When I'm Stronger

NOTE: This is an extraordinarily long post and delves into more detail in ugly places than normal. Don't feel you have to read it.

My therapist and i talked about journaling at my last appointment, referring to my last blog post and the epiphanies that came to me while journaling early one morning. Michele suggested I continue to journal when I first wake up because your mind is still open then; it hasn't put up the usual barriers it does once you get up and start your day. That was Monday. (We had to meet out of order due to Xmas, and we'll meet on Tuesday next week due to New Year's.)

So I started on Tuesday, two days ago. In less than 2 pages, memories of Mom bubbled up in my mind. These memories promptly turned into ones that hurt and disturbed me, memories I have shunned and shunted away, memories I don't feel able to deal with. i want to be able to deal with all my memories of Mom during the few, short months leading to her death with acceptance and equanimity. The set of memories that came to me Tuesday morning hurt. They scared me the way the events I remembered scared me. My stomach is tight just remembering my reactions on Tuesday. I cried a little, but held myself back from full immersion into the emotions those memories contained. I was strong enough to hold myself back from that. I tell myself I'll deal with those memories when I'm stronger.

Today, after I'd been home for about an hour and a half (I spent Xmas with other friends), I took a nap. it was a wonderful nap: a gentle sinking into unconsciousness under a warm, fluffy cloud of a comforter with the sun shining through the window onto my face. Then lovely vague dreams, and waking up feeling soft, pliable, and happy.

Somehow, ideas relating to my past rose up inside my mind. I remembered a memory from when I had to be nine months old: I was lying in a cool, twilight-dim room and knew I shouldn't cry or make a fuss, just wait for someone to come get me out of bed. I know I was 9 months old because I knew who was my regular babysitter at the time (I checked with Mom). It was my Aunt Nita. She and her sons always seemed kind of tense and unhappy, for very good reason: Uncle Jack was a drunk. He wasn't just an alcoholic — he drank himself into a stupor, drank himself into the gutter, and, when brought home by my father and/or his other brothers and put to bed, would promptly climb out a window and go back to yet another bar. As an infant, I was completely aware that I shouldn't cry, shouldn't upset that household, should wait to be picked up from my nap.

That memory came to me as a corroboration of how I could remember that my cousin's molesting me started when I was two. How can a two-year-old remember anything? How can a nine-month-old? But traumatic events can set memories into stone.

Christmas Memories: Sadness and Joy

I always loved Christmas while growing up because it was a big deal to us as a family gathering, both immediate and extended. For the first 11 years of my life, we got together with my dad's family on Christmas Eve, even at immense inconvenience to other family members, to open presents after midnight when my grandfather arrived from closing up the movie theater he managed. After that, the younger siblings (my dad's generation) rose up in protest and we began having our gatherings at a more suitable day and time and took to drawing names instead of giving gifts to everyone, another hardship on the younger families. Even with all the craziness and sometimes 35-40 people in a small, three-bedroom house, I loved the holidays. And Christmas morning was always just about the four of us: Mom, Dad, my little brother Jim, and me.

However, the year I was 16, we moved 1100 miles away from the town, and everyone, I’d known my entire life. At least that Christmas, it was still the four of us. Unfortunately, Dad died of a heart attack the following May (or March, I'm not sure after 35 years) and Mom insisted we stay where we were. So the Christmas I was 17, there was just Mom, Jim, and me. Mom wanted to make it something to remember as being different, so that it wouldn’t be a memory of loss — any more than it already was — but a new memory. So the three of us talked about it and decided to have lobster tail for Christmas Eve dinner! Mom had never cooked lobster of any sort before, but she asked the man at the fish counter where she bought the lobster. Jim and I made the salad and melted the butter and set the breakfast bar for our feast. We even had little glasses of wine with Mom's regular-sized glass. And it was a very fine meal! It was a nice way to start a new memory.

In addition, my brother and I were panic-stricken that there was no one to fill Mom’s stocking or give her gifts from Santa that year, so we did it. We bought small gifts for her stocking, and we went in together on a single gift for her from Santa. On Christmas morning, Mom quickly figured out who the 'elves' were who had surprised her by filling her stocking, but the look on her face when she found a package to her from 'Santa' was one of shock. I think she believed in Santa for a moment, or that an angel had reached down and given her a gift. Then she saw the smug looks on our faces and realized that her 'angels' were the two teenagers who were her anchor in this world.

By then, our extended families no longer extended. Our family was just the three of us.

Why I Don't Return There

Long drives lead me to long thoughts. Sometimes, they even lead to epiphanies. My recent drive down to Oregon lead me to a surprising one.

I have never been to a class reunion with the class I graduated with. In fact, since my mom moved away from there in '91, I have been back exactly once, for the wedding of my step-niece. I spent my last two years of high school and three summers between college sessions in that town, but have had no contact with my old friends since college, except for a very brief moment in the "greeting" line at my little brother's funeral.

I even looked them all up in Facebook a little while back. I think I mentioned that in a post not long after. Part of me felt an instant compulsion to get in touch with them all, to reignite old friendships if possible. And immediately upon the heels of that came a feeling of revulsion and anxiety so severe it was almost a panic attack and it gave me a pain deep in my abdomen. So I didn't do it.

Still, on occasion, the compulsion comes back. Put up a FB page in your old name, it says. Get in touch. But I ignore it.

The idea wandered again into my mind during my drive down to Oregon and I opened my mind to it so I could explore it. I don't remember why or how I lost contact with the last of my high school friends. I do remember a feeling of anger. After I broke up with my boyfriend, he was all nice to me about it, but managed to turn people against me behind my back. (And I'm sure he never told any of them about how he would call me — collect — from the base after he went into the service, crying about how much he hated it.) I was left with a couple of girlfriends with whom I spent my summers when we all returned home between college sessions. But for some reason, that ended and I don't know why. I don't remember.

So why do I always say no when an old high school (and post-college) friend gets in touch (via a mutual friend) to ask if I want to be found by the reunion search committee? Why the revulsion and the anxiety? I wanted to know.

It boils down to the fact that I hate that place. I hated that we moved there, away from the place and people I'd known all my life. I hated the pitiful excuse for a high school. My cat was shot a few months after we moved there, and I'm sure I know which of the neighborhood boys did it. My dad died of a heart attack in our backyard. My little brother is buried in a cemetery less than a mile from our old house. Even when we first moved there, I hated the house: I could barely stand being alone in it, even in the daytime. It felt bad in that house. I was gloriously happy when my mom and her husband moved away from that house and that town.

Memories of Mom: Gin!

To see the reason for my writing this "Memories of Mom" series, see the first post in the series.

My mom did not sew or knit or or even cook very well when I was a kid, so I didn't learn any of those traditionally female activities (although I really wish I'd learned to sew). She did teach me how to clean house and do the laundry, both of which I was grateful for when I got older, but they just weren't mother-daughter bonding activities.

Until I hit eight or nine, we really didn't do much in a parent-child sort of way other than the usual go on vacation, go shopping (which neither of us enjoyed), go to Disneyland as a family, etc. But nothing just us.

Then she decided I was old enough to learn to play cards. Perhaps my father had grown tired of being beaten by her because I didn't see her playing with him. Her game of choice was gin rummy.

When she was teaching me, she took her time and showed me which cards to play and why and how to play competitively. Then, once I had the basics down, her killer instincts kicked in and it was no longer Ms. Nice Mom. If I hadn't already learned not to cry when I lost a game, I'd have learned it quickly then.

She beat me — at cards — six ways from Sunday on a regular basis. No playing nice or letting me win. I had to learn and catch up on my own. And I did. Oh, I didn't achieve her ability to completely annihilate the other player: I don't think I have that killer instinct. But I started winning more often. Not as often as she did, but more than before. And I could see my progress, so I figured eventually I might get as good as her.

There was nothing she loved so much as slamming down her last card and shouting "Gin!" at the top of her lungs. Then she cackled her evil laugh. For such a sweet-looking, mild-mannered lady, she could be as evil as they come.

Memories of Mom: It Wasn't Very Funny at the Time

This is the second installment in the "good memories of Mom" project recommended by Judy, Judy, Judy to offset the unhappy memories that have been cycling through my memory lately. Mom's birthday is next Monday, which is probably why these thought-vultures have been circling. This series of good memories is the antidote. I've only just started, but it seems to be working.

From the time I was five until I was 12, my family and my aunt and uncle's family went car camping at a manmade lake in Northern California, on the border with Nevada, somewhat south of Lake Tahoe. We shared a boat and the vacation essentially consisted of parking our truck and camper and their camper-trailer in connecting campsites and spending our days on the other side of the lake, boating and water-skiing and generally goofing around. 

When I was younger, it was great fun, but as I grew older, it grew a bit tiresome on occasion. I was the only girl among a brother and a couple of cousins and, on our last 2 trips a half-brother as well. And I just did not relate to my mom or my aunt, but I usually was left in their company because ours was a very gender-stratified family. And the guys got to spend more time with the boat and do more fun things, to my way of thinking.

At the time of this story, I was 11 or 12. It was a windy day and we'd spent quite a bit of time and effort weighting down the ties for the tarp so the adults could sit in the shade. (They simply slathered us kids with sunscreen and hoped for the best.) My aunt had her small dog with her, a chihuahua-mix of some sort, and it was quite nervous about the flapping of the tarp when the wind gusted through.

A little after lunch, the guys took the boat out. The were going to ski around to other parts of the lake and generally goof off with the boat for awhile. But usually they were back within an hour or so. Not so this day.

Memories of Mom: the War of Water

My friend Judy,Judy,Judy gave me a lovely idea in her comment on my most recent post: to post good memories of my mom every day for awhile — until her birthday I think would be best — to offset the negative ones I've been remembering from just before she died. So here's today's good memory of Mom.

Mom was always the "grown-up" in the family, because my dad could be such a kid. It was always Mom who said "look out" and "be careful" and "are you sure you should ...". So when she let her inner child out to play, it was always a surprise and so much fun.

I grew up in So. Cal. We had a swimming pool from the time I was ten. We lived in a tract ranch-style house with sliding glass doors that led out to the backyard and the pool. One day while Mom had just finished washing the dishes in the sink (pre-dishwasher time), my dad said something to her. I don't know what it was, but she grabbed the sprayer next to the kitchen faucet, turned on the water, and let my dad have it! He was drenched.

Undeterred, Dad headed for the backyard and the faucet back there. Mom, meanwhile, filled a plastic cup with water and sent one of us kids out to throw it on my dad: my brother and I were entirely flexible about whose side we were on at any given time during a water fight. 

Mom and Dad proceeded to drench each other, us two kids, and parts of the house before deciding that the amount of water on the floor indoors and the cement outdoors was becoming hazardous. Then we all bent to the task of cleaning up.

There was no clear winner in the War of Water, but it has always filled me with wonder and laughter that my mom, the grown-up of the family, started the water fight, especially from the kitchen. She may have been the grown-up, but she had a tremendously mischievous inner child!

So Much To Do, Dammit

In my Shame e-class, we talked about empathy last week, empathy both for ourselves and for others. Then Friday, Brene told us about self-compassion, without which it is hard to give empathy to ourselves. She directed us to a test for your self-compassion level on the web site of a woman, Kristin Neff, who studies self-compassion.

The scale is 1 (low) to 5 (high). There are six aspects to self-compassion as Kristin defines it, then these aspects are coded to give you an overall self-compassion score. Remember how I said 1 is low and 5 is high? My overall self-compassion score is 1.53. To quote Neff's site: "As a rough guide, a score of 1-2.5 for your overall self-compassion score indicates you are low in self-compassion." Yeah, who didn't see that coming?

So my therapist and I can see many areas I have to work on, and for me it all comes down to how and what I think — about myself, about life, about everything.

There are self-compassion exercises for download. I've downloaded them and am going to give them a good try.

I'm also going to keep working on class assignments and going through the cognitive therapy book. I like that the class and the self-compassion web site have exercises and assignments because then I know what to do; I have tasks and accomplishments. The cognitive therapy book has information but no real assignments other than to use the tools when you become aware of feeling anxious, angry, or depressed. When I feel like that, i find it very hard work to remember anything, but I did so once two weeks ago!

In other news, I'm feeling down and everything feels difficult and much more complicated than it probably really is. I just feel a ton heavier (it's probably only those couple of pounds I put on while visiting Sierra) and all my fibro areas hurt (and probably a few more). Walking seems to be too much work and my organizer is coming Saturday and I honestly haven't made any progress on my own since she first came (other than to go thru my mail and toss the junk mail and sort what is left — but I don't act on all that needs action). So I'm feeling down and anxious, even after spending a lovely weekend with Sierra and her guy and their cats and the bird.

Maybe it's because my therapist and I also discovered another issue: a lack of individuation (aka self-differentiation), which is when you detach from your parents and develop into your own self as an adult. This usually happens between the ages of 16 or 17 and 21 or 22. Well guess what? Dad died when I was 17 and my brother just before I turned 22. I really didn't want to push my family away, what was left of it. I probably never detached from my mom, which is why I don't feel like an adult and I am stuck at certain phases of development. Like complaining that life is too hard and it's unfair.

I feel like I'm starting therapy from day one, learning from the very beginning what issues I have and starting to learn how to resolve them. It feels like it will take me forever to get to the place I want and need to be, where I can have the life I want and be confident and take good care of myself. It feels like the previous two decades plus some have done nothing.

Do you feel like you separated from your parents? Are you an adult or still stuck in some childhood phase? If you take the self-compassion test, will you share the results with us?

Well, There's Yer Problem!

I've written about some challenging times in my childhood lately and they've not been entirely uplifting, especially the one previous to this. And I was intending to try to show some humor in that one. Be like The Bloggess, you know? Tell about some horrible life story with humor? I don't want to be a downer; I want to be funny! I want to attract you, my readers, and start conversations and connections.

But it's not working yet. Maybe because I'm not in a good enough place yet (even tho' The Bloggess writes while from the depths of her depressions and anxiety episodes). As you can see, I admire her greatly. I want to be able to talk about my life in a way that attracts and entertains readers rather than depresses them.

I have a lot of those sorts of stories, but by now I should be able to view them differently. My therapist said that you cannot get away from a wound until it's healed, and many of these wounds should have been at least addressed and soothed by my parents. I know they did the best they could. I just wish that in some ways it had been better. 

Usually with the practice (i.e., first) kid, you make your mistakes and you do things differently with the second. Well, with me, they treated me a lot like a little adult in some weird ways — expecting adult abilities and reactions and reasoning — and then treated my brother like an age-appropriate kid. I couldn't ask my mom about it when she was alive because she would do something that I found entirely out of character for her: she'd go into high-drama mode about what a horrible mother she had been for not doing XYZ and I'd have to leave off my issue and comforter her and tell her she was a great mom. Not. Useful. But effective in derailing me. I'm guessing she didn't like to say "I have no clue why."

I'll write some amusing stories later that will show the good side of my parents, I promise. And I'll try to find ways to write about my successes that don't emphasize how much I might have had to do them in the face of parental hurtfulness or simple negligence.

So stay with me. I will achieve humor if it's the last thing I do. But I'd rather it not be the last thing because then it would be kind of uselessly ironic.

My Attempt to Gain My Parents' Attention

It wasn't that my parents ignored me. They were simply on autopilot a lot of the time and just did what was easy. And as my brother was a boy and good at sports, it was easy for our lives to revolve around first his Little League baseball practices and games and then his Pop Warner football practices and games. Both came with lots of other people who socialized (especially the football people — they loved to party). So when I realized that most of the family attention and time was going toward my little brother (Including mine — I was in charge of walking him to and from his practices and being at games even if my parents had to be late), I decided to go out for a sport too. Obviously it was the sports that made the family sit up and pay attention.

At the time I was singing in Honor Choir. I should have stayed. Sure, no one came to watch my rehearsals, but they would have come to the performance and stayed.

When I Was Alone

I was the only girl my age in the cul de sac where I grew up, which meant that I only had people to play with when the boys needed an extra number or they were feeling generous (or when a girlfriend from school asked me to come over for the afternoon). After all, I couldn't catch or throw a baseball to save my life (although my football spiral was a thing of beauty) and my basketball skills were unreliable. I had reasonably thick glasses from the time I was nine, which probably had something to do with it.

But I was the only kid who wanted to play the part of Spock when we played Star Trek with someone's LEGOs and sometimes they needed an extra number for a sports game (my little brother was a thousand times better than I was by the time he was seven, so he took my place completely when I was 11, which was also when the boys determined I was truly a girl. After all, I was now wearing a training bra.

So I played alone a lot, even before I got a bra.

The thing was, I was only seldom sad about it. I'm alone most of the time now, too, but I'm sad about it most of the time. What was different and how do I get back to not minding being alone?

When I Did It Myself

When I was five, I wanted a two-wheeler bike. It was time to be done with my big tricycle and be a big kid. 

But first there is something you need to know about my parents: they weren't the kind of parents who thought through any aspect of their parenting. Mom was only 21 when I was born and Dad was 27. They liked to do what they wanted to do, and they did love my brother and me and enjoyed doing things with us, but they tended to parent on the convenience plan: if they felt like putting out the effort they did. If it seemed inconvenient, they found a reason not to do it.

So when I wanted a two-wheeler bike, they apparently weren't in the mood to be bothered with it at the time. They were both working, which afforded us luxuries that other kids with a cop or a secretary as a parent didn't, so it wasn't the cost. They just didn't apparently feel like it right then. So instead of the usual thing, where you buy your kid their first two-wheeler and teach them to ride it, they told me they'd buy me one when I was able to ride one. 

Hell, I was five. What they never understood was that I was an extremely bright kid, more than they realized, and logical, too. I wanted my bike, so I was going to learn to ride one.

Frozen

You know how people refer to the fight or flight reflex? They forget the third option: freeze and hope you aren't seen. That is my response to stress and anxiety and fear. I have all the chemicals for the fight or flight, but they have nowhere to go because I stay still and hope that no one, or whatever is causing me stress, doesn't see me. So the adrenalin et al. have no way to burn off.

When I am anxious or stressed in some way, I minimize myself, try to not draw attention to myself if possible. That goes on at all levels, even to the level where I breathe shallowly and hold my breath.

I used to have nightmares as a child — lots of them. But my folks didn't like me to wake them up or climb in bed with them, so mostly I just stayed in bed quietly after having them. There was one I had a lot: I'd wake up and be sure that a big, black dog was sitting next to my bed, just waiting for some sign that I was awake. And once it knew I was awake, it was going to tear my throat out. So I would stay as still as I could, which involved breathing very shallowly (I had no idea how a sleeping person breathed and wanted to take no chances of attracting the big dog's attention). I would do this until I either went back to sleep or passed out from lack of sufficient oxygen, I'm not sure which. 

As a result, I am very good at remaining very still and at breathing shallowly. Given that I am anxious all the time currently, I breathe shallowly a lot. I hold my breath a lot. And I sit unmoving except for some occasional involuntary fidgeting for very long periods.

And that's nuts. Moving and breathing are supposed to help diminish anxiety and stress. So why isn't my body (and that little mind of mine) trying to do what would help it? Because there might be a sabre tooth tiger — or a big black dog — waiting just outside my door. Or somewhere, just waiting for me to prove I'm awake and alive. And the primitive part of my brain is very strong.

So I sit, a block of ice, not getting any better because I am a sea of stress and fear chemicals with no way to burn them off.

Tell me, do you freeze or do you fight or flee?

Presents = ♥!

When I feel low, I want people to give me presents. Heck, I'm even happy when I receive a "present" I've ordered for myself: I lurve the UPS driver, the FedEX driver, ... basically whoever hands me the "present."

And yes, my family frequently used material things to say I love you. We hugged and kissed and said I love you, but there was just enough gift-as-love/affection to make it into my psyche for a lifetime. So when I feel depressed or lonely or even just blue, I want to receive presents.

I have no books due to come to me until January (Ms. Lucy March!). My apartment is too messy to even contemplate buying a tree and decorating it ... or decorating anything. I've got to stop buying ice cream as a present to myself. And I told my friends not to give me anything for xmas when I go stay with them all up in Seattle. So ... sigh ... no presents are due.

This is an issue. This is an issue I need to work on and I have achieved a lot of progress (like, I am aware of it and can often sidetrack it). But, given how things have been lately, and even, hell, for the past couple of years or so, my love-basin is feeling quite empty and dry (kind of like most of the lakes, rivers, and bayous in Texas, as a matter of fact). So it's a lot more difficult to sidetrack that presents = ♥ feeling.

I don't have any ideas that I'm sure will work. Distraction, the old stand-by, of course. I have tons of yarn and crochet thread, so I can work on a project to give myself. And I do have to buy a few things for myself, which will at least fulfill a retail-therapy aspect.

That should help. I hope it does. It will be so humiliating to ask the people I know to "give me this book/ring/knicknack and pretend it's a gift from you to me." 

The definition of family, part I

"Of all of these things, the greatest is love."

As everyone knows by now, my natal family is gone. I lost my dad in 1978, my little brother in 1983, and my mom last summer 2010. Yes, there are relatives, but none of them is as close to me as the most distant and lurk-ful of the Betties.

And therein lies the rub. My family believed in blood family but not in non-blood family (I think there were only two exceptions over the years). So I have no roadmap to follow. Simply learning to think "I still have a family" is no easy feat for me.

I have a friend I've known since I was 11, and we still communicate, but she has strong family bonds and her bonds to other friends are stronger than mine. Yet, when we are in contact it's like the intervening time — which might be years — didn't happen. Leah lives in Wisconsin.

My best friend is a man I've known since my junior year in college. We've been involved. We've been best friends. We've been furious with each other and said things that in most relationships would be unforgivable. And we've sat with each other thru death and grief. We've shared a house with another friend and an apartment between the two of us and for most of that time everyone thought we were an item, even tho' we had separate bedrooms. I didn't know that he was still in love with me until years later when he broke down after seeing me with the man I'd moved in with. (Stupidest decision ever, but that's another story.) Steve lives in Seattle.

A letter to my mother

Dear Mom

I love you. I will miss you every day of my life. I hadn't appreciated how central you were to my life. I'm not sure how I'm going to manage without you. I know I will, eventually, but for now I just cannot see it. I feel lost and empty and homeless.

People loved you, probably more than you realized. I am so glad that you had time to enjoy having friends and doing things with them. I am so glad that you and I had time alone.

About time

It's about time I ran away from home. I'm 48, after all!

When I was growing up, I was an obedient, amiable child. If I disobeyed, it was accidental. I didn't rebel particularly; I just fought with my mom for about three years when I was in my teens. But I didn't commit acts of rebellion. I generally tried to follow the rules.

Except for once, when I was in second grade.

I had a boyfriend --- Chris Jaeger. I had a babysitter who had three other kids to watch, all younger than me. After school, I generally played outside on my own for hours, so it wasn't a big deal for me to be out of her hair and out of her sight for large amounts of time. And everyone knew I was an obedient child.

But one day, Chris walked home with me. I left him at the corner, checked in with my sitter, got my bike, and went to Chris's house for the afternoon.

His mom fed us brownies and milk. We played with his stuff. And then I rode home.

It felt like such an adventure.

I haven't had an adventure since I was 30, when I went to Britain for a month. And I haven't busted out of the mold, out of the normal and expected, since I was seven.

Yes, it's about damned time.