change?
it feels as though something has shifted inside. i’m not exactly sure what has shifted, but there is something different….
several times in the past week we have spent an hour or so chatting online with a friend. we did this because we were in so much pain…the pain was so strong it was a physical presence. we didn’t know what to do. so we talked. i think it was helpful.
the shift….it’s not that everything is rosy. outside of me things are the exact same. but how we feel, how we react, seems to be (i think) better. there is still pain. another friend talked to me tonight about pain she was feeling. pain that i helped to create. that was very painful for me to hear. as usual, our first reaction is to cut. but this impulse didn’t last long. usually we have to fight that impulse for hours (at least). this time it was gone in minutes. instead, we cleaned. not much. only a little. the pain is still there, but in better perspective. this cleaning when in pain happened the other day as well. again, not much, but it was something.
i am starting to see things about us that i don’t like very much. sometimes i am a real coward. i don’t say something when i should because i am afraid of the other person getting mad or freaking out. i know this fear goes back to childhood, but i don’t like it. i want to do and say what feels right to me, not what will make someone else happy.
i am also starting to see that we disagree with other people too much. i’m not sure how it is that we do it, but when we say our opinion it comes across to others as argumentative and corrective.
it seems like we are swinging back and forth between extremes–caring only about what others think and feel, and caring only about what we think and feel.
it’s hard to realize this. our parents were that way…everything black and white…it made us feel like we could never do anything right. never good enough. the last thing we wanted to be was anything like them. and here we are…being like them. although, in honesty, they spent most of there time only caring about themselves. i don’t think i am that bad. i hope not.
another thing we have been very black and white about is considering our parents (and the other perps) bad people. but as we realize that we, and friends we care about, sometimes behave in some of the same ways, we have to reconsider that position. i don’t think we are bad, and i know my friends aren’t bad. so are my parents bad? are they just messed up like us and our friends? am i, afterall, just like them?
i know there are differences. we don’t go around sexually or physically abusing people. especially not kids. but some of our behavior and reactions can be seen as manipulative, as melodramatic. we don’t mean to be manipulative or melodramatic. it isn’t our intention. we just react to our feelings and beliefs the only way we know how. as we learn new ways, we try to change the reactions and beliefs.
so were my parents just trapped like we have been? part of me says there is more than that…choice comes in sometime, doesn’t it? we chose to try and change. we chose to get help. they didn’t. in fact, several professionals expressed the opinion that our parents would never change; never get better. the desire for something different and better just isn’t there for them. and, again, we didn’t actively and purposefully hurt others.
i don’t know…i am trying to make sense of it all…to come to some conclusion….right now i am just confused and uncertain. but somehow i know that it will be resolved. in time.
i guess the biggest shift is that right now we have hope. we have perspective. we can see that we have changed; we have gotten better. and we know that things will continue to change and get better.