Living As All of Me

[sanmagic7]

hannah1, i'm loving your intentional dressing!  hooray for pink pants, indeed!  what a fabulous way to show all of you with a view.  love and hugs

[HannahOne]

Thank you for the cheer, SanMagic7!

[HannahOne]

TW: All kinds of abuse

The algorithm is learning me.

I was just presented with a video of a bunch of baby chicks snuggling under a feather duster. 

It's like the wire monkey mother.

The chicks had been pecking each other's eyes out in stress. And once given the feather duster, they all stopped their stress behaviors and thrived.

I am in need of a feather duster.

I feel some shame at being my age and still having these kinds of emotions. I question myself about it. Am I self-indulgent, do I just need better bootstraps? I can only figure that it's the arrested development, unmet needs don't just go away. I guess.

I feel compassion for my mother. She had a horrific life.

Still, I am in need of a surrogate.

I go back and forth between thinking I am the surrogate and need to keep becoming my own feather duster, and thinking that is impossible and I need a reparative relationship, I need a therapist who can provide some of the care, seeing and hearing that was missing.

The alphabet soup therapies taught me a lot of cognitive and behavioral strategies.

And there is still this pain or lack. I can bear it, no problem. But it calls to me, it keeps demanding attention. I'm not sure what to do with it, how to be with it.

Something about my mother was very deadening. I am in need of enlivening. I am trying to blow on the flame inside, to make myself more conducive to the energy all around me from the natural world and other people.

Yet I still often feel so tired emotionally, energetically.

Today I was remembering that my mother called me a slut the day before my wedding. Because my dress had straps on the shoulders. It came up to my collarbone and down to the floor. I was borrowing it from a friend for the rehearsal dinner. I was just turned 22, I had no idea what to wear to a country club event, I was so lost and just trying to get through the wedding. So I could be away from her. I had nothing to wear and my friend said here, wear this.

I ran out of the house we were staying in crying. I walked around for hours and came back after midnight, snuck in and went to sleep, and got through the wedding the next day.

Due to the extreme religion I was raised in and the extreme control my parents had over me as well as years and years of abuse, I was actually a psychological virgin at my wedding in terms of having never had consensual sex. I'd been thoroughly deflowered but not by my choice. I was the most prudie uptight little thing, terrified of men, zero flirt, thin as a rail, in a dress that went from my collarbone to my toes. But she called me a slut.

She just couldn't love me. And I still feel that lack every day. Even having loved and mothered my own children, having been a living feather duster for the last 20 years, having brooded and brooded over my little chicks. Mothering others somehow did not heal the hole where my mother should have been.

If anything I feel it more intensely as the years go by. Which is a bit strange. I guess the more I know what a mother is and does, the more I see my children growing up and striking out on their own with me as their ground and foundation that they push against and push off from to launch, the more I see I had nothing to stand on let alone push against. It's as if I were just floating in space. Somehow I was able to steer, navigate, get to a planet, make a home.

But inside there's still a little chick trying to peck its own eyes out from stress, in need of a heat lamp and a feather duster. I try to provide for myself the warmth, attention, care, concern, and love that was missing. It has to be enough.

It's a bit of a full time job sometimes. Sometimes I still feel disappointed, confused, or frustrated at how I spend my time, feeling as if I "Should" or "could" be doing "something else" like "other people."

But the painful parts, the inner children, the chicks, I don't know what words to use, live inside, and are so present, so needy. And you can't mother full time and work full time. And I can't seem to find a nanny or daycare for this inner pain. I have to manage it.

Meanwhile my children grow and thrive and carelessly leave their jeans on the floor, or drive off to new adventures, to begin their lives.

Time is strange, space-time bends, loops around and overlaps, repeats. Sometimes unravels. Fifty years ago I dropped a doll on a shopping trip. I'm still looking for the mother that wasn't there that day. My mother still only searches for the doll. I don't exist, to her. She can't see me. Or hear me. Or know me. Or love me.

And what am I gonna do? It's past time to start dinner, I will heat up the lentil soup... the dog wants a walk, the clothes need folding. I should run the vacuum as tomorrow the PT comes and we will by lying on the floor seeing any dust bunnies from Frank's ubiquitous fur clouds... I have a life here to live, such as it is. A life that can never make sense of the past. The past remains unsolved, unresolved.

I feel I could learn to be that mother that is missing. I feel I could slow down. I could slow way way down. I could feel as I'm thinking, and not think only. I could allow a certain resonance to my voice, melodious the way you speak to a baby or child that you love. I could put my hand on my chest. I could feel safe enough to let my eyes move around instead of locking them so I can't see. I could feel comfortable in my skin, my hair, I can imagine what that would feel like. I've done it at times for years on end in the past, it was called out of me by hormones and healthy babies who cried, demanded presence. It's difficult to enact it just for me, in an evening with the sun going down and the dog looking out the window. But I'm worth it, as much as anyone.

Somehow I want to bring these parts of me together. I am deeply, deeply tired of feeling so alone. I am aware of this constant inner seeking behavior, the constant looking for the feather duster, the despair of pecking out my own eyes when I cannot find it. I want to provide the feather duster. Frank help me. There are feather dusters everywhere, I am an adult and can go buy one, I can buy time with a therapist, and putting my hands on my chest and slowing down is free. I feel so close to what All of Me needs, and I feel so much pain between me and that. It's just a foot away, but the chasm is a hundred miles deep. It feels like it's right there a moment away, but the moments stretch on and on. She called me a slut. She hated me. She could not love me.

How to live with that, and how not to. Step one, get up and reheat the soup.

[NarcKiddo]

I don't know if this is helpful or useful - please ignore if not. It's just that on reading your post (oh, that feather duster slays me just as the wire monkey slays me, always) I actually think you may already have your feather duster but perhaps you still need the heat lamp. Or maybe you have the heat lamp but not the feather duster. You might even have both. But you are not a chick, HannahOne, and you are keenly aware of how a mother differs from a feather duster because you are a mother even if you have not experienced one. Also, you never had the mother or the feather duster or the heat lamp when you were small and needed at least something from that list. So the little ones, they probably don't know a mother or a feather duster or a heat lamp when it is there in front of them. My guess is that it just takes time for them to realise and then trust. You once said to me that dealing with an inner teen can be like dealing with an abused dog - you have to wait for it to come to you. I found that comment immensely helpful. Maybe you also need to wait for the little ones to realise you are there. That they have what they need now, even though they did not have it then.

One thing I am completely sure of, HannahOne, is that there ain't nuthin' wrong with your bootstraps.

 

[sanmagic7]

I feel some shame at being my age and still having these kinds of emotions. I question myself about it. Am I self-indulgent, do I just need better bootstraps? I can only figure that it's the arrested development, unmet needs don't just go away. I guess.

hannah1, you may have named something for me here.  when i get into this state, what runs thru my mind is 'i feel so stupid' that i'm thinking or feeling this, that, or the other.  perhaps, instead, it is shame.  either way, i so relate to what you're saying here.  still wanting, still needing something i didn't get all those many years ago.  it's a terrible feeling.

logically, i know i'm not stupid, and i know the shame doesn't belong with me - it doesn't belong with you, either.  our caretakers, M's, F's, whoever, who deserve to wear that mantle.  why is it so difficult to give it to them?  to put it where it belongs?  to rid ourselves of their burden to carry?  all i can guess at is 'trauma'.  it's the nature of trauma to cause the sufferer to carry everything that belongs to someone else until we can find a way to get rid of it, to stop holding it for them.

i hope your new T helps you with this.  i hope my new T helps me with this, too.  love and hugs

[HannahOne]

Thank you for reading and commenting. SanMagic7, thank you for naming shame. It's so sneaky! I am unshaming, and, first I have to see it!
NarcKiddo, thank you. I do think thats' very helpful. Since I know how to mother, I have it... the little ones don't see it, don't know it when they see it, and don't trust it.

This is important for me to remember and I'm going to add it to my list: Notice/know, acknowledge/show care, negotiate to get to yes, allow for happiness (even moderate happiness!). In the notice/know step, I need to add something. How can I become aware of what I'm not aware of or am defended against? How can I become more open and scan for what I want when what I want is also scary? Maybe step two needs to be "trust and scan" or "wait and see what more comes into view". Yes, I need to pause. I need to allow myself more time. Thank you so much for your reflection, NK.

So much of it right now for me is waiting, slowing down, allowing more time. All of Me cannot run. Parts of me can move at the speed of light. But if I do that, much of me is left behind, cannot participate, cannot process, cannot be present.

I was reflecting today on another memory that popped up. Having to do with twinning and introjects. The last therapist I had where it was working, I feel I am still taking her in and activating those energies in myself. I find myself still twinning with her in certain ways, like slowing down, interrupting my flow of thoughts. Wearing a heart necklace, something I would never do, which she did. Cheesy! And yet it's been important to wear one lately like her.

I was probably four and was coloring with my mother. She could color much more neatly than I could. Her favorite color was purple, she said. I said mine was too.

I actually didn't like purple. I liked blue and yellow. But I wanted to twin with her. It was so rare to do anything together... Memory is fallible and selective but I can't remember doing any other activity WITH her ages 0-....ever. She would sometimes give me play dough. Or put the TV on. But we didn't do things together. And I wanted to really be with her. I wanted to be like her in that moment. Something I've forgotten I ever wanted. In my mind now, I could never use her as a model and never wanted to merge with her. But that can't be true, and this memory shows it's not true. Part of me wanted to be with, be like.

I believe that I said I liked purple too also so not to offend her, she was so fragile, being different than her was unacceptable.

I've been thinking lately about how I sometimes give myself away. In all senses of the phrase. In a way I gave myself to my mother in saying purple was my favorite color. She didn't know what to do with the gifts. Sometimes now I give myself to someone else in a way they dont' want or need, or that they take advantage of, in my younger years I often preemptively handed myself over, my ideas, thoughts, feelings, time.

And also how I give myself away, how I reveal myself, even as I think I'm hiding. I think I'm invisible, yet I'm telling on myself with every breath. Writing here is very revealing. People see things about me that I can't see. Like NarcKiddo pointing out parts of me that DO know and already have what I think I lack. That's a wonderful gift and process, to have other people reflect back. Of course sometimes it's also shameful, to be revealed when you didn't intend to be. As children we wear ourselves on our sleeves, are transparent. Good parents hide, cover, protect that vulnerability and don't expose and exploit it or make the child conscious of things they aren't yet ready to be conscious of. Good parents also know when to reveal new knowledge that the child is looking for, to add just the right next piece to the puzzle.

Not so good parents dump out all the pieces at once, provide a piece that's still twenty pieces away, or destroy the puzzle in progress. I don't want that. I am afraid to know what I know for fear of what may happen. I don't know what I have, am afraid to hold it lest it be taken.

Knowing/not knowing. Having/not having. Wanting/not wanting. A good mother waits. Waits for the child to come to the knowledge in their own time. Waits for the child to discern what they want and don't want. Waits for the child to have, to integrate and hold onto what they need, and to spit out what they don't.  Fills in sometimes for what the child does not yet have. A good mother does it good enough, often enough, well enough.

What is enough, now? Will never be enough for some parts. Not enough to undo the past, no redo. Enough for what, for who? Enough to stay alive, to not fail to thrive. Enough to stay alive and also grow. Enough to stay alive, grow, and be happy, moderately so, some of the time.

How to trust that? A platform of "enough." Enough to stand on, ground from, push off of.

Had a conversation with Frank last night about these matters. I sometimes forget, Frank did not have a mother! He had one, like we all do, we all come from someone. He was born. But then his mother died somehow, he was found abandoned, frozen in a February blizzard. With his brother. His brother didn't survive. Frank did. Put in the farmer's pocket frozen solid as a hockey puck, and just before discard was found to be pinking up. He was fed rabbit formula. The farmer said he used to bloat up like a balloon after each feed. Poor Frank. Baby rabbits are hard to feed properly, their digestive system is so sensitive. He horked down his bottle, then bloated up. He was desperate to live, to eat. IT wasn't ideal. The farmer didn't know how to get the right formula, how to give probiotics, how to make him eat more slowly, take his time, for his own good. Frank raced to live from day one.

And, he survived. And now he lolls around with all the time in the world. He takes in my love and care. Sometimes his nose still moves very fast, not sure if he's scared or excited, I think excited. If scared, he'd tense or run... My love is only an approximation of bunny love. But he makes do. He makes use of it. Not the life he should have had. A life with siblings and a mother, a life with a bun wife, soil burrows, fresh grass, the sound of cicadas and not the sound of an air purifier droning on.

But he's pretty happy with his oriental style rug, his cardboard box hideaway, his pile of hay with dried rose petals sprinkled in, his fresh romaine. It's not what he should have had. But it's enough. He has learned to trust it.

I will learn to trust. Parts of me know how. I will help the other parts learn. It's not something that can be taught. It has to unfold naturally over time, slowly, with lots of waiting, pendulating, approach and retreat. It starts with awareness of wanting, and of what's there. Frank uses all his senses to be aware, and I have more than five senses myself. Whiskers vibrate, hairs on my arms stand up. It needs to be done slowly. I can't take in information if I am rushing, if I don't first pause and wait. Taking it all in, the world I want to see.

[sanmagic7]

I am afraid to know what I know for fear of what may happen. I don't know what I have, am afraid to hold it lest it be taken.

this sounds directly like trauma, hannah1.  we've had too many important parts of ourselves taken away, even if, like you said, we 'chose' the color purple.  to me, your choice, your personal preference, was actually taken away thru fear of some kind.  i believe we gave away parts as a protective agent - if we didn't give it away, the real possibility was that it would be taken from us, like you said.  that was never a choice we should have had to have made as children, therefore it was coerced from us in some insidious manner.  that's not a 'giving away' but an armor response.  we had to armor ourselves against a greater evil than lying or pretending.  i vote that it was taken from us because we had to let that happen for our own safety.  the manner of doing so was us 'giving' a part of us in order to protect the whole of us, the 'all' of us.

if we're met by someone in a dark alley at gunpoint, we give up our wallet or it would have been taken from us anyway, possibly with even greater consequences.  there's no shame in that - we protected ourselves from greater harm.  so we've had to 'give up' our integrity in pieces and parts along the way.  now it is our time to reclaim them.  the gangsters are out of our picture, the lost and found box is nearby.  it holds all that was taken from us, but, yeah, we have to go looking thru that box ourselves, and who knows what we might actually find.  love and hugs

[HannahOne]

SanMagic7, you described the dynamics very well. That's just it. I was born in the van, as they say. Or in the alley. So I just learned to hand over my wallet/purse/ID.

But now I recently dreamed it was on my arm the whole time! As you say, we can reclaim.

I was interested that you say giving may have been a way to protect All of Me and that's so true. I gave up certain things and that absolutely was protective, not only from what would have been worse consequences if I didn't but also it was a way to have power. I chose, in a way, what to give and when. I had no choice but to give something. But I chose what and how in some ways, and that choice itself saved my cookies, it was a source of power and control in a situation where I had very little. And it was a way to hide, I gave up things or parts I deemed less vital to protect the most important, deepest inner flame of me. I shouldn't have had to do that. But doing it the way I did saved me mentally. Here I am, mostly sane, LOL. Others in my family not so sane. I was able to be less broken but choosing to break off pieces myself, convincing my abusers this was a great piece for them, or that it was really a big loss for me... some of the hiding was a game I had to play with them. Like "Oh no, please don't take the glass vase!!" when I could care less about the vase, it was the book I was trying to hold onto. They would think "oh-ho, she doesn't want  to lose the vase, take it!" and I'm snickering, holding onto my book for dear life. Yes now I have a habit of giving things away. Remembering where that came from is important.

Last night I dreamed I had brought a fawn home from the wildlife center. But I didn't have any formula. I asked my mother to help me find some, which was useless. I was so worried, and also scared to admit to the center that the fawn hadn't eaten all day Saturday. Then I realized the wildlife center was open on Sundays, and I went and got some formula. The fawn had a beautiful eye and such velvety fur.

I think working at the wildlife center was very triggering in ways I didn't realize. The motherless fawns bleating. When they released them I was so so worried, but are they ready? Can they survive? I still may go back but the time off has been good.

I feel the dream tells me I need to take good care of my inner fawn on the weekends and make sure I feed it. Last weekend I was barely in bed all weekend and I ate pretty well. I hope this dream suggests I'll be able to do that more.

Continuing to curate my closet toward fall. I thrifted a fabulous Lauren Ralph Lauren blazer at a 90% discount , arriving today! It has so much soul---from what I could see online I am hopeful it feels solid, contained, buttoned up and classic. With Levi's 501 in an acid wash, white loafers with a gold buckle, and a sheer punky pink lace tank top, it's going to look amazing. And got rid of a few things I realize I just won't wear. I continue to work toward embodying in clothes and in my flesh the way that I want to be. Not afraid to show up and be visible. Not afraid to make a statement. Not afraid to be contradictory or complex. Boundaried and present. Alive and enlivening, warm and secure, current and timeless. I feel more connected to my face lately. Sounds weird. All of Me feels like it's in contact with the flesh behind my face. I can see in the mirror sometimes, Me. Expressions moving across my face now. I'm not so frozen, not so intellectualized. I mean, I'm still pretty intellectualized, lol. But I feel inside like I'm moving toward more of a flow. The pool opens soon for fall workouts, can't wait. To be in my body in the water.

It turns out I did tear a tendon in my shoulder. Pretty frustrated. The personal trainer is my physical therapist, so he just brought the table into the house in lieu of a workout, dry needling and some other magic and it feels better. I need ten days to rest it and then see where I'm at. It's been hard to sleep because it hurts. I dont know why my tendons are so easily tearing this is the second one in six months. Lack of estrogen?   One day at a time. I'm keeping the PT in my pocket to help, if it doesn't resolve in ten days I'll get another script for PT and get my PT paid for again LOL. Sigh.