shame

I have a ton of work to do around shame.  Feeling it.  Sitting in it.   Always allowing it to inform all that I do.  It keeps me from interacting with people.  It feeds my anxiety.

I remember reading Healing the Shame That Binds You, John Bradshaw, in the '90's.  I'm going to get it back out.  And work through it.  Also, maybe, Codependent No More, Beattie.  There are probably updated, newer books, especially with all the newer research around trauma.  In the early nineties, my brain wasn't ready to do a deep dive into that healing.  I was just beginning.  I read them in rehab.  I relapsed a bunch.  Each time, I learned more about myself and the world.  

I got divorced, I did EMDR.  I attempted suicide.  I lived with an alcoholic.  I was bullied in high school.  I'm an incest survivor. My mom trafficked me.  I've been raped, taken advantage of while drunk (still rape).  Money stolen.  Money given away to not be repaid.  I've also been an asshole to people.  I've always kept people at arm's length, even my own children.

AND

I always believed I would, things would, the world would get better.

I want to have a home the girls could come home to.  

Spent the weekend at SIL's family home.  Again.  Grief.  Staying in it and with it.  SIL's kids were there.  All but one.  It's nice to have a place for everyone to convene. I don't know why, in fifteen years, I have not had a real conversation with anyone in that side of the family.

I do know why.

Shame.

Day after day.

My verb tense is not consistent.  Let's call it poetry?  Or just bad writing.  If I was brave enough to carve out time for this, more time, I would actually edit.  My fantasy is that my writer daughter would edit all this bs for me, with me.

I miss my real life, grown-up daughters.

I was able to tell one of SIL's grown children that I hope he was ably to keep shame at bay.  I have a lot to say, I am realizing that this all deserves more time carved out ... it deserves my attention.

I deserve my attention.

And, I am just here creating a habit.  So let's not get too judgy, too soon.

fog

 So, there was no fog this morning by the time we got out to walk.  The above photo is from yesterday morning's walk.

Went shopping for work pants.  Kinda bummed I bought three new pairs for my teaching job and that money could have gone towards one good pair from Duluth.

It's a stunning, gorgeous day.  Just the right amount of sun, breeze and warmth.

Lately, I feel like I am having these like, mental temper tantrums.  I get really nervous before going to work and inside my body it feels like I am lying on my belly on the floor, red-faced crying, kicking and pounding my fists into the floor.  No one can see this.  I have to remember that no one can see this and to breathe.

Again, I know this writing is shit.  Just trying to develop a habit. So. There.

And, anxiety dissipates during work when I take a moment and realize that all of the people around me will one day expire like the milk on the shelf, like my SIL, and none of it really matters.

Just be kind.  Help out.  Be kind.

habits

 

I'm just trying to create a habit here.  One that leaves something of value behind.  All other habits I've ever endeavored being of little value.  Well.  I have a horrible habit of learning.  Learning from my mistakes, really fucking feeling them.  But not knowing what to do with that BIG overwhelming electricity that surges in my entire body, entering through the eyes, rocketing to the head, exploding, then sending shock waves to torso and limbs.

That.  All habits have been an attempt to avoid the aforementioned phenomenon from happening to me.

And. 

I am tired of telling about things that have HAPPENED to me.  

I fear that I will be gone and the girls will not know things from my lens.  From my perspective, although I do not like that word.  It sounds small, like the end of a beak on a cardinal.  Small and menacing.  But I do like lens.  It puts us all in the same room together but with different filters.  Perspective gives way to that time I felt my back pasted to my ceiling in my bedroom on 11th Street, floating out of my body.  I could see what was transpiring below me.  So.  Perspective may have saved my life, but I don't like it.  Lens is better.  Lens is less of a gaslight for me.

The habit I am trying to create here is just write this shit down.  Make sure the girls have it.  Temper it because I may not have the stamina and don't want to injure myself.  But do it.

Make sure the girls have it.  Their most beautiful story and how I ...  how I ... would like to try again.

fuss with a muss

I need to jump in the shower and rinse off for going to my second day of work at Trader Joe's.  I quit my preschool teaching job on whim last Tuesday.  After 10 years, I couldn't do it any more.  And I miss my OWN, grown children (GC) so much that being with the littles caused me to miss them in an abnormal, big way.  AND, I just couldn't worry about my students' families anymore, especially after watching  the adult children of my sister-in-law (SIL), same ages as my GC, stand around her hospital bed just moments after passing away from liver failure brought on by alcoholism.

The brain is a fuss with a muss of shit.  It was a sobering, sobering experience to watch SIL die.  It was a short time:  one day to say good-bye when she was conscious in the hospital, next day for us home to deal with work, third day back to hospital where she died less than an hour after we arrived.  We were not completely aware of the situation, it's seriousness, earlier.  We knew a little for a while.  We were not sure how to help.  Do we go to her home where she is drinking and sit with her?  She is sick, after all.  This isn't her fault. 

Now that she is gone it seems so simple to say, "Yes, I should have gone there to sit next to her; what harm would it have done?"

Well, that's the thing with addicts, those with substance use disorder.  How do you help, especially if you are trying to stay clean?  Trying to stay clean after years and years of  a cycle of misuse, non-use, overuse, quit.  Then all the brain work needed after quitting.  All that trauma work, deprogramming from organized religion, learning social skills to manage anxiety, processing regret over being a bad parent--endless list.  It takes YEARS.  So, go sit with someone binge drinking and risk being triggered to use again?  What if shit escalated to the point of needing to call the cops?  What if I just sat there and enabled?  Like, how the hell would I have been able to take the beer out of her hand?

And with that, I must get ready for work.