Ambivalence As A Survival Skill

I like looking for solutions.

But - part of looking for a solution - means that a problem has to be identified.

This past week over at Emerging From Broken Christina Enevoldsen, founder of popular website and private forum, Overcoming Sexual Abuse, shared part of her journey at our mutual friend Darlene Ouimets blog, Emerging From Broken, and how she learned to identify the dysfunctional family relationships that had shaped both her sense of self and the way she viewed and interacted with the world. 

There's tons of great information in this post (and any other of her posts at her website) but one thing I wanted to point out is how she identified that push/pull that can be so damaging to our relationships as survivors.

Here's an excerpt on this issue of ambivalence in her relationship with her mother; what it looks like and the purpose it serves:


As long as I saw her as all bad, there was nothing to grieve. 


I’d only seen her goodness when I was a child and I was seeing only her badness now.  

I was terrified that if I allowed myself to see her good side, I’d want a relationship with her and I would be exposed to more rejection.

As a child, it was normal to compartmentalize my relationships this way. It was safe; it kept me from more disappointment and pain. 

And it was normal that this would be how I would view ALL of my relationships: through the lense of expectation that others would cause me pain.

It was normal that my adult relationships looked so much like the ones from my childhood and that conflicting feeling of

I love you so much. (I need you to feel safe, to be ok)

and

I hate you, leave me alone, go away. (Usually with a few choice names thrown in:))


It was NORMAL for me to view the world in 


black


and


white.


Because that is how it was in the dysfunction that I came from. 

I was seen as good or bad based on if I'd done whatever I was expected to do and did it right enough or good enough, based on the ever changing rules that were arbitrary at best. And no matter how hard I tried 

it was never 

enough.

I was taught that I was either right enough or good enough based on someone elses determination but for some reason known only to those who modeled this way of engaging with the world as "normal"....I was never

just enough.

Raise a child in the way he should go

and when he is old

he will not depart from it. 

So

the problem was that I was stuck in that dance of seeing my relationships

and myself

through the dark lense of

all bad

or the blinders that let me see it as all good...

aka denial

and nothing in between. 

In this post by Christina over at Emerging From Broken she takes us into the process of how she was able to reconstruct her view from black and white to that place where she was able to see her past, her relationships and her life 

in living color.

~

zebras

polka dots

and plaids:)

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Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

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