Entries from my journal for early January:<\/p>\n
Monday<\/p>\n
I was typing the entry for December 1, where I had talked about not telling someone outside the shop that their car lights were on, and not picking up a hitch-hiker, and I added a comment:\u00a0 \u201cTyping this up I see the pattern.\u00a0 I was truly too tired to do those extra things, but one of the injunctions from my childhood was that it was very wrong not to sacrifice myself for someone else\u2019s welfare.\u00a0 Not OK to take care of myself at someone else\u2019s expense.\u00a0 I also see another belief Mother taught me: \u201cYou don\u2019t care about something if you don\u2019t do something about it.\u201d\u00a0 She often said \u201cYou don\u2019t care about me,\u201d if I wouldn\u2019t do what she wanted.\u00a0 It was only much later, in a confrontation with my ex-husband, that I realized that it\u2019s perfectly possible to care very much about something, and not be able to do anything about it.<\/p>\n
Tuesday<\/p>\n
A lot of early stuff has been triggered by taking on Marko.\u00a0 Marko is a small dog whose owner was dying, and his sister asked me to keep him until she could find someone to take him.\u00a0 \u201cThat twilight feeling<\/a>\u201d and seeing my life stretch into greyness ahead of me.\u00a0 Feeling like it\u2019s too hard to keep going.\u00a0 Feeling like there\u2019s no purpose or meaning in my life now.\u00a0 Wishing I could die soon.\u00a0 Seeing how my ability to take care of myself \u2014 especially in the realm of exercise \u2014 has degenerated.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t gone out on my own in quite a while.\u00a0 The weather has been a problem too.\u00a0 I\u2019ve lost whatever energy I had for the clay project and the Little Books project.\u00a0 I wrote a description for a Writers\u2019 group and a couple of discussion groups, but I\u2019ve lost my energy for that.<\/p>\n Wednesday<\/p>\n Hard to get up again this morning, despite the good session with Erica and a good talk with Eve.\u00a0 In fact I\u2019m feeling bleak and grey right now.\u00a0 And then disappointed in myself.\u00a0 When I left Erica, I had more clarity.\u00a0 I even enjoyed the countryside when I drove home.<\/p>\n But today I\u2019m back in the grey confusion.\u00a0 My head feels swollen.\u00a0 At least I\u2019m not nauseous.\u00a0 I remind myself that the grey part of me is trying to protect me from mother\u2019s \u201cwrath.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s the word Erica used.\u00a0 I would have thought she was exaggerating before I knew how a parent\u2019s emotions can be huge to a child.\u00a0 \u201cWrath\u201d is the right word, because if Mom got angry, she might throw me away and that\u2019s terrifying.<\/p>\n The fear of doing wrong and being \u2014 what? \u2014 the infant has no words or concept of death.\u00a0 The best I can do is the series \u201cworthless-and-rotten-and-should-be-dead\u201d and \u201csent back to Sears & Roebucks,\u201d which are essentially trying to verbalize a \u201cfelt sense.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Looked up in BVDK<\/a> about the styles of dysfunctional attachment.\u00a0 \u201cDisorganized attachment\u201d is where the caretaker is a source of fear for the child.\u00a0 It\u2019s the double-bind that Erica talked about: I can lose myself by being what Mom wants me to be, or I can lose myself by being who I really am, and then Mom, who is necessary to my survival, will leave or throw me away.\u00a0 So I end up in the grey world of terror and depression.\u00a0 This stuff is very hard to write down because it happened when I was non-verbal.<\/p>\n Being afraid of mother reminds me of that time when I was in therapy with Sheila back in the 70’s.\u00a0 She got me regressed, sitting on the floor with my eyes closed.\u00a0 Then she moved a cushion across the rug saying \u201cThis is your mother.\u201d\u00a0 My body scrambled to get away from \u201cmother\u201d before my brain was able to think.\u00a0 I remember being very surprised.\u00a0 I knew I didn\u2019t respect mother, but I didn\u2019t think I feared her.\u00a0 I puzzled over this event, didn\u2019t know what to make of it.\u00a0 Years later, when I learned about the physiology of trauma, I understood.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same reason a Veteran\u2019s body jumps behind a couch before\u00a0his brain registers \u201cthat\u2019s a backfire in the street.\u201d<\/p>\n Understanding what I was up against gives me a lot more respect for my struggle, and appreciation for why it\u2019s so hard to make art when I don\u2019t have moral support.\u00a0 Erica said we were working down at the roots.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re right in the middle of the pain of that little girl.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Entries from my journal for early January: Monday I was typing the entry for December 1, where I had talked about not telling someone outside the shop that their car lights were on, and not picking up a hitch-hiker, and … Continue reading