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What would it be like for me to express pain, to express simple pains like stubbing my toe or getting a paper cut? One question lead to a conversation that had me running from the therapy office to the restroom to toss my cookies. For me, expressing pain means losing control and letting the pain or giver of pain have the satisfaction of knowing they can hurt me. I stifle all groans and rarely flinch or grimace even when something really hurts. I can be in an extraordinary amount of pain and not drop a tear and never hint that I’m suffering. I saw that as a strength when I was younger, now I see it as a handicap. I can’t express a physical ouch let alone severe, should be doubled over in pain type reactions. That reaction was warranted today when I went to cross my legs in therapy. My knee cracked and sent a pain shooting up the left leg, right where the degeneration is the worst. He said that was the first time he’s ever seen me grimace, as he called it. I didn’t realize I did. I felt rather stupid, embarrassed that he saw it. Through everything we’ve talked about and all the times I’ve shown up hurting so badly, today was the first time he saw any sign at all that I was physically uncomfortable.
He asked what it would be like if I were to express pain as others do. The question confused me but then I asked him, Don’t people usually feel embarrassed when they’re in pain? He said not really, no. I started to think about how embarrassed I was to cry because it meant being laughed at, being mocked, scolded and told how shocked they were because they knew I didn’t have a heart so where were the tears coming from? And of course I recall how horribly my sister was made fun of for crying. My goodness they laughed at her, right in her face and told her she was making a circus clown out of herself. They mocked her, jumped up and down like she was doing and did the “oh this hurts” dance. They told her she could win an Oscar for such a performance. How could I break down, lose control that way and subject myself to that? No sign of pain meant no satisfaction for giving it and no scolding or mocking for expressing it. It also meant I’d carry that lesson with me into my adult years and apply it to situations where it’s not warranted.
Grace
Grace
She soars at the top above us all
Looking upon clouds that hold the angels as they dream
Still she is uncertain of her position in this grand scheme.
In midnight hours in my arms she speaks
Heavy with expectation she exclaims
The rivers will over flow
We’ll breathe air once more as if God himself into our lungs blew
And tip toe through rolling hills of grasses green.
In trees once extinct nesting birds will feed their young
And sing songs in languages long forgotten.
My ears sting with every word but I dare not hint at my dismay.
Where are you my love?
In this paradise where are you?
Silence falls like her eyes from the ceiling to the floor
For through rose coloured glasses she holds out hope for the lost
But denies herself the same grace.
A cloudy heaven rains upon her hell filling filthy rivers to their breaking point.
Wings that once fluttered are grounded to the earth
As dry bones laying open to the elements so too is her soul empty and exposed.
She has forgotten the sound of a pleasured heart beat and sigh of relief.
Like long lost tongues it has been written but never again heard.
How?
How does she do it?
How does she hold out hope for everyone but herself or
Find beauty in the smallest of things then fail to see her own?
Joan of Arc inside Morton’s Pride
Happy
I totally blew everything off today and painted. I turned on some music and it was just me and the brush. I feel happiest with a paintbrush in my hand.
I didn’t upload any of the pieces I did because they’re too large for my scanner, however, there are several new digital pieces over on Sundrip.com.
Here are three of the newer paintings.
Love Your Garden
Satchel of Dreams
The Ladies Fare
If you click the images you’ll be re-directed to Sundrip.com where you’ll be able to see close ups and details of Love Your Garden and The Ladies Fare.
It’s been a good day.
Austin
Tried It. Didn’t Like It!
I already knew when I walked in the door that therapy would be interesting. I had no idea one comment would lead to a headache of a session. I’m overwhelmed by the thought of a “few changes” that are taking place here at home but what Dr. D thinks about my views on parents and what he thinks I might deep down want are just dead wrong.
I told him that Princess Fife (Barney’s daughter) her husband and their 8 year old son will be moving in this house with us in a few short weeks. Of course there is much trepidation on my part because this means less privacy. I need my privacy. They won’t be living in my area at all but the fact still remains, I’ll share some space with 3 other people, one of which is a son of a bitch to the empth degree. I can handle Princess Fife and the boy but Prince Jackass is a bit much to take. He’s more OCD than I am he also has a very strong Obsessive Compulsive Personality. He needs everything and everyone around him to be perfect. Sorry, but that doesn’t work for me. So anyway, I told Dr. D that I understand why Barney won’t tell Princess Fife that she and her Slave Master can’t come here. I said, just like every little girl should, she’s got her father Barney wrapped tightly around her finger. It’s just the natural order of things. Every little girl should have her father wrapped around her little finger. Okay, so we went on to discuss the clear problems this whole situation presents but he got back to me and my father. I’m not sure why he can’t let go of the idea that there is a woman out here that has no longing for a father figure. I’m sorry but the idea of me having a father wrapped around my finger is totally different than what I think others should have. I can’t even think in those terms, of having a parental figure that I trust and depend upon or take for granted. Me and parental figures don’t mix. I’m sorry but I see parents as offenders. I look at Barney and his daughter and think “this is how it’s supposed to be” but I keep my personal experiences separate from them because if I don’t I’ll start looking for signs that she’s pretending to feel okay around him but in actuality he hurt her. If I do not put up a wall when watching normal interactions I’ll skew them with my own experiences which aren’t good ones.
Humiliation: Dream Therapy 1of3
If you saw him wouldn’t you publically humiliate him too? From there I went on a verbal abuse tirade. I was shocked and horrified that a van full of children and their mother ranging from 14 to 7 were yelling at my 3 year old brother for wetting himself in public.
The dream started out gross and ended bloody and down right disturbing but still telling. I felt so sick when I woke. It started off with my brother having a bowel movement on a brick wall at a store. He stood against the wall and you could see this mustard yellow BM go on the wall. The mother and I were in lawn chairs outside the store looking out at the parking lot. I asked my mother why she was allowing him to use the restroom on the wall. I don’t remember her answer but she let him continue. In several places the toddler marked the wall with BM. I told him to stop and that I’d take him to the restroom. He got angry and ran into the street. I ran after him to keep him from getting hit. Just before I reached him a van stopped because they saw feces on him. The mother, who was also the driver, got out of the metallic coral coloured mini-van, picked my brother up and began calling him names. Two young teenage boys (maybe 13 years of age) jumped from the side door and grabbed my brother holding him high in the air mocking him. The sun was out, it was a very hot day. The parking lot was packed with cars, traffic was heavy. The boys held him up mocking him because he had diarrhea on his shirt. I took him out of their arms and scolded the boys for their actions. None of the children in the car understood why I was so angry with them and their mother. They continued laughing at my brother. The mother said had I seen my brother use the restroom on himself wouldn’t I do the same thing? She wondered if I’d seen him use the restroom on himself and if I had witnessed it she thought I too would parade him through the streets humiliating him.
The mother and her children were well dressed. The hair of the children was dark, they looked Jewish which is of strong significance for me. They looked like a middle class family the kind society assumes has it together and would never behave in such a cruel way.
Humiliation: Dream Therapy 2of3
(Same dream continued)
I needed to go clean my brother up so I started walking to a professional building across the street from the department store. The mother didn’t want me to do it. She was irritated that I was going to take him off and clean him up. As I walked across the street my sister appeared beside me. The walk should have been short. Instead of just going across the street we ended up walking down a winding country road which lead to the professional building. Once inside I began washing my brother in the only water source they had which was the water fountain. The water was cold. He objected but I kept washing him. At that point my mother called my cell phone to see how things were going. We got into an argument about something. I don’t remember what. I ended up hanging up on her. My phone turned into a Caress soap box, coral pink box saturated by cold fountain water. I left it on the table and went to the restroom. I left my brother with my sister.
I entered a room where the restroom was at the back corner. The room was familiar to me. It was a fixer upper. You could see plaster and dry wall that hadn’t yet been hung. Some of the antique white paint hadn’t dried yet. Paint cans and brushes lay helter-skelter around the construction area.
Humiliation: Dream Therapy Re-Write 3of3
The idea behind dream therapy is to re-write a dream so that it ends the way you want it to. This is to give the dreamer a feeling of control. In some dreams I needed to re-write it so that I was the victor and not the victim but in this case I need to re-write the dream so that events unfold in a way I can accept without emotional burden.
The dream would start off exactly how it did, with my brother using the restroom on the wall of the department store by the parking lot. I’d reach over to him and ask if he wanted to go inside the store to use the restroom. He pulls away from me and runs into the street. A family in their van jump out, snatch my brother up and begin scolding and mocking him for having BM on his shirt. I remove my brother from their arms and call out for the police. There’s no way they can put their hands on this child and hold him up for the world to scorn and not answer for it. No words I can say will do, I need to call the police. The police show up and I make a formal report that this so-called mother put their hands on my brother. She’s furious that I’ve called the police but not apologetic. She doesn’t understand why I’m making such a big deal out of this. I tell her it’s because no one should be treated the way she just treated my brother and that she has no right at all to ever put her hands on him.
Getting Older
When visiting Beauty’s blog I like to read the quotes on her sidebar. Here’s one I saw today. I’m sure she won’t mind me yet again snatching a quote from her. I even snatch the icons on her sidebar from time to time and send them to her as if I discovered it somewhere other than her blog. I send them in email as if she has no idea those icons and pictures exist. “Oh look what I found. I thought you might like this. I’m sure you’ve never seen it before.” Anyway so today I saw a quote that reminded me of a journal entry I’ve been meaning to write.
The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been. -Madeleine L’Engle
Yes but, you do lose the natural colour of your hair forcing you to use box dyes to cover up the horrible realization that you inherited your grandmother’s wirey gold/gray hair. Damn you Grandmama, Damn you!
I was going to blog about my new gray hairs but figured I’d get no REAL sympathy, just comments of how early you went gray and how some of you guys have lost your hair, etc. Basically I figured I’d get comments like “suck it up Austin, you could be me.” Well dang it I’m not you AND I’m going gray. Is there no justice in this world? I don’t mind getting older it’s just that my inheritance really sucks. After all I’ve been through 6 wirey gray/gold Grandmama hairs is too much to take. Why! Why must this happen? Is there no justice for me? Can I return my inheritance. Can’t my gray hairs be one colour or the other and maybe even a little soft? It makes me wonder what that one (and I do mean one) little hair on my chinny chin, chin is going to look like in a few years. I shave that thing off but will I wake one day with it growing wild, dotted in gray and gold, piercing the pillow leaving a hole for feathers to escaped? Oh the humanity!
This was not supposed to happen to me. So in addition to breasts that compete for who can touch the floor first I now have to contend with my Grandmama’s gray hair. Do you know how tired I am of rolling my breasts to put them in the “sling”? I do the bending over, shaking dance to coerce them into the “sling” but the girls just don’t want to stay. Inevitably they peak out above the “Just My Size” brace forcing me to again bend over and shake them back into the perfect roll they were in before their escape. I lay in bed and they fall to my arm pits. Then and only then am I flat chested. If I get up too fast from a sitting position I could hurt somebody. I’ll never jog now. One wrong turn and I could take out a whole city block. The news report would be that a heavy set black woman with gray/gold hair and one (repeat one) gray/gold chin hair has been jailed for a drive by boobing.
My God does it not stop!!!!
Austin
Letting Go
(For Beauty -my thoughts on letting go, crying and allowing others to see us fall apart.)
The last time I broke down I started off by rocking a little bit. I was trying to pep talk myself, tell myself I’d be okay. My heart felt full and heavy. I could hardly keep my eyes open. My head felt heavy and I just couldn’t hold it up anymore. I hobbled to the bed, pulled the covers over me. They felt heavy, heavier than they actually are. My cat climbed up next to me as I lay on her teddy bear. I closed my eyes. I could feel my stomach churning, moaning and mourning, then the tears came. Strangely they left as quickly as they came. I felt like I’d not cried enough but I still wasn’t able to get up. I just laid there with the cat next to me and slept. When I woke up several hours later I felt somewhat better, not enough to make a huge dent in the grieving process but enough.
The difference it made was that I let go, even for a second or two I let go. Letting go wasn’t something safe for me, crying wasn’t safe. It meant getting hurt, getting laughed at, etc. So it’s not as if showing such strong emotion was rewarded. As a matter of fact showing vulnerability by crying or grieving got me hurt or got my sister hurt. Really then, what good did crying or grieving ever do me? Who was going to come and comfort me? Who cared if I was hurt or afraid or grieved? If my mother did answer the call it usually meant me paying for it in some way or another or her bringing it up mockingly for years on end. So what good did it do for me to show vulnerability or respond to horrible situations with natural responses like tears or panic?
A Million Pieces
I know when I’m closed off it means something intense is going on inside, something intense that I just don’t want to feel or deal with. I wasn’t sure what it was until I sat in therapy and it came to me that my neighbor I’m helping care for told me I’ve been different since last Wednesday. I asked Dr. D what we talked about. It seems the whole sister issue came up yet again. I really have trouble with that one. I’m not use to feeling so angry with her or let down by her. I’m just fine with being pissed at the mother. I can see her for who she is but I’ve always had a fantasy view of my sister. She’s always been my big sister, the one that hung the moon. The one that I brag about because she is such a great seamstress. She’s pretty and smart. I always looked up to her. Yes, I did her homework, I gave her my food rations, I fought for her when other kids beat up on her and all that jazz. I never hit her back when she hit me. I even tried to show her how to leave when the mother used the dowel rods on us. Still I looked up to her. I thought she was the best thing since sliced bread. But now, to look at her sexual abuse of me makes the face I painted for her turn ugly.
I stopped caring a very long time ago about my mother’s approval but I felt like I needed my sister’s. It hurts beyond belief to look at her as the person she is and catch a sharp resemblance of my mother.
