{"id":4228,"date":"2014-06-03T10:01:02","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T14:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=4228"},"modified":"2019-10-18T16:34:50","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T20:34:50","slug":"rescuing-my-true-self-from-the-cage-of-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=4228","title":{"rendered":"Rescuing my True Self from the Cage of Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven\u2019t posted to the blog since May 15.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been having a pretty tough time.\u00a0 I wrote a longish piece about wanting to die and read it to a friend.\u00a0 She said not to post it because people would label me.\u00a0 I have committed to not think about killing myself or dying in some other way. \u00a0See post about this.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>But I\u2019m still finding it really difficult just to get through the day.<\/p>\n

I was visiting my friend Eve and she had a craft project to do.\u00a0 We thought it might be fun if I read her some of my stories from my \u201cremedial joy\u201d and \u201credemption\u201d project.\u00a0 I read her three stories, but because she had to focus so tightly on what she was doing, there was no response.\u00a0 Finally she said it was not working for her.\u00a0 I went back to typing journal, but I began to feel really down.\u00a0 Later I realized that lack of response to my reading was a major trigger.\u00a0 I needed a response.<\/p>\n

Sitting outside with cups of tea, I asked Eve if she thought I was a worthwhile person. She said \u201cThat doesn\u2019t come into it.\u00a0 You\u2019re my friend.\u201d\u00a0 Then she talked about how much my friendship meant to her, how I let her talk about a past relationship without asking her to get past it, how I let her eat sweets without making her wrong, how I really totally accepted her just as she was.\u00a0 She compared me to past friends and said I had healthy boundaries. That made me feel a whole lot better.\u00a0 It was accurate mirroring of the kind that I rarely get \u2014 and clearly need badly.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, in my therapy appointment, I told Karen what had happened with Eve: reading to no response, getting triggered, asking her if she thinks I\u2019m a worthwhile person.\u00a0 Then I asked Karen if she thought I was a worthwhile person. Her answer blew me away.\u00a0 She said \u201cYou\u2019re one of the most worthwhile people I know.\u00a0 The energy that you put into the planet and relationships is sincere and truthful, and worthy of support and appreciation.\u00a0 That kind of intellectual, emotional, and spiritual awareness is rare.\u201d\u00a0 I wrote it down, because I didn\u2019t want to lose it.<\/p>\n

My self-image was largely formed by what Mother said to me and how she responded \u2014 or didn\u2019t respond \u2014 to me.\u00a0 She told me things like \u201cDon\u2019t think you\u2019re so great.\u201d\u00a0 She would brush off things I said to her by lack of response or making me wrong. (For illustrations of this, see my Fourth of July Monologue<\/a>.) \u00a0She acted as though I got in the way, was a nuisance, as though I did things deliberately to hurt her.\u00a0 I came out of her training with two deep needs: one was to prove that I deserve to live, the other was that I not be a nuisance by asking to have a need met. \u00a0And a third I realize on re-reading: a deep, deep need to never hurt anyone. \u00a0I think about two of my \u201credemption\u201d stories: the one where Mama Greene said I would never do something to hurt someone else, and the time Miss Sheffield said \u201cYou\u2019re a good student\u201d and trusted me to write the paper I hadn\u2019t been able to hand in.\u00a0 The feeling of relief I felt on hearing what they thought of me tells me how much I believed that I was the kind of person who would hurt people, believed that I was not trustworthy.<\/p>\n

That reminds me of the time Mother said \u201cI don\u2019t like not being trusted\u201d and I immediately felt wrong and bad for not trusting her.\u00a0 Only much later did it occur to me: I didn\u2019t trust Mother because she was not<\/span> trustworthy<\/span>.\u00a0 I feel like I\u2019m struggling to wrench my true self out of the cage of worthlessness my mother projected on to me and I\u2019ve been living inside most of my life.\u00a0 People have used the words \u201cauthenticity\u201d and \u201cintegrity\u201d of me, and I\u2019ve had trouble taking them in.\u00a0 \u201cIntegrity\u201d I can own, it\u2019s part of my commitment to the truth, a commitment that has powered my whole life, and powers this search for the truth of who I am.\u00a0 More data for a positive sense of self: Elizabeth praising my commitment, my vision, my generosity; Jalaja seeing \u201cdevotion, passion, creativity and sweetness” in my blog.<\/p>\n

I feel a little uncomfortable about posting this.\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid of being judged for \u201cbragging.\u201d\u00a0 I said this to someone once, and she said \u201cThat\u2019s not bragging, that\u2019s telling the truth.” \u00a0Dear friends who are reading this blog: if you want to, I would be greatly helped if you sent me a description of how you see me.\u00a0 Specific words and stories of what I said, or how I helped you, will really help me in this quest.\u00a0 Thanks!<\/p>\n

Feeling good about myself\u00a0 (written in July 2009)<\/a><\/p>\n

Jalaja Bonheim\u2019s comment about my blog.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven\u2019t posted to the blog since May 15.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been having a pretty tough time.\u00a0 I wrote a longish piece about wanting to die and read it to a friend.\u00a0 She said not to post it because people would … 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":[5,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228","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=4228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}