Dear Reader,
I hate admitting weakness. I hate BEING weak. And I'm not talking physically, I'm talkinkg about emotional, psychological weakness. I run from it all the time. I hide from it behind my to-do lists. I think that if I "gut it up" ( a Texas phrase) I can do "it" ... whatever ... "it" is. I can function like a normal person and accomplish normal things. I hide and I run. Hide and run from my disorderly mind and heart and soul. I hold up incomparable role models (Beth Moore!) and say, "Why can't you be like her?!" I have the ability. I have the talent. But I don't have the strength.
I'm sure you are wondering what prompted this outpouring. Well, I saw my new psychologist for the second time today. I've been out of a counseling relationship for several months now, and I particularly chose this counselor because of her experience with trauma. So, today as she asked me questions, trying to get a better view of my history, she got close to some areas of my life that I don't like to talk about. I made the conscious decision that, if I wanted help for trauma from a trauma specialist ... I was going to have to talk about traumatic events. So, I did. It's not especially fun when you completely weird out experienced psychologists! At one point I laughed and said, "I bet you don't hear THIS kind of story every day!" She laughed as well (see why I love her!) and said, no, she sure didn't ... and she hears lots of stories!
I came away pretty shaky. I KNOW that I weathered everything in my life remarkably well. I've had numerous doctors and psychologists comment on this saying they are amazed that I didn't crack and develop a split personality. Thank God that He sustained me, even during those years when I didn't know Him!
But I want to be "normal." I want living a sustained life to quit being such hard work! Pathetic, I know. I want to be able to wake up in the morning and take hold of my day and charge into my list and accomplish things! Get my housework done, run errands, and get back to writing. I want to PUBLISH, for crying out loud! And to publish, you have to be able to work and perform and control your life and your time day after day after day. But I'll have one or two good days, and then collapse into an ineffective dithering and distractedness. Being constantly distracted is a huge problem for me. It's like my brain is aflutter with shifting thoughts and plans and ideas. I usually have twenty things on my mind at any one time. I expect that to ease up since we have moved. My life is already significantly less complicated than it was where we were before. And were heading into the new school year starting next week, and I am not inundated with a multiplicity of events! By this time I have usually planned and scheduled 15-20 events that I will host in the first few weeks, all the way down to wardrobe and flowers for the tables. So, while my brain is scrambled right now from decorating decisions, moving, and generally trying to keep a 5000 square foot house moderately clean with four dogs and a cat while cooking and grocery shopping and doing the laundry ... things WILL slow down and, hopefully, my brain will calm down and quit being so reactive.
I'm not going to go into my childhood in this blog. Aren't you happy! I'll just say that it was off the charts and leave it at that.
But the end result is that I am trying to live a normal, and actually an above-normal, life without having the foundation of wholeness that most people have. I don't think anyone has a "normal" childhood or "normal" parents, and I don't think anyone gets through life unwounded and without scars. But I also know that I am surprisingly scarred and wounded from my own past, but I won't accept the effect that has on my daily ability to perform. It's more like ... I think this is a metaphor, or maybe it's a simile. Whatever it is, try to feel what I'm trying to say. Most people live their life with their feet planted on solid ground. The solid ground is the result of a relatively good emotional foundation built for them during their early, formative years. But I don't have that foundation. There was nothing solid at all about my early years. It was all chaos. And, again, I'm going to leave it at that. The best way I can describe what my life feels like is to ask you to imagine that you are standing on layers and layers of plastic poker chips. (I swear, I can NOT think of a better example, although I know there have to be better ones!). I try to stand up and accomplish something (find an agent, polish an article, write a query letter, clean the house, do the laundry, cook a meal) and I struggle to stand on this huge pile of shifting plastic discs. I manage to get upright, though I'm working constantly to maintain my balance, and then all of a sudden one chip shifts just a bit, and then a whole pile slides out from beneath my foot and I crash to the ground again. THAT is what my life feels like and THAT is what is not acceptable to me and I want to be HEALED from this emotional woundedness that weakens me and makes me unstable and makes life so hard. Sometimes it's my body that gives way and causes the fall. I pull a tendon or my back comes out of joint or I have a major reaction or I catch the flu. Two years ago my hip bone almost came out of my socket suddenly. Crazy pain! Ten weeks of physical therapy kind of interfered with plans I had made.
When I was younger and had amnesia, I actually functioned better than I do now! Though there was still the hiding and the emotional running away from something in my psyche. I just didn't know from what I was running until it caught me and took me down and broke down the wall I built that held back the fifteen years of memories I refused to remember.
So. I am in a new place. I have far fewer social demands on me. I am away from my mother. I have a lovely home in a lovely village. I will have household help and laundry help before too much longer. And I have a good doctor and a good psychologist. So, as shaky as I feel today, I am still hopeful. Not giving in yet by any means!
Tomorrow I hope to be able to get a lot of work done in the house. It needs it badly! I have made out only a very basic to-do list.
Perhaps instead of expecting myself to function as well as someone who had a relatively normal childhood and life, I should congratulate myself when I function well at all and should accept that I've been broken and my expectations for myself must be different. While, at the same time, working towards physical and emotional wellness. That would mean no more anger at myself, something I am really working on.
That's it for today. I ate moderately well other than a large chocolate candy bar I got at a picnic today. And I got into the pool twice today, each time for around thirty minutes.
Cheers!
Lisa
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