It's not just the movie that has made me become reflective. It has in been in the preparing to work for Royalty Family Kids Camp, it's been from my last (& only) four year experiences in dating, it's been from the friendships with guys, it's from my deep crying sessions alone in my car, it's been from the many counseling sessions I've been through, and it's been in seeing how my Mother treats my half-sister today...
Why am I the way I am?
Why do I do the things I do?
My current counselor strongly recommended me to read The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown and Sex God by Rob Bell.
That's why I picked this scene from the 2004 film by Michel Gondry.
You see (and I say "you" meaning to my future self, because that's typically the only person who reads my posts repeatedly) this is my past/what I grew up with:
- neglect
- emotional abuse
- substance abuse
- abandonment in some cases
- vicarious abuse-witnessing physical & emotional abuse to another individual
These are not excuses for my behavior. Nor do they explain all of me.
The part of me that has been taught positivity says: "Forgive or else your just hurting yourself. You love your mother; for the same love God has for you, He has for her....she did the best she could."
The part of me that is still raw with emotions screams: "I can't. She didn't. I hate life. I hate myself. I hate everyone."
A bright orange sticky note in the manual preparing us for this camp that is to minister to children from foster care says this:
"As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you..."-Isaiah 66:13a
What I really need to hear is:
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!"-Isaiah 49:15
Sure my story could have been a lot worse! This is not a pity party.
However, this is me being real.
On our fridge no matter what new house we lived in, my mother had a poem similar to this one displayed-Children Learn What They Live.
I wanted to voice that I don't see the positive attributes displayed in myself, so what did that say about our home...
But I couldn't. I couldn't bring up tough or touchy subjects...like who was/is my birth father....or else the response would be a fitting rage and yell, "WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS NOW SAMANTHA!"
I don't like conflicts.
I always see them as something is horrible about me and not just something I did....or didn't do.
I was subconsciously taught that money for cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana were more important than buying new clothes or healthy food...for me...
Yeah, sure...we come from the lower class as it was...a family tree of farmers in an old German town no one has ever heard of in Illinois.
Jobs were scarce.
My mother got pregnant at 19 years old. She was still learning, still growing...
But there I go "sugar coating things again" ain't I? Or am I just noting the facts? The reality?
I was an only child until I was sixteen.
We can see that this could relate to my introverted personality and the fact I relate/interact more with those older than me-birth order psychology
Then I learn from Dr. Karyn Purvis who specialized in TBRI (Trust-Based Relational Intervention) that my "Attachment Cycle" is out of whack.
I didn't feel safe a lot growing up. I felt in the way.
I struggle with cutting and suicidal thoughts.
Our family believed that you let the baby cry; don't swaddle it or...she...will become "spoiled."
Dammit, I just need a long hard hug sometimes.
How do I communicate that today???
My need for a healthy touch goes deeper than just a hug...since I was introduced to sex at a young age.
My girl friend when I was younger (not even in 1st grade) made me have sex with her.
Then there were the Cosmo magazines, the porn videos we inherited...the different boyfriends we lived with...
Why couldn't we just live alone?
Why wasn't I enough?
You see my mind automatically goes there.
Something's broken. It must be because I exist.
I am always interpertiating your body language and fluctuation in your voice.
What am I doing wrong? I ask.
Because when a child asks if you want to play a game or color with her, it's saying "I want your company...I need your company...I need to be validated. This is how you teach me I am worthy."
No one is perfect. Every parent has their flaws.
Growing up I never had guy friends. That's what the "popular kids" had.
There! There it is again, I made an association between the two.
The popular kids were cool, had the latest clothes or devices, were teacher pets, were in all the social clubs, they always smiled, they played all the sports, were in all the plays....
And there I would be standing against the cold brick wall watching.
I didn't/don't have the energy to play their games....
They don't want me....they don't need me....
Rather, I play "my own game(s)."
I dangle in front of you my body, but then take it away from you at the second.
I will deny your compliments & shove off your comforting touch...
My "attachment style" was shaped from an avoidant, disorganized, ambivalent parent.
I don't trust myself today.
I don't look you in the eye unless for the split second I think I'm better than you.
I am often viewed as youthful or innocent...
I think that comes solely from the Holy Spirit-How I have prayed for God to help me forget the things I have seen and done!!
But then there some who say I act like a child.
Trauma makes you stuck in the age it occurred in.
I wonder if the opposite is true too?
The best years of my life were in my youth ministries group from junior high until I was a junior in high school.
I was validated at my youth group. I became a leader. I came out of my shell. I was encouraged. I was taught I had a purpose, that I had talents, and gifts. I was loved. I had more friends than I could count....
That is where I am stuck mentally I suppose.
And then church shit happened like it will everywhere. My youth leader's wife had sex with a student, the head pastor was controlling, and my best friend's dad who was a pastor there got unjustly fired.
My half-sister is going to be nine in October-twelve days after my twenty-fifth birthday.
I remember when Mom told me she thought she was pregnant, I was trying to take a nap on the bottom bunk of my red metal bunk bed we got from her boss's friend. I said very sternly, "You better pray to God you're not."
For the remainder of the year I was pretty angry.
I wasn't angry because someone was going to take "my place"...I had no place...
My problem was that we were barely surviving...we always relied on my Grandma for help...how was adding another individual to the mix going to solve anything?
I certainly didn't want this baby to experience the hells I had.
In fourth grade my teacher noticed the nail marks on my skin from my mother's drunken raged grasp one night in December. They called child services.
My Grandma said, "How could you do this to your mother?"
When I was eighteen I got social services involved again because I was reporting to other adults at the church how my Mother was treating my sister.
That night, October 1st, my Grandma told me: "We think it's best if you don't live here anymore."
Why am I in the wrong for getting help?
There's the Attachment Cycle again-my need was expressed, I am in distress (I'm in the fight, flight, or freeze mode) but I am not comforted...
I am stuck.
People who don't understand or are themselves not "self-regulating" can say: "Oh just get over it. It's in the past, done and over with."
Time doesn't heal all wounds.
Nor do I believe Jesus just heals them.
He walks me through them.
Because before I would make efforts to run-away and hide...or die...
That "old self" still pops out. That is why I'll delete your phone number from time to time...
When I am in a deep dark hole, my "autopilot" is to is to go deeper...
maybe there the walls will just cave upon me
and then I'll have the physical embrace I've always dreamt...
