Don’t take it personally…

 

This is my new mantra.

In the end, almost nothing is personal, for reals. I am learning this in therapy. There really aren’t any slightings happening in most people’s decisions. Everyone does what’s best for them, and if we are hurt by the actions of others, it’s up to US to figure out why, not the person who’s just making the best decision for them or their entity at the time.

Yeah, I know, it’s one of the Four Agreements.

But it doesn’t FEEL that way, when something doesn’t go my way. I applied for two seasonal positions with Burning Man this year. I didn’t get either of them. My default way of thinking is that this is because I am deficient in some way. There must be something wrong with me, otherwise they would have chosen me. This was somewhat reinforced last year, because they DID choose me, and they made a place for me and made special accommodations for me because of the skillset that I brought to a particular department. As with all things, six months has passed since then. Their team is more solid, their staff have more experience. They needed me last year to provide stability and rangering. This year, they do not feel that need. They’d love it if I’d still volunteer for them. Of course they would. It’s free. hahahaha.

The second position was for a department I have worked for for about 18 years, but this was a paid position. They decided to go with someone who had no leadership of much history working with the department. I think in this case, the fact that I am super busy and already committed in many places, worked against me. They wanted someone, I believe with less time commitments, more availability, or less conflict. Okie dokie.

And…it’s hard for me, for that NOT to feel personal. I am trying hard to work through this. To do better with this. I also need to figure what I need to make me happy. It’s been so long since someone asked me that and I felt like the answer was something that was within my realm to make happen, it’s made me realize I really have been going through the motions for a number of years.

I have an amazing life, but it’s something I realize I’ve been doing IN ADDITION to being the primary caregiver for people who do not have my own interests at their forefront, like I have been giving to them. That stops. If I don’t give the most to myself, I’m not going to be any good to anyone else. I am learning.

I also saw, this week, how the pattern that I had with taking care of my sister has repeated itself in the way and pattern I got in to taking care of my daughter. They are so much alike, I think this is one of my major lessons in life to learn, it certainly keeps re-asserting itself in my life.

There’s a ton rolling around in my brain, but figured it was time for an update.

Peace.

Therapy FTW!

 In many areas of my communities, I am a leader. Last weekend, we hosted a “Town Hall” meeting for our Burning Man region, where people come to hear about the things that are happening in our local community for the season that will lead up to Burning Man, 2023. Someone at the place where the meeting was held, a place called The Generator, which is a local makerspace, was fostering kittens. These kittehs are probably the best socialized kitties I’ve seen. For proof of concept, here’s a picture of one being held and napping, in the arms of a local welding instructor:

I went to my first counseling appointment yesterday. It was sort of a revelation.

I think as parents, I used to say when my kids were little that the only real emotion I had time for was GUILT. I didn’t feel like I could do anything well, because I was required to do so many things. Can’t be a good parent because there’s always work. Can’t be a good employee because kids get sick and you have to miss work. Volunteer, and feel guilty about that because it takes time away from family and work. GUILT. GUILT. GUILT. I really thought I had been doing better. I do things for myself. I exercise for me. I travel for me, and generally make sure that I make time and money to be able to do that. Near the end of my session yesterday, the counselor said “I have been listening to you talk about your family for the last hour, and not ONE TIME, not at all during all of this, have you said what YOU wanted. Have you told me what makes YOU happy.” I told her that’s one of the huge reasons I had reached out. I don’t know anymore. I told her I’d been flummoxed because I was like “HOW THE FUCK DID I GET HERE? To this place?” I don’t know the answer to that. I am and have always been a giver. She also opened my eyes by suggesting that I look in to al-anon. This is going to be a tall order for me, because I generally like the format of twelve step programs, but I kind of loathe religion. That won’t go well for me, at all. I am going to try to find a meeting I can stomach the higher power stuff in. I did al-anon many, many years ago when my first husband was a rage-aholic and dry drunk, but it had never really occurred to me that it would be needed as my daughter navigated recovery in her addiction and how the patterns are still true.

The good news is that I sort of have hope now. We will see how it goes, I am sure there will be some uncomfortable stuff, and it’s not easy to stick up for yourself, when you’ve always been the one that kept things together. I was talking to my son-in-law this morning about generational trauma, and how much it affects us. I told him a couple of stories from the somewhat generation before him, because someone he’s close to told him one of our folks was an asshole. I said, yes, this person has some challenges, and let me tell you a story about what that poor guy endured from his parents when he was a child….and then let me tell you a story that HIS dad went through as a child. Both of them were horrible stories, no child should ever have to endure. And they are so normal to me, I could see his and my grandkids horror, telling these stories. I told them, “Hurt people, hurt people when they get bigger, if they don’t think about and resolve the hurts they suffered as children. We all have to make sense of things, to realize the hurts we endured aren’t because people maybe even intended to hurt us, but these things happen.

I have a feeling this diary is going to get a workout, as I go through all these things. I know, I need to figure what I need to do to make me happy, and what that looks like. I suppose I have been lazy in thinking about my own needs, or have just been in crisis mode for so long, I allowed myself to be last all this time because there was always something more pressing.

All for now.

Peace.

Friday, April 14, 2023

 

Life is looking a bit brighter today.

As I’m listening to this book, and reading in a couple of groups I joined about estrangement, I am recognizing both my privilege and realizing how lucky I am. I have some emotional intelligence that others may never gain. I read these stories and see parents lamenting about how they were good parents, and CANNOT accept any feedback or entertain any feedback from their adult children that they remember things differently. Ego and hubris, really. I’m not going to lie, it was bewildering to hear the things my daughter said, but being also an empath, I almost always try to see things from the other person’s point of view, so once I realized she was working on core trauma stuff, I did some reading to understand.

In the end, what does it cost me to ask and try to understand her point of view? What SHE remembers? It costs me nothing. I posted yesterday about the message I sent her, now I will post her response, with names changed to protect the innocent (or guilty, as the case may be),

“I’m not really sure where to start. I’m not ready to unpack my trauma with you or the way it was perceived from my stand point of being a child and growing up in our home. There’s a lot, and it’s not just you. It was grandma, and auntie, and step-dad, and bio dad. It was family trauma. My therapist had to abruptly leave the practice recently so I’ve been doing a lot of the work myself but that only works so much without the guidance of a professional. Nor do I want to get another therapist before I leave and get attached just to have to break up. With everything… just because I’m not ready to unpack my trauma with you specifically doesn’t mean I wish us to not communicate. You are my mom, and of course I love you dearly.

You did SO MANY thing right when I was a kid. You taught me to lead with love, accepting, and caring. It’s one of my most valued traits as an adult and one I have to thank you for. You took us outdoors and camping and all of those things which has left me with a lifelong love for nature and our earth. There’s a lot that I am thankful for, but that doesn’t make the trauma just not happen, nor does it heal that trauma.

Yknow and when I talk about my trauma, it’s not always all just based around you and our family. Between the ages of 11-23 I put myself in so many horrible situations mom, and then had the weirdest relationship with calling it trauma for the longest time because I “did it to myself”. Imposter syndrome about your own trauma? Is that a thing? Probably. But learning that it was trauma not the less and then healing from it has been such a wild journey.

But I hear you mom. I hear your apology and your desire to make it right. I hear your want to be in my life and grow from this. I appreciate it, and hope I can take these conversations as a learning lesson when my children are grown and trying to navigate their traumas as well.

My healing, right now, is a pretty solely internal journey. I need to recognize the parts of me that are traumatized, how they became that way, and how they’re affecting me in my day to day life, and especially in my parenting. I need to heal me first so I can be good for my babies and my husband. I need model better behavior to my entire family so that they can recognize a healthy family dynamics and communication. My healing journey started because of them, but it’s a me journey and even if I wanted to I couldn’t sit here and make a timeline of the moments that “traumatized” me in my life because truly, from the age of 23 and younger is such a whirlwind I’m not even entirely aware of everything that happened. But I need to heal first before I project that trauma onto the people who traumatized me because I need to be able to do it in a way that doesn’t cause more harm and if I did it now it would be for too emotional of an experience for me to do in a healthy way. There’s still a lot of pain, and I don’t want to cause other people pain because I’m hurting from un healed parts of me.

I admire her too. She is so strong. I think she is the best of me, in a lot of ways. She has demons and has dealt with things I will never have to deal with. Addiction to substances (besides food) is not a path I have had to walk, and I’m sure some of her coping mechanisms are from that. She tried to bury her pain for a long time in substances, which I certainly understand, I just don’t think I ever did that because I had kids so young, so already had too much responsibility to go down that path to the degree she did.

It occurred to me, that, like, everyone should be forced to have an internal clock that forces one to examine their psyche like, every five years. Who am I now? Who do I WANT to be? Am I there? How do I behave? Have I forgotten lessons? Do I need to re-examine them? How do the lessons I’ve learned changed as I become an older adult?

I had a conversation last night with a friend who really brought something home to me. I made a huge mistake in thinking that my daughter and I had transitioned from a “parent-child” relationship to a more egalitarian “adult-adult” relationship. This friend said, unless it is working on in therapy, it’s not possible to have an “adult-adult” relationship with an adult child, because they will ALWAYS see you as parent. I feel SO SAD that so much of what I thought was regular, adult communication with my daughter, she was perceiving as my trying to parent her, infantalize her, or judge her. That’s going to be something to forgive myself for, for reals.

Note to self: ALWAYS be willing to be shown a mirror, and to take that look at yourself,  and/or be willing to see how others see you. There is always room for growth, or ways to see things in a different light. For me, next up is my relationship. Until this “crisis”, I hadn’t realized how complacent I had become in so many different ways and areas in my life. I hadn’t worked on my relationship with my daughter, or updated it, checked in.

I am in much the same place with my relationship. I don’t know, anymore, if we belong together, or it would be better if we weren’t together. I just don’t know anymore. If someone is afforded dependence, do they rely on that? Does it excuse them from doing anything to help themselves? If they have cognitive deficits, are they capable? Or is it just convenient? These are hard thoughts, but they are things I need to figure out. I’ve also thought about how unfair part of this perspective is. If he were the sole working human, there wouldn’t really BE this conversation. It’s much more “socially acceptable” for women to stay home. If men stay home, what can the expectations be?

Todays thoughts….today I have to conduct a bunch of interviews for new student workers. Next week, Monday afternoon….therapy!

Peace.

A couple of days ago…

 

(last week, I traveled to Cincinnati, Kentucky, Detroit, Toronto, Niagara and flew home from Buffalo. This little birdie was in a park where we stopped to let the kids play in the Kensington district in Toronto.)

I unfollowed my daughter on Facebook.

A couple of weeks ago, we have a mutual friend who texted me (she’s “my” friend, but also a friend to my daughter…we’ve been friends a long time) and said “I get the feeling, every time B posts something about toxicity or relationships, she’s talking about you”.

Yep. That’s probably true.

What I am discovering is that, in reality, I am NOT alone. A lot of parents are going through “estrangement” from their adult children. This is hard and difficult and soul-wrenching stuff, ya’all.

Doing your best does not mean that’s how it was perceived by those you were doing it for. This realization hit me a couple years ago when I realized the two people I loved most in the world, have sacrificed for, have gone without so they could have the things they wanted, would not do the same for me. This years lesson appears to be, not only will they not do the same for me, I apparently have hurt, injured and traumatized them in ways I have no idea about. I am not unwilling to examine my own behavior. I’m not sure I want a future relationship with my daughter. She is not a safe person for me to be around. She does not define who I am, unless I choose to ingest that information. I will examine and acknowledge the hurts I may have caused her, even if I don’t understand them.

I am currently listening to a book called “Rules of Estrangement. Why Adult Children Cut Ties & How to Heal the Conflict”. I’ve also joined a couple of groups. I’ve also made a therapy appointment for next week, to talk to my EAP and likely head farther in to therapy my own self. I have some shit to figure out. This is new shit, about how things I did, that I didn’t intend to, were damaging to my daughter, that she’s now working through in therapy, as an adult.

I just sent this message to my daughter, “I am sorry for the trauma I caused you. I am sorry for the times in your childhood where my actions caused you harm, and that I did not help you feel loved, supported, and valued. I did not realize when that conversation happened that you were working on your core traumas. Now that I understand that and have been able to educate myself a bit about what that might be like for you, I am sorry. I am willing to be accountable for the actions of mine that caused you harm, and I want to let you know that I am open to working through that with you, if you ever get to that point. I love you, and I want nothing for you but your happiness and healing. All I ask is to please TELL ME if I cross a boundary you feel you have set with me. I am not a perfect human, and also have behavior patterns and don’t always know or realize I am crossing boundaries. I respect your boundaries, and your current distance. Future communication is in your court because I don’t want to do anything to make you feel unsafe or like I am not honoring those boundaries.” I followed it up with, “( I have no issue saying any of these things to you to your face and in person. Like you, I feel like I communicate better through writing, and I want you to always be able to have this to refer back to in case it is helpful for you in any way.)”

In my reading, adult children don’t want to hear excuses, or how hard we tried, or about the good job we thought we did as parents, they want the apology and the acknowledgement and the owning of our behaviors. I hope that it helps her be able to heal. I don’t know how much I care right now if she accepts it or not. It isn’t that I do not care, it’s that I cannot control the outcome, so all I can do is speak my peace, try to give her what she needs to heal, and hope that at some point maybe if and when she wants a relationship again, that the same thing also feels safe for me.

I know that my processing of all of this has just begun. I don’t know if I’ll ever know what I did that she thought was so injurious and I’m not sure how much that matters.

We are now navigating this thing.

Peace.

Hurt…

 

Hurt, by Johnny Cash. One of the most visceral and raw songs ever made, I believe. I believe when he made that song, and video, he knew he was dying. June was gone already.

How do you make a new normal when things you thought were true, are pointed out to you that you didn’t see the whole picture?!

I have a whole lot of processing to do of my own.

Decisions have been made, and my daughter will be moving most of the way across the country, to live closer to my son. As we speak, I am in Kentucky visiting my son.

There is no other way to say it. I am mourning the relationship I thought I had with my daughter. My bottom line is that she is no longer a safe person for me to be around, and to share with. I hope she gets back to that, but I have no control over that. It’s little things for me. We used to hang out and run errands together, on days off. We called it “poopin’ around”. It’s been a couple of years since she sought me out to do this. I didn’t know why. I wondered why she would commiserate about not having any friends when I was the best friend in the world, I thought. I don’t know when the switch in her mind happened, but she didn’t see me as a friend because she was waiting for me to apologize for things I didn’t know I had done wrong. She was processing my being at fault for a lot that was wrong in her life. That hurts.

I’ve written this before, but when I thought we were having adult conversations based in equality, she was seeing these same conversations as my trying to parent her still, trying to get my way, infantilizing her, or judging her. She’s said these things, I have told her to take her time, but I’m not unwilling to examine my own behaviors or how they might have been hurtful to her, but I’ve not managed mind reading yet, so I don’t know what I did that hurt her.

She took my grand daughter out shopping the other day, and I saw them at a store that I also went to. I almost left crying because I would have loved to have been invited shopping with them, but that’s not the place we are in relationship right now. She just said her and Mel were going out, not where and not invited.

I am so at a loss. I know everyone’s kids have to grow up, I guess I just always thought I’d be close with my kids, but that is not to be.

I am in Kentucky, visiting my son. I just saw the house where my daughter will be living. I hope they can make a smooth transition, I am happy for her. Always, with our children, what we want for them is their agency and their happiness. No matter how non-judgmental or loving you try to be as a parent, maybe it’s too much to expect to remain close. Maybe this is why our fractured society has older adults finding “family of choice”, because some of this is inevitable. You give your whole heart and souls to raising children and trying to make beautiful people. And then are sometimes excluded from their lives.

Hurting.

Peace.