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.