Home

What and where is home? Much has been written about it: Home is where you hang your hat, home is that place where they have to take you in, home is where the heart is.

For me, I guess it was the last one. The problem being that my heart was with my mother. She was also my center and my anchor (this goes back to my lack of self-differentiation from her). So when she died, there went home, center, and anchor. 

I could pretend that I had a home when I went to visit the house and check it out. I called it "my house." But although I still felt very comfortable there, it was empty besides me.

What about Houston? you might ask. Well, I like it well enough (although the early high temperatures this year are not making me any happier than the flooding this winter). But I don't have friends to do things with much. I have some commitment issues, so my heart isn't really here.

I Wrote A Novel!

I've been writing my own things since I was seven years old, when I wrote my first poem that wasn't an assignment for class. My father took that funky little poem with it's not-always-exactly-rhyming lines and called each of his six siblings and read the entire thing to them over the phone.

This, I thought, was powerful. This is what I want to do. Nothing else I did ever brought me that kind of reaction from my dad or my mom. So my future was chosen.

Of course, I mostly wrote short stories growing up, and the beginnings of novels. In college it was all short stories and expository pieces. When I went back to school to get my technical writing degree, what I wrote was even further removed from my dream of writing a novel.

Has It Been Six Weeks Already?

My e-course on shame, love, and worthiness is almost over and I haven't reported in to to you folks at all! The time just flew by and I'm behind in my reading of the teacher's book, but I'm finally caught up with everything else.

There is a lot to learn about how to become shame resilient, and the most important lesson is the last, of course: your healing can depend on your telling someone what you feel and what you need, but not on whether or not they give it to you or what their response is. And that is so true!

My life has been full of shame from various sources and for various reasons, from the mild shame my mom used to try to get me to stop biting my nails ("boys won't want to hold hands with you") to the major shame of having been sexually molested for most of my early and young childhood. (Not by anyone in my nuclear family.) The baseball story I told several posts back is a story of my teammates shaming me and my coach and my parents allowing it. I have lots of such stories.

And now I have some tools for dealing with any shame in the present and future. I have tools for looking at past shames and letting them go (I think).

One of the big points for me was that shame is normal and it happens to everyone every day. There is always someone around who tries to control you using shame. While I have taken on the badge that being normal isn't attractive, that I liked being "different", "weird", "unique", etc., I think it has been shame that has left me feeling isolated and like I wasn't lovable or likable and that I didn't belong. It's one thing to belong to a group (nerds, geeks, jocks, etc.), but to feel that I don't belong to any group is too isolating. It's not healthy. 

Wanted: Suggestions for Movies or Books on a Specific Topic

Specifically orphans, or children whose parents are terrible parents, so the children have to learn how to fend for themselves, trust themselves, and become adult on their own.

"Why such a specific topic?" you might be wondering. It was an idea from my therapist today. We were talking about my lack of individuation or separation from my family members the way most people do in the normal way of growing into an adult and how my people to separate from are all gone. "That's okay," said my therapist. "You'd be doing most of the work anyway." But it might have some effects. 

Then she came up with the idea of movies or books/series that might kind of serve as an inspiration and even as a guidebook for me, suggestions of how to get there from here.

So if you know of a book or series or a movie about a child in such a situation, please recommend it or them. (It has to have a happy ending, okay?)

I'm Rambling Blue Today

Today I have no umph. I don't care about much, I'm not particularly hungry but I was craving ice cream and cookies before lunch (peanut butter and butter on english muffins). There is a dark chocolate bar in the fridge but I don't have any real compulsion to go get it. I feel vague and kinda numb.

I'm feeling depressed.

Nothing specific I can think of, except that I am still struggling and needing therapy and meds (and the meds are probably forever, at least some of them). 

I even woke up feeling kinda good because my mom was in my dreams and it was her voice saying the kinds of things she would say (I think we were shopping). It felt nice waking up with her voice in my head.

But since then the day has gone downhill. I keep saying I'll go to the farmer's market on Thursdays (3pm to 7pm), but I don't want to today. I don't want contact with strangers. I want my mom, but that aside, I'd like to be with one of my close friends. Maybe they'd hold my hand and stroke my hair and tell me it's all going to be okay, because I feel like it's all going to be bad and just fall apart.

Alone in a Crowd

I'm not where I said I'd be tonight. Instead of being at a very large event for a birthday party, I am sitting at home. 

Why am I sitting at home? Well, two reasons, and then a third, which I just figured out. The first two are my introversion and my fibromyalgia. I'd worked through my introversion and decided I would go because I know a handful of folks who will be there. I figured I had that one beat. But maybe not, because my fibro flared up today, all along my left side, down my back to my ankle. Coincidentally (?), it is my left arm that I decorated with the temporary tattoo that came with the invitation (a cool brush-stroke dragon with a heart inside). Most likely, the stress of contemplating this event kicked up my fibro.

The third reason is related to my introversion: I am tired of going to big events alone. Generally, if I go alone to these things, even if I know several people, I still end up wandering around alone while others are with their significant others, their particularly good friends, and so on. I either play tag-along and feel awkward or I stand or sit uncomfortably and watch everyone else go by. I realized this after I decided not to go (and I'm waiting for the fibro to unflare but it hasn't gotten the memo yet).

There isn't anyone at this soiree who I have socialized with much if at all — most I know through my volunteer work. I would like to get to know them better, but it won't happen at an event like this. Most of them either have kids and will be staying close to the children's activities, or they are older and very outgoing and will be talking to dozens of different people as they mingle.

And I, outgoing only under very specific circumstances (and these are not those circumstances), would be wandering on my own, or having those quick little chats with those few people I know before they saw someone else they know that they haven't seen in ages and have to go talk to.

It comes down to the fact that I don't have a good time at large parties where I know few people and I don't have anyone of my own there with me. So I'm going to stop saying "yes" to such events because I hate working myself into such a state that my body has to step in and say "now you can't go" before I'll allow myself to stay home.

I'm not going to become a complete hermit. I'll still go to some professional networking meetings. I'll even go to smaller events where I know several people. But as of now I am giving myself permission to skip the big events that offer no enjoyment to me. I no longer have to think about my decision, which simplifies my life some (I don't get invited to too many of these things). And not having to think about my decision validates my sense of what is right for me. 

I hope everyone else at the party, which started about 20 minutes ago, has a very good time, and my birthday wishes go out to Donna who turns 60. She sure as hell knows how to age well!

Emotional Pinball

I feel like my emotions are in a continual pinball game. Some places are lit up constantly, and pinging, pinging, pinging. Some places never light up, never make noise. The noise is constant, the stimulation is constant, and I don't get a chance to rest, to look away, because the next ball is in play and I have to keep it going for as long as possible. I don't know what will happen if I don't, but I fear it won't be good (my go-to thoughts and emotions are generally negative).

It's exhausting. As an extreme introvert, this much stimulation tires me even on an occasional basis. On a constant basis, well, I have fibromyalgia.

So I sit each day, finding concentration difficult, a constant pinball game playing in my head, wondering why I have so many difficulties getting it all together.

I think that the solution would be to just stop playing the game. Unfortunately, it's gone beyond my control and it plays itself. So now I have to figure out how to make it stop itself. Along with all that other stuff I'm doing to my mind.

Do you ever feel like your mind is a pinball game, or a thunderstorm, or some other powerful, highly stimulated state? What do you do when that happens?