Peace Does Come: Take Note of It

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12 step, grounding, inner child, mental health, neglect, peace, recovery

12:42 PM

Walking home from church in the brightness of early afternoon, I inhaled deeply as I reached the street corner. Looking up, it was green for me to walk and I slowly exhaled as I did so. Checking in with my body, I found it relaxed, spent, almost sleepy. Inquiring further north, my mind was quiet, nothing in particular rattling around stirring up expectations, no dramas being hashed through, no critical voice demanding forward action. Nothing. Blissful peace of mind.

Recently I have come to realize that my studio door is really a time portal. Going out of it reminds me of the realities of the ever faster moving bit world beyond it’s sturdy frame. Coming back in is like stepping back into the seventies when my physical needs were met, I was safe, life was fairly quiet, and there was a dim hum of some future; but no one was home.

To this day, when I am alone I often have the sensation of being small and waiting for my mom to come home. As I enter my living space, I feel like I am eight coming home to an empty house, save for the cats and the dog. The silence is loud. My entire life I have paused to listen to the openness of that silence. My eight-year-old self had no comfort that the time alone would be brief. The expectation that I would soon be swept up in my parent’s love and attention was unrealistic and usually not met; but it didn’t keep me from hoping, dreaming, trying. When connection was not available and time stretched on, the silence would fill my head. Suddenly I would be void of thoughts, urges, movement. It was like someone took an eraser to the chalkboard in my brain. All that was written upon it was gone, no longer important. I remember moving with stealth through the empty house. Until the dog woke up, I was a prowler. Over time, the void permeated most of me. By the time I turned nine, I felt void of my body also. I existed outside myself most of the time, returning now and then out of the old hope that was once there.

We had moved yet again. This time it was with a man and we all lived in the same house. This was good because it meant that my mom would be home with me and not at her boyfriend’s. It was also good because it was almost like we were a family. My mom cooked, cleaned, ran things, and looked after me. It didn’t last long. Despite the structure, there wasn’t connection between my mom and I. It became clear to me that the house was his, she was just staying there, they were them, and I was just there. School was not going well for me. It was my fifth school and I was only in 4th grade. I was forever going to be out of the loop of kids that knew each other since kindergarten, I wasn’t from around there, hell I wasn’t even from that region of the country. That year I didn’t connect with my peers. Last Sunday while cleaning, I came across a diary from when I was 7, 8, 9, and 10. The entries were few and far between, hence covering four years, but the content was consistent. Beyond the normal angst whether a certain boy liked me or if a friend would betray me; there were entries voicing continued disconnect, hope fraying, and death talk. Of course there was the “I’ll just die/kill myself if such and such happens,” but there were also precursors to suicidal ideation. One entry sent me to the floor when I read it. I remembered it.

My mom and her boyfriend broke up and we spent the summer camping. It was a blast. My mom bought a blue 1967 stick-shift Ford Ranger, put an over-the-cab camper on it, loaded three cats, two dogs, and me up, and off we went. This was the best summer of my entire childhood. Three of the best months of my life. We got back right before school started, she married before the year was out, and I disappeared again. Her absences this time were just weekends away, but the new for sure, gone all night, rattled me as much as the gone-more-often-but-maybe-not-overnight behavior from before. It didn’t matter, I didn’t matter, she just wasn’t interested in me. Eventually I came to not mind, even look forward to her weekends away. It became a badge of honor that I was so responsible. I was eleven.

It has been nearly four decades, yet I still trip over time’s threshold walking into an empty home alone. That is, until I remember that the time is now. Real time is living in this world-class city as a grown-up with grown-up privileges and a bank account. Real time has me connecting with co-workers over new jobs, weddings, babies, funerals, and fundraisers. After six years, I am a vital part of a core group of eight at a 12-step meeting on Mondays. I am now in my first “clique”. At church I have a regular seat, regular peeps to sit with, and regular activities to attend with them usually riding shot-gun. I am a “regular” at a bar (I so never saw that one coming! I am learning Backgammon.) I belong to a “neighborhood” – these people are amazingly tight and interested in each other! I no longer have to wait on someone to come home to comfort me, to give me value, to direct me in the ways of the world. I have what I need right outside my door-portal.

Right here, right now, alone for hours in my studio choosing to write despite it’s risk to my bliss; I remain at peace. It is an absolutely beautiful, warm, sunny, spring evening; I think I will treat my amazing eight and eleven year-olds to a hotdog and chocolate shake at Superdawg.

bc

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It’s okay to be a “Doubting Thomas”

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12 step, addiction, adult children, anxiety, co-dependency, depression, fear, freedom, gumption, mental health, recovery, shame

Today’s sermon centered on “Doubting Thomas”, a follower of Jesus who had doubts that he had been resurrected. He wanted proof that his fellow followers were not just seeing things. To me, Thomas just had a questioning attitude. He was out doing other stuff when Jesus appeared to everybody else so he missed things. I tend to be like Thomas. I tend to be like, “Show me the money, honey”.

As usual, the sermon was written for me. I am full of doubts. I doubt my brain will keep working allowing me to return to school. I doubt my job position will remain long enough to finish said school. I doubt the trustworthiness of my company. I can doubt people around me. I doubt that I can grow myself enough to function well, even excel, in a demanding adult world. What I don’t doubt though, is that for me, the doubting, the questioning, the seeking, the curiosity, is the point. Like it or not, I am a journey person.

The sermon put me at ease with my current, mostly daily doubts. Leaving room for God, other people, even other aspects of myself; will allow me to breathe in life more fully. From the perspective of relaxed openness, I can begin to court doubts as possible friends that can expand me, rather than foes that I have to put down. I can learn to leave room for life to happen, to make space to deal with whatever happened; rather than constantly running stressed out shutting things down to dispel those doubts. It is cool that I am in this space right now.

Despite these pesky doubts, something approximating gumption has burst forth. I can feel the rise in my energy. Leaving church, I felt like someone important had just told me that I don’t have to know everything. They informed me that most people don’t, that it’s alright, and most importantly, it’s acceptable to ask questions. Totally new to me. On the morning of the Resurrection and the following days, not all of the disciples knew what the heck was going on. It turned out okay for millions of people for several centuries now. Today I may not know what the heck is going on, but I am going to guess that it will turn out okay for me and mine for a few decades.

That is just me, in my currently small, simple, fairly insular life removed from the drama that created much of my doubt in the first place. I’d like to stay in this Zened place. It would be Hollywood lovely if my reflections ended here.

Swinging open my studio door, reality poked my Zen. My refusal to give doubt it’s due consideration and friendship has cost me greatly. The greatest has been in the limited rearing of my child. On top of my personal costs of this refusal, are the personal costs to him. Running from my doubts has proven to be expensive and very heavy. With my Zen by the shirt-sleeve; I curled up to ponder how I address doubt with my son. I strive to be an emotionally-available-I’ve-got-your-back parent.  I also work to remain in two realities, his and mine. Mine includes owning my own crap balanced with that I am still the parent and the game ain’t over yet.

As a child I didn’t like doubt, it frightened me. Children need adults in their lives that manage doubt well. Sometimes as a parent I try to abolish all doubt. Absolute musts like, ” I will always and forever love and accept you no matter what.” Please don’t take this a license to maim, murder, or commit mayhem; but normal life mess-ups are okay, I will love you anyway.

Sometimes as a parent I want to remind my son to have healthy doubt. Parental worries like, “I know you are capable of making your own decisions, but I was once 21, in almost the exact same spot in life, in the same town, and almost the same resources and lack thereof; please consider my story as you live yours.” Fortunately, my failures are lit up in neon for my son to see; unfortunately, at times his lack of doubt puts him squarely on the same path. This lack of doubt as twenty-somethings tend to profess, worries me.

Then there are the well-founded, well-documented, well-practiced reasons for doubt that have been openly addressed. Believability, trust, and faith are difficult to re-establish when someone has suffered hard blows about their parent when that parent’s failures created more doubt. I think this feeds the need of having to know everything in that twenty-something. I was that twenty-something. Often I have to remind myself of those days so I don’t act like a jerk now, especially when my son and I are at odds. When I poke him about big important things he tends to sling something back at me, usually a defensive move, to show me that something I did didn’t work, wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, or based on my experience, he doesn’t need to do it. This argumentative doubt is hard to deal with, probably for both of us, but it is painful for me. It is painful to be slung at, it is painful that for now, it can be true, and it is painful that usually a failure, greatly affects him. I get his doubts. All of them. However, as the parent, as someone 25 years older, as an optimist, as a recovering person, and most importantly, as HIS parent; some of those doubts need not be. Some of those doubts, even those flagrant failures; are only flowers not yet bloomed, grass not yet grown, trees not yet matured.

His Mama is a work in progress. Like Thomas, I’ve just been out doing other things. Recovery has given me a new life and the peeps to go with it. I am now free to question and expect the best.

Doubt! Bring it on!

bc

Risks of sharing my blog

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12 step, acceptance, addiction, adult children, anxiety, co-dependency, confidence, counter-dependency, depression, development, fear, freedom, gratitude, grounding, harmony, mental health, peace, ptsd, re-parenting, recovery, respect, self-esteem, shame

Today, I awoke profoundly happy. Last night I slept more peacefully than I have in years. It wasn’t that I didn’t awake or toss and turn and destroy my bed; it was that last night, life felt okay. This okayness was a direct result of a great previous 36 or so hours. It had been a wonderful Sunday filled with a dead-on-for-me message from my awesome minister; a productive afternoon re-installing, “updating”, and managing home IT; a brief walk outside between raindrops; then a cozy social evening of beer, burgers and conversation about God and the role of play in our lives. For me, a well rounded, balanced day is Nirvana. I felt complete. I felt like my needs had been met. I felt the increase in my functioning. I felt normal. I could let go and let myself rest.

The clock read 9:30 pm by plumeria candle-light as I slipped into my bed sans feathers, but accompanied by a glass of Spanish wine. My body was willing to co-operate with the early retirement because my mind was blissfully quiet.

Saturday had even been a good night at work. As usual it wasn’t worth it to stress about achieving or to worry about the state of affairs on my unit, because as usual, the powers that be have no concern for those things; so I didn’t. I got floated to a totally chill assignment which enabled me to do things at work that I never ever do. After a couple of hours I was able to check my work and personal emails and go online. I had two hours to read up on WP blogs. I was able to respond to those who sent me “likes” and comments. I was able to read their posts, their bios, their struggles. From a dark, cold, institutionally lit room; I was able to connect via invisible radio waves sending and receiving digital data across my continent and possibly “the pond”.  (I think radio waves is correct.) In those moments I was totally loving technology. Although such connections are not as fulfilling as connecting with someone ten inches from me, I am growing to look forward to checking in on this online community of fellow travelers.

As I left work (early even) I was pumped about the blogs and those who wrote them. I felt a new surge of energy and interest. Once home, I messed with IT and wrote most of the night. At 5 am-ish I was happy enough with my work to take a nap before rising for church. Little did I know, I had just written the jist of the coming sermon. I love it when that happens because then I KNOW I am going in the right direction. 

WP blogs provide a relatively safe place to drop our masks. While I am mostly “out” in my world, this blog is anonymous and no one who knows me in person is privy to it. However, this is beginning to fray. My closest pal/friend wants to read more of my writing and usually wants to read as I post. I am hesitant to direct them to my WP blog because of the freedom of expression that it affords me. I can say anything I want on my blog and it doesn’t impact anyone around me. It is a space that I am free to be me. I’ve never had this before so it is beyond special and I want to protect it. What if I want to write about them? What if I want to explore my tendency to hang out with married men who have crazy wives?

A few people from my Monday night 12-step group have asked how to find my blog. When asked this I say that I am sorry but that I want to keep it anonymous. This is in part because I am protecting someone that I did write about and I don’t want to out them. But a large part of not wanting my fellow 12-steppers reading my blog is that I feel it would impact their growth. Some will feel less than, and unintentionally my blog could pressure them where there is already too much pressure. Some will get all ADD. My writing could influence them to stray from their path to investigate something on mine. Some will get compary. They will compare their writing with mine, their journey with mine, how I manage things with how they manage things, their life with mine. A few will be better than me in some areas and will either want to tell me so, want to critique and fix things, or improve how I do something. At least one will push me to improve the appearance of my blog, how it functions, and it’s exposure. I don’t want the stress.

Then there is the humany stuff. People will gossip, bitch, tease, compete, compensate, disengage, placate, and worry. It will be like high school.

I am beginning to think that thinking of groups of people together all the time, over a long period of time, is like high school. Silver lining: I am also beginning to think that my natural order of development can be recaptured in the HERE and NOW if I can learn to navigate my thoughts, feelings, behaviors, instincts, dreams, and the ethereal things that happen, right in my current environments. That is, I have high school all over again to finally grow-up! Now, we all know that in high school, the less said, the better.

bc

Me: Status Quo Normal

Tags

12 step, adult children, anxiety, budget, depression, fear, mental health, neglect, recovery, respect, self-esteem

I have the compaq back. My laptop is so unreliable that I have learned to not count on it. I also have a Gateway Notebook that I bought for school because fits in my purse, when my main laptop goes down I use it. The thing is, I think that this practice just allows my insides to continue to assume and prepare for unreliability in general. I don’t put the work I should into maintaining things because I get scattered, then my scatteredness nearly guarantees that things will break down. Then the breaking down of things solidifies that I don’t deserve for things to work and go well for me. This pushes me to either give up on things or have back-ups in case of failures. Now, this can go two different ways.

When I can’t maintain things or be consistent, I could look at those things and decide that I don’t need to do them or be consistent in them; or I can push through because giving up isn’t a good option. I tend to be lax in repairs/replacements. My laptop isn’t an item I can go without. The notebook is helpful, but a full sized computer is best. I do need to be consistent on conducting my online life, this is not an option. However, my digital camera kept malfunctioning and breaking. I managed to get it working/repaired a few times then gave up. I found that as smart phones improved, the camera feature on those did as well (now far better) than the camera. Almost nobody creates hardcopy photo albums anymore, so this “hobby” has fallen by the wayside. Now, if my phone goes down, no camera. My Garmin no longer holds a charge, it has to be plugged in in the car. That’s a problem because my cigarette lighter doesn’t work. Once again smart phone technology saves the day with Google maps!

So, to recap, camera and Garmin out, laptop and Notebook in; however I need to get faster at updates to prevent crashes and picking it back up when it does go in for repairs.

Other things are on the fritz. My car needs many repairs. A mechanically sound car is not an option, but other broken components often don’t get fixed due to lack of money, time, or interest. This is beginning to wear on me. It is almost to the point of embarrassment. I feel ashamed of my car. I feel ashamed that I can’t buy a newer one. Currently I am grappling with putting effort into it’s interior maintenance. When it comes to an old car I am of two minds. One, I live in a city with city parking/towing/human selfishness, so it is not really a great idea to have a lovely car. Two, my city is God awful expensive so the cost to have a car needs to be minimal. Three, and this is huge for me, I only drive 9 miles to and from work. The condition of my car not longer has to be stellar to get me where I need to go most of the time. Now, before I travel out of state, it goes in to be checked so I am not 400 miles away or God forbid mid-way, with a break down. The others side of it is the emotional cost of a barely reliable, tacky, older car. I panic a lot while driving, the lonesomeness I feel about getting around while she is in for repairs is hard to deal with, and I don’t ever feel comfortable offering to drive places because of how she sounds, runs, or looks. Accepting who and where I am in life is hard. This is one of those areas that makes it harder.

My main printer/copier/fax has been down for months as is common for me when it comes to electronics. Last year I posted that I finally got my laptop repaired after being down a full year. At that time, the Notebook went boom too, so I had no choice but get them repaired. So once again, I have something down for a long time and haven’t dealt with it. This is mostly frustration. I am sick of things breaking, malfunctioning, needing “updating”, needing to be uninstalled/reinstalled, a “patch”, or expiring out of old age due to the insane speed of technology and a disposable world. I miss things like televisions, telephones, space heaters, washing machines, and clocks that were made of heavy durable materials, working parts that could be repaired, and were made to last. Okay, so my printer is 10 years old, still. My cell phones must last at least FOUR years. The last one only made it two (although I was pretty rough on it-it was too small, too easy to abuse). I am crazy careful with my new BlackBerry, I absolutely love her! My space heaters keel over after two winters, my forth one will soon be garbage. This makes me feel bad for my pocketbook and the environment. Lastly, I sneezed on a clock and it broke. No, really, it fell down (but landed on a rug) and broke.

This is a lot and it doesn’t even count all the things that need to be super-glued or go out for cleaning and repairs like purses, shoes, and my VCR. I have pockets to be sewn, stains to be removed, lamps to be re-wired, and a desk leg to be shorn up.

All of this is really about how normal aggravations of life such as navigating wear and tear of possessions, normal replacement times, and the pace of technology; are compounded due to all the shortcomings that come with insufficient development due to growing up ACOA.

This post is about valuing and respecting myself enough to take care of the things I have that I need. It’s about respecting that I am like anyone else who wants their things to work properly, be up to date, and appropriate to their social situation. I deserve to be able to pay attention to my transportation, IT, and household items. I see how normal things like this can trip anyone up. Normal things like this make it difficult to get out of bed. Normal things like this make people want to medicate with alcohol, drugs, over working, over sexing, over exercising, over eating, over doing. I get it. I get addiction. I have to take very good care of myself. Life is hard.

bc