Lethargic much?

Well, yeeeeah... recently anyway! Have had out of town company, Redbeard's mama-- the kids adore her, so it's been a great break for me. It's been kind of interesting to me, to be doing my healing work and processing with someone in the house who doesn't live here full-time. I'm not much accustomed to seeing other people than my intimate, very small circle.

I think part of me decided to put this work on hold for the meantime, until our visitors go home. Or, I've done most of the emotional release (for now) and the processing, writing, and anger stage are in the wings. Hard to find any good time to do that, especially with others around (trust issues from the child sexual trauma).

I'm just letting it be for now. Don't press it, just let things flow.

I feel changes have happened. I'm so much less numb, and my feelings are a lot closer to the surface-- accessible and much more nameable. Interesting. Also, I feel a great capacity to discuss what's going on with me, with the people I trust to do so. (Um, about four? Did I mention the trust issues?)

I feel lighter. I feel more nimble. I'm not eating chocolate as much (sad, huh?). I am having much better communication about my needs AND my boundaries. It's cool. I'm able to have more fun, more easily. I'm not escaping so much. Okay, I am more now, a little, but I always do when we have a visitor. I need time 'alone', and being on the computer is a way to accomplish that without being (totally) antisocial. :)

Amazing, the healing process. Amazing, the stories of survivors. Amazing, the strength of people, well, like me. Every experience, every feeling brought me to where I am now, and I can't be anything but grateful for that. The deep personal growth of this healing work is also something I am grateful for-- and will stop escaping in a couple of weeks when we return to equilibrium. Yes. Now I can stop castigating myself, and just work on enjoying. So, I'm off!!!

Difficult... hellish... exhausting...

I would be thrilled to NOT BE experiencing the emotions pertaining the growth I'm going through...

Specifically, the emotions coming through about the sexual abuse I survived as a child. Man, I am really not liking it, but fighting it is counterproductive. No way out but through. The Courage to Heal has been a lifesaving companion through this process. I'm just at the beginning of my healing journey and already I can't seem to remember what it felt like to be the previous me. I know it will be worth it, but today has been really, well-- read the post title.

I seem to be a little more able to speak my truth though-- I can't be anything but glad about that. I wonder what the healing and healed me will be like... probably like most things, it will get much worse before it gets better.

Thank goodness I can just hang up my thoughts right there and say, "I'm only living just for today," or just for the next hour, or even just the next 10 minutes. I don't have to borrow from tomorrow. Whew, what a relief-- I don't think I could stand that burden right now.

Purging is a messy, messy business-- NOT for the faint-hearted.

Gather ye rosebuds, while ye may...

I think on this, consciously, often when Monkey wants me to play with him, or She-Ra has hurled yet another book at my feet and is looking up at me expectantly with her arms up. I'm almost always knee-deep in laundry, picking up the house, doing dishes or cooking, or I *ought* to be doing those things, which makes my pressure even more acute. OR, I've actually managed to make some breathing space for myself, and I'm all set up to play The Sims Medieval on my computer-- lose myself in my Sims little concerns and their life quests. And... here are the rosebuds, blooming. Full, in this moment, so crystallinely pure. Harvested, they retain their joy and blessing forever, and bloom even more fervently. Ungathered, they wilt, wither, and go to seed, giving less and less blooms to collect sunlight and give vitality to little plants. These children's innocence and playfulness sometimes hurts me; it's so trusting. What was it like, to be so trusting? My life didn't play out that way because of things that done to me, starting when I was my own little daughter's age. Eighteen months: I look at her lying in my arms at night, fast asleep, and I can't imagine the twistedness of a person who would sully such a vulnerable being. A person will do all kinds of things to him or herself in order to protect; sometimes the methods seem completely counter-productive and risk-provoking, rather than protective. It's interesting to get down the nitty-gritty, and be completely honest about what you fear. I've found this work to be the culmination of a lifetime (not to mention 12 Steps' 4th Step: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves). Once I crossed off spiders, blindness and surviving a car accident as a paraplegic, the inklings of some really deep answers came to me. Surprise, surprise, that the markers were all there in my behavior, rooted in trauma. In doing some reading on surviving child sexual abuse, one factor emerged which really brought things into focus for me. It's fully normal for survivors to be blamed for what happened to them, particularly as post-abuse behavior can often express as promiscuity or even recreations of the abuse scenarios. Uninformed families-- and survivors-- therefore are validated in believing that the survivor 'brought it on themselves' or even 'started it'. This is particularly true in incest survivorship, where families -- and survivors-- have a real investment in the status quo. You really can't take the steps you need to take until you are ready-- and you really can judge yourself so critically and unfairly, in ways you would never judge others. It's been so liberating to unshoulder the burden of believing myself responsible for what happened to me, and what kept happening to me all throughout young adulthood. I understand now such a violation of trust at such a young age (without treatment) led me to believe I would never be safe and the only power I could have was to give 'it' away before 'it' could be taken from me. A matter of choice. Choice in timing, if not in fact. Being woken to sexuality on an adult's timetable instead of my own didn't allow me to have a "normal" expression of sexuality, inner or outer. All of my sexual expression was based on how others reacted to me; being so powerless, any power I could garner was like gold. I learned how to insinuate sexuality, but not too much, and then I got the most approval from those who valued sex, and those who valued brains. I was almost always focused on adults or those who were older than me. Writing it now, the clarity is blinding. Without my feelings of shame, responsibility, darkness and perversion muddling it all up, the facts are like bricks thudding into place in an earthen wall. And that's really the key, for me, for those working the program, for everyone maybe... to remove the ties of emotion and fact, to allow one to see clearly. How, though... well, I guess the how is up to each one of us. I sit here now, finishing this blog post, having interrupted it many times to gather, gather, gather those rosebuds from Monkey and She-Ra, trying to balance theirs with my own rosebuds lain ignored for so long. I'm just doing the best that I can, all the time, with the resources I have available to me. Sure am loving how much more I can appreciate these roses these days-- not to mention the warm sun on my heart.

The terrible Terribles

It's nearly unbearable... Monkey and the Terrible Threes. Oh. My. Hell. I had absolutely NO idea how terrible the Terribles could be. I don't think I could have braved it, had I known... Every day is a horrible wodge of me doling out warnings, then threats, timeouts, privilege revocations-- then beatins! (Well, spanks, but I HATE- HATE to go there, and my uproarious feelings make even spanks feel violent) Then, he goes around the house and uses whatever he can get his hands on (or his hand, or his FOOT) to 'shoot' me, which starts off another round of the same. Round and round the mulberry bush we go. Harder on Redbeard than on me. He already keeps a tight rein on his Irishness in daily life. This is sending him right over the cliff. I know this can't last forever... Oh, geez, please let this not last forever...

It's been a looooooong week...

Redbeard worked later than normal a couple of days this week; there are always projects that are urgent, due to weather or scheduling this time of year. Unfortunately, that makes my day hideously long (which he completely acknowledges and is apologetic about). He makes up the time today, with a short day, by which time I am a complete jellied mess. What works well for a single guy is completely wrong for a family (he's mostly got that through his head, but sometimes....) My mom suggested that with the past memories (mostly feelings resulting from) that are coming up for me, I might need to lower my expectations about what I can get done during the day. I have been really upset with my inability to live up to my expectations with the housework, keeping my temper and getting dinner ready, while making sure the kids are cared for. I think Mom is right, and I'm a little embarassed I didn't see it myself! [blush] HOWEVER, that's not going to happen today, because our timber bed that we had built for us comes this afternoon. The craftsman is delivering and helping us set it up-- sometimes living out here in the wilds of Montana is a real pain in the arse, but sometimes, it's really wonderful. Nowhere else would you be able to get a heavy custom bed delivered and set up (tax free) for $75-- by the guy who built it! I've got some work to do getting things cleaned up and ready for the frame to go in. Hopefully, the kids can be bribed with some TV, Wii and normally forbidden munchies, so that I can work on it. Redbeard is home at 1:00p; maybe I'll just have him do it instead. Hehe.

Sun and rains...

It's that time of year again, where there is so much transformation going on. Snow melting, grass growing, people shaking off the winter and squinting into the sun-- and then running for cover as the rain-- or snow-- comes on. It's not as if we didn't know the rain was going to come again, or that it could, we just didn't want to think about it. In the past, I've never gone into that sun without thinking about the rain: having raincoat, boots and emergency food standing by, just in case, because I just *knew* things could change in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, the childhood I lived, in generational emotional/physical alcoholism, taught me that very well. What I want to give my children is that life in the sun, with the consciousness that though rain will come, the sun is here right now. Let it warm you all the way through, relax you and make you smile, so you can be strong for more difficult times that make you want to run. The rains don't only take, though, they also give. Growing things need rain-- too much warm sun takes all the starch out, which is all that keeps you upright sometimes... Learn to love that rain for the coolness, the freshness, the perspective. The sun isn't nearly so interesting!

Remember that 1977 one-hit wonder, "I've Never Been to Me"?

It was made popular by an artist named Charlene. I'm struck again by how empty and sad the song is, when I hear it (as I did just this morning in Shrek 3). I felt compelled to go look up the lyrics and the song is even lonelier than I had realized. I've Never Been to Me is a woman's lament of warning to avoid exercising your freedom, your power, and ending up with no satisfaction or contentment. On the one hand, ye-es, but on the other hand... Still, I suppose this is one of the issues I have been wrestling with (turned on its ear, as ever for me!) Is it time to start writing again...? Well... I guess that's why I'm here. I find myself now with some time on my hands during the day, and some need for the unique processing writing affords me. The kids are almost 3 1/2 and almost 1 1/2. They often play with each other and entertain themselves... It's better than great! I need a lot of time for myself, and have been severely deficient in it for years. I find myself ready to start writing for personal growth again-- not just the At My Wit's End writing I've been doing for so long. It's a really nice space to occupy! This blog was originally about my thoughts and feelings, particularly motherhood deeeeeep in the trenches; while motherhood still occupies a great deal of my time, I am delighted to find I still exist not only as a mother, a wife and keeper of the hearth. My memories of the past are surfacing, which is unsurprising due to the personal growth I've been doing-- and it's exciting, actually, since there was so much of my past unaccessible to me. The reason why, of course, is because there is a lot of pain associated with those memories, so there is much processing to be done, grief to express, rage to decant. It's work I'm committed to, though, and thus the result will be mine as well. Without this work, or similar efforts, a life like mine-- full of kids, diapers, laundry, dinner, bills, budgets and with almost no time to myself-- would feel incredibly unfulfilling, I think. I totally get why women choose to work outside the home and put kids in daycare (like, a paycheck, duh!); it's a serious grind being at home all day with kids, subject to all their needs, desires and stages of growth. It doesn't come at all naturally for me (other than the staying in pajamas part), and I've found it very depressing sometimes. Amazingly, though, working through some of these feelings about the past leaves a sheen of lightness on everything. Where pain and fear once huddled, now lives gratitude, contentment, serenity. Sometimes I feel as light as a soap bubble-- like I [somewhat] remember feeling occasionally as a child. As for I've Never Been to Me... well, I'm fortunate to have had both what Charlene cautions against-- and what she longs for. I wouldn't have had it any other way.