Posts Tagged ‘inner demons’

it’s not my fault

Posted in beginnings, borderline personality disorder, family, memoir, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 30, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

The Blame Game.

I’ve made a realization over the past months that my biggest problem isn’t  that I grew up with a Borderline Personality Disorder mother.  Nope.  It’s that I’ve latched on to blaming her and her BPD for all that is wrong and unsavory in my world.

A year ago, I finally found out why I could never have the relationship i yearned for with my parents.  It was incredibly freeing.  ”Thank God, I’m not the crazy one”  But…I fixated on it.  I devoured countless books on BPD and Adult Children of BPD Parents, plus many more general self-help titles.

I was weary from this forced transformation I was attempting.  I wanted to be healed – right now.  RIGHT NOW DAMNIT!

I wanted to get to a point that I could look back from and say, “whew, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with/think about that anymore.”

I will always be that little girl with a whacked out mom.  I’m realizing that this journey of healing is so much like the recovering addict’s journey.  Once an addict, always an addict.  There is no magic pill, or mantra to clean your slate.

Letting go of the blame is part of the healing process for sure.  And honestly, it’s one I could never imagine being able to do.  I was happily loathing them from afar…wishing they would up and decide to move to Timbuktu.

I picked up SARK’s Transformation Soup a month or so ago.  And the words nearly pierced through my heart.  “Stop Blaming Your Mother.”

At first I scoffed, well you don’t know my mother.  Then as I read on, it began to resonate with me.  I was unwillingly for sure.  I stopped reading the book midway through, pulled my bookmark and buried that book behind some old high school year books.

Those words haunted me in my dreams.  In my dreams, my mom and dad were nurturing me, being the parents I have always wished for.  In my dreams, my mom and dad apologized, and in my dreams, I forgave my mom and dad.

The dreams I had previously frequented — the ones where I was yelling and screaming at my parents to get away from me and my kids, the dreams that sometimes even escalated to violence — made sense to me.  I was angry, hurt, confused and I wanted to keep my parents as far from me and my family as possible.

These new love-laced dreams were disturbing.  What was my psyche trying to tell me?

“Heal, sweet Salem, just heal.”

I will never get an apology in real life.  But it’s not relevant any more.  I know who my parents are, and I can accept it {or at least working on accepting it}.

Forgiveness is not about forgetting the past.  It’s about allowing yourself to stop blaming — yourself, your mother, your father…whoever.

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time to heal

Posted in beginnings, family, gray area, self-discovery, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Source: Pinterest

 

Healing.

That’s my keyword for 2013.

It’s taken me over an month to come to it.  I’ve never been big on New Year’s Resolutions. January and February are for hibernating, not hitting the gym!  I like to let the energy of the new year settle in for a while, before I decide where it is going to lead me on my journey.

In reflection 2012 was a little edgy.  Last January and February (in full disaccord to my own beliefs about hibernation) I bleached out my long brown tresses – like platinum blonde! – and then decided on a whim to cut those crunchy fried locks.  I weilded the scissors myself one afternoon during nap time!  I didn’t go all Britney Spears (remember the shaved head incident?)  But I did lop off about 6 inches and ended up with it at chin length after my shocked stylist fixed it all up for me again.   I was frantically trying to change myself and leave my past behind.  But I was only looking on the outside – which really is the easiest part to change.

Springtime brought with it an epiphany of sorts and I started going to counseling.  That’s when everything started making a lot more sense.  By Fall, I had finally decided to confront my problems rather than continue to avoid them.  And well, that was partially freeing, but mostly painful.  At least I spoke my truth.  Even if it was only met with more accusations of how wrong and horrible I am.

With winter just weeks old, the universe decided to throw me into the fire of grief, love, pain and hope.  I took lots of naps, but did very little writing.  I found solace in cooking and sewing instead.  The decided snaps while chopping vegetables.  The simple rhythm of the sewing machine.  It was very meditative for me, shutting down the crazy, babbling monkey in my brain.

I had lengthy and emotional conversations (and rants) with Owen.  I voiced my worries and fears for my sister.  I voiced my frustrations and disappointment and anger toward my parents and their actions (or inactions in most cases).

It all kept me from imploding into myself.  I wasn’t about to slip into that deep and dark hole.  I just needed to get through it all and find some time to breathe and just be.

I never got around to the healing last year.

The truth seemed to do a good job of crumbling the past (and some of the present).

Now it’s time to clean up the mess and make way for a new beginning…

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I’ve rediscovered SARK’s writing and am hoping to give this healing process a little extra help with her books Transformation Soup and Glad No Matter What. Have you read these titles? Do you have any must-reads on healing?

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let freedom ring

Posted in family, memoir, self-discovery, why I blog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

I’ve been reading through some of my old, personal journal entries lately.  Partly for my therapy sessions and partly because I like to be reminded where I’ve been from time to time.  This one struck me as pretty important, and I think sharing it with the world (you!) is pretty important too.  Just so you know, this is pretty much verbatim from my journal…I’ve only edited out the mis-spellings and some grammar to help it flow better.

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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

The future is now.  And here I am…8 months later and I’m still avoiding a decision.  Stay or Go?  I’m still in the holding pattern.  Probably the biggest, most in-your-face-reason why I avoid this journal.  Fear.

Fear of making a decision.  Fear of making the wrong decision.  Fear of making the right decision.  I never thought I feared change, but this change is so big and life-altering…the best kind of change out there, really.

Transformation lies ahead of me.  I worry.

I worry if “they” will accept my transformation.  I worry if I will be able to stay a good mother and a good wife.

It (this change) will set me free.  At least that’s what I’ve heard.  You know, from those countless intuitive/soul-searching books?  I am FREE.  Who says I can’t continue to live in abundance?

Source: mr-little.com on Pinterest

Sometimes letting go of things no longer needed is the best way to “have more”.  Be more.

I cleaned out half my clothes in my closet over the course of the past year.  Letting go is so invigorating.  But it is so hard to let go of my paycheck.  I feel silly and stupid and greedy all for the same reason.  I want to be with my babies.  I don’t want my parents to have such a major role in my daily/weekly life.  I don’t want to be stuck in the same dysfunctional parent-child relationship as an adult.  I want to feel like I am important.  I am a mother.  And a damn good one to boot.  My parents don’t really see me for who I am.

I want freedom.  But I fear that freedom I crave will imprison me in other ways.  Financial, and as a result, emotionally with Owen.  He says he supports me.  And I think that he really does.  I think that my fear is skewing my judgement, as fear so readily and easily does.  I want to jump down the rabbit hole.  I want to do so with wild abandonment –> I won’t look back.

Owen wants me to ask about a “leave of absence”.  And – really – it does make logical sense.  But emotionally, it is just a connection to the past.  Will it be a strong enough connection with the past to affect my life?  Hmmm….?  Hard to say, really.  I have learned through writing and reading and many serendipitous encounters that I have the sole key to my own happiness.  And I’m finally “getting it”.  Slowly (and sometimes in big waves and rushes of inspiration) I now SEE ME.  I honestly think I NEED to cut the ties of my job, my career.

All of this stuff that surrounds me…it’s just stuff.  My fear is just the “sad-bad-mad” little pill living inside my head.  It’s followed me from my past.  Sure, nothing’s perfect, but it seems like I have been choosing, searching for ways to wallow in pain and wallow in misery.  Seraching for reasons to feel more pitiful.  What a crock of crap!

I am truly blessed.  And I don’t need to find any missing pieces of my soul/my self in this life.  I AM WHOLE.  I was born WHOLE.  Just like D. and B. are whole, pure little souls.  I have that power within me.  I Am Free To Be Me.  I know that I am with who I need to be with on my journey.  Owen, D. and B.  We will travel this journey together.

Anyhow – I just want to purge – everything around me.  I know it doesn’t sound rational, but it’s just spilling out of me.  I want to be in nature.  The pressures of “having” can be overwhelming.  It takes up precious time and precious energy and precious, precious moments of bliss and love.

I don’t want to be so connected to the chaos of the internet and the TV. It’s addictive – and I feel the yearnings and cravings for my “fix” even while I am outside playing with my babies.  I don’t like it.  It makes me feel black and moldy on the inside.  It’s not real.

I want to feel real, present.  I want to feel invigorated.

I am ready to take the leap.  Right now.

I want to purge & release & change everything.

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It still took me another 6 months to finally cut the cord to my career.  My parents were watching my two kids during the two days each week that I was working, which I knew wasn’t healthy for any of us…but I just couldn’t put my finger on exactly why.  This  was written nearly 4 years ago, and it is amazing to me how much has changed since then.  Perhaps this entry was the catalyst for me to finally listen to my intuition and do what was right for me and my family?  

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defining moments

Posted in gray area, self-discovery, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 25, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

When the inspiration for this blog came about in early Spring, I really had no idea where it was going to lead me.  I just knew that I needed an outlet for my writing, because keeping my words tucked away in my private journal just wasn’t feeling right for me anymore.

I came up with {gray daisies} for two reasons:

1.  Gray – because beige or neutral or plain didn’t sound quite right, and I was looking for an expressive word to define “the ordinary”.

2. Daisies – because they are my all-time favorite flower.

And there you have it  - {gray daisies} was born.

At that time, I had no idea what Borderline Personality Disorder was – in fact, I had never even heard of it.  Since then, I’ve only had a handful of counseling sessions, but coming to terms with being an adult child of a Borderline parent, well, it’s been interesting to say the least.

Probably the most interesting thing to me in the reading I have done is how BPD defines life only in black and white.  For those who suffer with this illness, there is no gray area.

It’s ironic to me that I chose to blog about how life is not black and white, and how there is so much gray area – months before actually talking to my counselor about my mother and my childhood.  My inner self knew, just as it always has. But, still,  I had to write it down for the world to see, to prove to myself that I wasn’t the crazy one.

Living a lifetime with a parent who sees everything as right or wrong, good or bad, black or white, etc. skewed my perceptions of this world.  While the gray area exists in abundance in my rational mind, my emotional mind still struggles with pushing everything into one tidy little category of “good’ or “bad”.  

{gray daisies} will not become exclusively about Borderline Personality Disorder, but I do plan on sharing bits and pieces of info and insight, as well as some of my childhood memoirs.  This is part of my little garden of truth…my truth.  And I look forward to sharing it with you.

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the duality {Trifecta}

Posted in art, creative hobbies, poetry, why I blog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 21, 2012 | 5 Comments »

Morning light filters through

And my purple clover reaches for more

light

I shut my eyes to thoughts that race

“What If”  never finds peace

And my blue mood reaches for more

dark

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A little poetry for the Trifecta Challenge this week.  Blue – as in “feeling blue” – was the prompt this week.  Now, go enjoy some more wonderful Trifecta writing! 

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you’re so vain…

Posted in memoir, self-discovery, why I blog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 20, 2012 | 6 Comments »

…you probably think this blog is about you.

Well, you’re wrong! It’s about me! (I’m the vain one here!)

Vanity & Aging.

It happens to the best of us. No matter how hard we try to defy time (and gravity!) our bodies insist of sagging and wrinkling and discoloring (age spots, gray hairs).

And I think it’s one of those things – like having kids – that you don’t fully understand until it happens to you. Until more recent years, I never really understood why women would spend hundreds of dollars on those anti-aging elixirs…or even cosmetic surgery!

I always thought I would “age gracefully” – which meant that I would look years younger than I actually was! But, today, at 36 years old, when I look in the mirror, or I see photos of myself, I think, “Who is that woman?!”

I don’t feel old…but I sure do look old!

I know that part of my problem stems from my tumultuous relationship with my own mother. Instead of seeing myself, I see my mom. Damn you, genetics! Don’t get me wrong, she is an attractive woman, but she’s the last person I want looking back at me in my mirror!

This aging thing feels like it just snuck up on me.  I was busy for the past 7 years being a wife and mother (I even juggled career for the first four years!) and unfortunately, I lost myself along the way.  Not entirely, mind you.  But I certainly lost the part that swore she would never “let herself go“.

I have let myself go.  I wear elastic waistbands (oh how I heart thee yoga pants!) 95% of the time…because they’re so comfy and I still have about 15 lbs of baby fat to lose (my baby is almost two now, so that baby fat excuse is getting pretty thin!).  I seldom wear makeup…and my freckles are starting to morph into age spots, not to mention the wrinkles around my eyes and forehead.   Can you say, “Laser surgery is my friend”?

I am fully aware of the “You’re only as old as you feel” adage.  And mentally, I am feeling better than I have in so, so long.  I am very grateful for that.  I do realize that maybe my outward appearance has slipped because I’ve been doing lots of restructuring and sorting out on the inside.  I also realize that I am certainly not alone in my wishful vanities and anti-aging battles.

I’m still me.  That mom-like person looking back at me in the mirror…that’s still me too.  I am a mom (but that does not mean that I am my mom).  Who I am on the outside is not nearly as important as who I am on the inside…but I have a sneaking suspicion now that my insides are humming along my outsides want some much needed (and missed!) attention!

 

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It seems a little shallow and silly to be talking so much about my outsides…but the outside and the inside both play a part in what makes me a whole person!  Society is so hypocritical – expecting supermodel beauty, but telling you how shameful vanity is!  Do you feel like your insides and outsides match/work together?  

Just Write is already in it’s 40th weekly installment…go read some more!

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freedom

Posted in beginnings, family, memoir, self-discovery, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 13, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

It is one of the turning points in therapy when the patient comes to the emotional insight that all the love she has captured with so much effort and self-denial was not meant for her as she really was, that the admiration for her beauty and achievements was aimed at this beauty and these achievements and not at the child herself. In therapy, the small and lonely child that is hidden behind her achievements wakes up and asks: “What would have happened if I had appeared before you sad, needy, angry, furious? Where would your love have been then? And I was all these things well. Does this mean that it was not really me you loved, but only what I pretended to be? The well-behaved, reliable, empathic, understanding, and convenient child, who in fact was never a child at all? What became of my childhood? Have I not been cheated out of it? I can never return to it. I can never make up for it.” (Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller, 1996, p.39)

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I am that child – all grown up.

Source: tumblr.com via Pinterest

 

I am grieving.

In my own rebellious way right now.

I don’t want to cry for that little girl that never felt good enough.
That just wanted so desperately to make her mom and dad happy or proud – that sweet, little, innocent girl that felt she had to earn their unconditional love.

Fuck them!
Nope, she did not deserve any of that!

I didn’t deserve any of that!

Right now, I just want to…

Set. Her. Free.

Go crazy sweet baby girl!

Do whatever your little heart desires.

Make a mess!

(And make mistakes…it’s OK, I promise.)

Color outside the lines – backwards and sideways while your at it!

Let your heart soar — let it fly away!

You are free.

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If you’re new here, let me explain some stuff.  I started therapy awhile back because I thought I was living with too much anxiety.  I had some life-changing experiences and thought the trauma was still affecting my life.  However, I have learned that my mother suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and that my father is co-dependant and enabling of the situation, the illness.   Anyways…this is where I am at right now.  Angry and sad all at once.  But, I also feel like a huge weight is lifting from my life.  Thanks for stopping by to read! ~ S.A.A.

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closer to fine

Posted in gray area, self-discovery, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 11, 2012 | 2 Comments »

daisies

 

Connections.

It’s a topic that everyone seems to be interested in, ingrained in the human condition.

Is it possible to ever really, truly connect with someone on an emotional level?

I think we all try to, to some degree or another.

Except – first don’t we need to understand our own emotions before we can begin to explain them, or share them with others?

This is where I am right now.

The realization that I don’t really know what emotion(s) I have.

I’m certainly not emotionless. But I don’t know how to explain them, or how to really share them for that matter! This is likely where I’ve been for most of my life. Between being an introvert by nature, and learning to walk on eggshells to try to keep the peace at home (the nurture part), I have a tendency to stuff everything down into those lint-filled pockets of my inner self.

I realize that I am not unique in this way. Most of us, as children, were taught to suppress our emotions, especially those outwardly messy ones like fear and even pain.

When someone asks, “How are you?” Do you respond truthfully?

Are you really, “Fine, thanks.” ?

Does anyone really want to know how truly miserable (or even truly elated) you are really feeling?

Most of us, myself included, find security in the “Fine.” It’s the gray area of ordinariness that we find ourselves in on a daily basis.

Being “fine” is the benchmark of our existence.

I even catch myself telling my own children, “You’re fine.”, when they are clearly not fine.

I wish I had some tidy way to tie up these thoughts…

We all walk the line of “fine” every single day. We wrap ourselves up in that cozy blanket of “fine” and we go about our lives wondering how to truly feel connected to any of it.

Is it the “just fine” that keeps us separate?

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How important are emotional connections to you? Do you feel like you are successful in making them? Or do you tend to tell everyone you are “just fine”, even when you are not? Are we wrong in telling are children that they are “just fine” too? Do the social networks help us to connect…or are we just finding our digital “just fine”?

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restless

Posted in dreams, family, gray area, memoir, self-discovery, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 7, 2012 | 2 Comments »

The shades are drawn, and the skinny lamp shines on me in my favorite chair. Outside, the thunderstorms are raging, pounding rain (maybe it’s hail?) and flashes that light up the dark house. Everyone is tucked in, including Owen, whom I heard faintly snoring as I dried off and lotioned up after spending 15 minutes of solace, washing away the day.

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The book sits beside me. I’ve been highlighting as I read along (something I haven’t done since college). I am finding so much truth in those pages, but my progress is slow. The truth can sometimes be like eating your brussel sprouts: you know it’s healthy for you, but you still find yourself cringing and gagging down each “rotten-tangy-sweet” bite.

The truth has been bubbling up in my dreams, filling them with chaos and mass destruction…a reflection of some of my distant childhood memories. My mother, the epicenter of my chaos and the destruction of my self-esteem.

These words and pages I’m reading are filled with explanations. I get tingly-queasy with each realization, snapping off the highlighter cap and fervently marking the page. “This is why I am the way I am,” I think to myself.

But the high of validation is waning now, and I’m longing for words of healing.

Every night, the same prayer, “I just want to move on, please help me heal and move on.”

Inside, I sometimes scream, “Heal already damn it!”, as I imagine myself wiping my hands clean, then burning the towel with the disgusting stains of shame, guilt and a childhood lost.

My logical mind reminds me, with clarity and constance, that a lifetime of emotional pain can not be healed in a mere three weeks.

I will heal.

With love and with patience -

for myself
from myself

I will become whole.

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{just write}

The book I’m reading is called Stop Walking on Eggshells, by Mason & Kreger. I highly recommend it if someone you love and care about has borderline personality disorder (BPD) … even if they have not been diagnosed or refuse treatment, this book will help you to begin sorting through the chaos.

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facing fear & vulnerability

Posted in beginnings, memoir, self-discovery, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 2, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

The phone call.

I was nervous (of course).

It still feels weak and a tiny bit wrong to be asking for help.  But, nonetheless, I am doing it.  

I waited until E. (my baby boy) was napping and D. & B. (the older two, boy & girl, respectively) were playing quietly downstairs in their playroom.

A friendly, woman’s voice answered.

“Hi! I’d like to make an appointment.” My in-charge, business-like voice may be dusty, but it still performs on cue.

Still friendly, she began her list of pre-appointment questions.  I doled out the relevant bits and pieces of my personal info without much thought.

Then came, “Are you considering hurting yourself or others?”

I paused, “No.”
Definitely not.

It was too late.  My chest tightened from the realization of what I was doing.

 This is serious business.  And it scares me, more than I’d like to admit.  Part of me just wants the dark and twisty stuff to stay stuffed away – deep down – where no one can lay eyes on it…especially me.

She also asked me to briefly describe what it is that I would like to be seen for.  Looking back now, I am almost certain that she was expecting a simple answer like anxiety, depression, etc.

Instead, she got an earful, “I had a near death experience during the birth of my third child which was a year and a half ago.  It has brought up a lot of issues for me, ones that my postpartum depression medication isn’t helping me with – like why my parents decided to abandon me during that whole ordeal.”

Those words (maybe not exactly, but very similar) spilled out of my mouth.  I felt my voice getting shaky with emotion when I spoke of my parents.   Then, I saw B. (my daughter) pop her little four-year-old head around the corner. “Mommy?”  I raised my finger – the universal Mommy-sign for “just give me a minute”.  She came in the room and sat across from me, waiting ever-so patiently for me to finish.

I put my Mommy-face back on, and finished the conversation.  B. knows that Mommy and E. had a really tough time when he was born.  And that Mommy got very, very sick for awhile afterwards.  She also knows that her grandparents hurt Mommy’s feelings really bad and have never said they were sorry – never even tried.

B. and her older brother, D. both know all of this.  And it breaks my heart that I had to explain the complicated truth of the grown-up world around them.  I think that it is OK (maybe even healthy) to be a little vulnerable in front of my children.  I want to teach them to have trust and to be authentic.  But I also want them to feel safe, secure and above all loved.

image-6

So it’s a delicate balance, this vulnerability thing. 

I just don’t want them to worry.  Because everything really is going to be OK.  I am doing this – asking for help – getting help – because I want to be able to have a real relationship with my children through their childhood and beyond.

I honestly don’t have much hope at repairing the relationship with my own parents.  It will never be the same, too much damage was done and basically “too little too late.”

But I will be damned if I allow the little broken and damaged pieces of me to keep me from being a part of my own little family that I am lucky enough to be called “Mommy”.

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