Real Grace

So, this afternoon I go to meet with my counselor about the letter to my mother.  I’m hoping to gain more clarity on the whole thing.  I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I made the appointment and I think what I wish to feel the most is release.  I want to no longer feel tied to the strong emotions and hurt feelings of the abuse.  I still want to feel them, just not feel tied down by them.  Does that make sense?  Well, hopefully, after this afternoon, I will be able to articulate things better.  Until then…

So, I’ve begun writing the letter to my mother.  I’m still not sure if I will send it.  However, it has proven to be a very positive experience for me to write it.  I began writing the letter and it amazed me at how I was able to articulate what it is that I am angry about.  In same ways it sounds like a teenager to me but that’s probably where I am stuck emotionally in my relationship with my mother.  I certainly want to grow past that so I guess I’ll keep writing.

I don’t know that it’s appropriate for me to share the letter here right now.  I feel it’s too early.  This is exposing a very deep place in my heart.  I’m thankful for this exposure but at the same time apprehensive.  I’m thankful because there are still times, too often in my opinion, that I get angry and frustrated with my husband and my children.  I still feel that I’m not fully in control of my anger; like there is something else fueling it.  I feel the fuel just might be this anger with my mother.

Sometimes I wish there was a manual for all of this so you would know exactly what the next step would be to take.  It’s frustrating to me that I can’t see clearly what to do next with my parents and until I do, I choose to do nothing.  I don’t know if that is right either but I don’t know what else to do and I don’t want to spend all of my time and energy trying to figure it out which is how I feel right now.  I want to enjoy my husband and my children and my friends.  So, I’ll continue to work on the letter and see what else may come out.  Maybe that will be enough.

I’ve discovered today that I am still angry at my parents! Probably not a big surprise to those of you who read this blog but I have to say I was a bit caught off guard at the discovery. I believe I still struggle with the “switch” syndrome. What I mean is I have a revelation or gain some insight in an area during my healing process and then I “flip the switch” and that’s it. I’ve arrived on the other side.  I realize I have spoken quite plainly in past posts about healing being a process and it’s about peeling back the layers. I do believe that but, sometimes, I get stuck in old patterns of thinking and feeling.

So, why am I still angry? I don’t really know. I received a card in the mail this week from my mother. Just a “Thinking about you” kind of card. She didn’t really write a whole lot in the card, just that she hopes we are all doing well. I have to tell you I felt nothing, nada, zilch! I tried not to think much about it until I was reading another blog this morning. I related to this person’s story so well. That’s when it hit me. I didn’t feel anything from the card because I am still angry and I still have expectations of a healthy relationship with them so not only am I angry but also still resentfull.  I can’t be satisfied with a “surface” relationship.  I hate that.  I want to be ok with that but….I’m not.  I am striving to get there.  I’m finding it difficult and that’s another reason why I have the boundaries I do…letters or cards only.  If I were to try to have even a surface relationship with them right now I am pretty sure it would affect my moving forward in my healing.  I would start concentrating on how to best meet their needs and how to appropriately act and respond and have to let things “roll” off my back that I know I would have a hard time doing right now.  So, I move forward in my healing without even a surface relationship with my parents.

I’ve decided I am going to write a letter to my mom from my heart.  I don’t know right now if I will send it but I feel I need to write it.  I’ll let you know what happens…stay tuned!

I’m finding it very beneficial to listen to the voice deep inside.  I refer to it as my “gut” but I believe it is the Holy Spirit.  It’s that “thought” or feeling that you just can’t get away from and you may not know exactly why you feel it but you do.  I hear it loudest when I am in a quiet place with God.

I’m learning some very valuable lessons about leadership.  I still have more to learn but listening to my gut and finding the courage to act upon it has to be one of the hardest as well as valuable I am learning right now.  It’s not easy especially when it seems to go against what others are seeing and feeling.  However, God has placed me in this position and I need to be true to His calling.

It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to share in detail what I have been through in the last couple of weeks but I will tell you it has been a very emotionally draining process.  I can feel it physically.  It’s not over yet but I believe that I will have learned a whole lot and I pray that God will help me to stay in a humble and teachable place.

I can’t believe how much time has gone by since my last post. I apologize. A lot has been happening. Nothing major but enough to pull my attention else where.

So, I have a couple of different ideas swirling around in my head to write about but I’m having difficulty deciding on which to choose. Both are topics which will make me very vulnerable to you. Funny how that works and I don’t know that I will ever see most of you who read this blog. Well, here goes…

For the past several months I have been battling the idea of calling my doctor to make an appt. for an annual checkup. My last one was about 6 years ago. I know, I was way over due. I’m getting closer to 40 years old and know that things can suddenly appear and happen to our bodies just because we’re getting older. I was really feeling like I needed to make this appt. So, several months ago I decided it was time to call. However, each time I decided, “Today is the day I will make the appt.”, I would find some excuse not to call. Now, I realize we all have some level of resistance to making doctors appointments but it was getting to the point that I was feeling great anxiety over it. I decided it was time to process all of this with my counselor.

We discovered that these feelings were most likely happening because of my now being so connected to my emotions. She saw this as a very good thing. Me, not so much. I kind of liked that I could disconnect in the past to these types of appointments. She suggested that I make an initial appt. with my doctor to discuss these feelings with her and to let her know what I’ve been through over the last few years. She felt the doctor would be understanding. She also told me to remember that I am in control and at anytime can ask the doctor to stop and we’ll try another time. That felt very reassuring to me.

So, two weeks later (yes, it still took me time to gather up the courage), I called and made the appt. My counselor was right, my doctor was very understanding and gentle with me. I cried through the whole appointment and all we did was talk but my doctor was not bothered by it at all and was very understanding. I felt a little more safe after that and we decided to make the appointment.

Four weeks later (my doctor is very busy, that was the earliest she could get me in) I returned for the annual checkup. Now, I have to stop and tell you that the closer it got to my appointment the more anxiety I still felt. This may sound crazy to some of you but I was having a hard time convincing myself that it was ok for the doctor to give me this checkup. I was imagining the whole thing feeling like the abuse. I just tried to stay in the here and now and not let my imagination get in the way. The day came and I arrived at her office. She was great! She talked to me throughout the entire checkup and kept asking me if I was doing ok. I was feeling a little anxious but I was ok. After it was done she turned to type some notes in her laptop and that’s when all the emotional release came. I bawled like a baby. She came over and hugged me and told me how courageous I was and that I did something very good for myself today. She advised me to be kind to myself for the rest of the day and to call my counselor if I felt I needed to.

When I returned home after the appt. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone right away. After a while, I called a good friend of mine and told her that I did it! She encouraged me and I told her that it really feels so good to have accomplished this. It wasn’t pleasant but it felt nothing like the abuse and I now have more courage to keep up with my annual checkups.

I really am glad that I did it. It’s such a sense of accomplishment not only that I did something good for myself but by doing this, I took away a level of power the abuse had over me and that feels amazing!

I’ve realized after looking back over my posts that I have not posted about one of the most amazing steps in my healing - restoration.  Last summer I began a part of my healing process that I had not experienced up until that point.  I began the process of restoring my relationship with my 13 month younger sister, Michelle.

Allow me to give you some background.  You may have already read my post where I share my story and mention that I have 4 siblings; 3 younger sisters and 1 older brother.  The sister closest to me in age is Michelle.  She and I shared a room together our entire lives at home.  You might think that would be a special thing but it really wasn’t.  The both of us were dealing with so much emotional trauma and were very angry and took that anger out on each other.  Unfortunately, it carried on into our adult lives and 6 years ago we went our separate ways and became estranged.

I was very angry at Michelle for choosing not to see me anymore.  I thought that was the meanest thing she could do to me.  I thought she was jealous of me.  I thought, “She needs to grow up and get her life together.”  Well, I discovered that was not the case at all.  I started counseling when we were still estranged from each other and when I began to see how much of an angry person I really was I also began to see that I misdirected that anger.  I discovered that most of my misdirected anger was directed at Michelle. By going through the REAL Grace for Women curriculum, I discovered that when we’ve been abused we most likely will abuse others.  When I began to fully explore this, my past history with Michelle began to make a lot more sense and I began to see where I needed to take responsibility for how I had mistreated and even verbally and emotionally abused her.  I know that a lot of the damage that was done when we were younger was because of the abuse in our home but I realized how wrong the behavior still was and needed to take responsibility for it now, as an adult as well as take responsibility for my actions towards her as an adult.

So, last summer I mailed her a letter explaining this as best as I could and one month later she responded with a card with her home phone number in it.  We met for lunch one day and began sharing with each other what we have been discovering about ourselves and how our childhood has affected us today.  How amazing it has been!  I feel like I have a wonderful new friend who understands most of what I have gone through and am going through today.

I thank God every day for my new relationship with my sister.  I truly believe this is how He intended family relationships to be and I intend to make sure that it stays this way.

This was the topic of our group meeting Tuesday night.  There is so much to this lesson that I won’t possibly be able to share it all but I will try to highlight.

First of all, the differences between physical and emotional abandonment were discussed.  The differences are similar to the differences between physical and emotional abuse.   The physical is easier to detect then the emotional but the damage on a persons heart is the same.

Another point brought out was the fact that we are all created with a deep desire to be connected to another human being.  The desire is so deep that even when it has been violated, the child will not and the adult may not end the relationship due to the fear of abandonment.  For me, this explains why I have had a hard time breaking away from my parents, even as an adult.  I realize I need to establish my own personal identity which needs to be based in Christ.

Setting boundaries was another point that hit home for me.  It seems that I have been working on this for about 3 years now with my parents and it all came together for me in one sentence: “One principle they (Henry Cloud and John Townsend in their book “Boundaries”) make clear is that a person setting boundaries needs community, because a new way of relating seems “mean”, “unloving”, and very risky.”  That is exactly how it has felt for me.

Understanding that it has been the fear of abandonment that I’ve been struggling with in order to set and keep healthy boundaries, I now have a renewed motivation and strength.  I’m willing to “feel the pain of abandonment, grieve the loss and look to God and safe people to relate to” (quote from “My Journey Continues” by Open Hearts Ministry).

The next lesson is on betrayal.  I’ve looked at the homework and feel this is going to be another layer that will take some time to explore.

I know, it’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I’ve had a terrible sinus cold so I’ve been doing just enough to take care of my kids and husband and then collapsing on the couch because of the sinus headache.

I was actually waiting to post till after our second meeting but because of a snow storm, we had to cancel.  So, if the weather cooperates, I will be posting about that next week.  I have been doing the homework and it has not been easy.  I’ll need to look over it again before Tuesday but this is really helping to take me deeper into my story.  It’s hard but it’s good because there is still some confusion in some areas for me and I’m really looking for clarity.  I find that the more clarity I have with my story the more I understand why I am the way I am today.  This clarity helps me to either accept myself or change if I can and still be healthy.  This clarity also helps me to set healthy boundaries in relationships and helps me not be so needy but to be more giving in relationships.   It’s funny because I could pretty much always see the selfishness I had in my marriage relationship but I had a hard time changing it.  I could change it for a while and sincerely do things for my husband out of complete selflessness but soon I would turn back to expecting something in return.  The emotional void, the neediness would win out and soon my husband was no longer meeting my needs enough and became the most insensitive person to me at the time.  Now, I see things so much clearer.  My husband couldn’t meet my needs if he was the most perfect husband in the world.  The voids I had in my heart were there long before I met him and had nothing to do with him.  Once I figured this out, things really started to change in my relationship with him.

I began to see clearly, his needs, and wanted and desired to meet them.  This was something new to me and it was wonderful.  At the same time, I couldn’t ignore the voids.  I had to mourn the loss of relationship and love those voids came from.  I had to stop ignoring that they were there and stop trying to brush them aside when they surfaced.  Now, I recognize them quite quickly and know what to do about them.  Yes, I still mourn some things.  Sometimes, there are even new voids that surface and I continue to go through the process of mourning them and moving on.  I can’t change the past and what I was deprived of as a child.  I’m learning to accept this and as I do, I gain clarity.

I’ve talked in the past about a ministry/organization we started for women. It’s called REAL Grace for Women. We use a workbook by Open Hearts Ministry called “The Journey Guide”. We started back in September with our first small group. This past January, two new facilitators started a second group. At the end of December we were notified by Open Hearts that they would have a continuation to the Journey Guide available to order in January. This workbook is called “My Journey Continues”.
So, we had our first meeting last night with the second workbook, “My Journey Continues”. We had to draw or have drawn our body outlines. I choose to actually lay on a big piece of paper and have one of the other participants outline me. That was not easy but I felt it was what I needed to do in order to connect to this project. We then took them and, as part of our homework, we need to fill out seven 3×5 index cards with various information like our birth date, our siblings with a brief history, our parents birth date and brief history, events that happened like moving or cultural events . Inside the body outline we are to share the traumas, abuses, boundary violations, and events that we feel shaped and influenced us as a child and on to adulthood. Yeah, I think this is going to take me longer then one week. But, I’m going to do it because I think it will help me to stop minimizing how things effect and impact me today. When I step back and look at my story, it’s easy to ask the question “Why?”. Why, after so many years, are these traumas, abuses, boundary violations, etc still impacting me? I believe that this exercise will help me to see just how much was placed on my as a child and then I can stop asking “Why?”.

I have had such an amazing week.  Not for any specific reason, really.  The weight I had been feeling for the past month has finally lifted.  I’m sure it has something to do with the choices I have been making recently regarding my parents.

My Counselor and I discussed, this week, how powerful the bond is between a parent and a child.  Not that it’s a new revelation or anything but going through this with my parents has really opened my eyes as to how much power parents have over their children and how much more important it is for parents to be responsible with this power.  It is a gift from God not to be misused or abused.  This past week, I’m finally feeling the release from the misuse and abuse of that power with my parents.  It kind of feels funny saying that at my age (older than 30):-) but it’s the truth. The bond between a parent and a child is something God designed to be a benefit for both the parent and the child.  I can truly say I am experiencing that with my children.  I’m not perfect by any stretch but I am learning from my past and because of that, am a better parent then my parents were.

I have one more visit scheduled with my Counselor in a couple of weeks to discuss another issue that has unveiled its self.  I’m not feeling comfortable sharing it here, yet.  I think it will be the last bump on this section of my path to healing.  I’m sure there will be more bumps along the way and for that I am very grateful to be able to have my supportive friends, family and Counselor to call upon if and when I need to.  All of that in addition to the most dearest friend in my life, Jesus, has been what has helped me through this season in my healing. I’m feeling so blessed and thankful today!