My brain is full of patterns. I’m trying to learn to pick them apart if they are negative, leave the working ones alone, and create better, more positive patterns in my head, so I can be better.
One pattern is “that I MUST NOT BE WITHOUT MY TECH.” And so I freak out without knowing where my phone is (there’s a reason for it, beyond the normal tech addiction our world has…. that’s for another time.).
This is a pattern that is comfortable, and I am okay with.
Then, there are patterns I try to create, for my well being. Most of these are difficult and uncomfortable such as:
“I CAN HAVE A DAY WHERE I DO NOTHING.”
Nothing. Is defined as nothing I feel compelled to, pressured to, that must respond to, nothing that involves learning, communication, etc.
Nothing that I do for ANY reason but pleasure.
Both of them, are patterns. Both good patterns, but one is so much easier than the other and I don’t understand why.
I know this makes NO sense. But, it is important.
I need to stop trying to RUN my life.
I need to start trying to LIVE me life.
I need to adjust these patterns in my brain. I can’t explain it any better than that.
It’s very hard. I have certain disorders that control my thinking. Everyday is a competition between my conscious and subconscious. Between the autopilot, ingrained, unwanted, but survival mode patterns and routines of my mind, and the things I actually WANT and need to do.
My subconscious programming attempts to keep me safe, by confining me to the patterns it has decided are what I need in order to be okay. But, I desire more than just okay.
It seems perhaps like an easy thing to make ones mind subject to their own will. I don’t think it actually is, not even for “normal” people. Most people just live. They rarely stop to evaluate their life, actions, causes, effects, or the thinking that has led them to where they are and if they don’t like that, to search for the way to change things. Most don’t realize that for the most part, we have the ability to mentally create our world. To a certain degree. Nature vs. Nuture comes into play. As does personality, and health.
But, for me, I find the challenge to be mostly in my own head.
For example, there are a billion things I NEED to do right now.
I am being compelled. By FEAR. that’s the thing that actually runs my life.
I just told my husband that my blanket smells like candy.
I realized about 5 minutes after I said it that…..I’m pretty sure my blankie smells like “candy” because somehow my sample of that “Prada Candy Perfume” that I love so much, got on it.
I had the sample yesterday. It’s possible that the sample is completely totally dumped out. Gone.
My brain is TRYING desperately to convince me that I HAVE TO GET UP AND FIND THAT SAMPLE. Because it’s my fave. If I lose it, I’ll cry.
And so my mind has gone into a NEGATIVE MODE.
Instead of understanding that I could always go get another sample. Hell, if I like it THAT much, maybe I SHOULD buy a bottle. Either way, whatever happened, has already happened, my mind is consumed with fear and anxiety.
I realize, consciously, that I can either jump out of bed, in a panicked state, pumping my adrenaline, and then things will start snowballing into a full day of “dealing” and “coping” and “reacting” and “responding”……..
OR
I can simply lay here, and bury myself in the smell that is so yummy. Relax. Get up “on the right side of the bed”.
It might not even BE the sample perfume.
Then, my brain screams “oh shit!!!! What else could it be??? Oh my god, what if it’s something MORE precious and important. Or something toxic! You HAVE to see!!!!”
No. Brain. No. I DONT. I LIKE WHAT I AM DOING RIGHT NOW. I don’t care what made my blankie smell like this. I’m ENJOYING IT. SHUT UP.”
See, there is a mental tug of war. When I allow myself to be COMPELLED, I’m the one who is losing.
Because a compulsion is not what I WANT to do.
A compulsion is not something I enjoy.
A compulsion is something I am DRIVEN, to do.
Driven, like a prisoner in the backseat of a police car.
You know driven, forced, out of my own control ….. which is fucked up, bc if you asked me years ago, I would have said “I don’t allow anything to CONTROL me, that I want to.” Yet, I have allowed my own mind to “imprison me.”
I became convinced that patterns, routines, order, ARE EVERYTHING IN LIFE.
I have developed more and more things, that I must do, in order, in a specific manner, in my day to day life, that I have believed were helpful to me, and that’s not to say they aren’t ALL helpful. Some are. But, MANY OF THEM, are LIMITING my ability to actually ENJOY my life.
It’s become STRESSFUL to be spontaneous. To not KNOW everything going on around me. To not have my morning cigarette. To not do things in what my own mind has determined is the CORRECT WAY.
I DONT KNOW HOW THIS HAPPENED.
I know WHY. Somewhat.
I was out of control. In a severe manic episode.
Then, I got sick, with the pancreatitis. And that took ALL OF MY CONTROL FROM ME.
I got so scared. I became afraid of my mental health finally unequivocally containing things that my mother was diagnosed as having, that I had prayed….One of the few things I prayed about, just because someone MIGHT be listening….. would skip me, genetically. The very same prayer I had said for my children.
My diagnosis was like listening to the gates of hell shutting behind me, as I stood looking at the underground of my life, being welcomed home. Sad thing is, I wasn’t even afraid for myself as much as I should have been.
Because my mother, sure, she has her cross to bear, I don’t discount that. I know the majority of what is wrong with her, is legitimately, illness, disability, mental health issues.
But, my mother does not seek to change herself. She seeks out those who might change the world around her. She uses those people, for a long as she can, till they get tired, worn down, burdened, with her problems. Either they BREAK, LEAVE, or WHATEVER THEIR WAY OF HANDLING IT BECOMES.
I will NEVER justify what the person who abused my mother in Missouri did to her. It was wrong. He was weak. He was so weak, that instead of walking away from her, he became the monster himself. I don’t feel for him. Because a person who allows them self to resort to hitting a physically and mentally disabled woman, to locking all of her belongings in his shed for over a year, without giving her access to them, to taking to battery out of her van, that the state provided, modified, so she could drive while IN HER WHEELCHAIR, so that she couldn’t go anywhere……. that person, though he was possibly driven to feeling he should take those actions because of who she is, is still a cretin. He was even weaker than her. That’s why he had to control her and hit her, to make him FEEL like he was a bigger, stronger, person than her. But, he wasn’t.
Even still, he, just like everyone else my mother used, was being used by my mother. My mother does not carry her own burdens. She never has. She is handed a problem by life, and she looks at it, and starts crying. Until someone picks it up and handles it for her.
That is what she did to me. And then, when I moved out, to the next oldest. She went through four of us. I think she severely damaged us all. But, I’ve wondered, over the past few years, why we all came out SO different. I think now, that maybe it had to do with our age differences.
I was 11, when the shit storm started. I don’t know if my dad’s death triggered some of her underlying illnesses, but I have thought for a couple of years now, that maybe it DIDN’T.
Maybe, until that point, my DAD had been carrying that burden himself. That man LOVED her. Like nothing I had every seen. His love for her, and us, and his happiness on a daily basis…….. were ever so visible. He couldn’t hide it if he wanted to. But, he never tried. He loved us all. We were his whole world.
I look back now, now that my memories seem to be coming back, which is a discussion for a different day, and I remember how he loved when Mom would bring us by the station, for any reason. To bring him lunch, or get something from him.
He would stand up, really tall, bend down, arms opened and say “come on”. It didn’t matter if there was just one of us, or all four, we would rush and get into the big arm hugs of “Winnie the Pooh.” He loved that character. We all had a name of a character. He could pick up any 2 of us at once.
But, more than two at once, that depended on which ones were there. He never skipped an opportunity to “show us off”. Anywhere. To anyone. Mom too. He would grab her hand, and take whatever she may have been holding, set it down. He would hold her hand above her head and say “twirl pretty girl”. My mom would blush. But, she would do it anyway, and then, he would spin her in for a kiss.
The guys at the station ragged him about it. Only sometimes. It’s hard to be mad or even talk shit, about like, being pussy whipped, or whatever, when a man is so OBVIOUSLY in love with his family and his life. The smile on his face was never fake, or ever reserved, or even strained.
I know. I make him sound like a saint. He wasn’t. He had issues. He slept with our baby sitter once. Only once. That guilt and grief hung over him. I didn’t know why it was there. Not till years after he died. But, I knew how to make it go away. Big neck hugs. Nose kisses. Begging for a strawberry shortcake for breakfast.
Mom always let him get away with that one. They were homemade, little angel food cakes, with fresh cut strawberries in their own juice, with just ENOUGH sugar. My mom kept them in the fridge for me, always. You just plopped them on the shortcake, added cool whip, and mom always made him make sure I had some cheese and milk with it. That was the ONLY “mom approved desert for breakfast”. My favorite. I still love them. Though I can’t say I have eaten any, in at least a decade. Probably more like 2.
My point is…. he was human. Probably more faulty than I ever knew. That’s not my fault. I was still young enough that when he died, I didn’t really have access to or memory of, “bad times”.
But, for every fault he had, my mom still loved him. Her heart shattered the day he died. We all lived that same, horrible day. We all broke. We all remember it exactly the same. But, we all tell the story different because we each experienced that same moment in time, together, but separately.
So, it only makes sense, that I, an 11 year old, had more years to experience that love, that FAMILY, to see mom, unbroken, than my 6 year old, and 5 year old brothers, and my 3 year old sister. It makes sense that I have a much stronger sense of FAMILY. Of what it really means, that they do.
It also makes sense that….. at 11, I had fewer years, to remain in that brokenness, in the despair of a love lost, the illnesses that either followed his death, or were revealed by it, because maybe he had been holding her together all that time. Even when they were separated.
When she moved us to Dallas. For almost 2 years. I, myself, understand, just how little (or how much, depending on how you see it) difference, a few years in a different state, can make on a love that is TRUE. I only spent almost 4 years in California.
My siblings, though, they EACH, had years less than I did, living in an environment and having the understanding of the love and devotion, and the way that things were before. They had more of living in the aftermath, of the horror, the things no child should see, experience, or be expected to be okay after seeing. More time, living in the shadow of a love ripped apart. Of a mother, who’s only reason for staying alive (except on the days she lost all reason) was to take care of the children that love had made.
Because he would have wanted her to. Despite the fact, that she couldn’t make it in this world without him, and that every time one of her children cried for him, or said his name, she cried too, and after soothing our sorrows, retreated to her room, as soon as she could, to cry her heart numb again.
She raised us, in a life of grief. In a world where everything and everyone was (in reality) against her and she had to fight for everything, for us.
Is it any wonder that she, so many years later, in the degradation of her heart, mind, and body, from age and illness, believes that the world is still against her? That she DESERVES what she takes that isn’t hers. That she only cares for herself? It’s not an excuse. It’s a reason.
What do I mean by that?
An excuse….. it admits something happened, but usually for an acceptable cause, and that you aren’t held to blame for it. A reason, is the rationale, the cause of the thing that happened. However, a reason, does not necessarily make the occurrence ACCEPTABLE.
Because whatever has occurred is not an acceptable thing, and it doesn’t matter why. It’s not a justification. It’s simply a matter of cause and effect. Sometimes, a person can choose how the cause impacts them, sometimes they can’t. In a lot of cases, I believe it solely depends on the individual and the characteristics and traits they have.
Which brings you to the argument over nature vs. nurture. In the case of my siblings and I, I do know that we each have distinctive personality traits.
As we all grew up, I saw things in each of us, that were the things that would be what made our lives okay. They would be our strengths. Even though, I had no clue what actually was going on. I acted on instinct. Until I was old enough to begin to understand what my “acting on instinct was”.
The verification of that, for me, is the simple fact, that I never actually SAW the negative aspects of my siblings. To ME, they were simply things KIDS DID. Especially, to those siblings. And the things that WERENT, in my limited opinion, normal, “obviously was simply an effect of what the trauma had on us”. It made sense to me. No one ever told me any different. I don’t think I ever asked.
Maybe if I had, things would be different. Maybe I could have told them, not just that “……… is what makes you strong, and beautiful. It’s what you have inside you that will make everything okay.” But, also that “……..is what I see inside you that if you don’t try hard to make sure that it isn’t what controls you, it might overpower all the good things inside you, and that would make me sad. Because you have so much potential. Everyone has faults though. And if you don’t know what yours are, they will run your life.”
I didn’t see the negative traits as issues. We were kids. All of us. Even though I wasn’t a living the life of a child anymore. You can’t have the responsibility I did and the determination that I was going to take care of us all, mom too, and keep us together, no matter what…… and still be a child. I look back now, and I see that I never had a snowballs chance in hell of making everything okay. I wasn’t a superhero. I didn’t have a time machine. I didn’t have the education, or the understanding that I do now.
I understand now, that those of us, who were older, had a better idea of “good, happy, normal, loving, beautiful” and that according to the order of our birth, that comcept, diminished.
The reverse is also true. Those of us, who were younger, spent much more time, living in a broken, terrible, fearful, abnormal, love-starved, and ugly, environment.
So, in my experience, I feel that nurture won. In this case. We all had strengths and we all had weaknesses. That’s called personality. I think we are born with gifts and with challenges.
A person in an optimal condition, to sway those traits one way or the other, would be the only person, in which NATURE, could POSSIBLY (because maybe even not then) be the ONLY factor in the outcome of of that person’s life direction. I think a good example of this, might be the movie “The Truman Show.” In a life were everything was real, but perfectly planned in order to let nature take its course. Problem is, there will never actually be a means to allow nature to take its course, in order for a viable test of the theory. Because the moment ANY control is taken upon an individuals environment, the MOMENT ANY OUTSIDE influence, is placed in someone’s path, the purity of nature, is tainted by the questionable, and unknowable effect of nurture.
In my opinion, nurture wins.
The only caveat to that, is whether or not SOMEONE some how, teaches a person that they HAVE a choice. There is ALWAYS a choice. Some people, like my youngest sister, were never given that information. So, they believe that instead of finding things within self to adjust in order to live the life that makes breaths matter, that they have no option except to see EVERYTHING and EVERYONE as a threat, as something to beat. By whatever means possible.
It’s true. There will always be………
…….. UNFINISHED MORNING RAMBLE………posting anyway.
Anticipating Procrastination by Chrys Albarado 