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I remember watching a few episodes of The Gong Show many years ago.  It was a terrible show!  But my memory of it comes back to me in my thinking about how I now trust my own inner GONG when I hear it inside of my body, even when I can’t track EXACTLY why it’s obnoxious tones are resonating LOUDLY within me.

When someone says something to me like, “What your mother did to survive in her madness if your life story!” I don’t hear the gong.   When I heard – actually read them in an email – they made me feel ‘fed’.  The truth of these words resonated within me as being the truth.  They felt profound to me and I know they always will.

But in my telephone conversation with a dear friend yesterday, I experienced exactly the opposite reaction.  We were talking about the same thing I wrote about in:  *Age 20 – Horrible visit ‘home’ with my daughter.

My friend, who did not come from a perfect childhood home, still never experienced abuse.  She trained herself with a degree in social work and worked for several years in the field of Child Protection but she rapidly ‘burned out’ and left the profession.

Where, within her own self, her response to me in conversation ACTUALLY came from doesn’t matter to me one single bit.  What matters to me is that as she talked about her response to my experience at age 20 of ‘going home’ again to see my family I heard my inner GONG so loudly it was deafening.  What also matters is that I did not question my reaction, no matter how persistent she was in insisting she was right.

To paraphrase:  “Well, you know what they say.  Anytime someone with a difficult childhood returns home, no matter how long they have been gone, the family – every member present – is likely to instantly return to the familiar roles they played in the family when they were young.”

GONG!

As soon as I heard my inner gong I recognized there was a ‘cultural’ division between what she was saying (based on what ‘experts’ suggest) and what I know about myself, my childhood, and my experience during that age 20 visit.

I did not ‘assume the role’ I had in my family when I was growing up.  My entire being, body-brain-mind and self WAS ‘the role’.  I was built that way.  It wasn’t something I could remove like a suit of clothing, and then step back into.  Not a chance.

Now, here is my dividing line, I bet.  For those of us who suffered extreme attachment-related traumas chronically and terribly from birth, the so-called ‘role’ is built right into our developing body and becomes a part of our physiology.  Therefore, there IS NO ROLE.  In line with the quote I put first in this post, the reactions my mother and father had to me from the moment I was born were not roles, either.  Who I was forced to be, how my growing body was forced to adapt its development, had nothing to do with me ‘playing a role’, either.

The day my father put me on that jetliner headed for Naval boot camp when I was 18 marked the day my physical body exited the ‘stage’ of the ‘drama’ that I had participated in since I was conceived.  When I ‘left’ I obviously took with me the body that had every experience of my first 18 years built into its foundation, right down to the molecular interactions between my cells.

To hear someone outside of my reality refer to my reality as a ‘role’ – well – GONG!

It is extremely affirming and empowering of my SELF HOOD to be so consciously aware of the difference within my entire being-body between my response to ‘the truth’ and ‘the lie’.

I am not saying that for MOST people, who experienced safe and secure attachments during their childhood with SOMEBODY, that the ‘role playing’ description of both in-childhood and post-childhood home-of-origin experiences is not accurate.  But my inner GONG instantly tells me it isn’t true for me – and I no longer have to doubt my own reality for one single instant.

HOW I recognize ‘the lie’ and what that means to me is the subject of this blog.  I just wanted to mention this because it’s fresh in my body-mind.  I am glad I was able to experience my two different reactions so clearly and powerfully within the same week!  The first outsider’s comment resonated harmoniously – I ‘felt felt’.  The second comment created the opposite reaction:  I knew this friend has no clue what my reality was or is – and no matter WHAT I can ever say to her – she never will.

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None of this discussion has anything to do with my potential and efforts toward healing, growth and change.  Nothing about my improved well-being over time has anything to do with my parents – then or now.  They did the damage.  I do the repair.

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