People who helped me survive

If I look at only the negatives in my life—mental illness, dysfunctional family, emotional and verbal abuse—it’s easy to think that all of life is negative.

But if I consider that despite those negatives, I managed to accomplish many things and am an adult doing what I hope is good work, then I have to admit that I had and have many positives going on in my life, too.

How did I survive and in many ways flourish? How did I reach the point where I could seek help for myself and gain self-understanding?

For starters, I had people in my life who provided love, hope, support, structure, encouragement, smiles, consistency, trust, and values. Even when I was a lonely, scared child, there were people around me who cared and showed me that they cared.

My first grade school picture. I loved school and found acceptance there.

 I decided to compile a list of some of those people who were positive influences on me when I was a child, a teenager, and a young adult. Looking over this list reminds me of how I’ve been blessed, that all of my life has not been negative.

*My great aunt Ida. I wrote about her and her iris garden a couple of years ago. I stayed with her and my uncle quite a bit as a child when someone in the family was in the hospital. With her, I felt safe and cared for.

*My best friends’ mother, Barbara, who I wrote about almost a year ago. She treated me with respect by listening to me and showing interest in me. She encouraged me.

*The first Sunday school teacher I had. She showed interest in me, too, and never tried to dissuade me from coloring everything in purple. She never forgot that purple was my favorite color.

*My elementary school teachers. I was blessed to have good ones overall, and school was a source of happiness. I have especially fond memories of my second grade teacher, my fourth grade teacher, and my fifth grade social studies teacher. They allowed me to follow my curiosity and do more work than was assigned.

*My high school English teacher who taught me for three years. She encouraged me to think big about my future. Her choice of me for the English Award when I was a sophomore helped my self-esteem more than she ever knew.

*My first-year suitemates at the University of Virginia. They showed me that not everyone came from a family like mine, that there were other, and better ways, to interact with people and enjoy life.

*My friend D in graduate school at Bowling Green State University. She encouraged me to seek counseling by telling me that she had gotten counseling. I figured if someone as pulled together as she was could sometimes need help, then I could seek it too.

*My first talk therapist. I revealed things to her about the way I was raised and how depressed I was that I had never talked about with anyone else. She was also the first person to whom I revealed my OCD symptoms. She helped me to begin to move past unhealthy ways of thinking. She also referred me to a psychiatrist.

*My first psychiatrist. She formerly diagnosed me with depression and OCD and started treatment. She called me “high functioning,” which surprised me at the time. Now I realize that she saw more strength and capability in me than I did.

*My friends A and B in graduate school. They treated me with respect, spent time with me just hanging out and having fun, and encouraged me. They reflected to me that I was a valuable person. And they showed me other ways of living life than I was used to.

We never know when we can be a strong, positive influence on someone else’s life. We never know when the small things we do for others turn into big things for them.

Writing this post made me realize how much I want to be a positive influence in the lives of others.

In the comments section, name one person who had a positive influence on you as a child or younger person. Let’s remember together!

Just a reminder: My new blogging schedule is to post on Mondays and Thursdays. So I will see you again on Thursday.

Asking the question, Who am I?

"Hidden clover" 

Asking myself the question, who am I, is not new for me. I have often wondered who I am in relation to mental illness. Would I be the same person if I didn’t have OCD? How would I be different if I didn’t have depression? Am I who I am partly because of the mental illness?

I am asking myself the question with a new concern now.

Since my mother’s suicide attempt a month ago, I’ve been flooded with all kinds of memories from my childhood and young adulthood.

Therapy over the years made me aware of my unhealthy childhood. And I made great strides in moving away from negative beliefs about myself. In many ways, I thrived.

But I stayed in a toxic relationship with my mother because I believed I had to. And I never fully faced what my childhood had been like and how much the anger and resentment I had stemmed from that.

My mother’s actions and the aftereffects a month ago tipped me over.

I’ve had to face the fact that I had a lousy childhood. There’s no longer any way I can dress it up and make it look reasonably OK for the rest of the world. It’s time for me to be honest about it with myself and with others.

And I have to look at myself and figure out how much of this past junk I’m still carrying around with me.

With the help of my psychiatrist, I’ve realized that my way of being in the world and my way of handling relationships were heavily influenced and shaped by my mother.

I’ve worked on this before, but now I am especially mindful about the ways I may be carrying on the habits learned from an abusive past.

So now that I know without a doubt that my mother’s influence was and continues to be toxic to me, how do I answer that question—who am I?

As I am apt to do in any new situation, I’ve been reading a lot. One helpful work I came across in my search was an article called “You Carry theCure In Your Own Heart,” by AndrewVachss. The article was first published in 1994 in Parade Magazine.

Vachss is an author and an attorney who works with children and youth.

Here is a passage from that article:

“If you are a victim of emotional abuse, there can be no self-help until you learn to self-reference. That means developing your own standards, deciding for yourself what "goodness" really is. Adopting the abuser's calculated labels—"You're crazy. You're ungrateful. It didn't happen the way you say"—only continues the cycle.”

This new journey of re-understanding of who I am is a difficult process for me, harder than it ever was before.

Meditation, reading, and writing in my journal have become very important ways to become aware of who I am without my mother, without the belief system that she started me on as a child. I want to be aware of what my values are, what my core beliefs are.

I keep telling myself, “I can do this. I am not alone.”

And I’m not alone. I know there are others who have gone before me who have overcome similar obstacles. I know there are those struggling with the same sorts of issues. I know there are people cheering me on. I believe there is a presence of Spirit—God, Creator—that I don’t understand but am becoming more aware of.

I pray. I meditate. I read. I write. I knit. I laugh with my husband. I hold my cat. I follow my doctor’s instructions and take the medication that helps enable me to do what I need to do.

And I find out who I am.

Love and saying no

“One of these days, I’m going to pack up my bags and leave. And then you’ll find out what it is to not have me around.”

I heard my mother yell those and similar words many times when I was a child. Usually it was during a tirade when she was complaining about how hard she worked and how little she was appreciated.

The words scared me. I pictured my mother packing suitcases—it was always two suitcases in my imagination—and leaving the house, leaving me behind.

What would I do without my mother?

It didn’t matter what kind of mother she was. I needed my mother, and I didn’t want her to leave.

I have been thinking about her words a lot over the past couple of weeks. Maybe they’ve been on my mind because her suicide attempt seemed like the ultimate threat. Perhaps that’s not a fair assessment, but that’s the connection I’ve made.

I told you in my last post that some wise people have helped me. One of those is my minister.

A few days after my mother was taken to the hospital, I met with him. I wanted to get feedback on my reaction to what she had done. I wanted to talk about the guilt that I felt because of all the anger and hate I felt, not just over the recent incident, but over a lifetime of pain.

During our conversation, I made the comment that I knew my feelings were wrong, that the Jesus of my faith tradition taught that we should love one another.

My minister said he couldn’t say what love was.

But he could say that love was not always saying yes. Sometimes, he said, love was saying no. Love didn’t mean that we had to put up with whatever someone did.

Those words helped me tremendously.

I have begun to see that loving my mother doesn’t mean that I have to place myself in circumstances where I am open to abuse.

I love my mother because that is what I needed to do as a child: bond with and love my mother.

She is my mother. She is not evil. She is not a monster.

But she has never acknowledged the truth about our past, nor does she admit that there’s anything wrong with the continuing put-downs, manipulations, and lies.

I was hoping that she would finally get the help that she needed. But she is choosing not to.

I rarely saw her or talked with her on the phone before her actions almost two weeks ago. I was trying to resolve my sense of guilt even then.

Now, I have a sense of resolution.

I cannot be around my mother, at least not now. I cannot talk to her or see her. I cannot have a relationship with her.

I don’t wish her harm. I hope she has a good life. I hope she is happy and healthy.

But for my own health, I have to stay away from her.