How To Hurt

    I am hurting a lot today.  My heart is very, very sad.

    I'm still learning how to do grief and pain.  For a long time I have used food to mask it when it comes up; some people drink, do drugs, or have other coping behaviors.  The religion I was brought up in discourages use of alcohol, so the "good girl" version of addictive behavior for me is reaching for comfort food when I feel sad.

    I didn't realize for a long time that I was doing this; a lot of times I just felt this compulsion to eat.  I did go through a period of time where I overate, a LOT.  I have lost about 60 pounds and don't generally overeat as far as volume goes, but darned if I don't eat the wrong things when I'm not in a good emotional state. What I realized over time was that not only was I eating in response to feeling sad, but when I did so I literally did feel better emotionally. There was a chemical change that took place and I didn't hurt as much. There are a few reasons why, although in the short-term I feel better when I do this, it's not a good idea. First, not good for my health.  Food may always be there for me, but. . .it's always there for me.  Like, it stays on the hips and stomach.  I also don't want diabetes and I still need to lose more weight.  Second, when food deadens the pain, it doesn't get rid of it; it stuffs it back down. There is still a residual ache, and it's just a matter of time before it comes back up.  I also learned over time that when I felt that pain or sudden anxiety/panic, etc. that was my system indicating that something was coming up for processing, so masking it and stuffing it back down wasn't allowing me to do the healing work my system was indicating it was ready for.

    I've been told that I've never seen grief through all the way.  If you visualize being on one side of a lake with the lake symbolizing the grief process and needing to get across the lake to the other side, I've never gotten to the other side.  I have usually gotten about halfway across the lake and then gotten stuck, then go back to the side I just came from rather than continuing through the water to the other side--so I've been carrying a huge amount of grief around with me throughout my life.  Part of the reason is that growing up it wasn't safe for me to express what I needed to and I have carried that nonexpression into my adult life. Besides eating, there are other ways to distract yourself from feeling grief.  Shopping, staying "too" busy, hyperfocusing on other things or the needs of other people, etc.  I'm the poster child for all of this.

    One thing I hate about trauma-related healing work is that when I'm processing something hard and then get to where I feel like I'm in a pretty good place, it's not long before I start feeling that old feeling again ("that old feeling" can show up in many ways for me: a sudden feeling of panic or anxiety that seems to come out of nowhere, feeling a sudden compulsion to stay overly busy all the time, compulsions to stay up all night and not let myself sleep, feelings of depression and hopelessness when I've been fine and taking steps to support feeling that way on an ongoing basis, sabotaging myself on the eating front when I've otherwise been doing really well) and something else comes up.  There are so many layers.  Sometimes I feel like it will never be done.

    I went to the pool late this morning and did water aerobics; I always feel better after I've been in the water. Besides the exercise, I find that I am able to literally release a lot of stress into the water. Even if I have a day where I don't do a great "workout," I still feel better just from being in the water.  As I was changing, etc. afterward I was keenly aware of this pain.  This past weekend was a major conference event at church where there were many speakers and I found some of the talks to be just what I needed to hear.  But other talks hurt.

    One of the age-old questions that comes up about God is why He allows pain and suffering, and this is why a lot of people don't believe that there can be a God.  The explanation I hear and that makes sense to me is that God can't interfere with our free agency and that learning to use our agency is one of the reasons we are here on earth. Intellectually I get it, but I am having the hardest time with the fact that sometimes there is intervention. Sometimes people do get strong promptings that help them avoid danger.  I was in danger from the time I was born, and I was in an environment that made me vulnerable to further abuse and being used by other people. I wasn't protected.  Furthermore, these circumstances conditioned me to not readily trust my instincts when they signaled to me that something was wrong, and so throughout my life I have had poorer boundaries than the average person and have been more vulnerable to opening myself up to unhealthy people and situations.

    Many people would be quick to point out that God has helped me persevere through everything, and generally I'm part of that group. But a huge part of me feels so betrayed by that same God who I have tried to put my trust in my whole life.  As an adult one of my sole, constant prayers was for my children to be protected, and while we gave them a better home environment in a lot of ways, I have learned of abuses that happened to them.  To me, that has been the ultimate slap in the face.  With all that I endured, I just wanted my children to be safe and well, and it feels to me like God just turned his head the other way and said, "Ummm, let me think about it. . .actually, no. There are other people who are more important than you, so that's where I'm going to direct my attention."  Sometimes I hate God.  And then I feel guilty because that's not showing faith in Him, and then I feel that being that way makes it so I'm not as worthy to be blessed as someone who doesn't have these feelings.

    One of the constant things that comes up when I'm hurting is this feeling that I don't matter, that I'm an afterthought, that by my nature I'm not as worthwhile as other people.  The message I got from my mother early on was that my very existence wasn't acceptable.  So many people have always seen me as a project that they needed to fix, or someone to feel sorry for.  Very rarely was I built up or allowed to "just be."

Escapism and Avoidance

    I haven't written about one aspect of the puzzle that is my mother yet, and that is narcissism.  I am planning on writing more in-depth at some point on how I came to that realization, but in the meantime wanted to share this article someone from a support group I belong to shared.  It really struck a chord with me and explains really well what I did to cope with my environment growing up.  It is taken from the Sanctuary For Wellness And Recovery page on Facebook:

    "One of the coping behaviors targets of Controllers often develop is “escapism” and avoidance.  This behavior is a survival mechanism, where the brain is trying to preserve the person’s Self and ability to be autonomous.  Autonomy is essential to a human’s survival, without it we can literally die, because we lose the ability to care for ourselves properly and make survival actions and decisions.

    "One of the core issues with Narcissism is trying to force targets to live through them, to see the world and themselves through the Narcissist’s eyes instead of their own eyes, to live life AROUND the Narcissist’s needs, wants, and emotions instead of their own.  A target of a Narcissist is told that they are “wrong,” “bad,” and “unwanted” when they initiate any action or express anything from THEMSELVES that is not under the umbrella of the Narcissists’ parameters.  Any emotional that isn’t “in line” with the Controller’s emotions or agenda is “wrong.”  Preferences that are different from the Controller are “wrong” (vanilla is better than chocolate, if you prefer chocolate or don’t like vanilla you’re “WRONG” or “WEIRD”).  Clothing, hairstyles, shoes, jewelry are WRONG if they don’t line up with the Controller’s preferences.

    "ANYTHING that a target does, feels, or thinks, or doesn’t do, feel , or think, is “WRONG” if it doesn’t line up with the Controller/Narcissist’s very narrow point of view.  Even the WAY the target does a task that the Controller commanded is “wrong” unless it’s exactly the same as what the Controller has in their head.

    "This projection of control is literally CONSTANT.  The Controller/Narcissist actually believes that ALL of his or her perceptions, opinions, preferences, and beliefs are The Correct Ones, and they feel completely entitled to project all of them onto their target at all times.

    Basically, in their mind, the Controller is the child playing with a set of action figures and dolls, making up everything they say, do, think and feel, and their targets are the dolls who don’t have minds or spirits of their own.  It doesn’t occur to the Controller that the targets are NOT dolls, and that they are just as REAL as he or she is, and that the Controller is NOT entitled to rule over them as if they are.

  

    "In response to this, targets often develop survival skills like escapism and avoidance, in order to preserve their core “self.”  They are giving themselves TIME and SPACE to BE REAL, to be autonomous.  Controllers of course confuse this with typical teenage “rebellion.”  It is related, but teenagers rebel in order to grow up and become autonomous adults; it’s a natural process that all children go through.  They are learning about their own perceptions and how to live in the adult world AS adults.  Rebellion as a SURVIVAL mechanism is different because it’s not part of the natural maturation process; it’s literally to preserve the person’s BEING and sanity.

    "Escapism and avoidance can easily become a habit, and cause problems for the target in making decisions in career and in relationships.  This is another one-two-punch; first the target develops this habit as a way to survive a Controller, and then the target must heal from the habit itself.  IT’s not fair at all, but it’s what happens commonly.  ON the positive side, the coping mechanism DOES help preserve the target’s “self;” without it, the target may have lost their autonomy and their sanity along with it.

    "Escapism and avoidance cause problems because they become the method of coping with discomfort, pain, anxiety, fear and anger.  So instead of balancing the checkbook, we go to the store and buy new jeans.  Instead of talking through an issue with our partner or friend, we turn away from them and go do something else.  Instead of staying at a job we don’t like until we find a better one, we quit.  Instead of saving money, we spend it trying to make ourselves feel better.  Instead of going to Motor Vehicles, we do the laundry.  We say we can’t go to counseling because we have to work.  We say we can’t afford to move so we don’t have to deal with the stress of moving, even though we know we need to move.  We say we can’t afford to quit our job so we don’t have to deal with change and the fear or failure.  We say we can’t afford college because we fear the costs of money an time, or because really we don’t want to deal with the social issues from other humans.

    "So we end up NOT doing things we want or need to do.

    "This is one of the things targets often need to heal from in order to “be themselves” again.  It’s easier with support, of course, but only with healthy supporters with healthy boundaries; otherwise the mechanism will kick in again.  It helps to work on healing our own boundaries first, so we can deal with other human beings and their control issues (most humans have at least a couple of them; when our boundaries are strong enough, we can at least stay in the same room and keep participating with non-Narc. People, even if they have some arrogance or dominance behaviors)."

    Wow, this was great for me to read.  I could relate to so much.

   My form of escapism growing up was reading.  I was a bookworm, always had my nose in a book.  This accomplished a few things--first, reading was considered an acceptable way to occupy my time and people wouldn't bother me as much if I was reading.  Second, I was often on my bed reading, in my room with the door closed--away from the craziness of the rest of the household and less likely to get yelled at (once chores, etc. were done, anyway).  Third, I usually had series of books I was into like Nancy Drew or something like that (yes, to some of you this is going to make me seem really old!  LOL) and I would sort of make myself one of the characters in my mind as I was reading and define myself that way.

    I think that in some ways this was a healthy way for me to deal with not being able to individuate in normal ways---through reading I learned about the world, including some things about interacting with other people through the descriptions I read, etc. (although practical experience through healthy interactions came later; I was one of those kids who was picked on in school all the time when I was little and felt awkward in jr. high and high school).  Better than drug use and other really destructive coping measures--but I found that after I "got out" and got married, etc. reading didn't do the same thing for me that it had in the past.  It took me awhile to figure out why it didn't hold the same "magic" and had a real a-ha moment when I realized it was because my "someday" had come and so I wasn't getting the therapeutic value from it that I had before, if that makes sense.  I think that left a huge hole in a lot of ways because I didn't know what to use to replace it.  As I'm writing this, it occurs to me that maybe the hole it left behind was pain that it had been covering up and I didn't know what to do with it.  No matter what I did I couldn't feel better.  I felt completely lost for a long time, and still struggle with knowing how to occupy my time on a day to day basis.  I often felt compulsions to leave the house each day--I couldn't just be "home."  I often found myself walking around stores, even if I wasn't purchasing anything.  One day when I was trying to figure out why I did that I realized that I felt "normal" when I was at the store.  Running errands is something normal people do, so I am always running errands.

    Anyway.  This gives a lot of food for thought.  I've been learning a lot about my maternal grandfather in the last little while and realize that he carried a lot of the same kind of emotional pain that I do.  He was an alcoholic and I think I'm understanding so much better what was behind it.  His parents had severe marital problems and he was the product of an unwanted pregnancy, and he knew it from the time he was little because his mother would say things like, "I never wanted you anyway," and his older sister was the one carrying him around on her hip and mothering him.  Both mother and sister had very mean personalities.  No matter what he did, he could never be enough. He was a successful businessman in several ventures but lost them all to alcohol.

    Similarly, I was consistently given the message, even as a little girl, that I wasn't enough. I realized several years ago that my very existence never felt acceptable, and the more I've pieced together and learned about my mother the more I've realized that this is really true. I believe strongly that my dad was ready to have a baby much sooner than she was and so she felt pressured into getting pregnant when she did. When she saw how much my dad adored me, she saw me as competition for his affections.  For most of my growing up years I had a desperate need for approval and acceptance.  The arenas I sought after those things in were at church, being the goody-two-shoes who was well behaved and knew all the answers; and through praise or achievements in areas I was talented in, such as music and dance.  I was in ballet for eleven years and in modern dance/jazz for about four years after that, and if I left a class without a compliment from my teacher I was devastated.  If someone outperformed me in some way it took the wind out of my sails, rather than spurring me on to stronger effort and I would sink into depression and hopelessness.  The way it felt to me was that a compliment to someone else was a personal rejection of me.  I couldn't figure out for the longest time why I would do that; now I understand that it's because it was all rooted in approval that was withheld at home, and when I didn't get it in the places I felt like I could get it, it was further validation to me that I was worthless.

    My grandpa was always trying to cope with pain that never went away, and the alcohol cushioned it.  I'm really a lot more like him in a lot of ways than I realized, but instead of alcohol I use food or other coping behaviors.