So I was reflecting on how I perceive what people communicate and
how I communicate back to them. I have realized that everyone hears things through "invisible filters" over their ears that are made up of the sum total of all their own experiences (including me). I know my ability to communicate competently was impaired by the way I was raised, and I have been working for a very long time to overcome it, and an article I read last week made me realize I still have improvements I can make and skills to learn. I became
very sad, and then instantly angry, bitter, and resentful when I thought about
how hard I have had to work to be a “normal”
person, and how pissed off (!!!!) I am that I am
STILL trying to untie the knots that my mother tied me in.
One thing the article said was, in reference to teaching and raising children, that while not always perfect, parents do the best they can. I wanted to jump out
of my chair; I was angry because that’s exactly what she
said. It infuriated and hurt me when she said that, because it totally discounts the fact that her
“best” was abusive. It’s like she is giving herself a free pass, when it is actually
a cop-out because she doesn’t want to admit that what she did was hurtful to
her child. If a student failed every test, do you think the teacher would let them pass the class if
they said, “But that was the best I could do.” No, I don't think so!
She has the
temerity to blame me for what she did because she says I was a “bad child;” why
the hell does she think I was a bad child? There was not a damn thing wrong
with me except I had grown wearisome of her mistreatment and old enough to stand up to her. In
fact, I was not a bad child at all, I was a normal child in a bad environment. I
resent so much that I had no one else to learn how to be a human from and that
I am still performing psychic surgery on myself to cut out the behaviors that
do not serve me, which I learned from growing up in a crazy house. I resent
that I did not learn how to interact and communicate with people in a
constructive way, making it impossible to relate to other children (or teens),
which had profoundly negative consequences for me as I grew up.
It is so hard
to let go of the hurt and the anger. I know these feelings are valid, yet do
not serve my purpose; I know that I cannot give in to them because that way
lies madness (I know, because I have taken that road before and it’s a
dead-end). I am not trying to deny my feelings, quite the opposite…venting
makes them less powerful. But I also cannot deny the effect that poor
communication skills had on my life, and I cannot deny that I am still dealing
with the repercussions.
In 1823, Michaelangelo
wrote the phrase “ancora imparo” on a diagram; it means “I am always learning.”
I have tried to adopt this phrase as an empowering aphorism, but I can’t help
wondering what my life would have come to if I had been able to apply the
Herculean effort I’ve put forth in just learning how to be normal into some
other constructive effort (instead of a reconstructive effort). I could have
been a physician, or an astronaut, or who knows what, instead of a person just
barely figuring out how to talk to people. She crushed me as surely as if she
had put my head in a vise, and for her to say that it was the best she was
capable of is far less than I deserve.
And I hate
that I continually have to move through this grief. Luckily I am way past
denial, I just feel the anger, engulfing me with an almost audible WHOOSH. The bargaining comes when I think, “well if I could
just (master this new skill), then I would be okay.” Immediately then I feel depression,
because I can’t believe I am STILL going through this and it is so damn
frustrating. I have to goad myself into acceptance, because I know there is no
other way.
I was
thirteen the first time I saw the Serenity prayer, and already a long-avowed
atheist, because I could not believe that there could be a God, if he was so
cruel as to trap me in such torment without respite or escape. I remember
exactly where I was, at a highway rest area off I-10 headed west though the
Florida panhandle, back to Texas after a road trip my mother had dragged us on.
There was a peddler selling decorative aluminum plaques, three for ten dollars.
My mother and my sister wanted souvenirs, so they bade me choose one because my
mother had to have a deal, even though I didn’t like any of them. I chose the
only one with just words, decorated with flowers and butterflies that made it
appear hopeful to me, even though I didn’t agree with the “God” part. It was a
long time before I finally understood the meaning of those words, and I was
later shocked at my first AA meeting to find out that other people knew them.
Since then, I can’t possibly count the number of times I have prayed to myself
for serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the
things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I gotta tell you, it
works, but I had to practice a LOT.
I must seem melodramatic to speak
so of my mother. Please forgive me for not elaborating on the morbid details of
my mother’s treatment of us, and let’s not even mention dear old dad. I feel
like a friggin’ cliché as it is. A veritable Lifetime movie of the week. I
don’t want to be defined by my past. I guess that’s why I worked so hard to
overcome it, and why I hate it when its effects keep coming up. I know I am
doing well to be self-aware, and to apply the tools that come my way. I don’t
mean to come across as negative. It’s a journal, I get to talk about feelings,
that’s good, even if the feelings I’m having are messy. I don’t want to have
emotional diarrhea on the people who have the misfortune to cross my path,
that’s what my goal of “maintaining relationships” is all about...not tripping
over my baggage. Because let’s face it, everybody has baggage. It’s not whether
or not you have baggage, it’s about whether or not you leave your suitcase of
emotional garbage out in your metaphysical living room, where you or people
visiting can trip over it, instead of safely stored away in an appropriate
place, where you can recognize it for what it is instead of trying to pretend
it isn’t there. See? Here? This is my suitcase. Oops! Don’t trip, step around,
nobody panic.
Just breathe.
Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.
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