Simon Says

The Muse Who Walks in Fire

The muse who walks in fire will consume you if you do not have your own fire within you. Be as bright as the flames you seek to warm you.

Pleasure from pain?

Must first my heart be destroyed before it can know how to defend itself? If that is the case, than I must have certainly paid my dues by now.

Hydration by rumination

About one year ago, my therapist asked me if it would surprise me to hear someone characterize my relationships with my father and step-father, during my formative years, as abusive. At that moment, I recalled hearing my mother frequently refering to my father as emotionally abusive when I was just a girl. That was knowledge I acquired long before I would understand its implications.

In that moment, I thought also of my step-father, Steve. I remembered the hours spent receiving lectures late into the night and early into the morning, even on school nights, over matters that, in retrospect, seem like pretty innocent adolescent shenanigans. I remembered watching him 'spank' my then 17 year old sister in a fit of rage. She was old to enough to fight back then, and she did, but she could not possibly expect to win. We did not win arguments with adults at that age. There are too many lessons to learn, I suppose, for them to let us be right about anything, especially when they are men who must insist their righteousness to little girls. Regardless, it was always worse when we fought back, as it was for her then.

On that day, in that tiny little office with my therapist, I told him that no, I was not surprised. What I had not considered until that very moment however, was that if my fathers were abusing someone, that logically made my sister and mother and me: VICTIMS. The idea of this slowly moved in and settled over me like a paralyzing fog. I suffered serious cognitive dissonance regarding being a victim during that time. Previously, I regarded myself as someone who recognized and addressed bad behaviors committed against me, and thus commanded/demanded respect in return for my friendship. Even still, this information promised that I was unaware of my own behavior, and the way it allowed, condoned, or in some cases, even invited abuse back into my life. I also discovered that with these fearful behaviors, also came my propensity to blame myself for everything. This i what makes me come to apology and to take accountability before so many others. Apparently that comes with trying to figure out how to keep explosive anger from exploding. The "I had it coming"/victim blaming mentality. As it turns out victims already blame themselves more than you ever could.

But wait, there is more! There is a sad and tortured mix of side effects that come along with this. One is the quite obvious result of me being further abused emotionally, another is a common response to the abuse: hyper vigilance, among other things. What this means is that I can become defensive at times when there may not be any real threat. For example, suspecting someone of committing similar acts as previous abusers, simply because the situation sparks a memory or feels familiar. Once bitten, twice shy, as they say. This is what all living creatures do; they survive by evolution, which is just a fancy way of saying they survive by avoiding that which most threatens their existence.

And yet.

Does this fear and hyper vigilance help us survive, or does it hinder us? As with most defense mechanisms, I guess it does both. My first defense is to use my wits to escape, but when that doesn't work I will puff myself up and raise my voice, if that is what it takes to be heard. These are not uncommon behaviors for people in crisis. The problem arises when we find ourselves actively participating in patterns that repeatedly lead us back to that state of crisis, and we act out those behaviors regularly. That is, in essence, a very, very bad habit, regardless of whether you fight or flee from conflict. It is a strange kind of behavioral addiction, which i believe can be just as dangerous to our health as drug abuse or smoking.

So this is where my rumination deposits me early on this Saturday morning. I am trying to identify the things that I need from others to feel good, the things that make me feel threatened or invalidated, and the behaviors that drive me to, and away from, these opposing forces. I cannot continue, monogamously or otherwise, to participate in these old routines of abuse. They creep into the most benign situations and truly poison the well quite irrevocably. The jig is up!  I am through being naive.

My therapist tells me we all commit tiny acts of abuse, and have them committed against us, in every relationship. In most cases, according to him, they are minor offenses. The treatment of which we should be wary, is when someone repeatedly sends us into crisis, regardless of their original intentions. Try to keep in mind that abuse can go both ways. Some people are mean, and will abuse you physically, mentally, and/or emotionally. There are also people who have been abused, whose patterns of behavior may seem to force you or lure you into roles that don't suit you. What is far more likely to happen, are that two people who are in love act out the sins of their past against one another without ever knowing it.

The real skill therefore, is in knowing when enough is enough. This is why I am using this time to take stock, and really get to know those things which I cannot abide, and also that which my heart desires most sincerely. I will learn to identify my own crises when they are happening, and how to avoid them without blaming myself.

I hope this helps some of you. I hope you can learn to see that we each have the capacity to be both abuser and victim. Mere fear of re-abuse can trigger more abuse, and that is different from what we expect with our modern sense of dualism. It is easy to see things in black and white, but that is misleading. Just remember, there is no right or wrong. There is only life, and people who try to survive it.

Fetish Photo Friday 4-11-14: Forniphilia Part III

Fetish Photo Friday 4-11-14: Forniphilia Part II

Fetish Photo Friday 4-11-14: Forniphilia

Forniphilia:

This fetish describes sexual arousal from the presence or use of human furniture.

steady myself on regularity

The clock has become my new best friend. Wordlessly I watch it move throughout the day, ticking off one interval on my way to another, measuring weeks out into budgets of food and cash and time. I cling to these constants while every other detail in my life continues on in what can only be called epic transformation. The changes, oh, the changes have me seasick. The life that I knew a year and a half ago is not the life that I lead now, and those changes have changed me, which made me want to change myself even more. Even still, I lament the person I once was with nostalgia. I kick and pout and cling to the trappings of a younger age, even though I am aware of the lateness of the hour. The sun has set upon my youth, but with that has come a great many wonderful achievements, experiences, and opportunities. Yet nevertheless, I still cling with white knuckles to the constants of the day, steadying myself upon their regularity as everything continues to change.