Backing up.

I have neglected an important part to my story, that I would now like to share. Up until about 1 year ago, I never even talked about my dysfunctional relationship with my mother. I had never allowed myself to stare the darkness in the face so to speak. Well, in August, I started counseling and seeing a naturapath for some anxiety I had been experiencing. I was having some adrenal and thyroid problems caused by a head injury from a few years back, but throughout the course of treatment, just like peeling back the layers of an onion, other sources of the anxiety were beginning to surface.

So, I began sharing with him my story. At this time, I feel stuck in grief. Like I just can't plow through it. But it's not just the loss of my father...there is something deeper and I can't put my finger on it. I feel a well of anger just sitting underneath. A fear that I can't put a name to, and deep sadness over my life. I know WHO it is at, but I can't figure out why. So, I was talking with my Naturapath about why I think the grief is complicated. I feel like I'm grieving over my childhood. I have always felt a profound sadness over my life, but I'm not sure exactly what. I'm still processing all the information. It's almost like my body held the memories, but my mind was just a spectator of the events. I know that I never had a place where it was safe to share my emotions. It's called "containment". When a child feels their emotions, they are overwhelming and loud. If a parent, usually the mother, is not able to contain the emotions or hold them into herself FOR the child, and instead, displays an inability to comfort, console or even shows a lack of empathy for the child's emotions, the child learns that their emotions are in fact, big, and scary, and not even his mother can contain them. They learn, in effect, they they are not safe, and that the world is not safe. If your own parents feel overwhelmed by what you feel, then who can you turn to for safety?

I have been studying up on childhood development and attachment so I can learn to understand how my daughter is growing and how to nurture that, but I was surprised at the uprising of emotion that came as I learned these things. I have very vivid memories of hiding my emotions from my mother. I can see it now, the moment an emotion would begin to rise up in me, my face turning to stone and the words "I'm fine" would come out, and a smile would cover the pain I felt inside. I hid the good and the bad, but especially the bad. Because the bad was too bad, but the good wasn't good enough to be noticed. It truly was all about her and how she felt and there was no room in her world for silly, childish emotions.

I thus learned to keep it all inside. Even now, my fingers take frequent pause and tremble on the keyboard. I am afraid to tell the details of my story for fear that she might find out and reprimand me. I am staring it in the face, but I'm afraid to acknowledge it as "my story." I don't know if this makes sense. But for me, to acknowledge it as mine means that I have to own the pain, the anger and the deep sadness over parts of me that were lost along the way.

Sitting with my counselor, she could tell that I was struggling. I'm shaking in my seat as I try to express what I feel because I'm still trying to be nice. I'm struggling to understand why my mother did the things she did and how she was unable to see how she hurt me, and still own the fact that I am entitled to my feelings. So she says "I need you to be honest. Don't be nice right now, just be honest." So then they came...slowly, but very angrily...the hurt came out.

I have been denying how I felt out of guilt and shame, trying to like my mother...trying to find anything good about her to cling to. How can you hate your own mother? I get this message all the time from well meaning people. First of all, I don't hate her, but neither do I truly "like" who she is. "You only see your mom once a month?" "yes...and that is more than enough right now." If you own mother doesn't love you, what hope do you have in this world? If your own mother isn't good, then how can you trust anything or anyone? It is true- the trust developed during attachment is the foundation for EVERY other relationship- including your relationship with God.

I fought this for a long time...pretending there were not cracks in my foundation when it was this very foundation God was seeking to demolish. I feared the exposure of my wounds for fear that they might never be healed, yet God exposes so he can heal. He breaks down so He can build up again, the way it was originally intended to be.

Isaiah 54:11 "O you afflicted [city], storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in fair colors [in antimony to enhance their brilliance] and lay your foundations with sapphires. And I will make your windows and pinnacles of [sparkling] agates or rubies, and your gates of [shining] carbuncles, and all your walls [of your enclosures] of precious stones.And all your [spiritual] children shall be disciples [taught by the Lord and obedient to His will], and great shall be the peace and undisturbed composure of your children.You shall establish yourself in righteousness (rightness, in conformity with God's will and order): you shall be far from even the thought of oppression or destruction, for you shall not fear, and from terror, for it shall not come near you."

So, I do not despair at my brokenness...I know that Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted and that he is near those who are crushed in spirit. I know that he desires for me to be a complete person, so that I can run more fully, and wholly in Him. And truthfully, I can't wait to see what he makes out of this pile of dust. I'm not sure HOW HE will do it, but this fact just requires that I lean all the more heavily upon the cross.

I realize the details are vague, and at some point I hope to be able to share them without fear, but I'm not quite there yet.