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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The Relationships That Shaped My Life...and What I Learned From Them


Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

Photo Credit

Making Peace with the Past

At Peace

I'd spent 17 years in America's mental health system, my history of trauma and abuse neglected and dismissed as unimportant. Yet it was only upon leaving this system that had denied my life experiences as having any impact on my life that I began to find healing and make peace with the past. I began to explore and understand the role of emotions in healing from the pain of the past and all that goes with it in human emotional pain and the physical response to cognitive distress. 


I knew I was making progress in my healing journey as I began to move from wanting and needing the  comfort of another and became able to finally sit with my own pain instead of striving to avoid it. 


Was this an easy thing to do?


Very simply...


Hell no. 


I was taught early on that my thoughts, feelings and choices were wrong and that to have an original thought or feeling of my own, to take any self initiated action would result in somehow being minimized and discredited, abused and left to understand that I was


unimportant.


So no; it was not easy to learn to sit with and face my past and the reality of what was my truth.


It was not easy to realize that no matter how hard I tried I could not create the perfect world today for myself where I was valuable and honored by striving to finally be accepted as good enough or that I had finally done something...anything...right enough.


It was not easy to fully face the reality that there was no 


quick fix


no magic pill 


to take away my pain


but that 

to heal from the loss of all that should have been and

that which will never be

is to embrace that which was

and is.

~


Today I Cried

~

Susan's Story: Guest Post at Emerging From Broken "Turning Points and Emotional Healing"

Nice to meet you!

Today I've been honored to share part of my story with the readers of Darlene Ouimets blog Emerging From Broken.  Here is an excerpt of today's post  "Turning Points and Emotional Healing"...

"When I finally was able to make peace with the past I could write a new ending to the story and claim what was rightfully mine - me." ~ Susan Smith August 26, 2010


Darlene Ouimet is also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and invited me to share part of my journey and how I was able to find my way through the darkness of childhood trauma and learn to live beyond PTSd, depression and dissociation. 


I'd like to invite you to drop by to Darlene's Blog, Emerging From Broken to read today's post.


In the next post here at A Journey we'll finish up our series about learning to live our own truth with the post "To Thine Own Self Be True"...you can find parts 1 and 2 in this link.



Thank you for choosing to share your journey with me today! 

Stinky Shoes, Lightbulb Moments and Mission Impossible

House on the Prairie

August 2010

My blogging - whether it's here on "A Journey", at Facebook or on Twitter - is where I share my journey, the actions I've taken, the "aha" moments of insight that stemmed from learning how to create this change in my life.

Like any writer, inspiration comes from my world, my experiences, my relationships and I very often have these moments of "aha!" and will do a quick post on twitter rather than a lengthly post here or on Facebook.

This week I thought I'd share a few of the "top tweets" from my tweet-stream....these are tweets that others found interesting in recent days and shared with their followeres... so I thought I'd share them here with you today:)

8.19.10 For a long time I hung onto the negative thinking because it was all I knew, it was like an old pair of tennis shoes. Comfy but it stank.

This tweet came from the idea of how we are "creatures of habit" and naturally gravitate back to what's comfortable, what's our "normal".

In the context of trauma survivors - sometimes we aren't even aware that change is a possibility, that we don't have to live in an abusive environment because we've been conditioned to "Tolerate the Intolerable" or that we can learn to find happiness, peace and joy because all we've ever known is the negative and we have no clue that we hold the power to change our lives simply by learning to change our thoughts.

Creating positive change can be something as simple as developing a new "21 day habit" or creating the life change that will set us free from the pain of the past by feeling the feelings and grieving the losses of the past in order to set ourselves free of the torment.

It was way easier to fall back into rumination, being that perpetual victim and the expectation that someone or something will create the needed change than it was to face the pain and fears of the past in order to grow beyond that place of "stuck".

It was easier to stay in the old thinking that felt familiar....but it was the "stinky thinking" that had to go for change to occur.

8.19.10 Complaining about what others were doing became an indicator that I was expecting someone else to change in order for my life to be better.

Boy - this was a huge "lightbulb" moment for me when I realized that the deeply ingrained sense of worthlessness, hopelessness and helplessness was connected to the deeply held idea that I truly was powerless; that my health and happiness was dependent on what others did and said and had nothing to do with me.

In fact - I didn't even grasp the idea that I held any power over my own life until I started catching that chronic feeling of irritability and thoughts of what others needed to do. Once I started "seeing" that this was part of my pattern of helplessness - I was able to connect the dots and understand that I could change that sense of helplessness by paying attention to these kinds of thoughts and choosing to take my own action.

8.17.10It is not the traumas we suffer in childhood which make us emotionally ill but the inability to express the trauma..." Alice Miller

Ain't that the truth!

Part of what makes PTSd/C-PTSd so crippling is not that we survived a trauma - it's the avoidance of any situation, circumstance, person, place or thing that could "trigger" a thought that would then trigger that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that is the trauma experience relived.

I've learned that the "avoidance" tools that survivors use, come in many different shapes, colors and flavours. From the gamut of addictive behaviors to living in a chronic state of dissociation that kicked in when things got stressful, avoidance was the purpose of my self destructive choices....

and it was this awareness that empowered me to begin to gradually choose to create the change that would change my life.

It took some time - but eventually I was able to learn how to connect consciously to my thinking, my emotions and the expression of my thoughts and emotions in my physical self.

It seemed like healing from trauma was "Mission Impossible" but by learning how to go through the natural emotional healing process I was able to tap into infinite possibilities and begin to create the life I wanted - and deserved.

‎Q: what is one of your own "aha" moments that made an impact on your own healing journey?

Abuse: I "didn't know that I didn't know"

We'll get back to the discussion on making the shift from "illness" to "wellness" mindset shortly; in the meantime...

Some of us "don't know what we don't know".

Personally, over the years when I was asked if I was "abused" I would say shamefully "no" because first - I didn't know what it was like to not be abused, this was my "normal"...

...and second - I'd been trained to believe that somehow it was my fault what the adults in my life had done to me and thus as I grew into adulthood, I repeated this pattern in my relationships not because I was "bad", "defective", "less than" or "ill" - but because it was all I knew.

I "didn't know that that I didn't know" that I was living the generational pattern of abuse in my life.

I just thought something was "wrong" with me; that I was "defective" and as I entered the mental health system in 1992, the abuse was ignored and I accepted that I was actually "ill", "diseased" and "defective"; somehow I was "genetically" broken.
That something was "wrong" with me...not that I'd been raised in an environment that left me ill equipped to face the world as an individual.

This article I'm referencing addresses male to female abuse but truth is....these are indicators of men to women, women to men,male to male or female to female, adult to child, perpetrator to victim in any situation, any relationship.

Abuse of any kind is not restricted to "intimate" or "domestic" relationships but can be seen in all societal relationships in various degrees. It doesn't matter what we call it...."dating violence", "domestic violence", "gay or lesbian" violence, "sexual discrimination" in workplaces...

...it all boils down to one thing: a perpetrator needing to validate their existence through the control and oppression of another.

Think globally as in war and prisoner of war camps. Same idea, different people, places and circumstances.

Abuse is often tolerated as "normal" although in truth is an indicator of that struggle of "power and control" and that power imbalance in oppressive relationships and may often precede physical abuse and violation as the victims are "groomed" to tolerate the intolerable.
Knowledge is the beginning of the truth that will set us free.

Often, abuse issues are looked at as if controlling the "abuser" will change things yet we hear over and over how those who were once the victim repeatedly find themselves in abusive relationships and environments.

So while becoming informed and learning how to identify abuse is the beginning - the cycle of abuse doesn't "end" by focussing on the "perpetrators" and we know this because we frequently will leave one abusive relationship and find ourselves in another.

Escaping the pattern of abuse for me began with identifying what it was within myself that attracted me to and was the basis to repeat this pattern in my adult relationships - not by living in that state of hyper-vigelance where I had to be "on guard" to catch the next perpetrator.

As long as I lived my life "on guard" for the next "abuser" I was focussed again on finding my "solution" in something or someone outside of myself instead of concentrating on learning how to no longer be a victim.

This was that "false sense of power" that came from an environment where I learned to "be" good enough or "do" right enough to avoid being hurt or to be "loved" by manipulating situations and circumstances in order to be "accepted" in an environment where being "me" wasn't allowed. (I.E. if I could "spot" the abuse, I could "avoid" it someway or do or say something to make the abuser "love" me...or at least stop hurting me.)

We can't change other people or the choices they make... but we can gain the knowledge that will empower us in our own lives and help us to change things for the next generation.
You can read the article here.

Q: Thoughts?

Revised...Building Up or Tearing Down?

It has come to my attention that the content of this post might be triggering for some and thus perhaps not appropriate for this blog so I have pulled this post and will repost a revised version more appropriate to the audience here at a later date.

You don't have to be Einstien - knowledge is EMpowerMENT!

Ok, well...if you have been around for more than a minute you probably know how I feel about using "meds" and how they applied to my journey. If not, you can check out this post and then listen to my story on Blog Talk Radio with Michele Rosenthal of Heal My Ptsd fame.

And maybe you've popped in and taken a look at my Resources page where I posted this:

Please do not take any information from this web site as gospel or instruction. This blog and these resources are meant to be fuel that might encourage you to think, ask questions, find your own answers and hopefully support you as you walk your path and create your own best life which is in the simplest terms - the life you choose for yourself each day.

The point I want to make is that my wish and my hope is that the things I post here become fuel for your own journey; another tool and resource for you to draw upon as you take charge of and reclaim your own personal power over the pain of the past.

You see - as long as I believed that to heal from the past was as complicated and mysterious as it seems to have been made out to be, I was dependent on others to spoon feed me my answers thus effectively reinforcing that false logic that I had no power within myself to affect change.

I had that faux sense of helplessness that there was nothing I could do to make my life any different. I became prisoner to the nightmares, the anxieties, the panic, the avoidance, depression...and so on.

I became dependent on my doctors, counselors and therapists to provide me with a weekly "fix" so that I could "survive" until my next appointment.

I was convinced that in time, a pill would be found that would "fix" me.

In my case, this whole scenario was complicated (watch...this is important) by the issues of child abuse and neglect. Thus "Complex PTSD" which is now beginning to be recognized as a valid issue in the field of mental health. Although once again - having this validated is not the same as offering some concrete solutions to help me find my way. Another term I have heard recently used in the context of survivors of long term child abuse issues is "Developmental Trauma Response". (more on this another day...)

The point I am getting to is this: our trauma experiences are all different. There is no "worse than" or "better than". There is different.

There is no measurement or comparison of whose trauma is "worse". If you were shot in Iraq - does that make your trauma worse than of the man or woman who was in a violent car accident, the one who survived a hurricane, or the one who was violated by a family member or a stranger?

Nada.

And while there is a time, a place and a purpose to revisit and "process" through the emotions that were connected with our trauma - if that is what we find ourselves doing most of the time we are going to struggle with living in the now.

It's as if we have become addicted to living and reliving the nightmare and cant get out of it.

We dwell on our "symptoms" as though we have no control over them instead of using them as an indicator that it is time to apply a new method of coping.

And when we are unaware of all of our options - this misnomer may be true.

Without knowledge we cannot have awareness. Without awareness we cannot have insight. Without insight we cannot make the choice to initiate change.

For 15 years I believed in Santa Claus. I believed that it was impossible to heal trauma. I believed that if I just stuck with it, that magic pill would be found that would "fix" me, that my therapist was right and I was wrong. I mean really...if "it" wasn't working it had to be me, right? I believed that I was powerless.

But I did not have enough information to choose differently.

You see, I have this theory that if those who are suffering from the various issues that are today medicated and managed are given information to be able to identify where they are in their healing journey and where they want to be, the kind of life they want to live - if we are given the opportunity to learn about how this healing process works, the tools to use and a chance to develop their skills in using them - I have a firm belief that we will begin to empower ourselves and learn to heal.

So - regardless of where you are at in your journey, trust that you are in exactly the right place today AND that you can begin to use the daily triggers and related symptoms to create your own unique map to begin to mark your own journey out of the darkness and exit that perpetual state of helplessness.

Begin to believe - in you.

When you have come to the edge...

This week I posted I am...NOT powerless. Why? Because for too long I "felt" powerless.

Where did that "feeling" come from?

Well, I suppose it started when I was trained to not speak up for myself as a child. In "normal" healthy families, autonomy is encouraged...even insisted upon. But in a dysfunctional or abusive situation this is typically not the case.

In a healthy environment we are encouraged to speak up when something hurts or feels uncomfortable. We are encouraged to learn to set our own boundaries and to respect the boundaries that others set for themselves. (Click here for a summary of autonomous v. controlling relationships)

In other situations where parenting is viewed more as a "do as I say" situation often with serious consequences if we dare to buck the authority of our parents. Often we are not given the choice to say "no" to hurtful words or actions of those around us. We develop a tolerance for being mistreated that becomes the blueprint for other relationships in our lives.

We may become dependent on first our family to give us an identity and give us "permission" to speak, to think to live life. In some situations we can incur much wrath if we dare to speak up about what we want, believe or think if it is different than what our caretakers believe we should have. Then as we grow we come to depend on external forces and others responses to define who we are and if we are ok.

I remember the day I came to this realization - that I could not exist unless the world around me and those in it "validated" my existence with some sort of acknowledgement that I was "ok" or had done or said the "right" thing.

I was well into my journey of self discovery... (I hesitate to use the word "recovery" for the simple reason that I have not had anything to "recover" as I truly had no sense of self or life situation that I wanted to repeat or regain).....

...I had learned to be mindfully aware of my thoughts and was slowly becoming aware that I had feelings that were influenced by my thinking and thus behaviors Ie choices I made, actions that I chose that were directed by my internal communications system of thoughts and feelings.

In other words I was starting to listen to "me".

What I found was that even in the simplest of circumstances that overwhelming feeling of anxiety and the emotional torment I experienced when around others was fueled not by anything other than the fact that I was looking to any external response that could tell me that I was doing it right....that I was ok to exist in the space that I resided.

I had for years experienced severe anxiety in public. I did whatever I had to do to avoid dealing with people. Having a car was not only transportation for me but it was a form of armour, a shield to hide from the greater world.

But my car had recently "died" and I was forced to either walk or rely on public transportation; a nightmare for me.

On this particular morning I was walking to get somewhere...I became aware that I was feeling anxious, as though I was exposed and naked to the world around me. I kept my eyes down and my shoulders curled up around my neck. I walked on in shame as though I had done something wrong by simply existing.

Yet I was determined to understand why I felt this way, why it was nearly impossible for me to venture outside and be a part of this bigger world.

I stood at the corner, waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street. A car approached and as it came nearer I listened to myself; my thoughts, my feelings.

As this car with a single man inside it approached I felt a small surge of anticipation as I looked not at the light or the crosswalk but I searched out the face of this anonymous person. And I suddenly realized that I was searching to be acknowledged, I was craving that my existence be confirmed by the smile I received as this person drove by.

Yet I also became painfully aware that to not be acknowledged by this stranger would reinforce the misnomer that I was not "enough"; that I had no right to exist.

As I stood there on the corner that warm spring morning, the sun warming the pavement and fueling the rebirth of spring I realized that if I could become aware of this conection between my thoughts and the way I felt - then I could learn to be and be ok.

I - was no longer powerless.

I am not a can of soup

Hmmmph.

Today I'm struggling with finding my voice. I feel fear at speaking up and voicing my true thoughts and opinions. I fear being judged and ridiculed for having an opinion as for too long I lived in a family system that discouraged any form of autonomy. Yet - I am choosing today to not accept this as my story any longer.

For too long I wore the labels that others gave me; at the expense of developing any sense of self or feeling of control over my life or life choices.

As a small child one label I wore was "brat"; others were stupid, selfish, idiot. In time more labels were added to the list like whore and slut (thanks dad).

When I was married "bitch" was added to the list.

And when I got away from the violence in my marriage I became a "victim".

When I entered the mental health system - a whole but injured person - I was given the label "mentally ill", "addict" and "alcoholic" to wear along with the sub-labels of "depressed", "bi polar", "dysthymic", "paranoid", "psychotic" among others.

And I wore each and every one of these labels very, very well. I carried the shame and believed that I was "less than", that I was broken beyond repair.

And today I am speaking up to say - I am not a label.

I am. Period.

I exist and I have every right to exist, to breath, to experience a world and a life that knows no boundaries, to decide what kind of person I will be, what kind of future that I will live.

Today - I write my own story and continue to shed the labels that in the past have left me feeling helpless to improve my lot in life and hopeless that I even could have a life of my own choosing.

Today - if I was to wear a label I will choose it. And today I would choose to "label" myself as curious, intelligent, caring, wonderful, kind, considerate, empowered, brave and courageous....

Today - I am and I am free.

A rant...then letting go

Today I recieved one of those mushy, feel-good chain emails that says something along the lines of send this back....

It was about sisters and the love, encouragement and bond of women in our lives as we grow older. It talked about how as "sisters" we support each other, cheer each other on, love one another when we are down and in pain - celebrate each others joys along the path of life.

It was from my sister.

The same sister who kicked me when I was down.

Who told me that I was an ungrateful bitch who had no appreciation for everything SHE had done for me even though I was not given a "choice" in the matter.

The same sister who when I was in the psych ward at the hospital for the first time after escaping a violent husband would scream at me for having my own opinion, expressing my own wishes or attempt to parent my own children.

The same sister who beat me down to such a low level that I believed that my children were better off without me and I willingly handed over custody of my small son. And proceeded to try to kill myself with drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of what I had survived - not only after escaping my abusive husband but then returning to the "open arms" of a family that degraded me, criticized and infantized me to such a degree that I could not make a decision of my own for fear of their judgement and sure to follow emotional and psychological tirade at how ridiculous I was to have a thought, an emotion or an opinion different than theirs.

The same sister who talks about me behind my back and degrades me to my children and other siblings. The same sister who freely claims my son as hers and laughs at my pain over the losses and abuse that I have survived.

Receiving this from her - pissed me off.

So - while I strive to put the past behind me and live in forgivenss of those who beat me, molested and raped me, stifled any development of a sense of self outside of this dysfunctional family system and then continued throughout my adult life to remind me of how inadequate I am and always have been (I get the role of "scapegoat" in my family)....

Even though I have been in therapy for nearly 20 years in an attempt to resolve theses issues within myself and learn to live my own life and let go of the past...

Shit like this is a trigger for me. A HUGE trigger. A trigger that can initiate the flashbacks, the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. A trigger that reminds me that the world is not a safe place and that love and family hurts.

Yet today I don't have to stay there in the past. Today I know that I can get beyond this unexpected trigger. Today I can choose to not focus on the movies that run through my head and let go of the resentments all over again. Today I can remember that the world is an ok place and not everyone is abusive.

I still keep my distance from my family. I don't "hang out" with them. I don't talk to them on the phone. I show up at a few holidays over the year to appease that warped sense of family that my children have about these people. I still have not learned to say "no" to my children. Perhaps that is out of the guilt of leaving them to my family to raise when I was shamed, shunned and exiled to the land of slow death by suicidal behaviors.

So today I let this go now and get back to my today. Today I use my tool of journaling to vent my anger, pain and grief. Today I acknowledge the reality of what has been my life and let go of the childlike thinking that I can make my life right if I can control the world around me today. Today I accept what is and let go of the "why me" that serves only to fuel that place of perpetual victimhood that prevents me from creating my new life.

Today I can cut myself some slack knowing that I did the best I could with what I had to work with in the past and today I know I can do better but I never again have to be "good enough" to be loved and accepted - by anyone.

Today I simply am and I am at peace.

And oh yeah - I didn't send it back.

One step forward...wait.....no thats two steps forward??

and two steps back it seems sometimes. Or is it two steps forward and one step back? either way this week I did move forward but it was a bumpy ride.

Last week was my first day on this new job - and after being in "hyper vigilance" mode the weeks before as I prepared my brain and body completely shut down. I could not think, my body felt weak to the point of just getting off the couch required superhuman effort it seems.

So I accepted that I needed to rest and in a couple of days I had some energy - my brain was working again and I dove into the follow up of my program - and the hard drive in my new-to-me 1 year old laptop - crashed.

Who'da thought? So I deal with that and set up my old slower-than-molasses pc and try again over the weekend and my internet server goes down. Phone calls. More phone calls. "So sorry - we will get someone out to look at it Monday".

So - the old way of coping goes something like "OMG I AM GOING TO FAIL AT THIS. HOW CAN I DO MY JOB? I JUST PUT OUT $X IN THIS NEW SYSTEM AND LOOK AT IT....OMG HOW AM I GOING TO DO THIS? THIS COMPANY PAID ME TO DO A JOB AND I CANT EVEN SEND OUT AN EMAIL..." Get the picture?

Now mind you - in the past, this was the only way I knew to cope I.E. not cope and blame circumstances and people outside of me for why I was failing.

So I had a moment. Ok; I had a FEW moments. I felt stressed. I felt agitated. I paced. I felt isolated and insignificant. And then I decided that I could do this anyway. And with this decision I took one step...then another.

I wrote my follow up email to my corporate group in a word document on my atiquidated pc. Then I let it go and went about doing other things and got a good nights rest.

Monday morning. Still no internet.

I made plans to head out to the coffee shop and hope my old laptop would 1. boot up and 2. not freeze up.

Then - as I'm talking to someone about which new external hard drive to buy I look at my modem and - whila! I have service!

So I quickly re entered my contacts into gmail (remember, my computer crashed right after my last group so they werent accessable to me here) did a quick cut and paste and sent it off.

I pulled up my powerpoint and started doing my revisions (as long as only 1 program is running I am guarenteed my old pc will SLOWLY get the job done). I saved my files. Printed to the printer that works with the pc and then copied in color on the new-and-improved-wireless printer that works with the laptop that does not work.....

And I was done and ready for work yesterday morning.

What's the point here?

The point is that my old coping patterns still come up when the stress level goes up - but - that with understanding of what was happening inside my head (overgeneralization, catastrophizing, black and white thinking etc...) and that I am no longer that little child victim, helpless to affect change or protect myself - I was able to pull myself out of what could have (in the past) been another excuse to stay in my hole and live life as that perpetual victim of circumstance.

So here we go - cheers to me for making lemonade when life gave me lemons :)

"Good enough", "doing it right" and my jammies

Tonight I realized just how far I've come.

For the longest time - like my entire life I suppose - I have lived under that shadow, that remnant of my childhood where no matter what I did or said it wasn't "right". There was always some criticizm or abuse that would come of it. A slap alongside the head, "boxing" of my ears, "dumcoft" (one of three words my father taught me in german; my "heritage"). "Shut up", "brat" and "idiot" was the norm in our house (you notice I didnt say "home").

There was probably just as much or more abuse from my older siblings as there was from my parents so the math would be 2 parents + 5 older siblings. In general some ridicule of my very existence every day regardless of the wistful wishes of being heard, hugged or loved in any not sexual or physical hurtful way.

This affected me my entire life to the point that no matter what I did or said even in the privacy of my own home as an adult ---years and decades after "getting away" from the battelground that was my childhood ---I could not be "ok" with just about any choice or decision that I made. I had become completely frozen. Afraid to speak. Afraid to take a step. I reached a point in my family that I would start to shake out of terror that one of the "wicked stepsisters" (half sisters) or my father would begin to question me which would always lead to some ridicule and eventually more verbal, emotional and psychological abuse if I even attempted to exert any kind of control or choice over my own life.

Tonight it was my PJ's. As I was pulling my old stretched out grey t shirt over my head and my bright blue stretchy comfy pant on with my old navy blue nike zip up sweatshirt with a hood along with my wool socks that have holes in them....

The thought went through my mind of how in the past I would have:

1. felt shame for not having "nice" or "real" pajamas, matching robe and slippers (god only knows what "nice" was because no matter how much I paid for it it was never "nice" enough) AND not going to bed with bright white teeth, picture perfect hair and the makeup that never seemed to wash off

And/or:

2. if anyone would knock on my door unexpectedly like a neighbor asking to borrow that famed cup of sugar from the Ozzie and Harriet type tv shows ---I would either hurriedly try to freshen myself up enough all the while apologizing for my drab not new at all sweats and tshirt (like they even give a rip?)

But tonight I realized that while those thoughts and feelings still lurk in the back of my mind as does the potential for that related anxiety...that I was ok with my frumpy not pretty pj's. Finally I dont feel as though I need to apologize for walking into a room or calling you on the phone --- or for the clothes I wear, the food I eat, the life I live.

Finally I can acknowledge the confusing feelings I've had as I vacillate back and forth between that love/hate feelings I have about my family. Finally I can put responsiblity on the adults in my life that hurt and neglected me instead of making excuses for them and their behavior. Finally I can let go and say that I wasn't bad, it wasn't my fault, I can't fix it. Finally I understand and accept that my thoughts, feelings, choices...my existance...are and always have been just fine... and so are my jammies tonight.