live the longest? I thought my grandparents would never croak. They seemed to stick around forever. With all their trauma, you would think they would have died an early death. I mean really. My body started falling apart in my 20’s. If I hadn’t started emotional recovery work, I am sure I would not be able to stand today. So what the hell? Needless to say, September is not my favorite month from an anniversary perspective. There are too many birthday ghosts to contend with. Some years I am not very impacted. But this year, I am processing some contracts. And breaking them has been intense.
When I say intense, I mean futile. My controller HATES futility. You may have noticed I like to be productive. I like doing things. I am an extrovert. I would interact with people all day if I could. Futility stops that. (So does single motherhood but that’s a different story.) Don’t get me wrong, I like quiet time alone, but only when it’s peaceful. Futility is not peaceful. It is an inner war. But as I attempt to embrace my true inner self more, I must release the futility associated with my contracts and that sucks (technical recovery term). This weekend was certainly no different in that regard.
I danced again this weekend. I went to a regional dance competition and I participated in competition heats. Let’s be very clear. I wasn’t trying to win anything. I was trying to stay on my feet and straighten my posture. That’s it. Others were there to win of course. There were dancers who had started dancing in their toddler years (mostly the professionals). They were very inspiring to watch. And there were dancers who were there to inspire me in different ways. There were dancers fighting through chronic physical illness. There were dancers who were in their 80’s. There were dancers who were coming back from back surgery or fighting anxiety or the fear of being visible. And there were dancers who were just hoping the one problem area of the body would hold up for the day. They were great people who made me feel less alone.
There was certainly trauma in the room although nobody admitted it, and I never point it out if people haven’t asked. But my trauma was in full effect in my mind and body. There was self-sabotage from the very beginning. There were triggers before I set foot in the ballroom. And my mind was interpreting everything in the worst possible ways. No matter how much prep I did, the trauma was there. The contracts were there. At one point, I left and went to my room to write. There was plenty of toxic sludge coming forward. It sounded something like this:
“Who do you think you are performing like this? You aren’t good enough for this. You are making a fool of yourself. You look stupid and everyone is better than you. You will never be the best or the prettiest. They are all just tolerating you. They don’t even think you should be here. Just give up.”
My karma kid was speaking, but this was a flashback. It was a flashback of a dance recital from when I was younger than 10. This was my mother’s opinion of my abilities on the stage. And while I have known for a while that my mother was jealous and in charge of destroying my confidence on a daily basis, something else became obvious to me. She was scared. She was scared that my trauma was showing. I was dissociating. I was messing up. I was slouching. I was truly not as good as the others, but not because of raw talent. And my mother was worried people would figure it out. She wanted me to quit before it became obvious. And I did. With that level of discouragement, of course I did.
But I did my best on Saturday with all this whirling around in my system. It wasn’t perfect, but I stayed on my feet. I remembered my routines (sort of). And with enough instructors gently reminding me about my posture, I remembered to push my shoulders back for about half the performances. In general, it was a success despite my inner world. At the end of the day, I had to begrudgingly admit that I had spent the entire experience in a flashback. And that meant there was dissociation. And that sucks. Of course I wanted better. As I sit here today (and yesterday and the day before), I have been hit with futility for a different reason. It isn’t about the contract with my mother to never dance again. It is about recovery.
Clearly I am here to heal. This much I know. But sometimes, I get tired. I get tired of going out of my way to take big chances only to be met with unbroken contracts on the days when I need the most presence. I get tired of the self-sabotage after working so hard to overcome it. I get really tired of the dissociation at the wrong moments. I am just tired. And I can hear this part (controller of course) saying that’s enough. I’ve done enough. I’ve pushed enough. I don’t have to keep putting myself out there in new ways and fighting through all these obstacles. But I also hear the part of me who knows there is more to life than hiding away because things are hard. So for today, I will rest from my intense ventures to free myself from my contracts. And tomorrow or next week or next month, I will take another step because they don’t get to win. And one day, I will dance without the resistance. I know it.
Come join me in Survivor’s Guide for Life this October as we discuss Breaking Contracts to Live Authentically.
You are raw! Love it! Love your courage! Your honesty!
YOU ARE BRAVE!
Inspiring!
Thank you!!
Thank you Regina!
You will dance without resistance and you will dance through everything 🌟🙌🏻. I hear the same kind of voices. When I looked in the mirror in my dance class tonight I heard all that «you are fat and clumsy, and you will never do this right and who do you think you are, nobody wants to watch you». On and on. But I did dance. As do you. Thank you for fighting and sharing!!
Keep dancing Lotte! Those thoughts are not the truth! And thank you for your words of encouragement!
How ironic Elisabeth. Today I decided to start writing my memoir and I was several pages in when I received your newsletter. I’ve been writing about my childhood now for a couple hours and during the process I was reminding myself again and again that I was doing it for me, not to get something from my abusers. I’ve made it a practice of telling my clients that when you “carefront” or confront your abusers, they typically respond in one of five ways: 1) I didn’t hit you that hard. 2) I hit you for your own good. 3) That’s how you are, I hit you a little bit and you get all hysterical. 4) If I hit you, I apologize. 5) I never hit you… as though they get to decide whether or not they have abused us…I equate my childhood to growing up in a pack of hyenas. When I was growing up, there were so many well meaning people pressuring me to love my abusers and maintain connection. “It is your duty.” Even my wife pressured me until she too, tasted the bitterness of my mother’s contempt. Writing and remembering is part of my healing. One small step for a man, one giant leap for my legacy. In 1994 I had an amazing experience and suddenly came to the realization that my trauma didn’t have to define me, instead it could refine me. I could shape it into a tool to love myself and then others. My wife has been my healer and during the first 12 years of our marriage she incessantly engaged me in socratic questioning and gently led me to self awareness. I’ve been on the planet since 1961 but I’ve only been alive since 1994. Thank you for all you do and your gentle invitations and inspiration to live. Your blog and book have been very helpful to me and I’m sure, to many others who have become a great cloud of witnesses. Keep on dancing!
Thank you so much Kris! Keep writing your story. They don’t get to stop us from what we know is right.
Wow, thank you Kris for the abuser’s response list you provided. I think many people can relate to this list because these responses are shared by abusers to gaslight a child’s reality and project the responsibility of their actions onto a child.
There are a lot of unspoken ‘shoulds’ in those responses.
1) I define your reality. You should respect me as your parent.
2) You should behave (in other words you were bad)
3) You exaggerate, your perception is wrong. You should have the same perception like me.
4) You owe it to me to live up to my expectations. I am the adult and I call the shots. You should be grateful for my apology.
5) You are not separate from me. You should ignore your ‘self’, your intuition, your gut. I dictate your reality. I am your parent – the grown up 🙂
I get the why do the biggest monsters live the longest. My mom is an awful monster who was an alcoholic, smoker, and prefers to eat ice cream or candy than healthy food. She was diagnosed with COPD around 60, and by some cruel twist, she is still kicking at 84. She is a dancer, too, so maybe you will live long also.
On the other hand, I am convinced I am going to die from cancer or a heart attack this week. I don’t have anything to substantiate my worries, but will go through a series of doctors and will believe it unless they can convince me otherwise. I hope they can convince me and that it is not true. Feeling like you are dying is exhausting.
It is exhausting. It sounds like something that was said to a defender (that you will die young) and they are holding on to it.
This is beautiful, Elisabeth. Your honesty made me cry. I relate so much to this! (I actually stopped Flamenco dancing, something I was so passionately in love with, because I was so dissociative that I would keep forgetting my moves, moves that I knew by heart! And my body would suddenly go from moving freely and sensually to awkward and stiff, all in one hour … like two different people were dancing. (Ha!) I am SO impressed and inspired by you and proud of you! You give me hope and make me want to put my Flamenco shoes and leotard and skirt back on and get my butt back in class! With my head held high! I won’t let them win, dammit!
Do it Gina! And thank you!
Yes, Elisabeth!! Dance on! And the picture of you is beautiful! I loved this writing! So raw, so honest. Right back at them. I, too, came home from school today and decided that I can do this! And I will do this! We will NEVER let them stop us. They will not win this battle! I am choosing how I want my life to go now, not them! And I don’t care one bit what they or anyone thinks. This is what I am choosing to do now…for me.
I love that! But please don’t think that picture is of me. I can’t do that. Not yet anyway. 🙂
Sept isn’t my favorite month either. What makes it worse is the timing..today is my old medic partner’s birthday. He would’ve been 43 today. His passing a few yrs ago triggered a bad call we went through yrs before that resulted in me being covered in a childhood friend’s blood and HIS passing. No..there was nothing I could do…but dammit I tried. Tomorrow is the 5yr anniversary of my father in law’s passing. Dad was a 3 tour Nam vet. We understood each other. His passing nearly broke me. Like all trauma, death is..just a thing. Nothing more. Nothing less..but the emotions attached …they’re something else entirely. It’s been a long week.
I am so sorry Scott! That is so much to hold. Take care of yourself as you pass through all these anniversaries.
Sadly that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I learned like combat vets do to just bury trauma & not face it. Seduced and raped multiple times by a narcissist older student at 13 for over 2 years. I was too afraid and naive to ask for help. I was a lonely naive kid who needed love and affirmation trying to figure out what it meant to be an adult in a changing world. I was a perfect target and victim. Only to watch him ventilate his temple a 22 pistol from 15 feet away in early nov a couple yrs later. Never said a word to anybody. I just went to school. I hid in the in the safety of a grieving community for a popular kid who clearly had been abused too. I blamed myself for that suicide because I finally got courage to break free & I think it scared him. For years I blocked the rapes of my head and grieved his suicide. Literally cognitively suppressed it 2 yrs of abuse. I only remembered the suicide. I’d get into ems after high school and continued to run from my trauma, only making me worse bc I would pull kids I grew up with out of cars as I mentioned that I knew since kindergarten. Finally, I burned out. I walked away from ems. I continued to run mentally by burying myself into hobbies as a distraction. It only helped for so long. I managed to keep my marriage together…barely in 2010 when her parents found me on my kitchen floor with a parting knife buried in my wrist. The long way, down the arm. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pull that knife. That’s when people who I cared for helped me find my footing. When I hit bottom. My wife’s parents found me there on that cold floor, broken and helpless to myself. That’s when the affirmation started to show up. People I cared about started to recognize something was under the surface clawing to get out, but I was to broken, too afraid to open up and trust. People starting standing in my corner, backing me up when I was being vilified at work. My late boss the most. She was there for me when things went sideways with my marriage. Set up fmla for me on my behave while I tried to figure out what to do next. And who could blame me? I was encouraged to go to church, feed my spiritual gifts and learn to trust again. But it wasn’t easy. Trust is fickle. You can fill a bucket with it one drop at a time but dump the whole thing with one foot. When dad died in’14, that little bucket I had started to fill got punted beyond reach. My boss was there again. She brought that bucket to me. Pushing me to keep fighting and believe in myself. And the next he she too, was gone ..and that bucket, that friend, that trust..got booted. Having nowhere else to turn safely but my church family I started talking more to an elder who it turned out was a licensed therapist. Emdr therapy broke through the scab of history of scars and now, nearly 2 &1/2 yrs later, I’m on the other side..but..I still have days when that pain creeps back and gets back in my head. I try not to feed it. But sometimes, that pain is a false comfort and in that cycling I get sucked in. All I know now is that autopilot is a necessary acquaintance that I must use with discretion. Sigh. Sept comes to a close. Let’s just skip the rest of the yr too. Your blogs help. Thank you
I also can relate to the judgmental parents. My folks STILL act that way with my and my wife’s decisions regarding our young family with two boys. They mean well sure…but their opinions don’t come across as objectively honest. They come across as subjectively critical and it’s so very toxic. My mother is a control freak and treats everyone like they’re 12 or younger, including my dad and now that we’ve relocated recently near them so we could let our boys build a closer relationship with my parents and my sister and her family, we’ve had to share my parent’s place until we are ready financially for our own. It’s been 3 months and I’ve just so barely managed to keep from completely breaking down and living in my Jeep. Away from everyone. Some nights it’s come close..when the triggers are fresh and the night terrors are rampant and sleep is little….I must rely on autopilot and interacting only when required. Focusing more on NOT reacting to her incessant nit picking mania, especially around the boys as the urge to basically defend them against her is sooo strong. I love her but dammit this ain’t what I wanted. My dad knows about my rapes unfortunately bc in a huge fight between mom and I it came out. My worse fear!! He was stunned. He has tried to..be patient and empathize but I can tell he doesn’t know how to handle it. Mom..can’t know. Her incessant drive to control will push me over to the edge. If I am honest there are days I really have to disappear off grid and stay away. My wife understands as she’s bipolar II and fights many of the same demons. To the obvious question of if my mom understood what she does… yes and no. Def can’t help herself and there’s no hope in THAT being fixed. Idk how much longer this circus can continue.
Thank you for sharing your story here Scott. It sounds like you have been through so much in childhood and adulthood. I am glad you have had some support systems in your adult life to keep you here and get you through the intense traumatic pain you are experiencing. Good luck with the stay at your parents. That is so difficult.
I really have. Thank you for your understanding and your blog. Lately the depressive cycling is stuck in neutral where I feel on the knife’s edge between triggers and autopilot disassociation and void of anything even remotely empathetic. Clearly I’m deflecting sure. All I want to do is stay in the darkness of my room buried in the covers, cry myself to sleep and dream of the life I thought I would’ve had. But I know that’s just torturing myself because I know I will only be disappointed when I wake up to find myself still…here. Sigh.
Just now found your website. I can relate to almost everything you talk about. Grandparents were sexually abusing me by age 3. Stopped when I turned 11 and started my period. Repressed memories. Carry emotional baggage like I can remember. Parents both narcissists. 54 years old and feel as if life has just passed me over. Two kids but never a husband. Just wanted my own family more than anything. Fiance of seven years passed away October of 2020. He was my best friend. Now I have moved back to parents home with my 16 year old son to take care of Dad. I feel as I’m just here to be this old man’s servant. Cook and clean. He actually treats me as if I’m still twelve. I have a 10pm curfew and get drilled about where I go and what I do. He unlocks the door to the room I stay in and goes through my belongings. He opens and reads my mail. He reads my text messages and intercepts my calls. I’m going crazier here and see no way out. I can’t work because someone supposed to be with him in case he falls. That was my whole reason for coming back to this horrible house. I thought I could manage. I can’t. Now I’m stuck here until he passes or I come up with a way to make money. I cry everyday. I go through the days like a robot.
I hate those moments! Those moments when I have pushed through the fear and shame to try something new. Only to find that I can’t delight in being brave and just ENJOY because I’m stuck in some stupid flashback. So then I leave tired instead of refreshed by something the whole me would enjoy. But she can’t enjoy it because of the fractured part.
Exactly! Frustrating!
I read this article over again because it struck a chord with me when heard how your mother discouraged you. It’s good you are overcoming that influence by going back to dance and in other ways too. My mother was very inconsistent. At the beginning she would encourage me by showing an interest in my art work or other interests, but that would change. She would claim I was wasting time, the picture didn’t look right, or I just didn’t know how to do it correctly, or anything that was negative. She knew nothing about art, but she knew it all about everything. And she didn’t say something once she went on and on being negative and/or screaming. She claimed she hated negative people, but she was the most negative person I knew. She had me convinced that she wasn’t negative, but I was just confused – which I was anyway of course. Who wouldn’t be confused? When I was in teens, they would teach you how to knit or crochet in the department stores. I went to learn and made an afghan for my bed. I held on to that afghan I had crocheted when I was young, but never used it because of my mother’s hurtful words tearing it down. It was pretty colors, but I had made the crochet stitches a little big which made it a little big for a bed. Big was the style then so many people liked it. However, because she criticized it so much, I never used it or gave it to anyone. I kept it stored in a box in a closet for decades. It even moved with me the two times I moved. I never did any crochet again. I just now – yesterday – got rid of it because I am moving to a smaller place. (A very, very nice place but smaller.) I had kept telling myself that I would use it. It is on my mind now because I just got rid of it and a couple hours later read this blog. Yesterday someone was working with me to help me sort through things and decide what to keep or give. It made me upset to even open that box. I still was going to keep it, but was encouraged to give it away. My helper didn’t know the history but said that someone could use it. Maybe someone who likes retro ’60s – ’70s (afghans were popular then) will like it because it is actually made well even if it is a little big. It’s at a store like a Goodwill (not Goodwill – similar) now. What a shame but more than that shame was the way she devalued me and my life. That was the real shame. Maybe that afghan feels like a symbol for my life to me right now. I had thought a few years ago that when I got treatment for abuse I endured from her horrible boyfriend (boyfriend of one year and later she later claimed was only 3 months – no, a year) that I would be fine, but I didn’t realise that when I got better in that area it was going to uncover the unfair and nasty treatment from her. I had actually pushed it down in my memory and had pretended she was a good mother. The crazy thing is that there were times she could be a good mother. I would always think that would last. I told myself she just went off on her screaming and negative fits once in a while, but it was more than that. Later, after she passed away, I found out that she complained to others that I wouldn’t stick to things or finish things and complained about my depressed type of behaviors that she had caused. My dad had died when I was a baby so there was no one to stop her. She would get on a roll and go on and on. She has been dead now for several years and I would rather have good memories of her. However, things like the memory of that afghan blanket keep coming up and making me realise that I haven’t really dealt with the effects of her behavior. I went to an excellent psychologist who helped, but I really only touched on my mom’s behavior. I didn’t really deal with the effects. People think you will magically be over any ill effects when parent dies, but it left me feeling disheartened and discouraged. I still sometimes feel unsure about what I can/ can’t accomplish, and I’m over sensitive to any criticism. I need to learn to confront others and have boundaries also.
I am sorry you went through so many horrible abuses Diane! It sounds like there are some emotions to release about the way she treated you and that is understandable. I do recommend writing from the things she said to you that might still be playing in your head. It will help you get rid of the unconscious record that might still be playing. Love to you on your journey.
I had always backed off from performing, as long as I remembered, the fear was that I would run into the equivalent of an “electric fence” of shame and humiliation, the scene went– danced, shamed myself, and even worse did not realize it, so then saw the people in the audience (this is all my anticipated imaginary expectation) snickering to one another, saying “Oh my God, that poor woman, she does not even REALIZE that she is humiliating herself,so there is the double humiliation: of having humiliated myself, and having been “caught” for a moment thinking well enough of myself to DARE perform, and having deluded myself, so having set myself UP to have been doubly humiliated…
Then I read this amazing passage from a book, “I know that it is important that I stay close to my apprehension of being immediately shamed. For if I only rise above my fear, as I have often done, there will be no one to witness my wretchedness and mortification… no one to attend to my wounding… no one to allow it to begin its process of transformation and healing. I have finally acknowledged my wounding as the thing in all the world that is most truly mine…” This quote has inspired me to sign up to perform (have not done it yet) in a joint performance later in October, figured I would meet my feared shame and humiliation with compassion and courage… and not run away any longer.
I love this Deborah! I find it helps to write from the fears before we take any of these courageous steps. I look forward to hearing how it goes.