The original title of this post was about my denial. \u00a0Fairly soon after I had saved the first draft, I realized that it wasn’t really denial. \u00a0Denial is when you are faced with evidence, but refuse to believe it. \u00a0The refusal is not conscious. \u00a0If you’re in denial, you don’t know it. \u00a0You truly believe that you are not an alcoholic, even though your life is falling apart. \u00a0What took me so long was not denial, but lack of information, compounded by my mother’s refusal to acknowledge my pain. \u00a0I once told my mother that I was being teased by classmates, and she said “Ignore them.” \u00a0I didn’t even know what the word “ignore” meant. \u00a0My pain was invisible to her and so it was invisible to me and without cause, so I believed I was defective.<\/p>\n
Denial was why it took so long for me to accept how damaged I was.\u00a0 I was the oldest child of five, and both our parents were alcoholics.\u00a0 I was given far too much responsibility for the younger kids.\u00a0 I was expected to do things that were way beyond the abilities of a child.\u00a0 Mama Greene<\/a> told us a story of when Mom & Dad wanted to go to a cocktail party, and the babysitter fell through.\u00a0 So I was left alone, at 7 years old, to care for 3 yr old Jack, 2 yr old Josephine and infant Jesse.\u00a0 When I told my friend Beverly about it she was horrified.\u00a0 She pointed to her daughter and said \u201cOlivia is seven.\u00a0 Leaving a child alone like that is illegal now.\u201d\u00a0 It surprised me to see that Olivia was just a child. \u00a0I had no image of myself as a child.<\/p>\n I remember learning to cook hamburgers for my younger siblings when I was left to babysit at our summer house in Maine.\u00a0 I was 12 years old and no one had ever taught me how to cook.\u00a0 The first batch of hamburgers were burned on the outside and raw on the inside.\u00a0 The next time I babysat I tried again.\u00a0 This time they were not burned but thoroughly overcooked.\u00a0 Finally on the third try, I managed something tasty.\u00a0 After I had got the kids fed and into bed, the sun had set and the sky was darkening.\u00a0 I remember feeling alone in an empty house, feeling bleak, unwanted, and alone.\u00a0 I imagined that my life would never be more than this, looking after someone else\u2019s children and then being alone.\u00a0 I called it \u201cthat twilight feeling.\u201d\u00a0 There was no support for my intelligence or my creativity.\u00a0 Years later, when I finally understood that I was depressed, my therapist asked what was my first memory of depression.\u00a0 I started describing \u201cthat twilight feeling,\u201d and realized that it was exactly what I now knew was depression.<\/p>\n These experiences left me with a life-long sense of inadequacy about all the practical tasks that were part of living.\u00a0 The only place I didn\u2019t feel inadequate was at school.\u00a0 I was very intelligent and got good grades.\u00a0 All the way through grade school I thought everyone got A\u2019s.\u00a0 I was surprised in Junior High when I was first made aware that it wasn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n I did well in school, graduated from Wellesley college with honors.\u00a0 (This is the person my parents thought only good enough to babysit<\/a>.)\u00a0 I had no idea what to do with my life, so I thought perhaps I might go to Europe.\u00a0 I mentioned it at the dinner table in my dorm and a classmate said \u201cI\u2019d love to go with you.\u201d\u00a0 Only now do I realize how lucky I was that she wanted to do it too.\u00a0 We planned a trip that started in Ireland and went all the way to Greece and back.\u00a0 As we interacted with people in different countries, I discovered that Bettie had good social skills and I had none at all.\u00a0 This became more evidence for how inadequate I was.\u00a0 I had no idea it was due to lack of teaching and modeling, I believed that I had been born defective.\u00a0 I remember watching other people to see when it was OK to eat, always waiting for someone else to start.\u00a0 I was horribly embarrassed as a teenager, at a dinner party given in my honor at a country club.\u00a0 We all sat around the table, food in front of us, not eating until an adult (not my parents) came and told me that, as hostess, I had to be the one to start. \u00a0(One of the characteristics of Children of Alcoholics is “guesses at what is normal.”)<\/p>\n Another thing that happened with Bettie was that I would say and do things that puzzled her greatly.\u00a0 I said that I had taken math and science because I was good at them.\u00a0 She said with astonishment \u201cYou don\u2019t take courses because you\u2019re good at them.\u201d\u00a0 Another time she told me I didn\u2019t have to lose my temper.\u00a0 She was right, I even said it to my father one day far in the future.\u00a0 But Bettie\u2019s puzzlement I interpreted as criticism, and when I came back after the year abroad I felt exhausted and a failure.<\/p>\n I spent the next year at home with my parents.\u00a0 An Aunt, who was a supporter of the Natural History Museum told me that they were looking for someone to help in the Planetarium.\u00a0 I really loved the work, I loved teaching, I loved running the machine.\u00a0 It was during this year that a school friend came for lunch.\u00a0 Mother drifted in and out of the pantry in her usual fashion and Susan asked \u201cHow long has your mother had a problem with alcohol?\u201d\u00a0 The lights went on, that\u2019s<\/span> what it was. \u00a0Denial would have said “What problem with alcohol?” \u00a0Not that I even began to guess what that had done to me.\u00a0 I still thought I was defective.<\/p>\n The next year I tried what co-dependents know as the \u201cgeographical cure.\u201d\u00a0 I went out to California, to the Bay Area, where another Aunt had been trying to get me to come for years.\u00a0 I got into Stanford, I even had a fellowship for the MAT program: Master of Arts in Teaching, and I would do it in Earth Sciences.\u00a0 I loved Geology, and did well at it, but going to school with men was too much for me.\u00a0 As I had done earlier\u00a0the few times I met a guy, I fell in love with one after another, who either didn\u2019t know I existed, or dropped me after one date.\u00a0 I had no idea how vulnerable I was, and that I had never learned the skills for negotiating relationships.\u00a0 It was the 60\u2019s and I was swept away by the rebellious intellectual ferment.\u00a0 I dropped out of Stanford, giving up my fellowship, not wanting to be part of the \u201cEvil Establishment.\u201d\u00a0 Because I had a small independent income, I didn\u2019t need to get a job to support myself.\u00a0 I had several emotional breakdowns, which no one saw as such because I wasn\u2019t working or in school so no one noticed.\u00a0 I did start seeing a therapist, and I\u2019ve been seeing them on and off for most of my life.<\/p>\n While I was in California, not realizing how badly I had been wounded, I took lots of \u201cPersonal Growth\u201d workshops, but I continued to have difficulty with relationships. I met a man on some computer dating scheme.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t like him that much, but I was desperate for security so I moved in.\u00a0 I made myself believe that I loved him.\u00a0 Eventually I was forced to see that the relationship wasn\u2019t working.\u00a0 I fled to my friend Kathi who lived in Oakland.\u00a0 She offered sanctuary with her parents, who couldn\u2019t have been kinder.\u00a0 They let me have a room to myself, fed me, and asked nothing of me.<\/p>\n Kathi moved to Davis to go to Nursing School, and I followed her.\u00a0 The environmental movement was just gearing up \u2014 it was 1970 \u2014 and I was invited to be part of a team that was exploring computer modeling of biological systems.<\/p>\n Looking back, I can see that if I had wanted a career, I could have easily found one in Planetarium work \u2014 the San Francisco Planetarium hired me to teach a class, and I was even allowed to run their beautiful machine.\u00a0 Or, I could have had a career in the growing environmental movement.\u00a0 I remember Dr. Watt saying of my Wellesley degree, \u201cThey taught you how to think.\u201d\u00a0 It was all too much for me.\u00a0 I got overwhelmed, got into another bad relationship in my desperate search for security, and finally had a breakdown<\/a> that landed me in the University Health Center.<\/p>\n I used to feel guilty for the luxury of not having to have a job.\u00a0 What I didn\u2019t know, until I began to work with PTSD, was that I would never have been able to work a 40-hour week.\u00a0 If I had not had an independent income, I would probably be in a mental hospital, or dead.<\/p>\n Previous posts on Denial: The original title of this post was about my denial. \u00a0Fairly soon after I had saved the first draft, I realized that it wasn’t really denial. \u00a0Denial is when you are faced with evidence, but refuse to believe it. \u00a0The … Continue reading
\nDenial and Science<\/a>
\nMore on Denial<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"