shishnit.org

Not surprisingly my sister has not responded to my last email. I really don’t expect her to.  This is the pattern in my life. I open up and tell someone how I really feel and I tell them I disagree with their take.  And they largely reject me, or at the very least, they don’t respond.  And I suppose it is possible that for her, her little emotional crisis has ended as Leah is recovering well, and now she will close herself back off.  I’m ok.

Really and truly I am ok.  I’m finally ok with it.  I am not the one missing out on a sister, she is.  I am not the one closed off to life, she is.  I also said what I wanted to say, I spoke MY truth and that’s what really matters.  It matters to me that I did not just “let it go” or ignore something that truly bothered me.  My sister and I are not close because of my mother, not because of “actual” distance.  And I had to say it finally.  I’ve for too long, let this go and did the proverbial nod of the head when it’s untruthful.

To answer a question…my niece had steel rods inserted into her back to keep her spine straight.  They will remain a part of her for life.  I am positive her experience will make her stronger, better, etc.  I almost wish everyone adversity, it is the stuff of building guts, inner strength and gratitude about life.  I have learned that life does that to you.  It knocks you down, but when you get back up you are steadfast in your stance thereafter.  

Family….it’s the ever illusive thing for me.  I’m finally ok with that not being my lot in life.  My life is blessed in so many other various ways.  I have finally learned to see the wealth in my life and it is massive in its own ways.  Had my mother loved me, I wouldn’t be where I am today.  Sometimes I think I gathered my pain early and I’m now dropping it later in life as I am blessed blessed beyond measure now.  I spent last weekend in Daytona Beach and I was happy.  I stood on the beach and felt overwhelmed by just how happy I was on the inside and outside.  I felt bathed in it, and it was bliss.  I have rarely had that experience.  Daytona Beach in August is now my happy place.  I lay on a bed in a room full of arches, and I was cozy.  I was blissful standing at an outside bar, the wind dancing in my tangled hair.
All throughout last weekend, my heart was soaring like a bird in and out of the open doors at the street bar, across the boardwalk, inside the Harley shops, always dreaming of new experiences, new memories.  I stood in a bathroom reading the text scribbled across the walls, knowing that I was a mere speck, a moment in time.  And it was ok.  It was an emotional waterfall of joy.  I stopped and took memory pictures to review later on a rainy day in my heart.  They come, but oh when the day is bright blue and cloudless…it’s a keeper in the soul. I have learned to feed my soul, I have learned how to sustain all that is good and keep it tight.  I have learned to weather the storms and shield myself with all the love I am blessed with.

I read something today “An employee without a goal is just a worker.”  This is a statement that a fellow student in my current Project Management course stated.  It has stayed with me.  I have long been a human without a dream, a human without happiness, a human without wings.  

I have so much now and my flight, it is glorious. I encourage you to dream.  It changes everything. 
 

Lately I have been emotionally all over the road.  I have been slugging my way through a new book.  It’s not a fun book to read and it’s made me cry on 3 separate occasions now.  However, it’s also made me come to terms with some things.  Oh, this is going to be an ongoing project, the project of ME.  This project of “Assertiveness” and healing.  I can feel it already.

Last week in the throes of self misery and newfound realizations I called Rick and I cried to him.  I mashed my teeth over all the things that were bothering me, the work incident (the one I won’t blog about in detail) along with a few other things.  I ended up apologizing to him for dumping it all on him.  He corrected me and said, “There you go doing it again, apologizing when you’ve done nothing wrong.  You’re supposed to come to me, I am your husband.”

And low and behold some new realizations sunk in.  After combined marital experiences of 16 years of marriage…it is only now that I truly feel I have a husband.  I truly comprehend that I can go to him.  That he will be there always.  That he is not my ex, nothing like my ex and won’t ever intentionally and with malice hurt me.

Wow.

Also during all of this I have discussed my breakthroughs and my struggles with my friend Theresa.  She’s been wonderful to me all this time.  Today in an email she wrote this:

We all have scars from the wounds that life has given us.  Our wounds heal but the scars remain and they can often split back open, at the slightest tension and start bleeding again as if it was the same day that the wound was created.  We try so hard to avoid these triggers by avoiding our exes and recoiling in horror the second our current spouses show any sign of untrustworthiness or a possibility of becoming unreliable.  It is not our husbands fault; it is just our knee jerk reaction to the situations.  When something feels familiar we become tense.  We also tend to think that we are worth less than we are or that we are somehow less worthy of happiness.  So, when things are going well, we fear that trouble is just around the corner because “we are not allowed to be this happy.”  Our own insecurities and sensitivities have us on constant high alert.  I am not saying that we didn’t have a right to have these feelings; just that it is harder to overcome these feelings because of our past. 

Her words say things far better than I could and I’m grateful for her friendship right now…as I always have been.  Her and I…we have pasts that parallel each other’s and I’m sad for her because I understand what she battles, but I’m so grateful that our paths crossed several years ago and that we have each other as we both work through so many things collectively and separately.  She is my only friend who is remarried after an abusive first marriage.  She is the only person who just innately gets it. 

It may sound crazy but while I have a wealth of happiness in my 2^nd marriage, it is somehow always a struggle to overcome the past. IT’s like a type of quicksand that can easily suck me under; unable to breathe and live in the NOW, the NOW where I am immensely happy.  Once so many people have abused you, you must learn to stand up for  yourself and set boundaries, and logically it all makes sense but the damage that has occurred doesn’t just disappear…you have to work on it.

The book I am working my way through is “The Emotionally Abused Woman – Overcoming destructive patterns and reclaiming yourself by Beverly Engel”.  I highly recommend it.

I would also like to thank my amazing husband because he teaches me every single day that life can be happy, better, so much more.  He never does anything to me; it is that I fear losing him. I fear losing all of my happiness.  I have many fears because of my past.  Rick has done nothing wrong; my scars are there and sometimes my past fears make me feel threatened for no real good reason.  It’s completely not his fault.  He’s an amazing man to love me…always just as I am…no matter how I may struggle because of my past.  He’s truly the best.

My NOW is amazing.  Without it I would have no reason to want to be a better and healthier person today.  My husband is not perfect, but he’s perfect for me and he’s patient with me and he’s always there for me and he loves me.  And I know that I am a lucky girl…to be in a place to work through these things…a safe place.  A place of love.

I never blog about work because that’s an area of my life that’s largely off blog limits to me. It gets too cloudy and just makes me jittery.  However, today I had a rather disturbing day personally and it caused me to realize something.

I often allow other’s to treat me poorly, I tell myself I am overlooking their treatment or issues because I’m being the bigger person but I realize that it’s really because I’m trying to be a peacekeeper and this is because of my big fear of chaos.  This fear of chaos seems, to me and my unclearness on the issue still, that it is largely due to the chaos in my childhood due to dysfunction.  I avoid chaos like the plague.  I am largely the peacekeeper in my marriage and will often apologize even when I feel I’ve done nothing wrong because apologies diffuse chaos and murky air between two people.  I prefer to clear the air and not feel uncomfortable over the “issues” just hanging in the air unresolved.  So much so that often things are not at all resolved for me and yet I tell myself they are just to move past that bad feeling.

In all of this chaos avoiding I am really harming myself because I allow all of these things that I bypass and ignore and try to disregard to build up until they are rather huge problems that I’ve allowed to fester not only within me but outside of me because I never STAND UP FOR MYSELF.  I never say “That is not ok with me; I have a problem with that!”  When you don’t voice your issues you are allowing them often times to overcome you in a more lethal way.   I do tend to “try harder” to voice myself with Rick, but I’m not nearly as fearful of him.  I do play peacekeeper too quickly for sure because I love that boy and I can’t stand to be on the outs with him at all.  There surely is a good balance in there that I could feel better about.

Now, I am just getting a handle on this in terms of understanding that I’ve been doing this and just how harmful it has gotten to my overall happiness and self peace.  I am not assertive at work because I see this as “rocking the boat”.  Now this all seems rather silly to me on another level because I almost always speak my mind, or so I thought.  However, I am coming to the realization that I am not assertive and if I even attempt assertiveness I abandon ship quickly if the matter becomes ugly just in order to maintain peace.  I’m seeing through this haze and fog that still exists that I need to face the ugly and overcome it and assert myself in order to truly be healthy mentally. Fearing honest and open communication due to the negative aspects of conflict is just wrong.

I think that 12 years of a bad marriage with virtually little to no communication didn’t help matters.  I often just took the emotional abuse and tried to “fix it” to keep any semblance of peace and quiet in my life.  I’ve often read that people that are a product of dysfunctional families seek chaos.  I often wondered if I was doing that. 

I now realize that I’m pretending it (the chaos) doesn’t exist when it does creep into my life.  I really need to work on my assertiveness and not be in constant fear of negative retaliation because of it.  I also need to stand up for myself because I need to stop being everyone’s door mat just in pursuit of wanting and seeking peace.  It only enables others to walk all over me until I’m a pulp of pain when it all catches up to me.  And also because I apologize, overlook, avoid, or play peacekeeper things don’t have a chance to come to a head and then to a resulting resolution so I’m lying to myself about peace, hiding from chaos, and nothing gets resolved.  And then when I can’t stuff anything else down, I’m on emotional overload and can’t even begin to approach the original problem anymore.

Have you had this problem?  If so, what did you do to resolve it?  

For the time being, I had a good cry during my lunch hour when it all dawned on me and I realized I am Jack and this beanstalk of a problem exists and I must overcome this.  I am also going to start by reading this book.

Ya know, because if I’m consistent about one thing, it is relying on books to inform.  If that book doesn’t help at all, I’m going straight back to therapy!!  I can no longer justify suffering when help exists.  I cannot “wishful think” this one away, it must be a goal and I need to find a clear and concise “task list” to overcome this.  Ya know, all those management courses and I’m still learning how to manage my own life.  *sigh*  I’m also still unclear and unsure if I’ve accurately pinpointed the true and real issues, I’m still finding my way and I’m really rather in shock to discover my avoidance issues.  I’ve added this as a blog category and I apologize in advance if I start to blog about this one way too much. I might become over the top….just pretend I’m a Mommy blogger having a diaper or breastfeeding outburst and ignore me if you must. No wait, that’s not very assertive on my part.  Let me rephrase that. I ‘m going through something, I’m working on it, respect me or bite the big one. 

ahhh…blog assertiveness…..that’s just not enough!