Excerpt: Session 6
This week we began session with XXXX talking about how it was her and her boyfriend’s 5-year anniversary, and she knows they are about to be engaged. She gave him a deadline, and she should have a ring on her finger by Christmas.
I asked her if she was freaked. She said no; she is excited. And she knows that with all her heart she is making the right decision. Oh my, how I wish I had such conviction inside of me. I have been with my boyfriend for 6 years and I am still spooked by the idea of marriage. Here I am 28, still feeling like a half-grown woman most the time.
She also said they were both virgins. While I think this is seriously sweet, it demonstrates to me just how different XXXX and I actually are. I admire her commitment to her virginity, but I wonder how in the hell she has managed to have such strength!
This is where the Christian thing comes in. I think those who are devoutly religious tend to take their vows of abstinence a little more to heart than those who are not. I remember being 13 or so, taking a vow at a Baptist church that I, too, would wait until I was married. I also remember thinking ‘bullshit’ in the back of my head all the way through it.
I guess even then I had problems with commitment.
I remember thinking how bizarre it sounded to say that Jesus was my husband. The whole time I kept pushing back thoughts about how it was deranged to think and believe that some historical figure from two thousand years back would have wanted millions of young teenage girls to mute their sexuality. Like us girls need to give away even more of our wants and needs to some man. Especially a dead one.
Why can’t we own our selves? Why can’t we do want we want, what we demand, what we desire?
I guess even then I had trouble believing in the myth that is Christianity. It made sense to me that just like the Greeks had mythology and folklore to unravel the mystery of existence, so did the Jews and Romans and every other culture from the beginning of time.
I have always aligned with the Native American tradition, listening for secrets to pass across the tips of my ears as the wind brushed along my face. I meditate outside while staring through the sky, that’s where my goddess lies, that’s where my answers are found…not in some promise to maintain my virginity to a man who was put to death for living pure and preaching about it.
I have huge problems with surrendering my independence. Marriage is all about sacrifice and bending and compromise. I feel I have done this in my relationship already, but the idea that I wouldn’t be able to change my mind once I entered the institution causes me to have a choking feeling, like I am being trapped.
I am too cynical for forever. I am. I don’t believe in soul mates; I don’t think one other person completes me and all that bullshit. I am my own beautiful goddess, my own universe. And to think I need to be married to “complete” some part of my identity makes me angry. Like I’m not enough already.
I think it’s sweet when other people choose this lifestyle, but I don’t see myself doing it until I decide to have children. I’m sure it’s because I have seen my mother through three marriages and my father through two. Yeah, that’s five when you add it up.
This has had a drastic effect on my notions of romanticism and fairy tale bliss. See, when I’m at weddings I can usually be found closer to the back, taking bets with all the other people from broken homes on how long it will actually last. I think I have been at 2 or 3 weddings when I didn’t feel this way. But that’s it.
Our society doesn’t value marriage anymore; this is why it’s so hard to make it work. I have read some books that discuss the way marriage will change in the future…some believe there will be boards of people who will grant you a marriage—you will have to renew the license every 5 years or so. Others think it won’t exist at all.
I like the idea of a spiritual partner…the idea that once we stop growing together, it’s okay to release the person from the commitment so that they can move in the direction they need to so they may continue prospering as a mindful human being. This takes maturity and consciousness…qualities I want to continue to develop.
I think it changes if you have children, because, essentially, it’s a business. You share assets; you share decisions.
And the word share keeps coming up…I like to share, I do. I guess the real truth is I am scared out of my freaking heart to share me, to let go to the point that I say, ‘Yes. I do. I do allow you to witness my shit and struggle. I do allow you to be present for the parts of me I don’t think are worth loving.”
That’s where it gets hard. That’s where it gets risky. And while I see myself as a ballsy-bitch, I don’t know if I could handle that. I’ve been rejected by both my parents at different times in my life, so I feel like if they’d let me go, why wouldn’t everybody else? And this is where the core of my problem lies. Right here. I had no idea this belief was inside of me until right now. As I write this very line.
Excerpt: Session Five
There is a replicated pattern to every Dumont in Oklahoma City. Marry young; bear some children; fight like hell; divorce. Sometimes we’ll even remarry our exes or pick up with our brother’s ex or with our best friends’ ex and so the legend grows.
I didn’t fall for this. I moved. I escaped that fate to get an education and meet me a city boy. I think I’m halfway there.
The problem is my dad. When I call him and tell him I can’t make it to family events he says hurtful things and makes me feel more guilt than a girl should ever bear. The world is hard enough. I don’t need grief from a parent who failed to stick around.
I have classic abandonment syndrome. But it doesn’t feel classic when you live it and the anger and resentment can gnaw at your hopefulness and make you think that being bitter isn’t so bad. It might even protect you from fathers.
But now my father is 69. He has had four strokes, he has had three heart surgeries, he has had cataract removed from his eye. He is dying. I know he has a handful of years and I want to make my peace, but I don’t want to do it with him in my immediate energy field.
He’s a racist, he’s homophobic, and he’s a believer in the gates of hell and the gates of heaven because god is a jealous god. This is how he speaks. I was watching Rosie O’Donnell in the late nineties at his house and he walked into the room and saw her face on the screen and yelled, “Get that Bull Dyke off my screen.”
He offends me on every level of my intellectual universe.
But then there is his lightness. Despite his emotional abuse, he is fucking funny. Really. And I adore his charming good looks and his nicknames he coins for those that he loves. He had a rough childhood, rougher than anyone else I know. He watched his dad beat the living tar out of his mother and suffered from blows himself—and I’m talking every level of abuse: physical, emotional, sexual.
He told me once that when he was 8 years old he had a rifle out, loaded, laying across his lap. He was waiting for his dad to get home from the bar. Luckily, his mom walked in first and talked him out of killing his father. He told his mother he couldn’t take it anymore, and why did he have the devil inside of him.
I’ve always felt like my dad was similar to Darth Vader. Sometimes when painful and disturbing things happen to you, you go dark. You do. It’s too tangled to find the meaning and too painful to unwrap the confusion, and it hurts like hell to process the reasons why you were chosen to endure such things.
So my dad stayed away from us. His love was distant and I think it’s because he was afraid he might love like his father. He never wanted to hit a woman. He promised his mother and I think he kept his word. So it comes out in language, the anger. And a small little incident like going to your friend’s wedding instead of your cousin’s can light that anger and all the sudden you’re ungrateful and selfish and never think of anyone but yourself. And that’s not true.
Because I bust my ass and he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand that he needs to take responsibility for the role he created in my life. For the first two years I existed my father was in prison. So we didn’t exactly get off to a good start. And then he was drunk and drugged up for the next 18 and that was, at the very least, frustrating. Who knew drinking beer was more important than being a father?
When my dad got sober in 1997, I made a decision. I would forgive him. I would release all expectation I have of him and let him finish off his life with a little dignity, allowing him to foster some real relationships. We would be cool. I would stop being angry.
At this point in session, I think everyone thinks I’m crazy. They are listening and they start interjecting saying I don’t stand up for myself and that I shouldn’t be around someone who is toxic.
And XXXX looked at me and said, “You feel sorry for your father.” And I just started crying. SO EMBARRASING. But I did. And I don’t know how, because I don’t like crying in front of other people, it makes me feel exposed.
I was taken aback that they thought I should cut him off. I would never cut him off. I think that’s cruel and I don’t want to be cruel. I want to have happy wrinkles when I’m old as dirt and living without my looks. I want to honor him even if he is an ass.
I thought I was over all of this. And suddenly all of this pain is coming forward. I realized that every time I have to go see him, these feelings well up, come to the surface, and muddy my spirit.
The truth is I love my father from a distance. And now I feel like Bette Midler, but it’s true. And just like Darth Vader, I think he’ll do his best work once he’s passed and living on the alternate dimension. Because he’s been corrupted. And sometimes life moves too far and too fast to make peace with that which has disturbed you.
Yet he’s my umbilical cord, he holds me no matter where I am or what I’m doing. His approval is important to me. I don’t want to resent him, but I do. I don’t want to put up walls, but I do. I have to protect myself so I can protect him. And I guess that makes me the parent, because I suffer the consequences of his tantrums, not the other way around.
I learned a lot about myself this week. It has been bizarre to dance amongst these parts of me because I thought they had been resolved. Now I realize they still are not healed and I have more searching to do.
I mean, I cried. That’s huge.
Excerpt: Session Three
A guy has hit me in the face before; I was 19—only once though…I always knew the first time this happened, not my fault. The second time this happened, absolutely my fault. The ironic thing is he was the richest, most educated and the most conservative guy I have ever been with. And this just made me realize why I don’t trust conservative types. They put on such noble fronts, yet they are just as fucked as the rest of us.
But we have all played that part. Lord have I played that part. I used to think love was screaming and yelling and throwing and crying and the more I hurt the more it meant and why did the world have to be so cruel, so twisted that to love I had to suffer.
And then I met Ray. I was 22 and bartending and just back in school after dropping out at 19. When I would go off on one of my tantrums, he would look at me and simply say, ‘You know, Judith, you can act like that. You can act however you want. But I won’t deal with it. So if you have something to deal with, let’s deal with it when you haven’t been drinking and when you aren’t acting like a 2 year old.”
And that taught me something huge.
I guess having an alcoholic parent really disrupts your understanding of how you should vent and manage disagreements. I always thought it meant you had to throw tantrums to be heard. The more you reacted, the more the other person knew how much it mattered…
Excerpt: Session Two
I tend to only see myself as a fuck up and feel that accomplishing anything truly valuable is out of my skill set.
I believe my past is more muddled than most in this program, I am sure of it.
I realize that is a dramatic statement. But I think it's true. I feel that I might have done more to explore my dark side than the others and I think this holds me back from them. I have been very paranoid that everyone sees me as this silver lining goodie girl. But I am not. I grew up on welfare and have a druggy ex-con for a father. My mother makes me crazy; she seems to have reluctant self-esteem and is horribly co-dependent. I think this has caused me to have a lack of trust in people, not to mention in my self. Coming from a gene pool that is riddled with toxic complication makes me feel cursed in a way. And I am trying my hardest to try and trust these people, but I don't believe we have much common ground.
I feel like my family history has stained me; I make a lot of sarcastic jokes about it and I do this to deflect my pain. I guess it could be interpreted the same way as perfectionism: instead of needing to control through perfection, I control through humor.
Maybe I'm not much different from the others. I tend to be self protective and I have a history of giving more to others than I do to myself...and maybe that's the joking and sarcasm....maybe that's the source...
I need to not flip what others share. I constantly try and turn it into a joke-I noticed I laughed nervously a lot in session when no one else did. I know I am doing it to ease the tension, to ease the weight, but it might be coming off to the others that I am not taking them or the sessions seriously.
It just seems that sometimes in suburban, middle-class culture we spend too much time wallowing and not enough time producing meaning. And I know, I know, it takes wallowing to produce meaning. But I see it a little differently. I take the logotherapy approach on this one: create meaning through your suffering by getting out of yourself, getting out of the present circumstance. Float away and interpret the system of your existence. See the patterns from an arial view.
I believe pain is necessary; madly and deeply I do. I'm not condoning going through it, it should be avoided if at all possible, but, at the same time, I think you have to experience it to feel alive. How do I recognize dancing with joy if never have I danced with strife?
And maybe this is where the part will come in about me always anticipating the bleak and the absurd. I went to a spiritual counselor one time and he asked me why I'm always waiting for things to screw up. He said, 'everything is going so good for you right now, yet you seem reluctant to trust it. Here you sit with white knuckles, bracing yourself.' And I remember my response as if they were the only words I ever spoke. I said, 'yes. But isn't this the pattern of nature? Mustn't things decay and die so that new processes may begin?' and he agreed, only he reminded me that it doesn't mean I can't relish in the moments when things are growing and producing and thriving. So I think this is my challenge: trusting the lighted process.
And I think this has something to do with why I am pursuing counseling. I'm not scared of the dark parts of people. I usually have bizarre intuitive messages that fall into my head from the sky above and they seem to deliver some truth. And I mention these messages to people and I think they're helpful. I think they envelop the loneliness that leave people feeling isolated, reminding them that they are not an island in this ocean of chaos, this delicate life.
So I want to challenge myself to maybe share this week in a genuine manner.
I realize being paranoid that the others don't like me is because I want to please them. Being liked means that I have accommodated them with my presence. And that's just ridiculous. I need to stop worrying so much and just float away and out of my own anxiety and make myself more available. Cause that's what this group thing is all about: being available to my self and to others so we can learn a thing or two about this fabulous mystery. Let it be dark or light, whatever way it makes itself known will do. I simply want to channel and radiate some goddamn truth. Some truth is all.
Excerpt: Session One
People might think I am the Pollyanna of the group, but oh, if they only knew…
That’s the thing: I think at first glance people fail to take me seriously. I have a valley girl way about me, always smiling, always agreeing. I seem to laugh too quickly and participate too quickly. And I have this fear that this gets on people’s nerves. But then again, I figured out last semester that my automatic thoughts are ‘are they mad at me…is she mad at me…is he mad at me…” Yes, yes, I’m a placater…and just because I need to review this, I looked it up and want to cut and paste it here. I will read this day book on some far away day, so I think I should have this handy for myself…so, according to Rosemary A. Lambie’s (2003) article in Counseling and Human Development:
Placating. One who assumes a placating stance is trying to conceal personal vulnerability by striving to please others. The placater will go along with something out of the need for emotional survival rather than because of personal commitment and interest. A placater rejects or discounts self when doing what others expect; his or her actions derive from not wanting to be rejected by others. The placater seems like a nice person who avoids conflict and turning others down. Although protective of others, this person is really quite dependent and fragile.
Through a transformative process and letting go of past dysfunction, the placater makes choices that affirm self as opposed to seeing self as worthless unless approved of by others. The placater who has gained a sense of personal worth has the capacity for being tender and compassionate. Transformed, the placater genuinely cares for others.
And this is where I need to do most of my work. I need to allow myself to truly be vulnerable around a group of people, and not feel ugly when I cry. I grew up holding the idea that crying is weak and it makes you look like a baby. I remember my mom crying all the time…I mean all the time. And I just wanted her to stop, to stop whining and just move on and do something about it. Fix it. Change it. Remedy it.
And I don’t necessarily believe that you shouldn’t cry, I cried in ’50 First Dates’ for crying out loud, but I do have a hard time crying around other people. I usually prefer to do it alone and when no one else is around. And besides all that, I need to stand up for myself, for what I want and feel, and quit bending all the damn time. The last thing I want to be is a version of myself I have created because I don’t think authentic me is good enough. How lonely of a life is that? How weak of a life is that? How pathetic of a life is that?
It’s not what I want.
So how do I heal the past dysfunction? Through this? Through writing? It’s hard. It’s annoying. I just want to be fixed already. I didn’t even know I had all this stuff wrong with me until I started thinking about it and analyzing it…what have I opened up here?
