{"id":1139,"date":"2011-03-05T09:06:35","date_gmt":"2011-03-05T14:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=1139"},"modified":"2011-12-26T10:41:28","modified_gmt":"2011-12-26T15:41:28","slug":"bleak-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=1139","title":{"rendered":"Bleak"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Written in August 2008)
\nI\u2019m in some very bleak place staring at a very bleak truth.\u00a0 I really don\u2019t believe that I have any worth or value in myself, I really profoundly believe that the people who are my \u201cfriends\u201d only stay around as long as I\u2019m helpful and positive, that as soon as I become a \u201cnuisance\u201d, i.e. need or ask for help, then they will go away and leave me.\u00a0 This belief is so deep, and so obvious, that it\u2019s hard to verbalize.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t look like a belief, it looks like reality.\u00a0 Well at least I can make that distinction intellectually.\u00a0 And I can see that I learned that belief from a mother who treated me like I had no value (except when I could entertain her, except when I would do what she wanted) and who abandoned me when I was a nuisance \u2014 i.e. cried for food.
\nSo what do I do about it?\u00a0 How do I learn \u2014 or choose \u2014 to value this worthless lump of protoplasm?\u00a0 Intellectually \u2014 maybe even spiritually \u2014 I hold the belief that every thing has value, every organism has a place and a part to play in the whole.\u00a0 (God didn\u2019t create the universe, God became the universe) there is a \u201cseed of god\u201d inside me as there is inside every other being.\u00a0 I need to find that seed of god.\u00a0 But when I go to that deepest place, I hit the hard stoniness of my worthlessness.
\nTwo things I can do.\u00a0 1) Why do I value the people I value? 2) investigate the stoniness.
\n1) I was thinking that I love Eleanor, my friend who struggles with PTSD \u2014 because she has done good things for me?\u00a0 Not really. Because she is not a nuisance?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 She is a nuisance, she has meant a lot of hard work \u2014 but work that I value because it has taught me compassion for myself.\u00a0 The actual things she has done are not as important as the fact that she cares about me, and is willing to be present to my pain.\u00a0 I don\u2019t value her for the things she does but for the values <\/em>she holds and strives to live by in her very difficult life.\u00a0 I love her for the things she values, not for the things she actually manages to do.\u00a0 So can I value myself for the things I value?\u00a0 Truth, integrity, compassion?\u00a0 All the beings on the planet? For a moment my heart grows warm \u2014 this is the seed of god inside me \u2014 and then it gets cold again.\u00a0 I value these things because I value them, how can I say that\u2019s \u201cgod\u201d?
\nWhy do I love Bella? Well partly because she\u2019s beautiful, and partly because she loves me, but also because she\u2019s Bella with her unique personality, her stubbornness, feistiness, and passive-aggressive behavior.\u00a0 I adore her and she\u2019s a pain, and she makes me laugh.
\nOther tack.\u00a0 2) investigate the stoniness.\u00a0 How do I know I\u2019m worthless?\u00a0 The huge dull dead weight in my chest, the lump in my throat.\u00a0 The heaviness that clogs my limbs and makes it hard to get up and … wash dishes, clean up the dog mess, make a cup of tea.\u00a0 This heavy dull weight.\u00a0 I can feel it in my jaw. Now my stomach feels nauseous.\u00a0 The color is grey.\u00a0 I see a grey blob sitting in a colorful world \u2014 there\u2019s just a moment when my heart goes out to her \u2014 now there are tears behind my eyes and a lump in my throat.\u00a0 Connected to the nausea.\u00a0 I feel weak and frozen.\u00a0 What does weak & frozen want to do?\u00a0 Find a place of warmth, find someone to love me \u2014 o god. And then if there were someone who loved me I wouldn\u2019t believe it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And that\u2019s the place I\u2019m stuck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Written in August 2008) I\u2019m in some very bleak place staring at a very bleak truth.\u00a0 I really don\u2019t believe that I have any worth or value in myself, I really profoundly believe that the people who are my \u201cfriends\u201d … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,14,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breakdown","category-depression","category-spirit","category-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}