I received a formal accolade at work today; a written statement of appreciation for my skills and effort accompanied by some financial recompense. The praise came from a high level and was echoed by several other layers of management as well as my peers. I actually have five (yes, count them; five) bosses, and this honor was wholeheartedly endorsed by all of them. For all of them to agree on anything is a minor miracle; for all of them to agree on something that effects the bottom line is damn near unthinkable. So, it was somewhat unexpected and I was a bit taken aback by my pleased reaction. In my opinion, I haven't done anything above and beyond the call of my position; I've only tried to consistently do the best I can with what I have, or to find a way to make what I have better or easier to work with.
Of course, I didn't turn away from it or send it back. I accepted both the compliments and addition to my income with - hopefully - grace and gratitude, and celebration. It's nice to be recognized, nice to be compensated and oh so nice to be appreciated.
In thinking it over this evening, it brings to mind the very human need for validation. I believe that all people need - at different times in life and to varying degrees, sure - for the human mirrors surrounding us to reflect back to us that we are ___________ (good, kind, worthy, cared for, important, loved, beautiful, smart, pick your needed adjective.) Maturity and experience teach us to self-validate whenever possible, but we're social animals and it is still necessary to have someone(s) in our life to fill in that necessary care where we are unable to do so.
This is the opposite of what I was taught by my Nparents and siblings in my childhood 'family.' I was taught that no matter what I did, how hard I tried, how much I sacrificed, I would NEVER be good enough. I was forced to learn by action and speech that my role was to strive for an endless and amorphous goal that was completely within the control of cruel masters who would quickly yank it from within my grasp should I ever come within reaching distance.
An example: I was a perfect student in school. Every report card that I ever brought home was A's from top to bottom, until my second year high school, when the Clan finally broke me. For eleven years, though, academic and behavior marks were always the highest possible grades and there was always a nice comment from my teachers to go along with my excellent marks. I actually skipped a grade, too. Remember, all this was happening while my family moved so often that I didn't attend the same school two years in a row until I was in high school (and by then it was much too late.) I was taught - as I think most ACoNs are in some form - that it was my job to be perfect, and I did my damnest to be so.
But... (isn't there always at least one?)
I distinctly remember bringing home one of those practically-perfect-in-every-way report cards and showing it to the Nparents. They told me I'd done a good job and that they were very proud. (And they were; not so much of me but of having a piece of paper that they could hold up to the world if necessary and proclaim, "See! How could we be bad parents or scary monsters when we've produced this!") It was a great moment for me; I'd finally succeeded in being good! I didn't expect or need any further compensation. Being GOOD, finally, was a great feeling.
Until they paid NSis and GCYB for their grades. Right in front of me. Right in front of me. I received nothing for my straight A's. But NSis and GCYB were paid for each A they'd received (something like a dollar) and half that for each B they'd received. My reward? I was told that they weren't going to pay me for my straight A's because - a direct quote here as I remember it vividly, "A's are easy for you. They had to work for their A's and B's."
I remember thinking, "So how am I supposed to do better? Am I supposed to pretend to be stupid so that A's will seem hard? How can I do better than perfect high scores?" How cripplingly sad. I could write about so many other examples of this mistreatment, but I'm sure you get the drift. It was always like this. What does the sadist do if the donkey's neck grows long enough to reach the carrot? Get a longer stick, of course.
So I spent a lot of my life looking for praise and validation from sources that enjoyed twisting the rules of reality in order to deny me that basic human need.
I'm thinking about the flipside of that perpetual lose-lose tonight.
At some point in my process of getting away from the fucktards who raised me and growing into my own skin, I have learned how to stop seeking praise from those who won't give it or who would use it to hurt me. I have stopped living or dying by the opinion of the crowd and I have learned how to - mostly, I'm no saint - do the right thing for the sake of the thing's rightness.
I get up every day and I do my best, in my work just as I do in my life, because I am satisfied by the internal knowledge that I've done what I can to be ethical, to stay right-sized, to help those around me, to participate, to contribute, to create goodness. A large part of my motivation to just be a good damn person every day comes from my desire to NOT be like the members of the NFOO. A bigger part of my motivation to seek and spread joy is just its own self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm out of the hell I was kept in for so long, I'm alive, I can breathe the air and it smells sweet - why not enjoy it?
Receiving praise was wonderful, and I'll take it. I'll enjoy it. I'll savor it.
But I don't need it anymore.
Love,
Vanci
Friday, March 8, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Bullies Are Talking Turds
My youngest DD has been having a tough time, and it's resulted in some ongoing stomach issues due to stress. She has a life-long auto-immune disease that is controlled through her diet and excludes a major food group, so that makes her different from her peers. She's sensitive enough physically that she cannot eat out - anywhere- safely, which is a tough nut for a teen girl. So many social events revolve around fast food and/or coffee-like drinks, and when it comes to those mighty bastions of American grubbery, she's -quite simply- shit out of luck. She sometimes ends up feeling unique (a dirty word for girls between the ages of about 11 and 17ish, if they're lucky.)
DD is a tough, scrappy, take-no-crapola kind of young lady. She was abused in much the same way that I was, though thankfully to a lesser extent, by members of the Crazymaker Clan, which is something that I didn't know until years after NC. We've worked through a lot of it, and we still work through it every day. I've been super proud of her for being so willing to tackle the abuse and the residual effects head-on, and she's made great progress, not least of which is that she is absolutely willing to defend herself.
Part of her significant progress has been that she is a relative rarity for a 15 year old girl: she knows exactly who she is and exactly what that means and she is steadfast in her determination to remain herself regardless of external pressures. This is an absolute joy to me as a mother, that she is so fiercely aware and independent. It's amazing to see your children develop their own character. I'm constantly amazed by the depth that both the DD's possess, and I'm fascinated by their choices, their physical and emotional autonomy. If they weren't my daughters, I'd meet them as strangers and want to know more about them. They're just that cool. Unfortunately, high school is a whole mess of crabs in a pot of boiling water, and that mob of crabs doesn't like to let any of the more independent ones escape unscathed.
And... youngest DD started high school last fall. Oy. I'm sorry if you're one of them, I mean no offense, but I can't imagine what kind of experience anyone could have in high school that would make them reminisce fondly for those 'glory days.' I've yet to meet any well-adjusted and balanced adult who actually enjoyed the hell that is high school. High school sucks ass, especially when you're a bottom of the barrel first year freshman swimming in a sea of more seasoned than you sharks.
She's had some trouble adjusting and it's begun to manifest physically in her stomach aches, so we trooped off to the family doctor today to get it checked out. I'm a master of controlling my control-ables, so though I had a suspicion that the tummy problems were stress-induced and that stress was largely related to the not-so-happyfuntimes experience of high school, I needed to check off the list of physical concerns in order to exclude them. So, that done, we got down to brass tacks and had a frank conversation about the causes and results of the issues.
Poor kids: a recovered ACoN and alkie for a mom means that we always get it down to a conversation about the causes and results at some point. Sometimes I'm sure they'd like it if I just blew a problem off or yelled about it and grounded them for a week. Alas, that's not how I'm built.
It was a good convo, though, especially after DD got real and started talking about some of the bullying that she's been subject to and how it's weighing on her.
It's funny, we hear talk about bullying all the time. It's a bad word in our society. Bullying is bad. Bullying will not be tolerated. We have a zero tolerance for bullying. But what I've noticed is that it's a very narrow scope of definition that we're willing to accept when we talk about bullying.
We have no problem pointing to the oversized 10 year old boy who's pulling cute little Janie's blonde ponytail on the playground and saying, "Yes! He's a BULLY!" And then we send him to the principal's office to pay for that. Maybe sign him up for a sensitivity course or have him wash some walls.
We watch The Breakfast Club and just can't believe that anyone didn't stand up and say "Stop it!" when those butt-cheeks met the duct tape. "He's a bully!" we say.
We read about Queen Bees and everyone immediately knows who the bullies are, and we want to point at them and scream, "Bully!" Maybe do a little capital letter B embroidering on somebody's new Hollister shirt.
We want to point out that No means No and that our private places are private and that strangers are dangerous and that yelling "fire!" will get you faster action than screaming "rape!" and we want so desperately to believe that these coloring-book safety tips will protect our children from the world.
But their peers? How does one protect a child from the asshole sitting next to her in Math who makes snide comments to the rest of the teens in the class about her breast size? He didn't touch her, after all, he didn't call her a racial epithet and he wasn't even directly speaking to her . What's punishable there?
How does one protect a child from the little twit who makes it a point to invite an entire established circle of friends to a party but excludes her? And then talks about said shindig at length and within intentional earshot? It's not as if a police report can be filed for Willful Exclusion from a Private Social Function with Aggravated Flaunting.
I think (hope) that schools for younger kids have a little bit more control and say. It seems to be addressed more and more at younger ages. (Even then, though, I have doubts about the way it's handled - I can't tell you how many times I've heard a parent/teacher/counselor of a child say, "Bullies are hurting inside and that's why they're acting this way toward you." As if that matters? I mean, seriously, who gives a fuck? Serial killers are traumatized too, am I supposed to accept that they have a low self esteem and it's really not about me if I run into one of those? Maybe ask them if they want to talk about it before they sharpen the knife?)
In high school, though, which is an overcrowded and understaffed sinking cruise ship with a bad case of e. coli and no radar signal if I've ever seen one, this type of verbal/emotional bullying is de rigeur and so low on the list of administrative priorities as to not exist. Somebody's getting knocked up in the parking lot, breaking into a locker, smuggling in a joint. Those are the things the alleged people in charge at the alleged institute of learning are allegedly dealing with. That and attendance as it directly relates to funding. So, no help there. The attitude is generally, "Let us know when blood gets drawn."
It's all so familiar; all the triangulating, rank forming, gaslighting, passive-aggressiveness, crazymaking. Every time I hear about this shite, I just can't help but compare it to the NFOO. What is the NFOO really? A gang of adolescent hoodlums. A bunch of limp-dicked power grubbing bullies getting off on their little game of Who Can Be the Meanest.
So, DD and I talked about it. And we came back around to what we always come back around to when dealing with idiots and assholes. You Browncoats out there, this is for you, "Are we caring about this?"
I mean, seriously, let's just lay this out. A bully is a POS. A bully is someone not smart enough to find their own happiness. A bully is a person who can't process well enough to connect with the world around them. A bully is someone who's too stupid to know how to entertain themselves. A bully is a person who's not likable enough to have people like them for anything other than the vicarious jerk-off high of making someone else look bad. A bully is too ineffectual to do anything of value on their own, so they choose to tear down the accomplishments of others instead.
Basically, a bully has the attractiveness of turd on a sidewalk.
So, again, regarding what a bully has to say, "Are we caring about this?" Honestly, caring is too strong a word. Are we even listening to a word that comes out of a turd's mouth? Even if it can talk, it's still just a turd. Nothing more. Nothing less.
You know what I do when I see a turd on a sidewalk? Nothing. I don't touch it, I don't talk to it, I don't ask it how it feels or if it's lashing out at me because it's hurting inside, I don't wonder why it's a turd or who caused it to be a turd on the sidewalk. I get away from it, glad I didn't step in it. It's a turd. It's beneath me.
So, we have a new phrase in the Casa de Vanci. Bullies are talking turds. DD tells me that she's going to be picturing a very large, very stinky (and hopefully soon to be left behind to lie for eternity on their sidewalk) talking turd if she has one of these encounters again.
Kind of takes away their power, now, doesn't it?
We laughed and laughed and talked for hours about how she can get herself re-centered and all of the good things/people/activities/love she has in her life, and she's going to be fine. Eventually, once she's herself again, I might even have to have a little pity for the bullies, cause DD's a firecracker; her powder just got wet for a minute. Eventually, somebody's going to lose a finger.
Nah, I'll never feel sorry for bullies. I know who they grow up to be.
Love,
Vanci
DD is a tough, scrappy, take-no-crapola kind of young lady. She was abused in much the same way that I was, though thankfully to a lesser extent, by members of the Crazymaker Clan, which is something that I didn't know until years after NC. We've worked through a lot of it, and we still work through it every day. I've been super proud of her for being so willing to tackle the abuse and the residual effects head-on, and she's made great progress, not least of which is that she is absolutely willing to defend herself.
Part of her significant progress has been that she is a relative rarity for a 15 year old girl: she knows exactly who she is and exactly what that means and she is steadfast in her determination to remain herself regardless of external pressures. This is an absolute joy to me as a mother, that she is so fiercely aware and independent. It's amazing to see your children develop their own character. I'm constantly amazed by the depth that both the DD's possess, and I'm fascinated by their choices, their physical and emotional autonomy. If they weren't my daughters, I'd meet them as strangers and want to know more about them. They're just that cool. Unfortunately, high school is a whole mess of crabs in a pot of boiling water, and that mob of crabs doesn't like to let any of the more independent ones escape unscathed.
And... youngest DD started high school last fall. Oy. I'm sorry if you're one of them, I mean no offense, but I can't imagine what kind of experience anyone could have in high school that would make them reminisce fondly for those 'glory days.' I've yet to meet any well-adjusted and balanced adult who actually enjoyed the hell that is high school. High school sucks ass, especially when you're a bottom of the barrel first year freshman swimming in a sea of more seasoned than you sharks.
She's had some trouble adjusting and it's begun to manifest physically in her stomach aches, so we trooped off to the family doctor today to get it checked out. I'm a master of controlling my control-ables, so though I had a suspicion that the tummy problems were stress-induced and that stress was largely related to the not-so-happyfuntimes experience of high school, I needed to check off the list of physical concerns in order to exclude them. So, that done, we got down to brass tacks and had a frank conversation about the causes and results of the issues.
Poor kids: a recovered ACoN and alkie for a mom means that we always get it down to a conversation about the causes and results at some point. Sometimes I'm sure they'd like it if I just blew a problem off or yelled about it and grounded them for a week. Alas, that's not how I'm built.
It was a good convo, though, especially after DD got real and started talking about some of the bullying that she's been subject to and how it's weighing on her.
It's funny, we hear talk about bullying all the time. It's a bad word in our society. Bullying is bad. Bullying will not be tolerated. We have a zero tolerance for bullying. But what I've noticed is that it's a very narrow scope of definition that we're willing to accept when we talk about bullying.
We have no problem pointing to the oversized 10 year old boy who's pulling cute little Janie's blonde ponytail on the playground and saying, "Yes! He's a BULLY!" And then we send him to the principal's office to pay for that. Maybe sign him up for a sensitivity course or have him wash some walls.
We watch The Breakfast Club and just can't believe that anyone didn't stand up and say "Stop it!" when those butt-cheeks met the duct tape. "He's a bully!" we say.
We read about Queen Bees and everyone immediately knows who the bullies are, and we want to point at them and scream, "Bully!" Maybe do a little capital letter B embroidering on somebody's new Hollister shirt.
We want to point out that No means No and that our private places are private and that strangers are dangerous and that yelling "fire!" will get you faster action than screaming "rape!" and we want so desperately to believe that these coloring-book safety tips will protect our children from the world.
But their peers? How does one protect a child from the asshole sitting next to her in Math who makes snide comments to the rest of the teens in the class about her breast size? He didn't touch her, after all, he didn't call her a racial epithet and he wasn't even directly speaking to her . What's punishable there?
How does one protect a child from the little twit who makes it a point to invite an entire established circle of friends to a party but excludes her? And then talks about said shindig at length and within intentional earshot? It's not as if a police report can be filed for Willful Exclusion from a Private Social Function with Aggravated Flaunting.
I think (hope) that schools for younger kids have a little bit more control and say. It seems to be addressed more and more at younger ages. (Even then, though, I have doubts about the way it's handled - I can't tell you how many times I've heard a parent/teacher/counselor of a child say, "Bullies are hurting inside and that's why they're acting this way toward you." As if that matters? I mean, seriously, who gives a fuck? Serial killers are traumatized too, am I supposed to accept that they have a low self esteem and it's really not about me if I run into one of those? Maybe ask them if they want to talk about it before they sharpen the knife?)
In high school, though, which is an overcrowded and understaffed sinking cruise ship with a bad case of e. coli and no radar signal if I've ever seen one, this type of verbal/emotional bullying is de rigeur and so low on the list of administrative priorities as to not exist. Somebody's getting knocked up in the parking lot, breaking into a locker, smuggling in a joint. Those are the things the alleged people in charge at the alleged institute of learning are allegedly dealing with. That and attendance as it directly relates to funding. So, no help there. The attitude is generally, "Let us know when blood gets drawn."
It's all so familiar; all the triangulating, rank forming, gaslighting, passive-aggressiveness, crazymaking. Every time I hear about this shite, I just can't help but compare it to the NFOO. What is the NFOO really? A gang of adolescent hoodlums. A bunch of limp-dicked power grubbing bullies getting off on their little game of Who Can Be the Meanest.
So, DD and I talked about it. And we came back around to what we always come back around to when dealing with idiots and assholes. You Browncoats out there, this is for you, "Are we caring about this?"
I mean, seriously, let's just lay this out. A bully is a POS. A bully is someone not smart enough to find their own happiness. A bully is a person who can't process well enough to connect with the world around them. A bully is someone who's too stupid to know how to entertain themselves. A bully is a person who's not likable enough to have people like them for anything other than the vicarious jerk-off high of making someone else look bad. A bully is too ineffectual to do anything of value on their own, so they choose to tear down the accomplishments of others instead.
Basically, a bully has the attractiveness of turd on a sidewalk.
So, again, regarding what a bully has to say, "Are we caring about this?" Honestly, caring is too strong a word. Are we even listening to a word that comes out of a turd's mouth? Even if it can talk, it's still just a turd. Nothing more. Nothing less.
You know what I do when I see a turd on a sidewalk? Nothing. I don't touch it, I don't talk to it, I don't ask it how it feels or if it's lashing out at me because it's hurting inside, I don't wonder why it's a turd or who caused it to be a turd on the sidewalk. I get away from it, glad I didn't step in it. It's a turd. It's beneath me.
So, we have a new phrase in the Casa de Vanci. Bullies are talking turds. DD tells me that she's going to be picturing a very large, very stinky (and hopefully soon to be left behind to lie for eternity on their sidewalk) talking turd if she has one of these encounters again.
Kind of takes away their power, now, doesn't it?
We laughed and laughed and talked for hours about how she can get herself re-centered and all of the good things/people/activities/love she has in her life, and she's going to be fine. Eventually, once she's herself again, I might even have to have a little pity for the bullies, cause DD's a firecracker; her powder just got wet for a minute. Eventually, somebody's going to lose a finger.
Nah, I'll never feel sorry for bullies. I know who they grow up to be.
Love,
Vanci
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Being Present is a Form of Happiness
I go through phases of intense interest in and observation of the people around me. These days, it's a deviation from normal action for me. Typically, no matter the group I'm in, I am the de facto greeter, rememberer of names, conversation starter and overall general participater. I wouldn't say that I seek the spotlight, and I'm not a compulsive joiner, but I've worked very hard for a long time to be able to enjoy whatever the present moment that I'm living in happens to be, and I'm interested in being a part of those moments. In business meetings, as a result of that desire for sincerity and authenticity, when everyone else is Chest Puffing or doing the Big Boy and Girl Dance of Uber-Professional Talk, I'm often the only person asking questions of others like, "How's your family? Your daughter must be in junior high school by now, right? How's that going?" In other words, I talk about life, and that always lightens the mood.
But lately I've been in a more subdued mood, probably because I'm still very physically tired and because it's February. Gawd, I hate this month. Gray, cold, holidays spent, taxes almost due, let's just hope that Spring gets here before June, February. DH calls it my Speculative Mood; I have a tendency to isolate a feeling, thought, pattern of behavior and just track it, watch it, ponder it. I learn a lot about people through this process.
I was recently at a meeting with a large group of coworkers, both those that I share office space with and several from other parts of my geographical region. There is a young lady from another office who is, er, um, well, she's rather off-putting. She's difficult to talk to. She gives very little in conversation; her primary contributions seem to involve making sure that all listening understand that she's, of course, right and oh so very smart. About everything. It's not malicious, it's more of a low self-esteem projection that comes off as, okay, well, maybe more than a little bitchy. A conversation with her can feel like a midnight stroll through a sanctimony-ridden land-mine field.
Having survived a lifetime in the B-I-N-G-O spinning ball of twisted conversation and pretentious aggrandizing that was my NFOO, I just shake it off. She's not central to my continued existence - not my boss, in other words - and I have only the most tenuous of ties to her, so I just let her be right when I find myself in conversation with her, which I noticed at this last outing was quite often. She chose at several different venues to seek out a seat next to me. When she gets all Sister Mary Francis on the soapbox, I just listen until I'm bored and then I make a joke. Most of the serious wanna-be professor types don't particularly care for my blase take on life in general, and tend to gravitate away from me rather quickly. To which I say, Coolsville Daddio, you go on over there and extol the virtues of contract negotiations and quality assurance systems and I'll be over here enjoying my tea and taking mental bets against myself about which of the coworkers is going to try to hit on the waitress. But this girl still seeks me out, after four years of contact in which I've maintained my same attitude, which when concerning business often can be summed up with a shoulder shrug and a, "Well-what-are-you-gonna-do-that's-life." or "Well-they-keep-paying-me-so-I-keep-showing-up." That one really stumps the suits and the ladder climbers.
So, later on, I had a conversation with one of my coworkers whom I actually consider a good friend and she, too, had noticed the way that Ms. Difficult follows me around. "I just don't understand why she likes me so much," I said. "I'm not particularly nice to her, but she seems to really want to be around me, I don't get it." This caused my friend to laugh, which threw me for a loop. "What's so funny?" I asked.
To which she replied, "Vanci, everybody likes you. You're the only one that everybody likes. You're like everybody's best friend. You're the only one who cares about everybody else. You're the only real person in the room!" Huh.
So let me get this straight. Everybody else is acting? I'm the only one capable of or willing to be real, to be present? How sad! All I can think is that there is so much, so much of value, going on in every moment - I feel like I learn something from every single interaction that I have with individuals or the world at large. How can anyone not be interested in that?
I think that it's a gift to be able to live in the moment, to be present. I know that I have a lot more fun at those meetings than anyone else does. Apparently that's because I'm the only one really there!
I spent so much of my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood afraid, just terrified of what horror was lurking around the next corner. I was always planning, and drawing up alternate plans, and making contingency plans. Hypervigilance is a fear based, trauma induced defense mechanism, and that's where I lived for so long, just trying to keep everything under wraps, the hatches battened down, the details routinely organized, everything and everyone under control.
I don't have to do that anymore, and there's such freedom for me in just being able to - forgive the overused phrase - stop and smell the roses. I'm so grateful that I can just be present in my life these days.
So, a Vanci-ku for you, in honor of the joy of living in the moment:
Fears of the future
Rob you of today's moments
Why steal from yourself?
Love,
Vanci
But lately I've been in a more subdued mood, probably because I'm still very physically tired and because it's February. Gawd, I hate this month. Gray, cold, holidays spent, taxes almost due, let's just hope that Spring gets here before June, February. DH calls it my Speculative Mood; I have a tendency to isolate a feeling, thought, pattern of behavior and just track it, watch it, ponder it. I learn a lot about people through this process.
I was recently at a meeting with a large group of coworkers, both those that I share office space with and several from other parts of my geographical region. There is a young lady from another office who is, er, um, well, she's rather off-putting. She's difficult to talk to. She gives very little in conversation; her primary contributions seem to involve making sure that all listening understand that she's, of course, right and oh so very smart. About everything. It's not malicious, it's more of a low self-esteem projection that comes off as, okay, well, maybe more than a little bitchy. A conversation with her can feel like a midnight stroll through a sanctimony-ridden land-mine field.
Having survived a lifetime in the B-I-N-G-O spinning ball of twisted conversation and pretentious aggrandizing that was my NFOO, I just shake it off. She's not central to my continued existence - not my boss, in other words - and I have only the most tenuous of ties to her, so I just let her be right when I find myself in conversation with her, which I noticed at this last outing was quite often. She chose at several different venues to seek out a seat next to me. When she gets all Sister Mary Francis on the soapbox, I just listen until I'm bored and then I make a joke. Most of the serious wanna-be professor types don't particularly care for my blase take on life in general, and tend to gravitate away from me rather quickly. To which I say, Coolsville Daddio, you go on over there and extol the virtues of contract negotiations and quality assurance systems and I'll be over here enjoying my tea and taking mental bets against myself about which of the coworkers is going to try to hit on the waitress. But this girl still seeks me out, after four years of contact in which I've maintained my same attitude, which when concerning business often can be summed up with a shoulder shrug and a, "Well-what-are-you-gonna-do-that's-life." or "Well-they-keep-paying-me-so-I-keep-showing-up." That one really stumps the suits and the ladder climbers.
So, later on, I had a conversation with one of my coworkers whom I actually consider a good friend and she, too, had noticed the way that Ms. Difficult follows me around. "I just don't understand why she likes me so much," I said. "I'm not particularly nice to her, but she seems to really want to be around me, I don't get it." This caused my friend to laugh, which threw me for a loop. "What's so funny?" I asked.
To which she replied, "Vanci, everybody likes you. You're the only one that everybody likes. You're like everybody's best friend. You're the only one who cares about everybody else. You're the only real person in the room!" Huh.
So let me get this straight. Everybody else is acting? I'm the only one capable of or willing to be real, to be present? How sad! All I can think is that there is so much, so much of value, going on in every moment - I feel like I learn something from every single interaction that I have with individuals or the world at large. How can anyone not be interested in that?
I think that it's a gift to be able to live in the moment, to be present. I know that I have a lot more fun at those meetings than anyone else does. Apparently that's because I'm the only one really there!
I spent so much of my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood afraid, just terrified of what horror was lurking around the next corner. I was always planning, and drawing up alternate plans, and making contingency plans. Hypervigilance is a fear based, trauma induced defense mechanism, and that's where I lived for so long, just trying to keep everything under wraps, the hatches battened down, the details routinely organized, everything and everyone under control.
I don't have to do that anymore, and there's such freedom for me in just being able to - forgive the overused phrase - stop and smell the roses. I'm so grateful that I can just be present in my life these days.
So, a Vanci-ku for you, in honor of the joy of living in the moment:
Fears of the future
Rob you of today's moments
Why steal from yourself?
Love,
Vanci
Sunday, February 3, 2013
The Only Way Out is Through the Center
"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." On Pain - Kahlil Gibran
It's been just over six years since what I think of as Vanci's Last Stand. You can read about that here, if you'd like. I've been thinking that I should do a post to commemorate the passage of another year of NC, but the reality is that the only tangible difference in my feelings about the NFOO now as compared to a year ago is that I have a far greater level of indifference to their existence than I've ever had before. In regard to my real (and quite wonderful) every day life, I've written about it all year long, and can only say that my overall feeling about the last year is that I am one lucky and grateful lady.
Much of my peace is attributable to the fact that I've got one more year of distance from the Crazymaker Clan under my belt, and that is a good thing, no, it's a great thing. Maybe even in the All Time Top Five List of Best Things. There's really not much to say beyond that.
But I've been thinking back to those crazy and painful times of six years ago, and I've been trying to ask and answer of myself some of the questions that I hear newly distanced, LC'd and NC'd peeps asking about how to make it through those rough and tumble, earth shaking, business end of the barrel times. I've been trying to do what I do best, which is basically to boil a complex issue down into a simplified reduction, examine the facts that hold true and then develop a formula. It's my process, and one that's served me well, both when I lived every day in survival mode and when I was starting to heal and now that I'm...well, I think the only way to describe where I am now is to say that I am content.
I spend very little time these days thinking about the members of the Clan, if I spend any at all. I carry my scars and they are certainly reminders of all the negative feelings and horrible memories and terrors that I've survived, sure. But they are also reminders of the fact that I broke those chains and won't be passing the bad juju down the line. I live every day in the midst of so many reminders of the good, calm, loving, helpful, graceful, classy, joyful relationships and people and life that I have now, and if I charted a graph that showed my happiness in relation to the length of time I have NC, well, I'm sure that the trend would look like a dot-com stock's value in the early nineties. Up, up and away.
I remember, though, what it felt like in Early No Contact. It felt so awful, so wrong to be separated from my 'family.' I was so tortured, so guilty for creating that heretofore unknown silence, for breaking something that I knew was wrong but that I'd been taught my whole life to accept as right. I would have done almost anything to make things better, different, even the way that they used to be. If you've read this blog at all, you'll know that every single person in my family of origin was abusive toward me in some degree. The things that I've written about here - which are the tip of the iceberg, dearies, just a smidge of the reality of the abuse that I was dealt by the fuckers - are so horrific that they could be the plot-lines of a serial killer-hunting drama on television. They're the types of things that people see or read about and think, "Surely this can't really happen in the real world." Horror, pure and simple.
But in Early NC, I was still loathe to see it for what it was, to see them for the monsters that they really are. I still held out hope that I could somehow, some way, if I was good enough or smart enough or worked hard enough or expressed myself more clearly or drew different boundaries or drank less or changed the way that I reacted or asked different questions, that I could find a way to repair my relationship with the Clan. I didn't want to even contemplate NC forever in the early days; it would have been too much for my fragile world to take. I felt like I would just shatter like a woman made of glass. Thin glass. Every. Single. Day.
I think of that now and I'd like to deny it. I'd like to say that woke up one day and I was strong, that I was instantly okay, that I always knew what to do or how to act or react, but the truth is that it was a process of "the breaking of the shell of my understanding." There's truth in the idea that a thing, once known, cannot be unknown. As soon as I allowed myself to SEE the truth behind the false perceptions of the NFOO, I couldn't UNSEE that truth. I didn't really want to accept it, but I couldn't unlearn it, I couldn't unknow and I couldn't avoid finding a way to deal with it. Living every day with the pain of this process of knowing wasn't an option, so I had to find a way to move forward.
So I had to go through it.
Some days I put my head down and I charged through it angry. I think of bulls in a run when I think of those days: incited to a near murderous anger and then unleashed in a narrow corridor to chase down a crowd of tormentors. Some days I was like that, and those were the good days.
Most days I was lost, sad, unfocused and seriously fucking depressed. In retrospect, it's all fine and good to say that I don't miss them in my life, and it's true beyond true that these days it's a ludicrous concept to me to even think about missing them. I miss them these days about as much as I'd miss a hot poker to the eye. But then, Early NC, I missed them like crazy. They had been my constants, you see? No matter how fucked up they were, no matter how abusive they were, no matter how much of my life, my family of choice, my very soul I'd had to sacrifice to the altar of the Crazymaker Clan, they had been MY CLAN. And then they weren't anymore, and that was a loss.
Loss is loss, and all loss leaves a void. It hurt to cut off contact with them, it hurt like hell.
But, there's a reason that we recovering alkies talk about working a program and staying sober One Day at a Time and it's this: we understand that the only way to get the time to stack up is to do one of them at a time, moment to moment. And that's what got me through the loss; doing just one more day upon one more day.
Eventually, I promise, the days got easier to do. And that's when I decided to look into it further, to go beyond just accepting it and to start to try to figure out what the hell it really was, what it had really been in the first place and how it had changed.
Once I started to dig into core issues, I began to see a clearer picture of what, exactly, it was that I had lost. The space and time that I created by just staying away and putting one day on top of another wasn't my plan, no, but it was instrumental in getting me clear enough from the leashes and muzzles of the NFOO to help me to see them (and to see me,) in the cold, clear light of reality.
That's when it started to get better. That's when the FOG began to lift for me. That's when I began to allow my defenses - so carefully constructed to block out a lifetime of abuse - to work for me instead of against me. That's when I began to look at myself and really see who I was, to understand that I was broken because they'd broken me, but also that I was not beyond repair.
And that's when I began to understand that the loss that I felt, the grief that I was living with every day, was about my mourning the loss of something that never really existed in the first place. And that's when I started to get better.
I've been NC long enough now to have experienced several distinct validations of the correctness of my choices to get away from the NFOO and to stay away. I broke the shell of my understanding long enough ago that the pain that I felt initially and residually is largely non-existent now. Bleeding wounds became scabs and then turned into scars, which serve to remind me that I survived and that I don't want to go back, so I won't.
I had to break that shell and go through the pain of it in order to form a new understanding, one that is without manipulation or lies.
So I guess that I will let this stand as my celebration of six years: the trend in my happiness and that of my family of choice has never, not once, faltered from us getting better the farther and the longer we stay away from the Crazymakers.
So breaking that shell and going through that pain has only ever been worth it.
Love,
Vanci
It's been just over six years since what I think of as Vanci's Last Stand. You can read about that here, if you'd like. I've been thinking that I should do a post to commemorate the passage of another year of NC, but the reality is that the only tangible difference in my feelings about the NFOO now as compared to a year ago is that I have a far greater level of indifference to their existence than I've ever had before. In regard to my real (and quite wonderful) every day life, I've written about it all year long, and can only say that my overall feeling about the last year is that I am one lucky and grateful lady.
Much of my peace is attributable to the fact that I've got one more year of distance from the Crazymaker Clan under my belt, and that is a good thing, no, it's a great thing. Maybe even in the All Time Top Five List of Best Things. There's really not much to say beyond that.
But I've been thinking back to those crazy and painful times of six years ago, and I've been trying to ask and answer of myself some of the questions that I hear newly distanced, LC'd and NC'd peeps asking about how to make it through those rough and tumble, earth shaking, business end of the barrel times. I've been trying to do what I do best, which is basically to boil a complex issue down into a simplified reduction, examine the facts that hold true and then develop a formula. It's my process, and one that's served me well, both when I lived every day in survival mode and when I was starting to heal and now that I'm...well, I think the only way to describe where I am now is to say that I am content.
I spend very little time these days thinking about the members of the Clan, if I spend any at all. I carry my scars and they are certainly reminders of all the negative feelings and horrible memories and terrors that I've survived, sure. But they are also reminders of the fact that I broke those chains and won't be passing the bad juju down the line. I live every day in the midst of so many reminders of the good, calm, loving, helpful, graceful, classy, joyful relationships and people and life that I have now, and if I charted a graph that showed my happiness in relation to the length of time I have NC, well, I'm sure that the trend would look like a dot-com stock's value in the early nineties. Up, up and away.
I remember, though, what it felt like in Early No Contact. It felt so awful, so wrong to be separated from my 'family.' I was so tortured, so guilty for creating that heretofore unknown silence, for breaking something that I knew was wrong but that I'd been taught my whole life to accept as right. I would have done almost anything to make things better, different, even the way that they used to be. If you've read this blog at all, you'll know that every single person in my family of origin was abusive toward me in some degree. The things that I've written about here - which are the tip of the iceberg, dearies, just a smidge of the reality of the abuse that I was dealt by the fuckers - are so horrific that they could be the plot-lines of a serial killer-hunting drama on television. They're the types of things that people see or read about and think, "Surely this can't really happen in the real world." Horror, pure and simple.
But in Early NC, I was still loathe to see it for what it was, to see them for the monsters that they really are. I still held out hope that I could somehow, some way, if I was good enough or smart enough or worked hard enough or expressed myself more clearly or drew different boundaries or drank less or changed the way that I reacted or asked different questions, that I could find a way to repair my relationship with the Clan. I didn't want to even contemplate NC forever in the early days; it would have been too much for my fragile world to take. I felt like I would just shatter like a woman made of glass. Thin glass. Every. Single. Day.
I think of that now and I'd like to deny it. I'd like to say that woke up one day and I was strong, that I was instantly okay, that I always knew what to do or how to act or react, but the truth is that it was a process of "the breaking of the shell of my understanding." There's truth in the idea that a thing, once known, cannot be unknown. As soon as I allowed myself to SEE the truth behind the false perceptions of the NFOO, I couldn't UNSEE that truth. I didn't really want to accept it, but I couldn't unlearn it, I couldn't unknow and I couldn't avoid finding a way to deal with it. Living every day with the pain of this process of knowing wasn't an option, so I had to find a way to move forward.
So I had to go through it.
Some days I put my head down and I charged through it angry. I think of bulls in a run when I think of those days: incited to a near murderous anger and then unleashed in a narrow corridor to chase down a crowd of tormentors. Some days I was like that, and those were the good days.
Most days I was lost, sad, unfocused and seriously fucking depressed. In retrospect, it's all fine and good to say that I don't miss them in my life, and it's true beyond true that these days it's a ludicrous concept to me to even think about missing them. I miss them these days about as much as I'd miss a hot poker to the eye. But then, Early NC, I missed them like crazy. They had been my constants, you see? No matter how fucked up they were, no matter how abusive they were, no matter how much of my life, my family of choice, my very soul I'd had to sacrifice to the altar of the Crazymaker Clan, they had been MY CLAN. And then they weren't anymore, and that was a loss.
Loss is loss, and all loss leaves a void. It hurt to cut off contact with them, it hurt like hell.
But, there's a reason that we recovering alkies talk about working a program and staying sober One Day at a Time and it's this: we understand that the only way to get the time to stack up is to do one of them at a time, moment to moment. And that's what got me through the loss; doing just one more day upon one more day.
Eventually, I promise, the days got easier to do. And that's when I decided to look into it further, to go beyond just accepting it and to start to try to figure out what the hell it really was, what it had really been in the first place and how it had changed.
Once I started to dig into core issues, I began to see a clearer picture of what, exactly, it was that I had lost. The space and time that I created by just staying away and putting one day on top of another wasn't my plan, no, but it was instrumental in getting me clear enough from the leashes and muzzles of the NFOO to help me to see them (and to see me,) in the cold, clear light of reality.
That's when it started to get better. That's when the FOG began to lift for me. That's when I began to allow my defenses - so carefully constructed to block out a lifetime of abuse - to work for me instead of against me. That's when I began to look at myself and really see who I was, to understand that I was broken because they'd broken me, but also that I was not beyond repair.
And that's when I began to understand that the loss that I felt, the grief that I was living with every day, was about my mourning the loss of something that never really existed in the first place. And that's when I started to get better.
I've been NC long enough now to have experienced several distinct validations of the correctness of my choices to get away from the NFOO and to stay away. I broke the shell of my understanding long enough ago that the pain that I felt initially and residually is largely non-existent now. Bleeding wounds became scabs and then turned into scars, which serve to remind me that I survived and that I don't want to go back, so I won't.
I had to break that shell and go through the pain of it in order to form a new understanding, one that is without manipulation or lies.
So I guess that I will let this stand as my celebration of six years: the trend in my happiness and that of my family of choice has never, not once, faltered from us getting better the farther and the longer we stay away from the Crazymakers.
So breaking that shell and going through that pain has only ever been worth it.
Love,
Vanci
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Keystone Concepts
I've been focusing heavily on staying in the moment lately, on simplifying my often distracted mind, on streamlining my hectic schedule and allowing myself a less frantic pace. It's working and I'm starting to feel better, if not physically as much as I'd like, at least I'm finding ways to stop demanding so much from myself emotionally. I have a lot of tools for accomplishing this, thankfully.
One of the allowances I've made in my quest to calm my mind and heart (and hope that my body will just take a fucking clue already,) has been to indulge my Inner Documentary Junkie. We don't have television here in the house of Vanci, you see, because A) it rots your brain, B) from what I've seen of television in the last fifteen years, either I've gotten really really smart or the rest of the planet has gotten progressively stoopid-er and C) our area is rural enough that we don't have any free television channels available and I'm too cheap to pay someone to beam into my home and ask my if my teeth are white enough or if I'd like to lose weight without trying. So, no television channels, but of course we watch movies and we play video games and the like. I'm not a Luddite, I'd just honestly rather read a novel if I find that I have excess time in my life.
What we do have in my little town, though, is a killer library. And that library has a fairly extensive movie/tv series selection. So, I've been checking out documentaries lately and DH and the DD's have indulged me by letting me watch them in the family room in the evenings - sometimes the series are good enough that one or two of the family members get interested, too!
I recently finished a rather poorly done - but still fascinating, to me at least - series on the 'secrets' of ancient architecture. I'm happy to report that I now know far more than I will ever be required to know about the difference between doric, ionic and corinthian columns. So I've got that going for me.
One of the so-called secrets that fascinated me the most, though, transcended cultural boundaries and seemed to show up in all of the ancient civilizations discussed were these enormous stone archways that stood for millenia over huge spans and at towering heights. There, apparently, always has been debate about how these wide curved spans were constructed by people with marked lacks of technological advancement: how does a society with no firm grasp of potential uses of wheels manage to heft a series of two-ton blocks into the air in a graceful, flowing curve so masterfully that they'll stay in their place for, theoretically, ever?
It's all about the keystone - the load bearing, specifically shaped, precisely fitted wedge at the top of the span that, once inserted, holds everything together. I'm not a geologist and geometry wasn't ever my thing, but my lack of technical understanding hasn't stopped my absolute respect for this concept of the one key piece that determines the fate of the rest of the structure.
So I'm thinking about my own personal keystone concepts. I've survived an awful lot of really terrible events and people in my life, and I'm grateful for that. I've learned from these experiences, and I'm even more grateful for that. What I've mostly learned is that I wasn't always able to prevent the Big Bads from happening (and I'm sure I won't be able to sometimes in the present or the future, too,) but that I can pick up certain invaluable tools every time I make it through, and I get to keep those tools.
Those tools have become my go to's, no matter the situation, the ideas, concepts, learning that I can come back to and understand that yes, THIS, THIS is what works, THIS is the TRUTH. I hold that little collection of Truths near and dear to my heart: that I am lovable, that I didn't/don't deserve for bad things or people to happen to me, that love is strength, etc. But I've been wondering what the crux Truth is, if there is a single identifiable piece of Truth that holds all of the others to their shape. The baseline, the square one, the universal Truth. What's the keystone?
I think it's this:
I exist as a human bean, and that alone grants me the right to decency.
The right to decency isn't about entitlement. I don't deserve anything more than you or anything more than I'm willing to work to attain and keep or give away. Being in the line up, after all, does not guarantee one the right to a home run. It doesn't even guarantee the right to a swing, necessarily. But it does guarantee me the right to show up and to take a shake at it if the opportunity presents itself.
It seems to me that the people who've tried to hurt me have really, at the core of their behavior, been trying to take away my right to exist. Through fear, lies, manipulations, violence, abusers have tried to convince me that I deserved less than the breath I inhale and exhale, or that I should be ashamed for taking that air.
Every time I've come back around to understanding that I didn't have to take abuse, my strength has come from my eventual understanding that I have a right to decency: which simply means to me that I have a right NOT to be hurt, or to choose to walk away from hurt.
It's sad to me when I hear people say, in response to an action of distance taken by one being abused from an abuser,
"But she's your mother/sister/friend/teacher/father/uncle/brother/pastor/lover/husband/wife etc..." as a means of implying that, yes, this behavior is unacceptable, but some tie that you have with the person treating you inappropriately requires you to ignore the abuse.
As if abuse can be lessened or somehow condoned based upon the title or DNA similarity of the abuser and victim. This quantification is a protection of the abuser to the detriment of the one being abused, and that's a societal sickness that's, unfortunately, socially acceptable. But it's not a Truth.
The Truth to me, the Keystone of Truth I suppose, is that it doesn't matter who wants to hurt me nearly as much as it matters that I have a right not to be hurt.
I'm a human bean and I have the right to exist and be treated decently.
So are you and you do too.
Love,
Vanci
One of the allowances I've made in my quest to calm my mind and heart (and hope that my body will just take a fucking clue already,) has been to indulge my Inner Documentary Junkie. We don't have television here in the house of Vanci, you see, because A) it rots your brain, B) from what I've seen of television in the last fifteen years, either I've gotten really really smart or the rest of the planet has gotten progressively stoopid-er and C) our area is rural enough that we don't have any free television channels available and I'm too cheap to pay someone to beam into my home and ask my if my teeth are white enough or if I'd like to lose weight without trying. So, no television channels, but of course we watch movies and we play video games and the like. I'm not a Luddite, I'd just honestly rather read a novel if I find that I have excess time in my life.
What we do have in my little town, though, is a killer library. And that library has a fairly extensive movie/tv series selection. So, I've been checking out documentaries lately and DH and the DD's have indulged me by letting me watch them in the family room in the evenings - sometimes the series are good enough that one or two of the family members get interested, too!
I recently finished a rather poorly done - but still fascinating, to me at least - series on the 'secrets' of ancient architecture. I'm happy to report that I now know far more than I will ever be required to know about the difference between doric, ionic and corinthian columns. So I've got that going for me.
One of the so-called secrets that fascinated me the most, though, transcended cultural boundaries and seemed to show up in all of the ancient civilizations discussed were these enormous stone archways that stood for millenia over huge spans and at towering heights. There, apparently, always has been debate about how these wide curved spans were constructed by people with marked lacks of technological advancement: how does a society with no firm grasp of potential uses of wheels manage to heft a series of two-ton blocks into the air in a graceful, flowing curve so masterfully that they'll stay in their place for, theoretically, ever?
It's all about the keystone - the load bearing, specifically shaped, precisely fitted wedge at the top of the span that, once inserted, holds everything together. I'm not a geologist and geometry wasn't ever my thing, but my lack of technical understanding hasn't stopped my absolute respect for this concept of the one key piece that determines the fate of the rest of the structure.
So I'm thinking about my own personal keystone concepts. I've survived an awful lot of really terrible events and people in my life, and I'm grateful for that. I've learned from these experiences, and I'm even more grateful for that. What I've mostly learned is that I wasn't always able to prevent the Big Bads from happening (and I'm sure I won't be able to sometimes in the present or the future, too,) but that I can pick up certain invaluable tools every time I make it through, and I get to keep those tools.
Those tools have become my go to's, no matter the situation, the ideas, concepts, learning that I can come back to and understand that yes, THIS, THIS is what works, THIS is the TRUTH. I hold that little collection of Truths near and dear to my heart: that I am lovable, that I didn't/don't deserve for bad things or people to happen to me, that love is strength, etc. But I've been wondering what the crux Truth is, if there is a single identifiable piece of Truth that holds all of the others to their shape. The baseline, the square one, the universal Truth. What's the keystone?
I think it's this:
I exist as a human bean, and that alone grants me the right to decency.
The right to decency isn't about entitlement. I don't deserve anything more than you or anything more than I'm willing to work to attain and keep or give away. Being in the line up, after all, does not guarantee one the right to a home run. It doesn't even guarantee the right to a swing, necessarily. But it does guarantee me the right to show up and to take a shake at it if the opportunity presents itself.
It seems to me that the people who've tried to hurt me have really, at the core of their behavior, been trying to take away my right to exist. Through fear, lies, manipulations, violence, abusers have tried to convince me that I deserved less than the breath I inhale and exhale, or that I should be ashamed for taking that air.
Every time I've come back around to understanding that I didn't have to take abuse, my strength has come from my eventual understanding that I have a right to decency: which simply means to me that I have a right NOT to be hurt, or to choose to walk away from hurt.
It's sad to me when I hear people say, in response to an action of distance taken by one being abused from an abuser,
"But she's your mother/sister/friend/teacher/father/uncle/brother/pastor/lover/husband/wife etc..." as a means of implying that, yes, this behavior is unacceptable, but some tie that you have with the person treating you inappropriately requires you to ignore the abuse.
As if abuse can be lessened or somehow condoned based upon the title or DNA similarity of the abuser and victim. This quantification is a protection of the abuser to the detriment of the one being abused, and that's a societal sickness that's, unfortunately, socially acceptable. But it's not a Truth.
The Truth to me, the Keystone of Truth I suppose, is that it doesn't matter who wants to hurt me nearly as much as it matters that I have a right not to be hurt.
I'm a human bean and I have the right to exist and be treated decently.
So are you and you do too.
Love,
Vanci
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Leaving Isolation Behind
Isolation of the victim is one of the primary tools of all abusers.
Whether an abuser is of the pathologically personality disordered or the garden variety asshole vein, the removal of their chosen victim's external support will always rank high on the abuser's to-do list. In the middle of a fire, a person with an exit plan behaves in an entirely different manner than a person who believes that they are hopelessly trapped.
In this respect, the goal of an abuser is to force their victim to be cut-off from outside help, or if that is not possible to force the victim to at least believe that if there is a way out, it's unreachable or undeserved.
When I was a child, I was held hostage as a member of the NFOO, both physically and emotionally. The NParents couldn't hold up the shiny-happy mask that covered their absolute insanity for very long, so our family packed up and moved every single year. Sometimes we'd make it for 18 months or so, but that was a stretch. In retrospect, I think of them as locusts: show up, suck the life out every available resource, move on and leave the land dead. In having any tenuous roots and branches of relationships to other people that I was able to establish as a little one yanked out every year - literally, I did not go to the same school two years in a row until my freshman and sophomore years of high school - I was being groomed to believe that the only people I was allowed to have long term relationships with were NM, ENF, NSis and GCYB. Functionally, they were the only people in my childhood world. And that meant that I had no way out.
There were no teachers who were able to know me well enough to step in, no counselors who knew me long enough to detect a pattern, no mothers or fathers of friends who heard or saw changes in my affect and worried about it. No one was allowed to know me long enough to fight for me. Any perceptive adult in my life who might have picked up on eccentricities, (if they caught me in a rare moment when I stepped out of line and peeked out from behind the iron mask of the Clan at all,) would have had to chase down the moving van to inquire after my well-being. What a lonely, sad, isolated childhood that was. It taught me that the few relationships that I did have - with the NFOO - were something very precious indeed and that I must preserve them at all costs. Which is just what the NParents needed to keep me hauling on that party line.
Later in life, I discovered that I had difficulty maintaining relationships with outside parties for more than a couple of years. I had trouble staying in the same job for more than a couple of years. Small wonder, eh?
Even when they were no longer able to physically separate me from external parties, the Crazymakers still held sway over my relationships with others. My friends became their friends, and then they'd drive in their wedges at every available opportunity. When DH and I tried to establish our own holiday traditions, we were being selfish and cruel, so they showed up at our house anyway, uninvited, and stayed for dinner. Shit, I'm 95% certain that NSis slept with my first husband the night before our wedding.
No wonder, I discovered that I had a hard time trusting people. That I had a polite conversational voice that I'd use with people and that was it, I never would allow any truth to pass my lips that wasn't about the weather. That when I hit it off with someone from 'outside,' I threw up walls to make sure that they wouldn't get any closer to me. I felt toxic. I gave up on ever having any close girlfriends at all. I shut down. I stopped sharing myself with people at all. I hid a lot. I just knew that there was something wrong with me; that I just couldn't be a good friend. I'd tell myself that a potential relationship wasn't worth the effort. I only figured out later that what I'd really believed was that I wasn't worth the effort.
I was NC with the Crazymakers for a good while - I think about a year and half - before I began to let anyone in past the gate of politeness and into my real life, and even then I was more careful than Elmer Fudd hunting wabbits, which is to say verwy, verwy. I spent entire relationships waiting to find out that I was being used, again, that I was fucking it up, again, that I didn't deserve a friend, again. Some of those relationships made it through that painful and constant vetting process. Some didn't. For a long time I felt like I'd failed in those relationships that didn't spark or flamed out. It just didn't occur to me at the time that I didn't HAVE to make it work. After all, weren't my choices thus: take what you can get for as long as it's there, but don't get too attached, because it'll be taken away at any moment - or - don't get attached in the first place and pretend to be okay alone (or better yet, "Vanci, remember that your 'family' are the ONLY ones who will always be here for you.")
The Crazymakers even tried to destroy some of my fledgling relationships after I'd gone NC. How crazy is that? I refused to talk to them, but they sought out people with whom the N's had never had a relationship prior for the specific purpose of destroying new relationships that I had with those people by cornering those new friends of mine and listing of litanies of the Sins of Vanci. Gawd, can you even imagine what some of those poor souls thought? No wonder they mostly ran for the hills.
I kept trying to bring new people into my life, though, by conscientiously and carefully reminding myself to leave one or two doors to my soul open - just a crack - because I didn't want to be alone in the world anymore. And because the longer I stayed away from the Narcs and their legion of psycho-pets, the more I became aware of the fact that isolation from the external world was one of the ways in which they'd kept me under the Clan thumb. Slowly, painfully, awkwardly... I made friends.
I found people with whom I shared similar interests - like sobriety, hardy har har. As I got better, I found that people approached me with invitations - not just to Drink Wine and Buy Pricey Kitchen Stuff parties, either - but real, genuine, Hey We Think You Might Like This Movie Too kinds of outings. Apparently, I'm a lot of fun to be around. Who knew?
It was, for a very long time, uncomfortable to be vulnerable enough to get to know people and to let them get to know me too. Uncomfortable is a mild word for it; it was often excruciating. I discovered that I visit the bathrooms in public places quite often as a means to have a moment of composure alone. And somewhere, somehow, I became okay with that, accepting it as just another of my many, many quirks.
Because as hard as they tried to keep me alone and without ties to those around me, without support from people whose goal is not to hurt me, I know their secret now and I have for awhile.
They don't know how to form meaningful relationships with anyone; they only know how to use and be used, hurt and be hurt. They can't fucking stand it that I am absolutely surrounded by people who love me and whom I love back, because that's something that they will never, ever have for real. The closest they ever came was when they had me all scapegoated and slavishly in their service, and that's never going to happen again.
My oldest DD is turning 17 within the next couple of weeks, and what she's decided to do for her birthday is to go to a nearby town with a group of her girlfriends for an outing. She's known some of these girls since kindergarten, and she's close with a couple of the girls' moms, which is something that I am entirely grateful for. The more people she has that love her in her life, the better off she is, in my opinion. She said to me, "You don't mind that I won't be spending my whole birthday with you, do you?"
To which I laughed and smiled and told her that I love her but that spending your 17th birthday with your life-long girlfriends is the healthiest thing in the world. Youngest DD had her 15th birthday a few weeks ago, and our house was filled with seven 14-15 year old girls, some of which have been friends since kindergarten as well. I cooked for them and cleaned up after them and other than that, I stayed out of their way and let them have their night, which they took full advantage of until they crashed out at four in the morning.
Man, it's fucking awesome to see my girls living in that sea of friends, held up by the joy of their relationships that have nothing whatsoever to do with me. Cycle: broken.
Love,
Vanci
Whether an abuser is of the pathologically personality disordered or the garden variety asshole vein, the removal of their chosen victim's external support will always rank high on the abuser's to-do list. In the middle of a fire, a person with an exit plan behaves in an entirely different manner than a person who believes that they are hopelessly trapped.
In this respect, the goal of an abuser is to force their victim to be cut-off from outside help, or if that is not possible to force the victim to at least believe that if there is a way out, it's unreachable or undeserved.
When I was a child, I was held hostage as a member of the NFOO, both physically and emotionally. The NParents couldn't hold up the shiny-happy mask that covered their absolute insanity for very long, so our family packed up and moved every single year. Sometimes we'd make it for 18 months or so, but that was a stretch. In retrospect, I think of them as locusts: show up, suck the life out every available resource, move on and leave the land dead. In having any tenuous roots and branches of relationships to other people that I was able to establish as a little one yanked out every year - literally, I did not go to the same school two years in a row until my freshman and sophomore years of high school - I was being groomed to believe that the only people I was allowed to have long term relationships with were NM, ENF, NSis and GCYB. Functionally, they were the only people in my childhood world. And that meant that I had no way out.
There were no teachers who were able to know me well enough to step in, no counselors who knew me long enough to detect a pattern, no mothers or fathers of friends who heard or saw changes in my affect and worried about it. No one was allowed to know me long enough to fight for me. Any perceptive adult in my life who might have picked up on eccentricities, (if they caught me in a rare moment when I stepped out of line and peeked out from behind the iron mask of the Clan at all,) would have had to chase down the moving van to inquire after my well-being. What a lonely, sad, isolated childhood that was. It taught me that the few relationships that I did have - with the NFOO - were something very precious indeed and that I must preserve them at all costs. Which is just what the NParents needed to keep me hauling on that party line.
Later in life, I discovered that I had difficulty maintaining relationships with outside parties for more than a couple of years. I had trouble staying in the same job for more than a couple of years. Small wonder, eh?
Even when they were no longer able to physically separate me from external parties, the Crazymakers still held sway over my relationships with others. My friends became their friends, and then they'd drive in their wedges at every available opportunity. When DH and I tried to establish our own holiday traditions, we were being selfish and cruel, so they showed up at our house anyway, uninvited, and stayed for dinner. Shit, I'm 95% certain that NSis slept with my first husband the night before our wedding.
No wonder, I discovered that I had a hard time trusting people. That I had a polite conversational voice that I'd use with people and that was it, I never would allow any truth to pass my lips that wasn't about the weather. That when I hit it off with someone from 'outside,' I threw up walls to make sure that they wouldn't get any closer to me. I felt toxic. I gave up on ever having any close girlfriends at all. I shut down. I stopped sharing myself with people at all. I hid a lot. I just knew that there was something wrong with me; that I just couldn't be a good friend. I'd tell myself that a potential relationship wasn't worth the effort. I only figured out later that what I'd really believed was that I wasn't worth the effort.
I was NC with the Crazymakers for a good while - I think about a year and half - before I began to let anyone in past the gate of politeness and into my real life, and even then I was more careful than Elmer Fudd hunting wabbits, which is to say verwy, verwy. I spent entire relationships waiting to find out that I was being used, again, that I was fucking it up, again, that I didn't deserve a friend, again. Some of those relationships made it through that painful and constant vetting process. Some didn't. For a long time I felt like I'd failed in those relationships that didn't spark or flamed out. It just didn't occur to me at the time that I didn't HAVE to make it work. After all, weren't my choices thus: take what you can get for as long as it's there, but don't get too attached, because it'll be taken away at any moment - or - don't get attached in the first place and pretend to be okay alone (or better yet, "Vanci, remember that your 'family' are the ONLY ones who will always be here for you.")
The Crazymakers even tried to destroy some of my fledgling relationships after I'd gone NC. How crazy is that? I refused to talk to them, but they sought out people with whom the N's had never had a relationship prior for the specific purpose of destroying new relationships that I had with those people by cornering those new friends of mine and listing of litanies of the Sins of Vanci. Gawd, can you even imagine what some of those poor souls thought? No wonder they mostly ran for the hills.
I kept trying to bring new people into my life, though, by conscientiously and carefully reminding myself to leave one or two doors to my soul open - just a crack - because I didn't want to be alone in the world anymore. And because the longer I stayed away from the Narcs and their legion of psycho-pets, the more I became aware of the fact that isolation from the external world was one of the ways in which they'd kept me under the Clan thumb. Slowly, painfully, awkwardly... I made friends.
I found people with whom I shared similar interests - like sobriety, hardy har har. As I got better, I found that people approached me with invitations - not just to Drink Wine and Buy Pricey Kitchen Stuff parties, either - but real, genuine, Hey We Think You Might Like This Movie Too kinds of outings. Apparently, I'm a lot of fun to be around. Who knew?
It was, for a very long time, uncomfortable to be vulnerable enough to get to know people and to let them get to know me too. Uncomfortable is a mild word for it; it was often excruciating. I discovered that I visit the bathrooms in public places quite often as a means to have a moment of composure alone. And somewhere, somehow, I became okay with that, accepting it as just another of my many, many quirks.
Because as hard as they tried to keep me alone and without ties to those around me, without support from people whose goal is not to hurt me, I know their secret now and I have for awhile.
They don't know how to form meaningful relationships with anyone; they only know how to use and be used, hurt and be hurt. They can't fucking stand it that I am absolutely surrounded by people who love me and whom I love back, because that's something that they will never, ever have for real. The closest they ever came was when they had me all scapegoated and slavishly in their service, and that's never going to happen again.
My oldest DD is turning 17 within the next couple of weeks, and what she's decided to do for her birthday is to go to a nearby town with a group of her girlfriends for an outing. She's known some of these girls since kindergarten, and she's close with a couple of the girls' moms, which is something that I am entirely grateful for. The more people she has that love her in her life, the better off she is, in my opinion. She said to me, "You don't mind that I won't be spending my whole birthday with you, do you?"
To which I laughed and smiled and told her that I love her but that spending your 17th birthday with your life-long girlfriends is the healthiest thing in the world. Youngest DD had her 15th birthday a few weeks ago, and our house was filled with seven 14-15 year old girls, some of which have been friends since kindergarten as well. I cooked for them and cleaned up after them and other than that, I stayed out of their way and let them have their night, which they took full advantage of until they crashed out at four in the morning.
Man, it's fucking awesome to see my girls living in that sea of friends, held up by the joy of their relationships that have nothing whatsoever to do with me. Cycle: broken.
Love,
Vanci
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Absences
I have some things to lay out on the virtual table with you, my friends.
Pull up a chair and let's have tea together while I whine a little bit. Just a little bit, I promise.
I've been sporadic at best with posts, reading and comments lately, and I've been working to identify some of the reasons for that. I'd like to share what I've learned, not becuase I feel I owe an explanation so much as that I feel I'm identifying with some ACoN commonalities here that others might also feel.
First off, and I'm bringing this up for a specific reason, I'm sick. I posted last May, I think, about my stinkin' Graves Disease, and I'm been concientiously working with my doctor and endo to get my thyroid hormones under control since then. The problem is that - so far - it's not working very well. I have days where my levels are so high that I feel like I'm on speed and my energy burns out by the time I eat lunch and I have to take a nap in the freekin' break room like a much older than 35 year old person, followed by days where my levels are so low that it feels like a gargantuan effort to haul my ass out of bed after sleeping for a solid 8-9 hours.
It'll get better, I know this, and I'm not talking about it here because I'm looking for sympathy. Better people than me have had far worse problems than this. But I need to say it out loud for one reason only: in the taloned grip of the Crazymaker Clan, I was never allowed to be sick, even if I was. I was also, therefore, never allowed to take care of myself in order to get better. I was always expected to gut it out, just move on, walk it off. If I didn't shake off an illness and hide it, I learned that I would be made to pay for the attention it took to get me well, most often by constant humiliation for - potentially - ever after.
So, I've been making a concerted effort to give myself the permission I need to take care of myself. When I am tired, I go to sleep, even when I would really, really, really, like to post something here or take a look at your blogs. I miss you, and I feel out of the loop a bit, but I'm consoling myself with the thought that I am learning to obey my body's needs and unlearning a lifetime of external instruction to deny myself.
Second, I am reasonably sure that at least one member of the Crazymaker Clan has found my blog. Although I'm not particularly interested in their input (rimshot, please,) I did need to spend some time making sure that I have properly analyzed and understood my reaction to this potential. Now that I'm out of the grip of the gaslighting manipulators, I have learned that my gut reaction is often the right reaction to a stressor, and that I only revert to my Scapgoat training of Ye Olde Life when I overthink a situation. My gut reaction to a potential breach by the NFOO is this: Fuck you, I'm telling the truth, read it if you want or better yet, shove it up your ass so far you choke on it.
But, I needed to sit with that for awhile and make sure that my gut is on the right track, that I'm not going to hurt anyone I care about with that reaction and that I haven't overlooked anything. Honestly, after some time, the only thing that I can say has changed is that I feel more and more strongly that I'd like to get rid of the pseudonym. DH and I are in the opening stages of negotiations on this as it would affect him too. We'll see. Other than that, though, I think if I have anything to say directly to the Narcs or their minions, it is this suggestion, to quote the late, great, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., that, "They can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. They can take a flying fuck at the moooooon!"
Third, I'm still seriously disturbed by the Major Kerfuffle (go ahead, salute, you know you want to,) that took place because of a couple of Narcs in ACoN clothing around here. I've read and read and re-read a lot of what went down with all that when I have had time and energy to do so, because I'm still trying to figure out exactly why it pissed me off so badly, why it bothered me so much. I mean, of course betrayal and deceit create bad feelings, but I am not particularly thin-skinned. So, I wanted to make sure that I hadn't done anything that I needed to make amends for, because this sour feeling in my tummy that's still hanging around when I think about the whole thing hasn't happened to me very often before, at least not since I got sober, and it's often associated with my own bad behavior.
I can't think of anyone who I maliciously attacked, but if I did, please, be friends and let me know. I certainly used some strong words and drew some firm bounaries, I'm aware of that, but I didn't attempt to impeach anyone's character inappropriately. I'm not entirely sure where the acid still floating around from the attention-seeking double-speakers will pop up next, but I do know that it well, just as soon as those involved run out of fresh meat and come trolling back looking for a new supply. I'd like to make sure I'm on an even keel before I have to whip out that harpoon again.
Last, I haven't been enjoying my tone lately. I think that this is in direct relation to how crappy I've been feeling. I'm hoping that it will improve with more consistent levels of energy and feeling better in the future, but of late I've been under the weather enough that it's made my writing under the weather as well. As much as I'm a fan of Truth, and wouldn't ever hide mine from you, I'm also a fan of trying to share the message above the mess, and I've felt like a mess lately. That mess has been big enough to peek through and in some cases saturate what I'm trying to say, and I don't want to hand you that. It's not your rock, see? So I'm working to feel well and hoping that wellness is what I can convey again soon without having to work so hard.
There's nothing wrong with talking about the mess, talking about the problem without the answers, please don't think I'm saying that. I just don't like the dark paths that I end up on when that's what I have to offer. I feel stuck in a loop when that's where I am. It's my Boo'Ya Moon, I guess. I'll get out of it, I'm confident, fuck, look at all the other shit I've survived: this is nothing. But feeling well isn't happening as quickly as I'd like, and that brings me back to my first point... So.
I came to this place in the great wide cyber world because I felt like I had survived a very specific set of circumstances that I wanted to talk about and hear about. I was not expecting to find the wonderful people that I have met here, I wasn't looking for a community or a wealth of knowledge. I just wanted someone to understand when I needed to say that I scan the obituaries every day looking for certain names and that I am disappointed when they're not there. I wanted someone to understand that all mommies aren't kind and that all daddies don't protect and sometimes sisters and brothers use you as a human shield and expect you to thank them for it.
I've found all that, and so much more on these blogs and boards, and I'm absolutely, completely 110% grateful for that. I think about all of you every single day and I send out pixie dust and happy thoughts to you every chance I get. If I'm absent a little more than I'd like, please know that it has nothing to do with you and that I and my real world loved ones are all fine. Where we are not, we are getting better, and that's enough.
Love,
Vanci
Pull up a chair and let's have tea together while I whine a little bit. Just a little bit, I promise.
I've been sporadic at best with posts, reading and comments lately, and I've been working to identify some of the reasons for that. I'd like to share what I've learned, not becuase I feel I owe an explanation so much as that I feel I'm identifying with some ACoN commonalities here that others might also feel.
First off, and I'm bringing this up for a specific reason, I'm sick. I posted last May, I think, about my stinkin' Graves Disease, and I'm been concientiously working with my doctor and endo to get my thyroid hormones under control since then. The problem is that - so far - it's not working very well. I have days where my levels are so high that I feel like I'm on speed and my energy burns out by the time I eat lunch and I have to take a nap in the freekin' break room like a much older than 35 year old person, followed by days where my levels are so low that it feels like a gargantuan effort to haul my ass out of bed after sleeping for a solid 8-9 hours.
It'll get better, I know this, and I'm not talking about it here because I'm looking for sympathy. Better people than me have had far worse problems than this. But I need to say it out loud for one reason only: in the taloned grip of the Crazymaker Clan, I was never allowed to be sick, even if I was. I was also, therefore, never allowed to take care of myself in order to get better. I was always expected to gut it out, just move on, walk it off. If I didn't shake off an illness and hide it, I learned that I would be made to pay for the attention it took to get me well, most often by constant humiliation for - potentially - ever after.
So, I've been making a concerted effort to give myself the permission I need to take care of myself. When I am tired, I go to sleep, even when I would really, really, really, like to post something here or take a look at your blogs. I miss you, and I feel out of the loop a bit, but I'm consoling myself with the thought that I am learning to obey my body's needs and unlearning a lifetime of external instruction to deny myself.
Second, I am reasonably sure that at least one member of the Crazymaker Clan has found my blog. Although I'm not particularly interested in their input (rimshot, please,) I did need to spend some time making sure that I have properly analyzed and understood my reaction to this potential. Now that I'm out of the grip of the gaslighting manipulators, I have learned that my gut reaction is often the right reaction to a stressor, and that I only revert to my Scapgoat training of Ye Olde Life when I overthink a situation. My gut reaction to a potential breach by the NFOO is this: Fuck you, I'm telling the truth, read it if you want or better yet, shove it up your ass so far you choke on it.
But, I needed to sit with that for awhile and make sure that my gut is on the right track, that I'm not going to hurt anyone I care about with that reaction and that I haven't overlooked anything. Honestly, after some time, the only thing that I can say has changed is that I feel more and more strongly that I'd like to get rid of the pseudonym. DH and I are in the opening stages of negotiations on this as it would affect him too. We'll see. Other than that, though, I think if I have anything to say directly to the Narcs or their minions, it is this suggestion, to quote the late, great, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., that, "They can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. They can take a flying fuck at the moooooon!"
Third, I'm still seriously disturbed by the Major Kerfuffle (go ahead, salute, you know you want to,) that took place because of a couple of Narcs in ACoN clothing around here. I've read and read and re-read a lot of what went down with all that when I have had time and energy to do so, because I'm still trying to figure out exactly why it pissed me off so badly, why it bothered me so much. I mean, of course betrayal and deceit create bad feelings, but I am not particularly thin-skinned. So, I wanted to make sure that I hadn't done anything that I needed to make amends for, because this sour feeling in my tummy that's still hanging around when I think about the whole thing hasn't happened to me very often before, at least not since I got sober, and it's often associated with my own bad behavior.
I can't think of anyone who I maliciously attacked, but if I did, please, be friends and let me know. I certainly used some strong words and drew some firm bounaries, I'm aware of that, but I didn't attempt to impeach anyone's character inappropriately. I'm not entirely sure where the acid still floating around from the attention-seeking double-speakers will pop up next, but I do know that it well, just as soon as those involved run out of fresh meat and come trolling back looking for a new supply. I'd like to make sure I'm on an even keel before I have to whip out that harpoon again.
Last, I haven't been enjoying my tone lately. I think that this is in direct relation to how crappy I've been feeling. I'm hoping that it will improve with more consistent levels of energy and feeling better in the future, but of late I've been under the weather enough that it's made my writing under the weather as well. As much as I'm a fan of Truth, and wouldn't ever hide mine from you, I'm also a fan of trying to share the message above the mess, and I've felt like a mess lately. That mess has been big enough to peek through and in some cases saturate what I'm trying to say, and I don't want to hand you that. It's not your rock, see? So I'm working to feel well and hoping that wellness is what I can convey again soon without having to work so hard.
There's nothing wrong with talking about the mess, talking about the problem without the answers, please don't think I'm saying that. I just don't like the dark paths that I end up on when that's what I have to offer. I feel stuck in a loop when that's where I am. It's my Boo'Ya Moon, I guess. I'll get out of it, I'm confident, fuck, look at all the other shit I've survived: this is nothing. But feeling well isn't happening as quickly as I'd like, and that brings me back to my first point... So.
I came to this place in the great wide cyber world because I felt like I had survived a very specific set of circumstances that I wanted to talk about and hear about. I was not expecting to find the wonderful people that I have met here, I wasn't looking for a community or a wealth of knowledge. I just wanted someone to understand when I needed to say that I scan the obituaries every day looking for certain names and that I am disappointed when they're not there. I wanted someone to understand that all mommies aren't kind and that all daddies don't protect and sometimes sisters and brothers use you as a human shield and expect you to thank them for it.
I've found all that, and so much more on these blogs and boards, and I'm absolutely, completely 110% grateful for that. I think about all of you every single day and I send out pixie dust and happy thoughts to you every chance I get. If I'm absent a little more than I'd like, please know that it has nothing to do with you and that I and my real world loved ones are all fine. Where we are not, we are getting better, and that's enough.
Love,
Vanci
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)