How do you recover from child abuse?

[blind_otter]

Ok I'm here. My vagina has not yet been sliced open. The doctor wanted to wait, as I don't have insurance and the procedure itself is cheap, but the inpatient hospital bill would NOT be.

 

I joked about cultivating a better relationship with my vagina, only to have him take me totally seriously. He didn't even crack a smile, but nodded sagely. He was much nicer than the last OBGYN I had.

 

THe swelling has gone down tremendously in the last week, so just my luck when I finally get to see the doc, it's so small he says it would be hard to operate on, like trying to operate on a wet grape.

 

He also said that if I want it to go away forever, I have to get the bartholin's glands removed completely. Talk about a dry bush.

[Mz. Pixie]

Wow, Becoming, what a great breakthrough for you!

 

Yes, E- that was terrible about your brother, I'm sooo sorry.

 

I've felt better today. I was off work and I got some shopping in with my mother in law and had lunch with her and her friends, which is always fun. I have a hair appt for Saturday I'm looking forward to. A new place. I usually do it myself but I figured what the hell?? My mother in law said if that's all it took to perk me up she could handle keeping that paid for!

 

Last night was a good night with my hubby. We talked more and he's still adamant about going to therapy with me. He thinks I should go weekly but I don't think it will take that much. He asked me why I didn't try a different hospital- but then I remembered that my ex would use that against me no doubt if I had to be put back in another time with court stuff coming up so I'll have to pass on that. He made me a lovely dinner and rubbed my back for a long time and then we had fabulous sex! Two thumbs up for great sex!!

 

BO hasn't checked in with her story about the hoo ha doctor- hope you are okay Bot!

[enki]

Thank you MzP and Becoming for your kind words about my brother. He was a great guy and a wonderful pianist. (Yes, MzP. I do have an air-headed habit of floating off into the stratosphere with intellectual speculation. Thanks for regrounding me! )

 

Becoming, not only are you a remarkably skillful observer of the psyche: you are an extraordinarily talented writer and your verbal imagery is superb. Your description of The Watcher was hauntingly luminous and evocative. She sounds very much like “Wisdom” in Christian iconography.

 

“For her thoughts are filled from the sea, and her counsels from the great deep.”

 

“I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth as a mist. I dwelt in high places, and my throne is in the pillar of the cloud. Alone I compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in the depth of the abyss. In the waves of the sea, and in all the earth, and in every people and nation, I had a possession.”

(The Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus Chapter XXIV.)

 

There is also a beautiful description of Wisdom as co-creator of the world in Proverbs Chapter 8. The whole chapter is delightful poetic imagery, but just as a taste:

 

“I have been established from everlasting,

From the beginning, before there was ever an earth.” (Verse 23.)

 

So Wisdom is probably a Christian version of Aphrodite (Latin Venus) who was often worshipped as “the Venerable,” i.e., the most ancient. She and Becoming’s lovely Greek Goddess Athena were often worshipped together.

 

There is also some equation between Inanna, Aphrodite/Athena and the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit, but I understand that different Christian denominations view this in a variety of ways, so I’d have to check it out so as not to offend anyone.

 

With respect, MzP I am not floating off on another balloon ride. The Gods and Goddesses are rather like the major programs that run the human brain, just as Windows helps run a computer. Our parents may have tried to destroy us, but they could never destroy the Goddesses and Gods. So quite often we can heal ourselves and others by re-establishing our relationship to these deities. And like computer programs, they actually dictate what we do and say. You illustrated this very nicely in your post when you said “Two thumbs up for good sex;” not three cheers, but two thumbs. The muscular mound at the base of each thumb is called the “Mount of Venus,” and who after all is the Goddess of good sex?

[Becoming]

. . . Both of our parents were very violent bad-tempered people with serious shadow problems. As a result, they would never tolerate even the slightest expression of aggression from any of us, the kids. Even saying “damn” could lead to a serious bashing from either or both parents. I still hate to think what might have happened if we ever said anything more colourful!

 

Moreover, they expected instant, blind unquestioning obedience, and failure to comply led to a box over the ears at least, and often much worse.

 

You got that right! "When I say jump, you jump. You don't stop to ask why, you don't stop to ask how high, you just jump." I forget what number that was, but it was in my father's verbal rant repetoire. My sisters and I had them all numbered and would hold up our fingers in analysis of the various rifts. My father was very good with language; he just abused its power. "Now class," she said in her best English teacher voice, "note the rhythm and rhyme of that statement. Quite powerful poetically. . . . "

 

This had two consequences. First, we all inhibited our anger to a ridiculous degree, and second, self-motivation disappeared with it, because as Becoming mentioned,

“The anger is the only thing that keeps me going some days.”

i.e. We need a modicum of aggression (assertiveness) to make us do anything by self-motivation. If all the motivation is applied from parents, so they get their way, we are left with nothing inside us to do what we want for our own needs.

 

This is so true for me! BOt, was it you who referenced learned helplessness--those classic psych experiments with rats who rewarded for opening one door, but shocked if they opened the other. About the time they learned which was which, the sadistic experimenters changed the doors and again, and again, until the poor rats just sat there after awhile and didn't try at all anymore. My parents' anger had the same effect on me.

 

This culminated in my closest brother who got schizophrenia, a disease marked by serious complete inertia and lack of motivation. After a half-hearted knife attack on the parents, he was sent to hospital, from which he escaped and committed suicide by standing up in front of a speeding train.

This and BOt's description of her father turning away as her mother dragged her away and MzP's sexual abuse are images that haunt me. Maybe it's because of what's happened to me that compassion for others' pain overwhelms me. I want to comfort all the starving babies and bony mothers trying to nurse them with no milk in Africa . . . and I can't, of course.

 

From the past two days’ posts it would appear that all of us have loads of aggression and rage with nowhere to direct it, so we turn it back on ourselves, resulting in depression, with its inevitable consequence, lack of self-motivation. Then we get angry at ourselves for being angry at ourselves and the downward spiral resumes.

 

To make the inertia worse, if overbearing parents were the usual source of our motivation, when we escaped them, our “get up and go, got up and went!”

 

Word, enki! Do you mean our internalized overbearing parent? My GI Jane character? Actually she's like Maggie Smith's housekeeper character in the movie The Secret Garden. Cold, organized, controlling, but also efficient--she gets things done. This was like my mother who moved me around like yet another moving box or piece of furniture that wouldn't stay put.

 

But aggression is an instinct! Our parents can’t remove an instinct, no matter how hard and how often they bash us. All they can do is alienate us from it. If that’s true, we can reconnect with it, so long as we can identify it and treat it appropriately.

 

I believe, I believe! This is what I'm working on, I think, but it's hard.

 

The pattern went like this.

1. It is not really maternal.

“… the protector part of me. It's like a competent mother figure. I think the mom I would try to be if I had children, which may or may not ever happen. Stern and unapologetic. Short with words. But a motivating force... it only comes out for me when I am totally and utterly at the bottom of the pit and exhausted into my bones.”

(Blind Otter.)

 

Ok, I know we're talking about something else but I wanted to respond to BOt on this. My protector and my mother figure are like two separate figures in me. Or maybe two sides of the same coin? But you would not be such a mother BOt. Oh, sure sometimes. Being a parent is hard. But you wouldn't ordinarily. I beat myself up for being a bad mother when, in fact, I'm just not a perfect mother. One of the best moments in my life was when my daughter told me that all her friends want me as their mother and I joked, "Yeah, but you set 'em straight on that, huh?" "No we all decided it'd be great fun as long as we kept the stairs clear" (thing I yell about re: house clutter because it's dangerous). Folks who're in touch with their inner child usually do well with children because we can remember and empathize better. So don't be afraid of mothering however that task comes (as friend, aunt, SM, mother, etc.)

“…We're waiting for our Mommies to come tell us what to do, and they ain't gonna come.” (Becoming.)

 

Even if they did, they'd show up in b!tch form, and we'd just rebel. So who needs that?

 

2. It’s most certainly not external masculine.

“It's like he doesn't believe me when I say I'm incapable of focusing on the positive right now. I keep telling him I know …” and

“I'm angry that he can't make it all better.” (Ms. Pixie.)

“And the man wonders why I'm angry? ?????” (Becoming.)

 

No Prince Charming's gonna ride in to save the day for us. D@mn that Snow White! That's the only Disney film I banned my daughters from owning, and when they did rent it and watch it, I dissected it from a feminist perspective and told them this was all a lie meant to keep girls from being whole persons captive to being housekeeper to seven little men (Oh, yeah, I'm a fun mother! ) They tease me by telling me that I'm teaching them to be paranoid lesbians when it comes to men. So? Ok, maybe not the paranoid part.

 

3. It is a feeling, not subject to rational dissection.

“… Angry that he thinks it can be explained away- or that I can just "change my thinking" and it will go away.” (Ms. Pixie.)

“The thing that really pisses me is that he doesn't seem to listen to me. He'll believe it if an authority says….. what I've spent years telling him, but he won't believe me, who is the authority on me and what I'm feeling.” (Becoming.)

 

But subject to some rational control (ours--not anyone else's), I think, or our emotions are like the wild things in that children's book Where the Wild Things Are that ride rumpus all over our lives until we say STOP!

 

4. Women are often forced by social convention to disguise aggression as tears.

“He doesn't understand how the least little thing can make me cry for hours …” (Ms Pixie)

 

Hmmm. Interesting. Never saw it as social convention for me. But in some situations, perhaps. My tears are actually preferable to all the anger. Except in social situations.

 

5. The power of aggression seems to come from outside us.

“Do you have a protector part of your personality, MzP? When I go fetal, that power is the one who stirs me up out of the pit, gets me moving again.” (Becoming.)

 

Could be. I know this is a part of me, but I talk about it in third-person just to keep track of all these rampant forces running through my life. (Again, externalized, huh?) Maybe the talking about it in this way keeps it external and keeps me from embracing it as me. This is something I think my therapist is concerned about.

 

I have a tendency to go all fantasy when things in the real world start to overwhelm me--hence the books and movies.

 

6. It is somehow associated with feminine beauty.

“I'm very much a girly girl. I keep my appearance up usually at all times. Right now, my hair needs coloring and my nails need touching up and I'm not the least bit interested in anything that pleases me normally.” (Ms Pixie.)

 

Could be. I obviously need to work on my keen fashion sense.

 

7. Aggression seems to come in masculine or feminine forms.

“It just has to be a good anger, not the bad one.” (Becoming.)

In its male form it makes a woman like Becoming’s big butch dykie Seraph. Yes, it protects, but it also alienates. But what if it comes in feminine form?

 

Bewdy! Another excuse to quote some poetry!

 

Masculine anger does a woman little good. This is how the poetess Enheduanna described its effects.

“He stood there in triumph and drove me out of the temple. He made me fly like a swallow from the window; I have exhausted my life-strength. He made me walk through the thorn bushes of the mountains. He stripped me of the rightful crown (1 ms. has instead: garment) of the en priestess. He gave me a knife and dagger, saying to me "These are appropriate ornaments for you".

I approached the light, but the light was scorching hot to me. I approached that shade, but I was covered with a storm. My honeyed mouth became venomous. My ability to soothe moods vanished.”What she then discovered was a feminine anger, epitomised by the Love and War (Sexuality and Aggression) Goddess, and when she paid due respects to that deity, her true self, her depression lifted and her beauty returned.

“The light was sweet for her, delight extended over her, she was full of fairest beauty.”

 

It’s quite a long poem, but worth a read because it is the first poem EVER to be signed by its author. Enheduanna was the daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, and was High Priestess of the Moon Temple at Ur in 2,300 BCE. So, 4,300 years ago she wrote about the very problem we are discussing this week, but she found the solution! Love your sexuality; love your aggression, and above all …Love Your Self!

 

This is fascinating literary lore, and I will most definitely check this poem out.

 

Female power is what we're talking about, not male power. Women's ways of power are very different from most men's, yet society sanctions only men's and denigrates women's by calling it "sinful seduction." Seems women wield power through words and wiles, as a general rule. It is the power of attraction (hence MzP's MIL beauty day). It is a force of connection with others. We don't war to differentiate but to unify. Isn't this Carol Giligan? Psych's not my field.

 

My H and I have been playing power games from the get-go, and we're finally figuring it all out. He grew up with an emotionally incestuous mother who dumped all her emotions on him as a little boy, so who does he marry? Someone seemingly rational but an emotional basketcase underneath. So of course he fought to keep my emotions at bay. And I fought to be a good girl and give him space, at my own expense until I said, STOP! and all the demons came forth, his worst fears were realized. But he found that in doing his own emotional work, he wasn't obliterated by my pain. He was strengthened to understand vulnerability (his own, mine, ours, etc) and respond to it with care rather than running away.

 

MzP, my H's actually starting to get it. I'm astonished at the difference I see in him in just the past few weeks. So hang in there. Your H sounds like a great guy with a great family. You're gonna get some medical help. You will make it through this. We all will.

 

And look at how fabulous we are!

[Mz. Pixie]

Yeah, his parents are awesome. It's funny, when I married him, I didn't know that much about them. I only considered that I was marrying my soulmate and didn't even consider IL issues.

 

I'm trying to hold on to positives- which is why the beauty day seems so appealing right now. Something for ME! Instead of me meeting someone else's needs. I really need to have something to look forward to to function. It's crazy.

 

I've been a bit depressed lately because of Valentines Day. We have kiddos this weekend so celebrating is not going to happen. Then, he has to work his other job Tuesday- so V day will not be celebrated until the weekend. That's silly I know but depressing. The kiddos will be with their dad that day so his mom asked if I wanted to go eat with her, which will be okay, but I'd rather be with hubby. It's our first married Valentines!

 

I guess those are small positives to hang on to. Okay, didn't cry today- didn't get into it with my exhusband, managed to get some household chores done yada yada. but they are all I've got right now.

[blind_otter]

Wowzers. That's about all I wanted to say. You guys are great and I learn so much from you.

[enki]

Becoming, your very elegant and thoughtful post spent the day at the beach with me today. The Watcher would no doubt approve. It’s a great place to think (and thwim!)

 

BOt’s “learned helplessness” rats have all our sympathies, no doubt. Our parents always insisted their assaults constituted rational discipline. It took me until several years after leaving to realise that their savagery correlated, not with any misdeeds on our part, but with one thing only: their bad tempers (aggravated by our mother’s daily intake of 10 mg of prescribed Dextro-amphetamine.) She was a dreadful “Doctor-shopper” but of course violently (sic) denied that she was addicted to her “happy pills.” She just insisted that conventional antidepressants were ineffective and hoarded these so-called Purple Hearts so she had plenty when they were no longer available.

 

In your response to BOt you made a cardinal important point. “My protector and my mother figure are like two separate figures in me. Or maybe two sides of the same coin?” and somewhat earlier, “… our internalised overbearing parent? My GI Jane character?”

 

Empirically we can observe that there are two sorts of people in the world; feminine and masculine. Moreover there are two ways of being; parental and non-parental. For women this means they can behave in a motherly (static) or non-maternal (dynamic) manner. Society tries to force women into being ONLY maternal, not just to their own offspring, but to everyone. The Dean of Melbourne University’s Medical School is Professor Kincaid-Smith, a world authority on kidney disease. Yet when there were breaks in seminars, this professor often had males expecting their cups of tea to be poured for them. The Dean’s first name is Priscilla. She soon put them right!

 

One of my favourite writers in the English language wrote, “I want to comfort all the starving babies and bony mothers trying to nurse them with no milk in Africa… and I can’t, of course.” (10/02/2006)

 

Certainly a good mother is a good protector, but for adults (of both genders) the true protector is feminine and non-maternal. For women it is a GI Jane type; tough but sexy. But it is not an overbearing pseudo-masculine figure as many feminists insist. For men it is an internal guide figure with Goddess characteristics, as Ulysses found with Athena in The Odyssey. So you are quite right Becoming. Protector and mother are separate.

 

Unfortunately, post-enlightenment Judeo-Christian worldviews do not have the perceptual apparatus to recognise the non-maternal dynamic feminine. Men mustn’t cry, but women mustn’t be angry, just upset and tearful. Women are expected to be caring, forgiving, accommodating, maternal, even to their own mothers, even to their own spouse.

 

“… he fought to keep my emotions at bay. And I fought to be a good girl and give him space, at my own expense until I said, STOP! and all the demons came forth,”

 

But guess what? Allowing the non-maternal femme to exist didn’t kill anyone. It just made them reflect, grow up!

 

“But he found that in doing his own emotional work, he wasn’t obliterated by my pain. He was strengthened …”

 

Snow White was hysterectomised (well she couldn’t have been castrated, could she?) by Walt Disney. The original story is precisely what this thread is about, viz. how a young girl dealt with an abusive mother and found her true non-maternal feminine self. The dwarfs were not just nasty little men who made her do their housework. Originally all their names were adjectives; Grumpy, Snoozy etc. None were called Doc, and all those adjectives accurately describe adolescents. After coming to terms with these undersized masculine influences, Snow White went through a ‘latency’-sleeping phase before her real male partner came, and woke her up in more ways than one! I always wondered about that “kiss.”

 

The High Priestess Enheduanna may be closer to home than you expected Becoming. There is only one known artwork depicting her, a small ceramic plate in a museum at, would you believe, the University of Pennsylvania! Check her out at

 

http://www.arthistory.upenn.edu/smr04/101910/Slide2.19.jpg

 

She’s the second figure from the left, and she must be a member of the United States Marriage Counsellors. She’s got a Jarhead haircut!

[Becoming]

Hmmm. I never knew the original fairy tale of Snow White; I so hated it even as a child I never bothered researching, whereas after reading Women Who Run with the Wolves (and teaching my girls to howl!--now that was fun!), I started looking up various versions of fairy tales. They make interesting reading. I was always afraid of the step-mother/witch in that tale. I knew her too well. After my Prince did come and I found not much changed, I felt betrayed by the tale.

 

I should be in Philly sometime this spring or summer. I love the museum there and go every chance I can get, so I'll surely check the plate out.

 

Unfortunately, post-enlightenment Judeo-Christian worldviews do not have the perceptual apparatus to recognise the non-maternal dynamic feminine.

 

This is too true. Except among feminist Christians who love Lady Sophia and are regularly castigated for it. The verses you mention of her are among some of my favorites. If folks actually read the Bible, they find some awesome women there. Few act right according to current social convention--Deborah; Jael; Mary sitting at Jesus' feet which was a posture of learning theology from a rabbi, something only men could do, yet Jesus praised her over Martha's right to call her into domestic duty; Priscilla; Lydia; Junia (named as apostle in Rom. 16, though the church masculinized her name in translation in the fourth-fifth century! ).

 

But guess what? Allowing the non-maternal femme to exist didn’t kill anyone. It just made them reflect, grow up!

 

Yup, it did. In my case, I've been afraid of that energy because it's mostly come out as anger that I haven't felt too in control of. It's isolated me, which hurts the part of me that craves communion with others. Getting control over that angry part of me, who's like the guy standing on the ramparts of the castle throwing chickens and insults out at everyone in Monty Python's Holy Grail, has helped tremendously. It seems I'm all out of chickens these days.

 

The anger and walls crumbling has left me feeling lost as on some "darkling plain" (http://www.gober.net/victorian/dover.html). Except in a reverse "Dover Beach" kinda way. All my spurious beliefs upon which I've lived (that no one will ever be there for me, that no will help me if I ask for it, that others can't be trusted to know who I really am, that there's no real love available for me, etc.) have dissolved. Now instead of a dark sea I see light and the possibility of a bright new world playing among the darkness of life.

 

Now this comes after three days of being almost silent in the real world, prostrate with confused quiet. I awoke this a.m., though, feeling like Jonah whale vomit--still a little startled, but alive and knowing how to proceed.

 

I'll be returning to work from a sabbatical a very different person than I was when I left. People will not know what to do with my more masculine femme. I am so done with that Dean Priscilla routine that women academics know only too well. As Dr. Phil might say, it's only working for them; it ain't working for me. I'll be deemed a b!tch for saying no, but I don't care. A "b!tch" I'll be. I think I can manage being a nice b!tch now in a more consistent way rather than running hot one moment, cold the next.

[helena abadi]

As Dr. Phil might say, it's only working for them; it ain't working for me.

 

i like that so much. bottle it. you'll make a fortune.

[enki]

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estès huh? That should make communication much easier. Isn’t she just gorgeous?! (Does our mutual admiration for “WWWW” infer that judicious use of terms such as anima, animus and collective unconscious, for brevity, not pretension, would be acceptable and comprehensible?)

 

“Wild Woman” is fine, but that which is activated is still not differentiated into maternal and non-maternal. I would suggest that Sophia represents more precisely what we are probably seeking in that she does not fall into the generic Great Mother category, but is sophisticated (pardon the pun) nonetheless. The Homeric hymn to the very non-maternal Artemis (Ancient Themis?) reminds us that after the Hunter Goddess has made “The crests of tall mountains tremble” she retires to her brother Apollo’s mansion

“To set up a beautiful dance of the Muses and Graces

… and wearing her graceful jewellery she is their leader

in the dance. Divine is the sound they utter …”

Hopefully there will always be a wild aspect to her, but she adapts, using the wild to give vibrancy and dynamism to her creation and adornment of the so-called civilised. (When you look back at that quote, was the writer describing MzP? )

 

If you are interested in the meaning of Fairy Tales for individual people, are you aware of the works of Marie-Louise von Franz? (The Feminine in FTs, Shadow and Evil in FTs etc.) Also you may enjoy “Striving Towards Wholeness” by her friend Barbara Hannah, a book that gives interesting insights into the whole Bronte family, culminating in a masterful and original analysis of “Wuthering Heights.” All of these books are enjoyable concise interpretations of their subject matter that teach us more about aspects of our own growth processes, especially the spiritual.

 

Thank you Becoming for the reference to “Dover Beach.” Enclosed are two poems by a man who lived in the second half of the nineteenth century. I have offered “Cape Schanck” because although the place itself has a dark basalt beauty, the poem will, I hope, counter “The eternal note of sadness in” Arnold’s work, and perhaps resonate with your “possibility of a bright new world playing among the darkness of life.”

 

http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/C/CuthbertsonJames/verse/barwonballads/capeschanck.html

 

And one more, just because sunrises are delightful!

 

http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/C/CuthbertsonJames/verse/barwonballads/australiansunrise.html

 

Just two short points from your penultimate post, B. First, you mentioned female power as “a force of connection with others. We don’t war to differentiate but to unify.” Don’t know about Gilligan, but Thompson’s learning theory holds that we learn by two mechanisms only: either differentiation between things we thought were the same before, or association between things we previously considered different.

 

Association and differentiation, ana- and –lysis, love and war; are these not all the powers of the non-maternal dynamic Goddess, by whatever name we address her?

 

The other point comes from your response to my “Point 5,” viz. aggression coming from outside us, to which you responded that you talk about it in the third person and that your therapist is concerned about this. There is a sound neurological argument for regarding aggression as “external” and you are welcome to hear it if it would help. On the other hand you could just affect your best Franglish accent and threaten to “P!ss in her jeneralle direckshion.” (Python’s man on the ramparts.) You ran out of chickens.

 

Best of luck back at work with your “more masculine femme,” but PLEEZ remember that is just a transitional stage. When you get the idea and true experience of the dynamic femme, you will be astonished at her power and beauty. That is what Romeo saw when he said,

“Lo, she doth teach the torches to burn bright …” (You know the rest.)

 

She is there for all of us.

[Mz. Pixie]

Wow, you guys are so deep!

 

Had a bit of a setback yesterday. I found out my ex is changing jobs- which means it's screwing up my kids health insurance. He had EXCELLENT insurance before- and now it's not going to be as good and we split copays and such. Ridiculous!

 

I've decided I don't give a damn what the papers say- I'm not paying more than I would have paid with the good insurance. He is soooo stupid for leaving that job! He's always telling me I should have to make the drive "BECAUSE I MOVED" then, he should have to pay the more expensive part of the co pays etc "BECAUSE HE CHANGED JOBS" correct??

 

Plus, he's driving a brand new truck- the second since we divorced and he dresses our kids in crap. It makes me soooo angry. I'm getting all keyed up thinking about it again this morning.

[blind_otter]

I'm starting EMDR tomorrow. I'm excited and very nervous. It's my valentine's day present to myself.

[Mz. Pixie]

What exactly is EMDR? I see phrases like EMDR and CBT and I just get confused.

 

Happy V Day, Bot!

[blind_otter]

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of psychotherapy which claims to relieve the symptoms of PTSD and other mental health problems using eye movements similar to those which occur naturally in REM sleep.

 

The therapy originally consisted of the patient being guided by the therapist in moving their eyes in a random way whilst thinking about their ‘problem’. In the relatively short time of a few minutes the feelings may begin to shift and resolve themselves.

 

The claimed speed of the therapy and lack of necessary skilled input from the practitioner has led to strong criticism of the approach from some in the psychotherapeutic establishment. Personally I think it's worth a try. I have done so much introspective work, the talk therapy, the pharmaceutical therapy....

[Mz. Pixie]

That sounds really interesting B. My original shrink- the one I'm going back to on the 28th- said she doesn't think I get enough REM sleep.

 

Let me know how it goes.

[blind_otter]

I will keep you updated!! Who knows, this could be the magic bullet. Yeaaaaaaah right.

[enki]

Happy Valentine everybody.

Get your partners to give you foot massages with hot towels and nice skin creams, finishing with some toner, and after that....?

[enki]

Sorry MzP if what I wrote seemed obscure.

 

The two poems, both hyper linked, are called ‘Dover Beach’ and ‘Cape Schanck.’ Both poets described the sea. Arnold saw it as representing something sad and Cuthbertson thought it represented hope, security and love.

 

The book ‘Women who run with the Wolves’ by Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estès is an excellent description of how women are forced to cover up the aspects of themselves which let them be angry and savage. Dr Estès calls this part ‘the wild woman,’ and argues that women who have lost touch with that part of themselves become sad and weak. She then uses stories, which show how we can reconnect with that wolf-like part of ourselves and live more pleasant lives. Please do try reading at least the first chapter. I’m pretty sure you will relate to what she is saying. It’s not really deep, but it is very thought provoking, and much of it is great fun!

 

Hope things turn out well for you and our favourite Otter. Is there any way we can dig Becoming up out of the snowdrifts? It’s one thing to relive the story of Persephone in the underworld, but her abductor, Hades, couldn’t possibly have been a snowman could he?

[Mz. Pixie]

Your post wasn't obsure but just over my head for mornings. I'm usually skimming when I read LS and sometimes it's hard for me to take it all in, ha ha.

 

Where is our fair Becoming??

[Becoming]

I'm back! Lots happening IRL. I am so woefully behind in my work that I will have to go underground for awhile. I am back in my office I couldn't wait to leave and didn't want to return to and actually apprehensively excited. I'm teaching a course that's full Mar 13. It's a complicated graduate school course and lots of work that left me pretty burned out even though I do like what I do.

 

I had a sabbatical to write a book, which triggered all the old stuff--"shut up! you have nothing anything wants to hear. etc." Therapy yesterday was about getting abducted by all these old messages that have so much power for me that the only way to counter them is to rebel, which my child has been doing by playing a lot--now to my detriment in the real world. An editor actually wants my work, which frankly, is boring as hell, and I'm in a rush to produce for the next month.

 

So I'll have to just check this thread on LS for awhile. I have become addicted, I'm afraid.

 

How'd EMDR go, Otter. What a lovely gift for yourself. I'm interested in knowing if it works. I think we're probably all a little suspicious of anything like a magic bullet, huh? My therapy's long and slow and painful and so much work. But I continue to believe in that power of restoration, not to perfection but to working order, at least.

 

I loved the Cuthbertson poems, enki. Perfect. Thanks.

 

I recommend Women Who Run with the Wolves. It's a great read for a popular audience that gets you thinking about our feminine power. I'm still integrating at that level.

 

I agree with you, MzP about your husband. He really knows how to push your buttons, it sounds like.

 

No great VD plans here. I hate Hallmark holidays that force love that should be there anyway. All the expectations, all the letdown. Since my daughters are home (a rarety these days), we're going to have a special dinner, dressing formally, for a Love Fest where we tell each other what we love about them and our family. This will morph into an estrogen fest when the girls and I watch Gilmore Girls, while H gets some alone time. We had a nice lunch earlier today.

 

But let me take this occasion to express appreciation for the love we've all given and received here. The fact that we can love is a testimony to some greater force for love that is at work to heal us all. This I know at my gut level. Now, if I could just get the rest of me on board . . . . But I digress.

Thanks for your love you've shared with me. Do something nice for yourselves and enjoy!

[blind_otter]

So Alpha posted that Nat'l Geo. article about the biochemistry of love, right? And I figured, if it's related to the brain functioning, then there are some people who are incapable of romantic love? I mean in the keenest sense, here.

 

I've struggled with this in the past. That I don't L-O-V-E, I pantomime what I think people do in relationships? I sometimes wonder, about the games and intricasies people post about here. I wouldn't be able to keep up with that, I think. THen again a lot of people can go back 2 years ago to my first post as "blind otter" and say, well I would be exhausted in YOUR love life.

 

But I know I tend to pick men who are exhausting. So maybe the meat of the relationship becomes each of us lost in our own darkness, poking around with a stick and occassionally hitting each other.

 

I've had partners complain that I am cold. Distant. That the only emotions I can express are anger and frustration and sadness, and the other ones become muffled into this kind of flat affect. I can be hyper and funny. Crack jokes. But I can't sit still and hold hands with anyone. If presented with intimate moments, I can enjoy them but lots of times I just don't get it.

 

Like in my mind, I can love someone. Enjoy being around them, miss their smell, their skin, their presence. But it always gets lost in translation.

 

And sometimes I feel invisible.

 

I can't go to therapy tonight, my therapist cancelled. Some kind of family emergency, will reschedule soon. blah blah blah. I am disappointed and mildly depressed today. I seem to be a downer to everyone I talk to!

 

I am trying to be bright and cheery, ya know. I feel kinda a pitiful though, when I try it with my Mom she gets sarcastic and snide with me. Like she resents me even TRYING to ACT happy. ugh.

[Becoming]

I can relate BOt. I chose a man who was emotionally fortressed--a good guy, just not an emotionally available one. We have been as you describe so well here:

each of us lost in our own darkness, poking around with a stick and occassionally hitting each other.

 

But no wonder we have problems with love. What did we learn as children? That love hurts. Open yourself up and whaddya get? A whammy. I can give and receive love from a distance, but up close and personal gets all messy for me and stresses me out with the anxiety of not being able to control it so I don't get hurt, which, of course, just leads to me getting hurt. My H and I work because we understand that this is true for both of us in different ways.

 

The only love I've ever really allowed myself to be open enough to to trust has been my children's because theirs I know is innocent. Now that I think about it, once we had children, the marriage we had had became intolerable because I wanted something more from my H. And we are beginning to allow ourselves to trust one another despite the scariness of love.

 

Sorry to hear your therapist cancelled. That's got to be disappointing.

[blind_otter]

Yeah, I'm disappointed. I found myself jumpig up and running to the phone every time it rang, hoping it would be her, like she's a suitor or something.

 

There's this Elton John song called "I Want Love" - I was listening to it yesterday. I know, cheesy. I was having a vagina day, since I didn't have a valentine, where I did cheesy things like read a romance novel in the bathtub right up until the first sex scene (then, what's the point? haha). My vag is depressed, I think. We tried to watch a movie together and she was like, uh uh, no way. I need to talk....

 

So I hope everyone else's v-day went well.

[Mz. Pixie]

So Alpha posted that Nat'l Geo. article about the biochemistry of love, right? And I figured, if it's related to the brain functioning, then there are some people who are incapable of romantic love? I mean in the keenest sense, here.

 

I've struggled with this in the past. That I don't L-O-V-E, I pantomime what I think people do in relationships? I sometimes wonder, about the games and intricasies people post about here. I wouldn't be able to keep up with that, I think. THen again a lot of people can go back 2 years ago to my first post as "blind otter" and say, well I would be exhausted in YOUR love life.

 

But I know I tend to pick men who are exhausting. So maybe the meat of the relationship becomes each of us lost in our own darkness, poking around with a stick and occassionally hitting each other.

 

I've had partners complain that I am cold. Distant. That the only emotions I can express are anger and frustration and sadness, and the other ones become muffled into this kind of flat affect. I can be hyper and funny. Crack jokes. But I can't sit still and hold hands with anyone. If presented with intimate moments, I can enjoy them but lots of times I just don't get it.

 

Like in my mind, I can love someone. Enjoy being around them, miss their smell, their skin, their presence. But it always gets lost in translation.

 

And sometimes I feel invisible.

 

I can't go to therapy tonight, my therapist cancelled. Some kind of family emergency, will reschedule soon. blah blah blah. I am disappointed and mildly depressed today. I seem to be a downer to everyone I talk to!

 

I am trying to be bright and cheery, ya know. I feel kinda a pitiful though, when I try it with my Mom she gets sarcastic and snide with me. Like she resents me even TRYING to ACT happy. ugh.

 

I can relate to what you're saying about "love" which is why I get scared as hell of being married to my H.

 

I've never loved anyone like I love my H. I loved my exhusband- but not like I love this man. I mean, I love him to pieces even when he's unshowered and sloppy. WTF??? The only thing that I can compare this to is loving my children- of course it's different but still deep like that. It scares me to the core, because when you love, you give someone the power to hurt you,and above all, I've never given anyone but my mother (who really wasn't given it but took it) the power to hurt me. So, it's like now he has the power to hurt me and it scares me. I don't want to be vulnerable because the past has taught me that I cannot afford to be so.

 

I'm sorry your work schedule is crazy Becoming. Did you finish the book? That's fascinating actually. What is it about actually?

 

I'm sorry your vag is not better Bot. I had to laugh at your post about how people who first saw you posting here at LS could make comments about your love life. I remember alot of posts about getting high and sex, lots of sex. Weren't you actively drinking and such during that time?? I can see a big difference between your posts then and now, when you're recovering. So, what did you and the vag talk about?? I hate to hear that your therapy was cancelled but perhaps it will go off as planned for next time and be even better.

 

Vday was good. Hubby snuck to work on Monday and covered my desk with conversation hearts and chocolate covered cherries (my faves) and I got a nice gift certif to the spa for a massage and a spa bath. NICE. He's a sweetheart. He's not emotionally unavailable at all, and very in touch with his emotions- I just think it's hard for him to deal with me when I go dark because he's never been involved with anyone like me, and he cannot relate to my past experiences.

[Becoming]

My book's not going well right now and it's so linked with who I am and what I do, so that to talk about it would risk my anonymity, which I appreciate to no end on this forum. It's a technical academic yawner. Guarantee cure for insomnia.

 

Love what H did with desk. How creatively romantic. No, he probably doesn't know what to do with you when you go dark. It might help for him to read this thread to see that it's not just you in a mood, but something malformed at our core that requires a great deal of energy in overcoming. It would also help him to see how important he can be in your healing, if he'd just try to quit doing surface fixes with happy thoughts and learn the techniques of empathetic listening.