Geographically speaking, I have lived in several states during my lifetime. Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and Kentucky. I lived in them, and I also left them, easily moving from one to the other.
Emotionally speaking, I had also lived in several states as well, the most memorable being Shame, Anger and Resentment, though these were not so easy to leave; in fact they were, for many years, and many reasons, impossible to leave.
However, a couple of weeks ago I made a few significant connections to some of the more elusive themes that dominated the course of my recovery over the last several years, and in doing so, found it possible to possible to bid fond farewell to these states.
I must say, these last 12 months, while the most challenging yet, apparently have been the most fruitful in the entire 35 year recovery span.
Prior to that, I found it difficult to leave Anger and Resentment, rather, more or less, stuck in a cycle, perceiving myself as a victim of all the trauma that impacted me during the course of my life, beginning with the earliest days where I learned how to be a member within the context of a family system that spawned and molded me in preparation for entering the larger society.
I was raised by well meaning parents who had no clue about how to proceed with raising 8 children, born within 13 year span. Neither of them came from families that offered successful models for doing so. The bleak times and impoverished circumstances under which they themselves were brought up, left them ill-equipped to meet the challenges that lay before them. However, they flew by the seat of their pants, and pretty much reacted daily as impulse dictated for dealing with the stress of the most current pressing need.
Having no skills passed on inter-generationally to help them achieve their goal and ignorant of the range of emotional and psychological needs of their offspring, they focused on what they knew, that being the needs of the body: food, shelter and clothing. The moral code of their own religious culture supplied the rule book which established acceptable guidelines for justifying their disciplinary methods. We criticize those methods today as being faulty and negligent, however, at the time, it seemed for them the only viable options; options which were justified by the cultural and moral systems which had served the disciplinary methods of the preceding generation, those that shaped and formed them.
Those methods included the use of violence as a control method for inhibiting the volition of the child, restricting its liberties to the realm of what was deemed acceptable according to a core value system that had been transmitted through their parents. The nature of this system was not such that behavioral expectations were shaped by love and encouragement, with plenty of room built in for mistakes, and learning the ropes of self-determination. No, this was a purposefully designed punitive system, where behaviors were regimented, and failures to remain loyal to its expectations were met with severe disapproval and repercussions in the form of abusive physical acts. Under such circumstances, there was no show of love, no modeling of warmth and compassion, only a climate of fear and retribution.
But what did the child know? This was his world, and to complain or resist the governance of this system would never have entered his mind. He did what was expected and what he was told to do. His life became a matter of compliance. His daily bread and purpose became a simple task of staying out of the radar of the stressed out rulers, following orders to avoid punishment, though knowing from experience that this was not possible. All he could do was try to steer clear of becoming the next target of attack. This was the substance and form of what it meant to be 'happy'.
What did the child do with all the emotions that had not been validated within the aegis of such a regime? What happened to all the unexpressed fear, frustration, anger and resentment? The answer is that the child repressed these emotive responses. Having no safe place to in which to vent them, they got stuffed, and went underground.
Forced to hide his true feeling and emotions and thoughts, the child began to form an alternative personality, one that would be deemed acceptable, who could live in safety under the terms of endearment established by the governors of the systemic regime. Powerless to resist, and in order to survive, thereby ensuring a secure existence without fear of violent repercussion, he adapted by developing a false self.
The false self did not live happily ever after.
The false self, frustrated, defeated, stripped of its natural sense of wonder and curiosity, beat down by the constant oppression of its inquisitive nature was left feeling rather shallow and out of step with the rest of the world, and himself. Everything else all around him seemed to be full of vibrancy, eagerness, spontaneity and desire to meet the joyful challenges of living.
But the false self living in the heart and soul of this child, could not relate; he could not just 'go with the flow', because the seed of life planted in him at his emergence into the world had been trampled, stifled and crushed. However, it had not been obliterated. Something in the self that was real, that which could not be destroyed, prevailed in spite of the obstacles inhibiting its growth.
The child left the nest that nurtured him, that formed and shaped his values. He fled the tribe that demanded unflinching loyalty under penalty of violence, rejection and abandonment. And as he left, he took only the clothes swaddling him: Fear, compliance, avoidance.
But wait, there's more..........
No comments:
Post a Comment