IMPERFECT Lady

Challenges You

On Joe Rogan's podcast yesterday with Anna Lembke - they spoke about how our brains work to keep our dopamine in balance. What was so striking to me, was that it isn't the joyful fun and beautiful that pulls us out of a funk or deep depression; but rather stress.

Joe Rogan Podcast

Stress of a new challenge.

Stress of doing something hard.

Stress of learning.

Stress of endurance sports.

Stress of pushing ourselves farther.

 

Oddly, it seems counter intuitive, and yet it makes complete sense to me.

The more I have tried and learned and pushed myself the more balanced I feel.

I just love that it is in the struggle we will become balanced, not in the resting.

 

And, in my experiences, I do feel better after I have done things that are hard.  Whether physical, mental or even emotional.  After the hard conversations, we feel a sense of peace - a clearing of the air and emotions. After hiking 6 miles or paddling far up river.  

It seems that the goal in life is not to live the life of leisure; but to bookend the resting with doing something that challenges you.

PC - Judy Byykkonen

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kept Quiet

A dysfunctional childhood is hard to articulate and explain to others - you feel it is normal - when there is nothing normal about it.  You can't know the difference, when it is all you have ever known. You simply call it family.

 

Looking back into my childhood and even into adulthood - I don't recall anyone telling me we were messed up - that our family was insane and had abuse cursing through so many generations.  

 

My mother - who is not mentally well - I saw as one of high morals and values. I failed to appreciate the mental illness of her religion that created a fake reality we called normal.  I didn't see what she forgave - I only saw she was forgiving.  I didn't see what she allowed with each sin she overlooked.

Even typing this it freaks me out.

She was as evil as my father - for not reacting to his sexual abuse - by leaving and protecting the children.

 

The ideals I had in my head about my parents and their religion were all kind - hardworking - with truth and morality baked in. In my head - I had a normal family - but on paper and in reality it was far far from the truth.

 

Reality is my father on the front page of the paper with the headlines "Criminal Sexual Assault".  That is something you can't forgive and make go away.  It is.  It is more insane to believe a normal family surrounds this man. In any way shape or form.

If you were raised in this home, you are messed up.

Our discernment of truth and fiction is all twisted up and backwards.

 

What is up and what is down - what is right and what is wrong?

 

As I see my family continue to gather, I know that these sleight of hands are still at play.

There may be new individuals; but the act and drama of dysfunction are still playing along.

A new perpetrator(s) and one(s) who supports him/her.

It can be no other way.

Sexual abuse within families flows from generation to generation. IT does not die when one abusers dies.

 

There are new relationships in the old family traditions. 

The same sentiment is there - where we are kind, we are family, and family gathers.

Where relationships are built beneath the forgiveness model where reality can and will be swept away.

Not speaking the truth or being real or seeing evil is my family's strength.

My mother's blindness defined her.

 

The mental dance and drama of dysfunction is just normal life.

 

The paper and the headlines are long forgotten, rarely talked about or mentioned. Mother and her offspring still gather in the name of family. She perhaps still speaks of being "grateful we are all here together" and she is.

Each one who continues on 'playing normal' make her normal and not insane.

 

I - who stand outside of this drama trauma dysfunctional play - am seen as weird, odd, mental, cold, mean, unforgiving and unkind.  

Oddly, I represent the truth of what lies beneath our family. The sentiments they place on me - aptly describe our family.  

I was that - until I became aware.

I am wanting to spare a child - to spare a mother - a father - the pain of not knowing - that our family isn't right.  I don't want them to feel it is okay to bring children into our family. I don't want them to only see a large family of 'nice' people. I want our mental health and emotional brokenness to be known.

The first thing any new person into our family should know is what the headlines read - how traditionally the children are abused when we gather.

I have the clippings. I have a file full of 'evidence' of our truths that live in our family tree.

I wish I was told this when I was young.

I wish the family albums showed abusers.

I wish they showed why the ones who left and didn't gather, why they left.

Instead they were made out to be the cold and indifferent.

And, then the abusers and their supporters, kind family members. Really Kind???

 

Too many families pass on heirlooms and treasures - when what they really need to do in order to make healthy generations, is to pass on awareness and boundaries and truth of what is. Abuse of past generations needs to be talked about - shared loud and often.

 

It seems like a major cruelty to bring in new little ones under the auspices of family fun time.

When the likelihood of abuse is incredibly high.

There doesn't appear to have been any child spared thus far.

 

I am the outlier - the aunt and sister who stays away.

I can't know what they say about me - but I know what they said about the generation before me.

"She is cold and bitter and doesn't attend family functions."

 "Very self centered."

"Who does she think she is."

 

I don't believe we are mourned or even thought too much about - mostly what they want/need is for family to be family and not to be the story in the headlines. 

 

I recall many family reunions on my mother's side - I never once recalled a whisper about abuse that lived there. I am not the silent aunts who didn't arrive at the reunions. I am trying to speak to the next generations.  Abuse can only thrive if it is kept quiet.

Echoes of My Own Words

When raised in a co-dependent household, we learn behaviors that take a lifetime to undo - We learned that we were responsible for others. That it was up to us to make them happy, keep them safe, make sure they make the right choices, the list is long and endless.

We were taught that we had the power and influence - that would supersede the person's own free will.

We were taught that our decisions and choices always had to feel good to others.

How dare we live in a way that was not what the majority approved of?

 

My focus for the first 46 years was how my life affected others.  

And, for the past 16 years I am trying to detach from this responsibility of other.

I am trying to give that responsibility back.

 

And, I fail when my children choose to be with my estranged family.

 

It feels like I am responsible but not in control.

 

But am I responsible for their choices as an adult?

When does my responsibility end, and theirs start?

Who will ultimately be accountable for their actions?

 

My rational brain can know - their choice and their consequence.

While my worry and control - or co-dependency - has me twisted in knots trying to sway their behaviors.

 

My choices when they were children - was to be part of the family.

I allowed and helped them form relationships - that they now have the liberty to continue with. Just as I have the liberty to stay away.

It will be now on their watch - if and when something happens.

I have shared that abuse flows within my family, the legacy is many generations long - and growing.

They are not going in dumb.

 

Their reasons for going in can boggle my mind.

 

Perhaps I want to spare them the feelings of knowing you were part of the abuse circle.

That my inability to step away, to listen to my body ended up contributing to the climate that abuse thrives in.

 

So the bottom line is what is my responsibility now?

Whose life do I have influence over and what do I actually control?

 

What is odd too, is that I am in angst and tied up in knots - when I believe I can control others and can't.

 

If I just go by how my body feels and what brings my mind to rest - is being with my business and my life.

To do my own life.

To be in my own life.

To look around and see what is and what is not my responsibility.

 

What I know for sure living outside of co-dependency is much simpler and feels like a peace calm sea.

And, when I am trying to sway another, I feel like I am in a riptide.

 

My Co-dependent mind had me believing it was my responsibility to wrestle control away from my children. Again.

When my focus, attention, feelings and emotions come back into my world - I am present and with my body in my life - there I have peace.

It doesn't take long to slide back into the role I was given as a child - to be responsible for things I didn't control.

 

Being responsible is perhaps my biggest weakness - or more being Care Less a strange place to live.

 

I wasn't allowed to care less - I was put in charge of caring more - of caring for those who could care less.

Caring when others were careless.

 

The zone of caring less - leaves the space open for all kinds of monsters to invade, and they do.

 

Another part of being abused is feeling like you were somehow responsible. The abuser and the supporters seem to go free - and the victims are made to be responsible. Didn't you know, couldn't you tell, who didn't you protect???

At one point or another - most of my siblings blamed me for not telling - for not warning - and perhaps this is why I can't let it go.  I took on too much responsibility - even by feeling guilty - that I didn't spare anyone from my father.  Being I was one of the earlier victims.

This blog was a place where I could warn others, to speak up and to share and to not be one of who knew and did nothing. Who kept silent etc.

Maybe my only responsibility is to keep speaking out.

But if feels like I am talking into an empty tank, that all I ever hear back is the echoes of my own words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flowed for generations.

The legacy of abuse will not end - the string of denial is strong and tied to friendships and the desire to be accepted and loved. It is coated by fun and painted with holiday traditions. It never looks like it really is.

When family gathers - my estrange family - what bothers me the most is not the fun I am missing out or the lack of relationships I have with them - what grabs my mind and holds on is the potential for more abuse.

The ways in which nothing has changed and we are into so many generations now.

How relentlessly they gather.

 

And, how family gatherings are ripe for abuse when the family legacy carries that thread.

 

Those who are in denial - see only family and the fun and memories they make.

And if they read my words, see me as the mental one - out here worried about the children - still.

 

My head hurts from trying to find an in.

A way to say what needs to be heard.

 

The fun that is seen and participated in block the view from what is going on underneath it all.

Abusers live for these events too - here they can groom and get to know their new victims.

 

Children that are brought to these events are innocent of what may happen there.

Innocent that sexual abuse happens in a family where for generations it has been happening.

They believe in the innocence of the family - that is not innocent.

 

I sit outside.

I am not participating.

I am the one who is in the wrong.

 

When you think of sexual abuse to children, you often believe that the adults are innocent too. Yet I know this is not so.  Adults who have been abused are now bringing more children in.  All in the name of family and holiday and memories to be made. All at the cost of new little ones being introduced to the inner thread.

 

It messes me up - every year - every time they gather - I can't not respond with anxiety and angst.

There will always remain a part of me that wants to warn - to beg and to ask for the children to be kept away.

 

I recall, sobbing that no one told us a monster lived in our house. That the neighbors and minister didn't care enough.  Yet, what I didn't know is the echoing circles of denial that keep the family and religion going.

What I used to think is that they kept the secret secret.

Instead what they do more is keep the family acting like a family or a religion looking like it has morals and values.

 

They don't have to talk about the abuse - but they do have to keep the family looking like a normal one.

They have to keep meeting and gathering.

Being a family.

Regardless of what lays beneath.

 

My body responds with frustration indignation and futile knowing - that no matter what I say to whom and how articulate - family will gather - and grooming of the new little ones begins.

 

I didn't know that this would ever be part of the healing journey - that I would know - and so many would not.  That not only would I know, but I could speak and not be heard. I could shout it to the rooftops and nothing would change. That I could refrain from attending and it would mean nothing.

 

In Anita Moorjani's book, "Dying to Be Me" she speaks of seeing the world differently and how often she would feel different than others.  How she had to accept that everyone is on their own journey.

My lesson is to accept those who are in denial.

Accept that they want family acceptance and to be in the circle of family, regardless of its contents.

 

Accept that there is nothing more I can do - for anyone.

Accept that their choices are beyond my power.

I also have to accept that something within them feels off.

That a truth is being denied and their bodies feel it.

And, that someday, they will be able to live, speak and act from their inner knowing.

That they will be strong enough to go against the family grain.

 

I can be the model of stepping out.

of not participating - in order to put an end to the legacy of abuse.

I may not be able to even spare all in my own family tree.

I must accept that too.

 

My power is limited to me.

I can only live my truth.

 

In the past 16 years since my awareness - I bear witness to the legacy of family continuing on heedless.

I had to look up bear witness - and it means "to show that something exists or is true."

Perhaps I thought I could show abuse - but instead I show how the legacy continues.

How abuse gets covered up by family holidays and social gatherings.  How normal it is made to appear.

 

It is to bear witness to hell - masquerading as family.

 

There are two viewpoints going on at once - yet only one is ever focused on.

Only one is ever on display and shown out-loud.

But the ramifications of the other are in the actual lives lived.

The dysfunction is not hidden for long.

The body never lies and the truth leaks out in unsuccessful relationships.

It is revealed in the un-ease, the awkward at best, displays of love.

 

Who I was within the family and muffled in denial - and how I loved and lived - is  the complete opposite of who I am today.

 

I can have empathy and understanding for those who gather wanting the family.

Yet, I know it is a selfish act. For I know the cost it has on the children.

 

I drove the van to my parents house - I brought my children - I have been part of the masquerade - I was on stage trying to make that family work - and I know the cost.  My denying my feelings and how my body held the truth - didn't matter.  Abuse didn't care what I denied or did not - it moves and is grateful you arrive and with children.

I didn't end up with a solid moral family with values.

I ended up with more abuse.

 

Sometimes the human journey seems pointless and cruel.

 

Other times it is perfectly orchestrated.

 

Those in denial would keep a family going - for their actions are those of someone who isn't aware.

I looked up denial again "the action of declaring something to be untrue."

So each time they gather as a family it is declaring that the abuse is untrue.

For it is an oxymoron for abuse and family to be as one.

 

One of the main themes in my childhood was keeping up appearances.  The way others saw us.

And, this trait still goes on today.  I had to be brighter than the darkest abuse that lived in our family.

Better, cleaner, kinder, to name a few.

 

Often when my sisters gather they will re-do or clean or declutter a family member's home.

I see this and feel the desire to add a new layer to the thread of abuse. To cover up to make it shine to bring joy and beauty to a broken family.  For years I helped carry the family and its broken pieces. 

In awareness I put them all down - and as a wise man once said, in the exact same spot I picked them up.

Each of us gets to heal our own broken pieces. And, I can't know what it will take to make your awareness shine through.

I am grateful to the ones who see like I do.

 

Holidays are not holidays for me - but triggers to all that is still wrong.

 

When you poke your head up into awareness for the first time; all you may see are huge messes everywhere - but all it is is the truth your mind denied.

I feel like this turtle, seeing what so many disregard.

The truth has legs (from Martha Beck's book "The Way of Integrity" and will not rest, even if you do.

 

What explodes my mind is I see abuse, while others see love/family.

What I know is you have no love of self inside, if you can bring a child to a family where abuse has flowed for generations.