In This Book

Switching it up a bit. There's a book I'd started reading. 
Called Healing Life's Hurts. 
Make your Anger Work For You. 

Had quite a bit of hurts from the past. 

One specifically... Came to mind today.
My son and I were doing prank calls. 
We sent one to my mother
and we picked a recording of a guy
telling her that her daughter kicked his dog. 
It is obviously something I wouldn't do. 
It was just one of many prerecorded ones. 

So my mother lies to 'the guy' that she doesn't have a daughter. 
And my son heard her say that. 
So he'd deduced that she was denying him, too. 
I confronted my mother about it
and she said that she didn't know it was us pranking her, 
which she didn't. 
Maybe should have told her ahead of time so that she could play along. 

And there were some other things she'd said in front of my son. 
Some things that I could take because I knew she didn't mean it, 
but even saying those things in front of my son.... 

And these are things we didn't really get to talk about, either. 
That we should have talked about. 
That I wished we'd talked about, 
but I guess I brushed it off. 

Because I know how my family is, but maybe
I shouldn't have brought my son into that. 
I could have given him a chance at a better life. Why didn't I?

Anyway, anger tends to come from past hurts. 
I know a lot of resentment does. 
I know my mother is the way she is. I've had to accept
that she will just never see certain things. 
And it's not for me to point sh*t out to her
because all she does is get mad at me for pointing it out. 
Because she doesn't want to address it. 
And that is what I used to do, defend myself
when something was hard to look at. 
And I just didn't look at it. 
Because that was easier
than looking at the truth. 
And seeing things about myself that I didn't want to see. 
But had I looked at that, all of that, 
I would have been forcing myself to do something about it
instead of struggling with it so much now. 

And I learned that bullsh*t
and taught myself even worse still. 
And "All you knew how to do was all you knew how to do."
Something someone told me, once. 

"If things were different then, 
things would be different now."
Someone told me. 

When people are angry with each other, 
the anger distorts their views of each other. 
The hurts hinder their perceptions. 
Of how to deal with present issues. 

"Eventually the emotional tank gets full of hurts
and they reach a crisis."

And it was me causing hurts by not doing what should have been done. 
And not even knowing what to do. 
When we don't have the knowledge to act on... 
But that's no excuse for not gaining the knowledge. 
And not talking about things, addressing things. 

I got used to not saying anything about a lot of things. 
And that isn't an excuse for speaking up about things. 

But when I did I was always confronted with:
"You're making things worse!"
Reacting to someone's ego with my ego. 
Reacting to how I felt about some ways. 
About being treated 'unfairly.'

It was up to me to address the things I didn't address. 
And maybe learn to advocate better for myself and for my son. 
But I was trying to go to the school to talk to them
about my son being bullied, but I didn't know that it was by the teachers. 
And they would also say they never saw anything.
But all the calls to the CAS
were from the teachers who were bullying my son. 
And it was like some game they were playing with us, both. 
And that if they could convince them to take my son 
then they'd be getting him out of that school
when had I known what was going on
he'd have been put in another school. 

More ego reacting with ego back then. 
Because they came at me hard with sh*t they had no proof of. 
And they refused to leave when I had asked them to. 
What are you supposed to do when someone refuses to leave
when you asked them to leave?

And when you're told the next day, after you asked his father
to take him overnight.... That you're not getting your kid back... 
What are you supposed to do, then?

So my son thinks that I wanted him to live with his father?
We both had to get used to it over the years. 
I had asked him a few times if he'd move back, 
but he said he didn't want to. 

Anyway, 
that's how things went
and I couldn't control that. 
The only thing I could think to do
was to ask his father to take him for the night. 
Thinking he was going to be back home the next day.
He wasn't, but I got to see him and be with him. 
And yes we have butted heads. 
I always hoped he'd know that I love him. 

The last message I got from him hurt a lot. 
But what I did was what I was told a lot of other parents
would have done. 
But does that mean I should have done it?
It made me look crazy, I guess. 
It made my son angry. 

He was being a teenager, got mad at me, and hung up. 
And they knew I'd come to the building
and weren't letting me in, but I got in anyhow
and went to knock at the door. 
But they didn't want to answer it. 
But I panicked, and wanted to make sure he was okay.
But I look like a nut for doing that. 
Like I did it to be dramatic or something, no. 
That definitely wasn't it.

When I look back on some things
I used to be depressed about, the things
that were easier to accept 
they don't affect me the way they used to. 
But a lot of things are still hard to accept
like the things I didn't hold myself accountable for. 
All the times I've kept myself small. 
Because I got too used to doing that. 
Isn't that part of the reason that people kept themselves small?
Because they never learned some things
that they should have learned a long time ago. 
But were they trying? Not hard enough?

As much as we want people to try, they don't always want to. 
And yes, I have to motivate myself. 
I have to command myself a lot better than I ever have.
Barely functional people exist. 
And they come from dysfunctionality. 
It's easy to identify with what we've come from. 
But I'm learning that we don't have to. 
I never did have to, but I had. 

And to look at me today, I've come a long way.
Realizing things is an important thing. 
And I'm still: "A***! What took you so long to realize that?"
Because I needed a lot pointed out to me. 
Still, I likely do. 

Points being made is a bonus. 
"Hadn't thought of it that way."
Always been attracted to sharp minds, 
but they are not attracted to my dull one. Heh. 
I cannot and will not blame them for that.

I just prefer not to be screwed over. 
But I have screwed people over so I'm paying for that. 
But people prefer not to be screwed over.
And I've screwed myself over. 
Over and over again.

What is the point to admitting to any of this?
So that I can just be upset with myself for all of that?
Because I don't know how to cope emotionally?
All I can feel is shame and stuff like this lately.... 
It's healthy, to see it, but can't live in it. 

There are so many times that I felt that I was stuck like this. 
Being around other people
who have their own issues
wasn't really helping me.
People who were not addressing anything in their lives. 
And I see how it hasn't helped my son, either. 
Being around me at my best of times was good for us, 
but being around me when I'm having severe anxiety
isn't good for him. 

I wish I had gotten help a long time ago. 
And was still getting help. 
Every time I tried helping my son, 
he's only remembering times I needed help. 

I don't think being with his dad has been the greatest for him
when they can't even talk about important things. 
I don't know how or if I can repair my relationship with my son. 
Or with anyone else I ruined relationships with. 
But I wish to repair my relationship with my son. 
I don't know how I can or if I can. 
I can only hope that I can. That he'll let me in, again. 
He might not. It is his choice. I hope that he does. 

He has PTSD which is part of why he's at where he's at. 
Maybe I had it, too. I used to get really jumpy at sounds
and stuff like that. 
A lot of symptoms I don't have anymore. 
But I can kind of understand where he's coming from. 
The thing is that he has to want to do the work to get better. 

The healthcare system isn't teaching the methods to use. 
They are just prescibing medication that doesn't work
and there aren't a lot of support groups. 
Which are important. 

That helped me with the first 6 months of AA, a group
where other people were also quitting drinking. 
And looking at themselves. 
But I found that a lot of recovery stuff.... 
In AA wasn't what I needed. Some of it works, 
but a lot of it doesn't address some deeper stuff. 

"He who heeds correction gains understanding."
"Wisdom and humility come before honour."

"The forgiveness process is meant to be a redemptive process."
Have I been able to redeem myself?
I've tried to reconnect on the trip we took, 
on the trip we could have taken.... 
It seemed like every time I had redeemed myself to a degree, 
I slipped again and had to work at redeeming myself again. 
And never felt like I had been fully redeemed. 

I had asked my son, once, if he would forgive me. 
He said he didn't know. Not no, 
but he didn't know. 

That first trip we took was 4 years ago. 

In forgiveness, we participate in the redemptive healing 
of the person who caused the hurt."

I've held many grudges, myself. 
It's the stubborness that got me holding into things
that I really didn't need to hold onto. 
Like grudges, bitterness, pain, hurt, sorrow, anger, grief, etc. 
And I still hold onto some of it. Lots of it. 
But I recognize that I've been stubbornly holding onto it. 
Holding onto it for dear life. Why? 

It's up to the people who are holding onto it to let it go. 
Some know they have it with them, in their lives, 
but can't see that they've been holding onto it.
Just like it takes me so long to see things.... 

Yes, some things broke me worse than I had thought they had. 
Even stuff that I can't bring back into my memory
because it was too painful. 

My mother used to have night terrors. 
She would wake up screaming. 
She went to hypnosis for that and it brought up
some memories of things that happened to her
and were done to her. When she was a kid. 

She told me when I was a kid to stay away from a certain male. 
Because he'd done things to her. 
And the guy had been grooming me. 
I have memories of sitting on his lap. 
When I was a kid. 
Things changed between him and I after she told me. 

But knowing that, I guess helped a bit. 
To see how my mother became the way she is. 

A friend told me about his grandmother's suicide. 
That she'd managed to cut her own head off
with a table saw. 
And that it had damaged his mother. 
And it explained a lot of why she is the way she is. 

But we have to reinterpret certain events. 
Because our thoughts about them and thoughts about ourselves
formed certain beliefs that aren't true. 
Shaped how we started seeing ourselves and
shaped how we started looking at the world. 

It's hard to reinterpret suicides. It really is. 
And abuse, too. That's pretty hard. 
Especially sexual abuse. 
Well any kind of abuse. 
It's hard to forgive for that. 
Because abuse is never okay. 

I spanked my son only 3 times. 
And even then, I felt so guilty about it. 
I can't even say "I only used my hand."
Like I'm justifying it or something. 
I don't even know why I did it.

It wasn't like what was done to me when I was a kid. 
And that isn't justifying it either. 

I included him in deciding what good rules should be. 
And we put a poster of the rules on the wall. 
I did some things that worked. 
And some things that didn't. 

I'm doing some things that were working
and some things that don't. 

And I don't know if I'll ever hear from my son again. 
I try reaching out. It makes me look like a nut. 
I keep trying. 

My friends keep telling me to work on myself. 
So that he can see that he can, too. 
If he can't see me doing it, can he see me doing it?
But even if he can't, does that mean I shouldn't?
Will it make him want to?
If he can see me doing it?

In this book it describes fear as a signal that danger may be lurking. 
And danger is described as exposure to harm or evil. 
And the fear I've been experiencing is from my thoughts
about being exposed to harm or evil. 
Thoughts can be pretty powerful....