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The Importance of Community

Posted on November 26, 2015 by jenny

This is from G-Dog and the Homeboys, a book about Father Greg Boyle and his work with the gangs of East Los Angeles. It’s written by Celeste Fremon.

Greg says “I used to say that the caring adult who pays attention is the most important factor to help a kid succeed. But now I’ve come to believe that the necessary context for that attention is community — meaning a place that reminds you of your goodness and your talent each day. That’s what I think we do here at Homeboy. We provide a place of ‘no-matter-what-ness,’ a place of unconditional love. Ideally it’s not just a person who offers that, it’s a community of feeling and connection and kinship that becomes a touchstone that you can return to when you hit life’s inevitable difficulties. It’s community that helps a kid discover the truth of who he is, in order that he can inhabit that truth. That’s the kid who will be able to withstand the obstacles life throws at him and be okay.” p297 (Epilogue)

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Ongoing Struggle

Posted on November 26, 2015 by jenny

Went down to see Barbara. She was depressed too. We took the dogs for a walk. We watched Bernie’s speech to Liberty University. It was heartening.

When I came home I got sucked into the parenting book. Couldn’t stop reading, even though I was overwhelmed and in pain. and confusion. One thing that helped was that they said writing about your emotional experiences reflectively can help you process them.

Feeling sad, discouraged, and confused. And I still have the practical tasks to work on: car recall, senior housing, deal with solar, etc.

So tired. Mocha next to me, the warmth is comforting.

I see that Kindred Spirits awakened in me a deep longing for such a community. The suggestion that Kendal might do it seemed like a gift. and I wanted to move in right away. Now I have given that up – that it would be quick and easy. I need to explore as many options as I can find.

I am profoundly depressed. Sad, discouraged, confused. I can’t read any of the books I’ve got. They’re too difficult and not comforting. The parenting one makes me feel stuck in my dysfunction. The one about God and the Universe writes as though the Big Bang were fact. The one about ‘open question,’ is Buddhist, talks about staying in the present, not looking for security. I tried to look at one of the articles in the depression book, but he talked about his depression spontaneously going away and having spaciousness instead. (p69) Doesn’t tell me what to do.

The only thing I know to do is to be in the present as much as possible. Right now the present is full of pain. My heart hurts, feels squeezed, my head feels battered. Can I bring compassion to myself?

Here’s this woman, traumatized in infancy. As a result she’s suffered from severe depression and periods of terror for most of her life. She’s done a lot of things, tried a lot of “therapies” in an attempt to heal. Some of them have worked. But right now nothing seems to be working. Not-knowing what to do is a serious trigger for her. Figuring it out intellectually was the only coping skill she had in her childhood. “Not-knowing” is described by the Buddhist as a “riveting place to be” a place of great learning if you can stay open to whatever happens.” (p2) That just seems totally impossible to me.

Posted in Depression, Trauma, Writing | Comments Off

Parenting from the Inside Out

Posted on November 20, 2015 by jenny

Started reading “Parenting from the Inside Out.” It’s about interactions between parents and children, and that if the parents have unprocessed events in their lives, it will affect their ability to raise healthy kids. They talk about how relationships are created, through empathy, validation, and shared emotion. It’s the shared emotion that makes you feel connected to someone. That didn’t happen — or at least I don’t remember it — with Mom & Dad. I remember the time I tried to connect with Dad by reciting a Robert Frost poem and he complained “You started me off wrong.”

They described “emotion” as an energy that integrates, integrates experience within a person, integrates a relationship between two people.

Reading this somewhat difficult material I feel overwhelmed and very sad. I don’t remember any connecting experiences with mom or dad, or experiences of being felt, or taken in by one of them. Attuned connection with a parent helps a child feel good about herself because their emotions have been given “resonance and reflection.” This gives them a sense of vitality and substance, a stronger sense of themselves.

How you are treated, if there is no attuned empathy, is “who you are.” It’s in “implicit memory” so it becomes an assumption that functions all the time without giving a sense of being in the past. This is why I’ve had such a long struggle with trying to change who I feel I am, it doesn’t feel like something I’ve learned, but like the reality of me.

This is so painful. I feel like the foundation of my sense of who I am is false, but I can’t change it. I can know that intellectually but not embody it. Seeing this makes me want to lie down and die.

“Both of us wounded, carelessly damaged for life…”

There is also a discussion of right and left hemispheres, and how they can work together. There was the case of one man who couldn’t feel emotions. He had been brought up by very intellectual parents who never validated or named what he was feeling. He had to learn how to feel in therapy. It helps me understand why I retreat to books when I need comforting or a retreat from “life” — from the struggle and the lostness.

I think of my response to Erica’s reflection and validation of me. On the one hand, I’m hungry for it, it’s something I’ve never experienced, but knew right away it’s something I should have been given. On the other hand, it contradicts all my knowing, the foundations of my personality, like being told that I’m really 6ft2”.

The quote is from a song that I haven’t been able to track down. I’ve been told that Amy Helm is the singer and Mary Gauthier may have written it. I couldn’t find it on either website.

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Refuge

Posted on November 18, 2015 by jenny

Reading “Necessary as Blood.” Reading doesn’t seem to help, I still feel the cold weight in my chest.

“… home to me was certainly never anything remotely material. It consisted, I have decided, in something I sensed as refuge: an atmosphere of safety in the love between my parents. It came in a tone of voice, in the preparation and eating of meals, in conversations during washing up and being busy in the garden.” — Dennis Severs, 18 Folgate Street.

Quoted as a chapter heading in Necessary as Blood p203

It hurt to read that. I realized how much was not there in my childhood. No wonder I’m still searching for refuge. Lynelle said yesterday, trying to make me feel better, “Look how much farther you have got than your parents did.” I think of the woman at the UU when I spoke about Journey into Courage. She was a therapist and she said, “What you have done is huge.”

Posted in Present Day, Trauma | Comments Off

Lost in an Indifferent Universe

Posted on November 18, 2015 by jenny

Woke up this morning feeling lost in an indifferent universe. There is no God or spirit or meaning here. I’ve been reading The Shack over the last few days. I’ve read it several times. I don’t like the Christian correctness (in one way) but I do like the portrayal of God (she’s black) and Jesus. The man telling the story clearly comes to trust both of them. This morning I realized I don’t trust “god” at all. I don’t trust that there’s any “Higher Power” who can help me.

I see that being lost in an indifferent universe is how I felt as a baby alone with my mother’s lack of empathy, inability to pay attention to my feelings, totally uninterested in seeing what I needed, much less giving it to me. Knowing that these feelings belonged to the baby inside me, I just stayed with them as best I could throughout the day. Sometimes I would say “I’m here with you. I know what you are feeling.” I couldn’t say “I will make sure you are cared for,” because I can’t even take care of myself.

I saw my therapist today. She said that my inability to imagine a caring universe was reflective of my belief that it wasn’t OK to have needs. I said O yes. She said it wasn’t OK to expect to have my needs met. At this I cried and cried and collapsed into what felt like a puddle. No, it was absolutely wrong and very bad to have any expectation that my needs would be met. I had to do it all myself.

I never mentioned what happened about three weeks ago. I had thought I would do a blog post, but was simply too confused and upset to be able to write. It was a Thursday, and because of confusion with my car, which was in the shop, and having the phone stop working, I was really falling apart by the time my friend Cory came to drive me to my car. She could see that I was very upset and said “Can you have a phone appointment with your therapist instead of driving to Montpelier?” O my, relief! Yes, I could do that. Then she said “You don’t need to come to choir rehearsal either. Victoria told us that Sunday would be easy.” At the idea of not going to choir there was a moment of hesitation and then I felt how tired and shaky I really was. Cory said “You need to rest and recover.”

Because I had Cory’s permission, I took care of myself. I talked to my therapist on the phone and didn’t go to choir practice. It felt HUGE to be doing this and the words that came were “Taking care of myself at someone else’s expense.” I thought about this and realized that it wasn’t at Karen’s expense, I still talked to her for an hour for which she will get paid, and it wasn’t at choir’s expense, people don’t show up all the time. Where did I learn that? From Mom, for whom any taking care of me was at her expense.

In the days afterward, I experienced a lot of fear. I realized that was because I had broken one of the deepest oldest injunctions. “Thou shalt not expect Mom to take care of you. Thou shalt take care of thyself so as not to be a nuisance.”

Posted in Breakdown, Present Day, Trauma | Comments Off

Beautiful Broken Things

Posted on November 17, 2015 by jenny

I found this piece on my friend Eve’s altar. It really spoke to me. In California, before I understood what had happened to me, I called these breakings “Shipwreck.” I did not see these times as times of recovery and healing, I saw them as failure. I saw them as times of respite, after which I went back into the fray.

Beautiful Broken Things

There is a rest in brokenness. You lie on that hard ground, unable to function as you did before. So you lie there. There are no more “shoulds” because the luxury of self-recrimination was taken from you when you fell and broke to pieces on the earth below. “Cannot” doesn’t matter now either. All that exists in this moment is “What Is Now.” This. And there is beauty in the brokenness. It is a beauty of constellations in the scars, of tides in the tears, the heat of fire in the bleeding of you. In the abrupt quiet that follows an unexpected injury, a sacred silence fills you. And because there is nothing left in you that can create, push, force, be or drive into, there is a blessed empty space, to be filled by something other than all the crazed and busy thinking, the manic achieving, and the over-scheduled hours. This blessed, beautiful brokenness is the prayer that summons the spirit, calls forth the angels, lays us down gently. In these seasons of humble brokenness, we are opened, utterly. There is no protecting yourself here. This is the stripping away of ego-driven, striving conception. Let there be grace. Let there be mercy. Allow the broken places to show you their beautiful rest.

The broken stick on the forest floor is the branch who earned her rest. I bless the stick. I bless the branch. I bless the rest. Sarah LaRosa 2013

Sometime ago I posted a piece about the Hindu Goddess Akhilandeshvari, whose name means “Never-not-broken.”

Posted in Breakdown, Trauma | Comments Off

Struggle to Find the Support I Need

Posted on November 14, 2015 by jenny

From my journal for October 10

Had trouble going to sleep & woke early. Lying there, counting my breaths, I had a momentary qualm “what is the point of my life?” I realize I usually ask it intellectually, when it’s become really hard to keep going. But this morning it was just a profound feeling of meaninglessness.

Recently I’ve been struggling with the concept of uncertainty, of mutability, of things always changing. I’ve been desperately wanting security. I’ve been somewhat annoyed with myself for this “cowardice,” but thinking more about it I see that it’s not external security I want so much as a stable platform inside me, a container that will hold me while I experience the constant changing. I imagine that change for me has always been negative. I’m not sure that’s true, I need to look at concrete evidence which is not showing itself right now. What I feel, when I think of things changing, is the rug being pulled out from under me, the chill down my back when yet another man tells me he’s got someone else.

Maybe it doesn’t have so much to do with security as with attachment. Erica said yesterday: the babies want “to be sure they will be cared for adequately.” I need more support to be able to guarantee that. Erica also said change for me has been traumatic, trying to attach to someone who was numb, who wasn’t there.

I try to imagine holding the babies, feeling that warm sense of them snuggling, and it’s not there. What’s there, in my heart and gut, is pain like a tight cramp, not relaxed and warm. What happened? Now I feel the cold, the chill of abandonment. Maybe it’s that the babies were uncomfortable with my friend who didn’t understand my upset with Barbara not getting back to me. That triggers the trauma of abandonment. Maybe it’s because I paid more attention to the teenagers who didn’t want to cuddle. I wanted to have a conversation with the 12-yr-old and the 17-yr-old.

Dog comes, curls up next to me. I feel the warmth of her body and the warmth of my gratitude and love.

Asking the babies what happened, why are they uncomfortable. I get a sense of mistrust, they are afraid I will abandon them. O my dears, I am so sorry. It’s true I got preoccupied with other things, but I have no intention of leaving you. What I got completely submerged in was the question of finding enough support for me, so I can care for you adequately. I need a certain level of care for myself. Erica said I had built some support for myself: Neskaya, choir, friends I feel safe with, but it was turning out not to be enough. Going to Kindred Spirits showed me how I would be with an adequate level of support.

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Appreciation, Enjoyment, and Gratitude

Posted on October 25, 2015 by jenny

I have always done my best to be grateful, in opposition to my mother who managed to find something wrong with everything. (See 4th of July Monologue) She could also hold a grudge for many years. I have done my best not to do that. I have an early journal entry where I describe her and say I don’t want to be like her and I will never write about her again.

Before I got on medication I was finding it really hard to enjoy things, and I was cross with myself because I thought I was doing it on purpose. When I finally got to a counselor who specialized in mood disorders, she told me that enjoyment depended on brain chemistry. Depression brain chemistry prevents enjoyment. That was a huge relief to me, and I noticed that it was true as I cycled between depression and normal. I realized that appreciation can be done with the intellect, but real enjoyment requires participation of more of the self.

I’ve had a similar problem with gratitude. I was talking to a friend recently, who just amazed me by being grateful for everything in her life, even the bad things because they led to waking up. I envied her. It is very hard for me to feel grateful for the things in my life that I know are good. Possibly it’s a similar situation. I can intellectually list the things I should be grateful for, but I rarely actually feel the gratitude. Perhaps it’s not that I’m an ungrateful person, but that being able to feel grateful requires the right brain chemistry.

People often talk about the “gift of life.” I have a hard time with this, and so does my friend Eleanor who lives with very early and multiple trauma. Sometimes I think she has the hardest life I know of. I told her I felt like the “gift of life” came to me smashed. She said she felt the same way.

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Shame Attack about Self-care

Posted on October 24, 2015 by jenny

After I posted the piece about my morning routine, I had a shame attack: “How can I complain when there are so many people who have much harder mornings…” I was very upset at posting that material and was going to write an apology and post it. But I had to go to Hanover for my appointment with Erica.

I told her what I had written and how ashamed I was. I said “How can I complain when I think of a mother of three who has to get them dressed and ready for school….” Erica said “It’s not a fair comparison. You are comparing yourself to a 30 yr old who has a lot more energy.”

Went back to see what I had said in my journal on October 24.

Now I’m feeling really stupid to have filled out all the details and posted it. What’s the big deal? Lots of people have much more to do in 3 hrs in the morning than you do. What was I trying to do? Give myself credit for what I manage to get done? Tell other people how hard my life is? There are people who have to walk a mile to get a bucket of water to make breakfast for their children. Does that make me feel lucky? No, it makes me feel guilty.

Maybe I wrote down all the details to prove to myself how much I actually do. It was feeling like a terrible chore, a chore you have to do, but it takes energy and focus, and I don’t have those when I’m depressed. I also notice that it’s all about self-care, something I really have a hard time with when I’m depressed. Never do I feel satisfied with getting it done — actually I never get it done, there’s more I have to do in a day. I suppose I’m angry at myself for spending so much time and energy on self-care, when there are so many people out there who need help.

Erica said that the shame reflects a belief that I’m not allowed to matter. I have to do all that, taking supplements, etc, against that wind of “you don’t deserve care.” I also have to do it, not because I love or value myself but just to keep from being a nuisance. Erica says that the self-care I do manifests that I matter. I have a very hard time getting it.

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Morning Routine

Posted on October 19, 2015 by jenny

I’ve been wondering why it takes me so long to get started in the morning. Last Sunday, when Victoria asked the choir to come 15 minutes early, I thought it’s hard enough to get there at the usual time of 9:30. I’ve also noticed when people stay here, or when I go somewhere else, even where meals get prepared, I find that my routine gets messed up, which is not good for my health. So I thought I’d write down what I have to do in the morning.

9:25 Starting to drink my third cup of tea. I woke up at 6:45 so my morning routine takes about 2hrs 40m. Feeling very stiff, I first sat up in bed and bent forward to stretch my spine. I don’t get very far and I can feel the tight muscles. Get up, make tea, write in journal. Forgot to take probiotic capsule, it has to be taken an hour before a meal.

— Dog whines at door. I go out with her on a leash to let her pee and poop. Now it’s 9:38 and I’m just starting to drink my tea —

Make second cup of tea. Take Lamotrigine. Write in journal some more. When I’ve finished my tea I start the prunes. While the water is coming to the boil I put my nine kinds of supplements into 3 little cups. When the water boils, I turn it to simmer, set the timer for 20 minutes. Roll out my yoga mat, do some stretches (forward bend much easier now) and postures. Today I stopped before the 20 minutes were up, rolled up mat, put on outdoor clothes. When the timer rings, I put the prunes in a bowl, rinse the pan, fill it, put eggs in. Start the eggs at half flame, set timer for 10 minutes. Then I have to make a mix of water, magnesium CALM, cider vinegar, liquid magnesium malate. All this is in service to keeping my intestines moving. I sit down with my prunes and mineral mix and check email. When the timer rings, I turn eggs down to simmer, set timer for 10 minutes. Then I start preparing Mocha’s breakfast. Canned dog food, coconut oil and fish oil. Then I have to grab her and force her mouth open for 3 drops of homeopathic detoxifier. Then I give her her breakfast as a reward. I do this, because although she took them fine for a few days, she’s now running away when I get out the drops. I hope doing them just before food doesn’t lower their effectiveness. When my eggs are done, I dump the hot water — on something that needs washing if possible — put cold water in to cool the eggs. I put some rice in a bowl and heat it in the microwave for 1 minute. Meanwhile I’m taking the shells off the eggs and rinsing them. When the rice is hot I put the eggs on top, cut up the eggs, add salt. I eat the eggs and rice while also taking my supplements. Don’t forget that the dog gets the last bite of my meal. Finally I get to sit down with my third cup of tea. Today the dog asked to go out, so that took extra time, maybe 10 minutes. Finally finally I get to drink my third cup of tea. Usually read or play solitaire while drinking. Today I wrote all this.

I’ve finished the tea at 9:50. So my whole morning routine today took 3hrs and 5min. I still need to take fiber in fruit juice, but probably won’t get to that until later in the day.

No wonder I’m so slow to get started in the morning. It takes a while to wake up enough to do everything I have to.

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