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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 616158" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>pasajes4, I am glad you are reading along and taking something from this, too. Sometimes, it feels like I am inappropriately whining away about myself on a site devoted to how we turn the energies in our families around. Other times, I am aware that if I am ever going to get through this and change the family dynamic, this may be the one shot I have, here, with all of you, and that I had best take hold.</p><p></p><p>Your comment was a validation for me, pasajes.</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p>*************************</p><p></p><p>I wonder, Recovering, whether what feels like anger as it comes aware is the core energy, the essence of self that had to be hidden away for us to survive the abuser's realm of influence over our lives. Could it be true that, on some level, we still believe the abuser's interpretation of that essential essence of self as an intrinsic wrongness, as something to be targeted and destroyed....</p><p></p><p>It is frightening; I do feel that it takes an act of courage and faith to release her, to acknowledge her, to take her out of hiding.</p><p></p><p>All my life?</p><p></p><p>I have worked very hard not to be my mother. And she is sealed away in here too, poisonous, contemptuous, bigger and stronger than me.</p><p></p><p>So, I am still a child in that realm.</p><p></p><p>Pretty gutsy of that little kid to call her abuser by name, to question and shame the adversary and to free herself by an act of will.</p><p></p><p>So, there is the cowardice motif. </p><p></p><p>It turns out it was a key, a way to unlock something that needed healing, needed to be reinterpreted so I could lay claim to the legitimacy of my own life. </p><p></p><p>That is why therapy could never touch that imagery. It wasn't enough that I go back as an adult and understand the wrongness of what happened. I had to go back and confront and reinterpret the abuser's interpretation of my intrinsic value.</p><p></p><p>Because that kind of labeling is what is really happening in any abusive situation, from public rudeness to bad driving to murder to racism to homophobia. Why else would angry drivers feel compelled to scream and gesture and posture? Victimization of any kind empowers the abuser; that is the payoff. But like anything ill-gotten, that burst of power leaves him or her thirsting for more. Those feelings of power over would become addictive to the abuser, to someone so damaged themselves that any validation, legitimate or not, is heady stuff.</p><p></p><p>Human nature. And we see it played out every day ~ in racism, in religious fanaticism, in all the myriad abuses of power we all witness day after day after day.</p><p></p><p>****</p><p></p><p>Fastening onto any attempt at another, different, better identity with a savage determination to replace it with fear, with terror and self-disgust, our abusers keep us focused, not on ourselves as we grow and flower and change, but on them. They cannot bear to lose the only witness who sees them as they truly are; a sly little secret at the heart of the thing. Abusers are addicted to the power hit, something they can get only through their savaged witnesses, who cannot defy the abuser or challenge her inflated picture of herself because they believe it, too. </p><p></p><p>I believe that is why my mother is so opposed to my (or my sister's) marriages. She could not dominate the males involved, because, as they were not seeing her through a sticky film of terror and guilt and wrongness, they could see her for the broken person she is. They did not take her seriously, an error fatal to the abuser's contrived self-image as all-powerful and oh so scary.</p><p></p><p>My mother still needs to abuse, emotionally and psychologically (now that she cannot abuse physically any more), out of her fear of the emptiness that made the power hit only attainable through terrorizing others addictive in the first place.</p><p></p><p>I am losing my anger at my abuser, at all my abusers. It is there, but changing. I feel instead a multi-colored whirlwind descending, blasting apart those old caricatures of power and rage. </p><p></p><p>Forgiveness is not a question. It is simply that I now choose to see. Whether she would have rejected it or not, my mother did not know to ride the edge, the vulnerable edge where true things can be chosen over comfortable old patterns. And I do choose, and I do see.</p><p></p><p>So, I am, we are, fortunate, here.</p><p></p><p>We have been able to recognize one another, and to share what each knows.</p><p></p><p>Good.</p><p></p><p>Good for us.</p><p></p><p>*****</p><p></p><p>Your comment about being unwilling to travel the same tried and true...that was such a big part of my rage and disgust too, Recovering. After all these years, I had no other way to go. What I've been doing hasn't worked. I want my family healed. If detaching is a way to get there, that is where I am going. The stunning part is the growth that is occurring for me <u>through</u> detaching. In order to set my kids free to sink or swim, I have to confront that old belief about myself. Had to confront the old guilt/fraudulent/illegitimate belief system, because in letting my kids seek their own levels, I am running face to face into how and why I created the who that I am in the first place. I am seeing the times I have excused a thing instead of condemning it when it was so small as to be unnoticeable.</p><p></p><p>So, of course my children would learn to excuse wrongnesses, would learn to believe for some magical best, would come back, again and again, for those dishonest reflections of selves better than their behaviors merited, and which they would see reflected nowhere else.</p><p></p><p>A lie is a lie, an excuse is an excuse. A wrongness is a wrongness, and should be addressed.</p><p></p><p>It could be that for my children, there was no core mom to trust. I could not give my children truths I did not know, myself. I could only give them, with all good faith, what I wished was true, what I was determined would <u>be</u> true. </p><p></p><p>So, let's see what transpires when we begin telling the truth.</p><p></p><p>I remember your posting about a time when you told your daughter, without anger, what you were seeing, Recovering.</p><p></p><p>You had let go of the outcome. You were not doing it to help her or even, to help yourself. You just found yourself speaking.</p><p></p><p>So really, detachment is about detaching from our own emotional reactions. That is what you mean when you say we have no control. I always feel so foolish when I finally begin to see something so simple.</p><p></p><p>Hard work, to get here, though.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 616158, member: 17461"] pasajes4, I am glad you are reading along and taking something from this, too. Sometimes, it feels like I am inappropriately whining away about myself on a site devoted to how we turn the energies in our families around. Other times, I am aware that if I am ever going to get through this and change the family dynamic, this may be the one shot I have, here, with all of you, and that I had best take hold. Your comment was a validation for me, pasajes. :O) ************************* I wonder, Recovering, whether what feels like anger as it comes aware is the core energy, the essence of self that had to be hidden away for us to survive the abuser's realm of influence over our lives. Could it be true that, on some level, we still believe the abuser's interpretation of that essential essence of self as an intrinsic wrongness, as something to be targeted and destroyed.... It is frightening; I do feel that it takes an act of courage and faith to release her, to acknowledge her, to take her out of hiding. All my life? I have worked very hard not to be my mother. And she is sealed away in here too, poisonous, contemptuous, bigger and stronger than me. So, I am still a child in that realm. Pretty gutsy of that little kid to call her abuser by name, to question and shame the adversary and to free herself by an act of will. So, there is the cowardice motif. It turns out it was a key, a way to unlock something that needed healing, needed to be reinterpreted so I could lay claim to the legitimacy of my own life. That is why therapy could never touch that imagery. It wasn't enough that I go back as an adult and understand the wrongness of what happened. I had to go back and confront and reinterpret the abuser's interpretation of my intrinsic value. Because that kind of labeling is what is really happening in any abusive situation, from public rudeness to bad driving to murder to racism to homophobia. Why else would angry drivers feel compelled to scream and gesture and posture? Victimization of any kind empowers the abuser; that is the payoff. But like anything ill-gotten, that burst of power leaves him or her thirsting for more. Those feelings of power over would become addictive to the abuser, to someone so damaged themselves that any validation, legitimate or not, is heady stuff. Human nature. And we see it played out every day ~ in racism, in religious fanaticism, in all the myriad abuses of power we all witness day after day after day. **** Fastening onto any attempt at another, different, better identity with a savage determination to replace it with fear, with terror and self-disgust, our abusers keep us focused, not on ourselves as we grow and flower and change, but on them. They cannot bear to lose the only witness who sees them as they truly are; a sly little secret at the heart of the thing. Abusers are addicted to the power hit, something they can get only through their savaged witnesses, who cannot defy the abuser or challenge her inflated picture of herself because they believe it, too. I believe that is why my mother is so opposed to my (or my sister's) marriages. She could not dominate the males involved, because, as they were not seeing her through a sticky film of terror and guilt and wrongness, they could see her for the broken person she is. They did not take her seriously, an error fatal to the abuser's contrived self-image as all-powerful and oh so scary. My mother still needs to abuse, emotionally and psychologically (now that she cannot abuse physically any more), out of her fear of the emptiness that made the power hit only attainable through terrorizing others addictive in the first place. I am losing my anger at my abuser, at all my abusers. It is there, but changing. I feel instead a multi-colored whirlwind descending, blasting apart those old caricatures of power and rage. Forgiveness is not a question. It is simply that I now choose to see. Whether she would have rejected it or not, my mother did not know to ride the edge, the vulnerable edge where true things can be chosen over comfortable old patterns. And I do choose, and I do see. So, I am, we are, fortunate, here. We have been able to recognize one another, and to share what each knows. Good. Good for us. ***** Your comment about being unwilling to travel the same tried and true...that was such a big part of my rage and disgust too, Recovering. After all these years, I had no other way to go. What I've been doing hasn't worked. I want my family healed. If detaching is a way to get there, that is where I am going. The stunning part is the growth that is occurring for me [U]through[/U] detaching. In order to set my kids free to sink or swim, I have to confront that old belief about myself. Had to confront the old guilt/fraudulent/illegitimate belief system, because in letting my kids seek their own levels, I am running face to face into how and why I created the who that I am in the first place. I am seeing the times I have excused a thing instead of condemning it when it was so small as to be unnoticeable. So, of course my children would learn to excuse wrongnesses, would learn to believe for some magical best, would come back, again and again, for those dishonest reflections of selves better than their behaviors merited, and which they would see reflected nowhere else. A lie is a lie, an excuse is an excuse. A wrongness is a wrongness, and should be addressed. It could be that for my children, there was no core mom to trust. I could not give my children truths I did not know, myself. I could only give them, with all good faith, what I wished was true, what I was determined would [U]be[/U] true. So, let's see what transpires when we begin telling the truth. I remember your posting about a time when you told your daughter, without anger, what you were seeing, Recovering. You had let go of the outcome. You were not doing it to help her or even, to help yourself. You just found yourself speaking. So really, detachment is about detaching from our own emotional reactions. That is what you mean when you say we have no control. I always feel so foolish when I finally begin to see something so simple. Hard work, to get here, though. Cedar [/QUOTE]
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