IMPERFECT Lady

An Unforgiving Person.

“Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Now, isn't that a curious observation...and it feels correct to me...how we forgive folks for being wrong or doing wrong, but we don't forgive them when they are right.

Right in saying the truth...or standing up for doing what is right.

I feel that I am not forgiven for what I have done right...but that others are quickly forgiven for what they have done wrong.

There definitely is a double standard...

And, another thought that came to me about the act of forgiveness is that there are many meanings or definitions it seems; but is there one right one?

How can it be that when we speak of forgiveness we hear such a variety of ways in which people forgive and mostly how it is done for themselves...it has nothing to do with the other they say....but yet, the other IS who they are forgiving.

So, what is the real value or worth of forgiveness?

And, is it wrong not to forgive...are there indeed folks we should not forgive or is there no such thing.  Rather, are there folks who are unforgiving?

Are there reasons for being unforgiving...or must we always forgive, no matter what?

I looked up the meaning of "Unforgiving"....and here is what I found.

"not willing to forgive or excuse people's faults or wrongdoings."

This doesn't seem wrong to me....to no longer excuse a person's fault or wrongdoing.

Is the act of unforgiving the fault of the person who is no longer willing to excuse OR is it the fault of the wrongdoer, who continues to do wrong?

Are there not limits when enough is enough, when it is seen as insane to forgive repeat wrong behavior...

Who sets the limits or is forgiveness and unlimited endless supply?

MOST often, after forgiveness folks return to their old relationship, seldom is there a grudge if you will, but the forgiveness returns things back to how it was, "Before the wrongdoing."

Isn't it interesting that the one who is wronged is the one who is held wrongly IF they don't forgive.  And seldom, in my experiences is there ever any focus on the one who was doing wrong.

Also, there seems to be a sentiment, that IF you don't forgive you are a hater.

Like you no longer 'like' the person who wronged you.  Like that isn't a reason to end the relationship, just due to some wrongdoing.

I even had to look up "Wrongdoing".

"illegal or dishonest behavior."

So, this boils down to a person who is unforgiving, is unwilling to excuse illegal or dishonest behavior. Really?  And, how is that wrong???

I am an unforgiving person...

(Oh yeah, it is easier to forgive a wrongdoer than some one who is right.)

 

 

 

 

Shouldn't be forgiven.

Not only are there humans we shouldn't forgive, but we forgive them at our peril. You forgive them — somebody *else* pays for it. Andrew Vachss

If the churches could grasp this concept and stop selling forgiveness as a cure all and soul saving application.

As well as see its true design of passing on perpetrators to abuse again...we would start to slowly stop the bleed of so many children being abused.

To be fair, not only churches, but well meaning folks too, have suggested, insinuated and wondered, about MY lack of forgiveness towards my father...questioning Me and not the true catch and release form forgiveness is.

Where I am seen and told how cold hearted I am, and not that the application of forgiveness is very cruel to the next child.

How can we get the churches, society to stop selling how 'loving' and 'kind' it is to forgive?

How are they so narrow minded that they can't see into the future when the release the abusers to roam free.

I have felt the social and religious judgement as I refused to play in their idea of forgiveness...when I refused to forget his abusive ways, but instead have been trying to warn others how insane this concept is.

Folks look at churches as benign and loving places for the soul...and fail to see their beliefs at work as they set free abusers upon another child.

IF forgiveness worked, we would be free of all abusers...or most.  For this is the first and go to response to abuse.

Very few are actually promoting tearing family apart and ostracizing the abusers away from children...instead their main thrust is to keep it all together, to forgive them their sins.

Who do you think pays when the church forgives these abusers?  It certainly isn't the church elders....for the volume of abuse happens to women and children.

If only the churches would at least begin to admit, there are some humans who shouldn't be forgiven.

 

My denial disintegrated.

What I am learning is that it is rare to be a responsible individual, that there are much more apathetic bystanders than those willing to engage.

Even to engage in the possibilities or to have a discussion. To begin to begin to plan for actions. That there are more who excuse and reason themselves into doing nothing.

Doing nothing appears safer and more kind.

Entering into the problem is rare...and saying the 'difficult' things almost extinct...especially within family....or with relatives.  

Somehow we have kindness pegged as standing by and not doing the responsible thing.

Is it truly more kind to let an abusive person abuse?

Or one with dementia drive beyond the point of clarity?

To me, it appears that we have this all backwards and until we begin to have the tough talks and make the rough decisions things will not change.

I also wondered, is experiencing trauma or when something really awful happens, is that the only time we change. That it is harder to change before the big explosion...that when it is but a tiny flame, there is no point in stirring things up. Better to respond after the bomb has exploded.

What a strange phenomena this is.

Where the Universe is whispering in our ears that something isn't right, but until it (Universe) delivers a life changing blow, do we hear.

Perhaps until the after shock of the explosion reaches your life, will your mind be able to see what was there all along...and all the places where the Universe tried to get your attention.

It appears that there are so many slow learners who feel it is kinder and more loving to overlook and look around the evidence and signs...in hopes that reality IS wrong.

The human capacity for denial continues to astound me...or perhaps the willingness to have their worlds upended.

This is where I believe the real truth lies. Our willingness to not see, comes from the fact we don't want to have our lives change.

Somehow we will do anything and not see what needs to be done, so we can keep our lives as we want it.

What we don't want is for our whole infrastructure to collapse.

I am beyond awe at the abilitiy to hold together that which has already fallen apart.

Many think they are holding on to a whole complete loving family, when it is already in ruins...

You and your mind just haven't accepted it as such.  Your refusal to change your mind when reality changes is the landscape that breeds apathy.

Which allows you to do nothing.  

And in turn, allows the abusers or the ones who are unhealthy continue along as if they are okay.  

You make them okay, just so your world will not upend.

Many will argue with the ending of the world for the person in trouble, when in actuality it is their world that they don't want to change. It is very personal and self-centered.  And, has little or nothing to do with the other person.

My experience in facing the reality of my father, was that it tipped my whole world upside down.  The affect was felt much more in my world than in his.  Certainly there were ripple affects, but the biggest earth quake was in my own life.

I was left with a gigantic mess...where everything was turned over and reality shone bright...my denial disintegrated. 

 

Waiting for the problem to take care of itself!

What I marvel at is the audacity of the human mind to deny reality and excuse it away...how educated people become irrational when reality walks in. I don't truly know what is behind this phenomena, but its maddening to witness.

In a discussion, where evidence in the decline of an elderly's ability to drive, the evidence was set aside...as easy as if this selection of reality wasn't needed.

Instead of sitting with the evidence, other selective pieces of his life was entertained, trying to water down reality...to make the evidence appear less evident.

My suggestions, that the fact that we are even having the conversation about his capabilities to drive...is a clue "something isn't right".

What was fought for was his rights.

What wasn't fought for were the bystanders. The ones who don't know he is compromised behind the wheel.

The Universe is giving them some lead time here, some grace moments...where he hasn't injured anyone, but the clock is running faster now...reality will become bolder....and louder.  Will they hear?

What it seems to me, is that they don't want to be responsible for him driving, but they are unwilling to be responsible for him NOT DRIVING.  For being the one to take away his rights.  

When do we become responsible for others?

When do you intervene in someone else's world?

It seems to me, when someone acts irrational, we the rational have to step in.

What stops us from entering into another's life?  

Some how we have this all backwards, that it is 'bad' to intervene and take away the rights...but, what if his right to drive is the path that leads to injuring or killing someone, wouldn't it be more beneficial to stop the train wreck BEFORE it happens?

How does knowingly doing nothing to prevent injury seem like a better choice?  Or to say, "There are worse drivers out there...".

The lack of taking control and being responsible or jumping into the lives that are out of control amaze me.

To debate the evidence down so that you are not having to do anything....to state all the reasons why this is hard or difficult, isn't a good enough reason.

Why is it that the harder the choices is and the higher the cost, the less likely is it that people move?  

I simply don't get it.

Supposedly, the end result was that they would begin the conversation...and that the best case, is that he would willingly hand over the keys.  Really?  A man with dementia is going to become rational.  

I see the bystanders lose their own rationality...slip out of reality...so it is as if the cloud of dementia settles over them all.

It is entertaining to watch and very maddening to witness...for I keep waiting for a rational mind, a responsible action and someone who dares to step into reality.

The ones who can see it, are to afraid, intimidated to do anything...and the ones who would are not asked or it isn't their place.  

It appears they are waiting for a good time, an opening, a easy road...but don't we all.

Waiting for the problem to take care of itself!

 

 

 

 

For Their Wounds.

What is an open heart on Christmas?  What signifies purity and compassion?  When do we fail knowing the Spirit of Christmas?  Is there an expectation or requirement of Christmas that we can goof up and miss the execution of Christmas?  Is there an outer or societal and family expectation or can there be a personal goal? Some how it seems that there are unwritten rules and expectations where you can fail at christmas.

At least from looking in from the outside.

But wonder if Christmas IS an inside job.  If its meaning is only known within?  If you and your heart and soul meet and it knows its worth...and that is Christmas.

It isn't a day.

It doesn't come in the right and perfect gift, table setting or perfectly baked sweet treat, but rather it is the joining of heart, mind and soul.

That Christmas signifies its possiblilities...but that each of us have to live the life where we are in perfect harmony inside.  

I feel Christmas.

I feel the complete harmony inside of me.

This inside harmony is won by being as truthful and self-loving as I can when I am given the opportunities to be Me.

Which is always.

Even at Christmas I remain faithful to being authentically Me. 

When society and Hallmark would like nothing better than to see another family reunited.  Not healed, but back to being together.  Most are not comfortable with broken families, for it shows that Family isn't as strong as they would like to believe it to be.  If one family can break and shatter...than others are not immune.

It seems that most would rather a whole family and a shattered individual.

Christmas to me isn't about gathering together broken individuals to make a family...rather its about being a whole and peaceful individual.

I am at peace.

I am one with my broken pieces.

I know joy.

I know love.

I had to break the family to become Me.

All it takes for the family to break is for one to leave...

I wasn't the first to break the family.  My father broke it.  I am just admitting showing its wreckage...by refusing to get back into the 'family' portrait.

No matter how many years and christmas memories we had, none could make up for the damage of abuse.

What I feel many believe is that the family would heal if I could open my heart and let them enter in.  

And I feel it would deny the abuse...by loving those who hurt others.

If this worked; there would be no abuse.

For this is the heart of the abuse issue, the family not sacrificing family...in order to save the individuals.

Instead the complete opposite is happening....Loving the idea of Family has subjected many to suffer silently in order to SAVE the family.

When, in truth, what they are 'saving' is abuse. 

Abuse lives and flourishes extremely well in families intent on keeping it together, no matter what.  Abuse dies when you are willing to break apart a family in order to honor the wound/hurt/abuse of one child.

My Christmas Wish for all, is to see more wrecked families and many individuals being honored for their wounds.

Return to Love

It is Christmas Eve, and there are many who are feeling the stress of the season due to the conflict of emotions and family.

We are sold that family is love.  

Family is warmth and caring and goodness...and for many of us,  our experience of family doesn't match the true meaning.

Many are concerned about the true meaning of Christmas; while pretending to be family.

And, those of us who are no longer interested in pretending that the true meaning of family is absent, are sitting strange at Christmas.

For the Season calls for love.

And the baby in the manger; forgiveness.

It seems that I am rebelling against the message...while staying away from family.

The tones of voices echo inside...."When will you forgive your mother?"  "How long are you going to let this go?"  "You are not loving."  "Leaving family is not healthy or healing"....etc.

Like, when am I going to get into the forgiving mode and join with Love...how long will I stay in this place, outside of the family?

They want me to quit standing outside and come in and sit down.  

Sit down and relax; forgive and forget...move on.  It is Christmas afterall.  If not during this season, then when?

Will a pretend love christmas work miracles?  Will it erase and erradicate the abuse that prevades the family tree?  Can christmas joy, and peace and love heal our family on Christmas?

I used to think so.

I used to believe in the magic of christmas.

But, Christmas failed.

It isn't the season that will course correct the long held patterns of abuse...but each individual.

And, for those, who like me are standing outside the family on Christmas.  

I wish you peace.

I wish you love.

I wish you joy.

For, what you are doing, is trying to end abuse.

And, when we end abuse within families...they will return to love.

 

 

 

Acceptance of my abuse.

My name written in that familiar scrawl immediately strikes a cord in me...without even reading the contents, I feel put upon...a small card from my mother.  What does she want...rings out from each cell in my body.  And secondly, why can't she just leave me alone.  This in the middle of a very busy holiday mail day!

Dearest Beth,

I remember all the birthday parties and what a help you were to me in your growing up years. May you have peace and acceptance in abundance and love in your heart for family in these middle years. (a big heart sticker) Love always, Mom

What I love the most is that she is giving me coaching lessons about love!

Really?

My mother who was married to a pedophile until he died, has the audacity to school me on peace and acceptance. She is going to teach me a thing or two about love and family.

Yikes.

I wonder, if she has ever once considered she may be wrong? 

Or that it is possible that I have found peace and acceptance about being abused.

That I now have love in my heart for family.

Love that wasn't learned at her side.

What she wants for me, I believe, is what she wants for herself.

She can't know what is in my heart.

In my heart are the children she deeply affected by her marriage with a pedophile.

In my heart of hearts, I know the cost and damage it has inflicted.

In my heart is the love I have for their journey.

In my heart is the pain of knowing how it is to be where I once was.

I have peace doing the opposite of what she did.

I have acceptance of her, of her husband, of my growing up years...of me being innocent, loving and doing so much for her family...and of my abuse.

I have made peace in my heart that there is no family; but dysfunctional people damaging each other.

By their lack of knowing better.

Somehow she fails to consider that even IF I were to slip back into the family's good graces, the abuse would not end like magic...nor would a loving family emerge.

I am not the one who is the impetus for love in her family.

Nor the one to bring peace and joy. 

I tried that. 

I was the one who worked like hell to balance out the abuse, it did not work.

Her children are showing signs and the affects of what I failed to do.

I could not right the abuse no matter how hard I tried.  No matter my acceptance or peace nor the love I had in my heart. In the end, abuse trumped it all.

What is so odd, is that I am one of the few who are actually living in peace and acceptance of what is.  And, in my heart lives love.  I found it away from her...

And, she is going to tell me about peace and acceptance...but what she wants is for me to accept family no matter what they do, how they act, or say or feel...it isn't about accepting the abusive behaviors, but accepting family even if there is abuse.

She writes like she has the Norman Rockwell family...and I am snubbing my nose...and not loving love.

It confounds me that she is coaching me on love and family...and her refusal to believe, that just maybe she got it all wrong.

I wonder if she will ever have peace and acceptance in abundance about me in her last years.

Acceptance of my abuse.

(And, the acceptance and peace that abuse doesn't make a family)

 

 

 

 

Sunrise of My Life

"I was forced to live far beyond my years when just a child, now I have reversed the order and I intend to remain young indefinitely."  Mary Pickford

It is my Happy Birthday for the 55th time!  I am in awe of my life at times, and at others, quite ignorant of it. Most times I am focused on where I am and what I am doing, that I forget to step back and see...the totality of it all.  

The most incredible learning is to love.

Love me.

Love my children.

Love life.

Love others.

And, to know when to step away.

Perhaps it is the discernment that was lost or taken from me as a child; I feel I now have the controls back.

Maybe this is what being a grownup is; the ability to discern what you love and what you do not.

Looking back at my 55 years, the thing I am most proud of is the feelings of love.

Perhaps due to the fact I was raised in a dysfunctional home, where the definition of love was all backwards, that I am now able to know love.

To come from not love and to now know the difference.

Not only know it, but feel it alive inside of me.

Where my chest cavity, core and bloodstream feel the warmth. Where I can love without conditions.  

And secondly, to know abuse.  

To know not kindness.

To know manipulation and/or self-absorption and recognize its fingerprints.  To understand it isn't me that ignites this; but that its within them.

I have been able to undo the damage of abuse, within me.

I have been able to embrace my darkness with just a small spark of light, that has grown and grown.  

I am not a sappy kind of love person, but one that allows.

I allow me to be me.

I allow you to be you.

I allow myself the choice to move towards or away from people.

All that I allow for me, I give to you.

I love me at 55...it feels like the Sunrise of My Life! ..

 

Pattens of Freedom

 

"Birthdays are new beginnings, but they're also moments of personal closure, which are crucial if we are to grow positively into our authenticity."  Sarah Ban Breathnach

It is the Eve of my 55th Birthday and as Emily Dickinson said, "We turn, not older with years, but newer every day."  

I see the new pattern of me becoming more and more distinguished and where my Art and Life resemble each other…the newer me continues to expand.

The new me continues to arrive, even when her arrival isn't welcome or celebrated, she arrives!  I arrive…as this Me.

Most have no idea, the cost of changing drastically who you are…in order to live authentic and how there are those who will not celebrate or honor the changes.  And, how it feels to knowingly disappoint and cause anger and fear to arise, as I walk in…differently than what they want and need.

To remain true to yourself in the face of all who dismiss that self.

This year has shown me the strength of the new me, the contents and feelings that are so far removed from the shell of me that I was.

The 55 year old me is so much more inside than the 46 year old me.

Our insides and beliefs are worlds apart.

One seems so dark and hollow.

The other so full and light.

It isn't the outward appearance that has changed, but inside where the most work has been done.

The mind has had a complete overhaul and my feelings are dancing and alive.

I see the old me with a frozen mind, set in its ways…and my feelings locked up and silent.

How harsh she was…and how hard it was to pretend to pretend it wasn't so. To play, if you will at being alive, but not free to be.

Maybe it was to pretend to be free while completely under the mind control of a cult like religion and in the clasps of an dysfunctional family.  

Where you are told what to do and how and are dismissed if you didn't adhere to their needs.

I celebrate this year as a year where I can clearly see the new me and her patterns of freedom!  

 

 

Save one Child.

You know what I am exhausted about, is the way people ask what can they do to help end abuse, when what they really mean, is I will do anything, as long as it doesn't change my life.

I am also tired of folks coming to the rescue of the older generation giving them the shadow of doubt that they didn't know. They didn't know that the children were being abused.

Really?

Here is the deal. They knew.  They knew for they kept their children away.

They knew, for they blessed it away.

They knew the children suffered, but they also knew that their faith was the most important card in the game.  It trumped the children's lives.

We can't solve the problem, when we refuse to call a spade a spade.

We have to first find out what the problem is.

To assume the generation before us didn't know, is to view us in the same light.  We didn't know.

No, we know.  

We know, but we don't want our lives to change, so we know, but do nothing.

When they ask what they can do, what they want is to do anything, as long as it doesn't touch their faith.  As long as it doesn't change their relationships with their families and friends. As long as it doesn't make them behave differently. As long as their lives, as I said, remain unchanged.  

This is what makes abuse flourish, the inability to course correct.  

The inability to look into the faith that blessed the sinners called pedophiles.

The inability to do what your 'faith' won't allow.  

What I see most, are folks who are holding in front of them the things that they hold dear...Faith and Family.

If abuse comes in, they will not give up those two cards, no matter what.

If it is a father/son who abuses, they will not walk away...they see the son label or father label before pedophile and abuser.  

If the churches ask to bless the sins, they will, before they go to the court of the land, or instead of. 

We keep dancing around this like you all are wanting to help or have helped, when in fact, what many and most do, is hold on to what they hold dear, refusing to change when abuse walks in.

In fact, you will reinforce your faith and family...doing more to keep them in place, making the wall harder to penetrate.  There is no place for abuse in your faith or family, None.

I am sick and tired of well meaning folks pretending to want to help, while holding out in front of them is the wall of religion and family.  These sacred walls where they believe no evil lurks and flourishes.

The evil twin to evil is this belief.

That not in my faith.

Not in my house.

Not in my family.

The refusal to let go of faith and family is the biggest detriment to solving the problems of abuse.  

It is the hurdle we can't penetrate.

And the same hurdle that keeps abuse safe inside.  

It won't leak to the outside...for faith and family hold them up as 'normal'.

Who will be the ones to lay down their faith and beliefs of their families...to see what the children are going through. To be the one to stop pedophiles in their early years or in their middle years or will we all wait until, like my father, they have 45 years of abusing.

My mother would not put down her marriage her dreams of family and certainly NOT her faith.

Who will?

I am just tired of the well intentioned folks acting like they are standing against abuse, when what they are standing for is their faith and belief in the solid wholeness of a family that is steeped in abuse.

Just say it.

I am for family no matter what.  

My faith is more important than the lives of innocent children.

Don't ask what you can do, until you are willing to lose it all.

For now, there are so many children who feel that they come third or forth in line.

They are not even close. And, they know this, feel it and understand, that since they are not faith, they are not first. Since their truth will rip apart a family you hold dear, they stay silent.

It isn't the children that are not brave.  It is you.

You are not sure enough of your faith to question it.

You are not sure enough of your family to investigate it.

You are not sure enough of your friends to put up boundaries.

You are not sure your life as you know it can stand the scrutiny it will go under, if you allow truth to enter in.

Just know, that while you are holding faith and family dear, the pedophiles are behind that wall, damaging child upon child.  They can for you are looking at your faith and family, disregarding any tones of abuse that bounce off the wall.

Stop asking what you can do and start asking what you would let go in order to save one child.