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When it comes to telling our story of the early years of our life whatever we come up with will be perfect. For all the billions of people on this planet, every one of us has a unique life history.
I rarely remember my dreams any more, but earlier in the week I woke with a clear picture of something I had experienced in my sleep. There was a huge field, mowed grass, scratchy not like a manicured lawn. There were shallow dips and trenches in the ground and everywhere there were colored crystals.
Some were golden and shaped like half-inch beads. Some were amethyst and shaped like larger tear drops. Some were royal blue, some a light powder blue, along with all shades of turquoise, amber and red. Some were prisms, some oblong. There were lots of people walking around the edges of the field, but when these multifaceted ‘gems’ appeared the people went after them.
I stood back and watched until everyone satisfied themselves with their own personal collection of beauty they scampered around the field to collect. When everyone had gone I entered the field and began to pick up my own choice of ‘stones’. I filled my pockets. I took off my cap and filled it. Holding my collection in one hand I lifted the edge of the T-shirt I was wearing to make a little basket I could fill with more.
I woke up remembering the feel of all these various shaped objects in my fingers as I had carefully gathered them in this field, and I knew each one of them represented a story of my life just as the other ones did for other people.
These objects were not diamonds. I knew they were humbler, made somehow from glass. It didn’t matter to me, or to anyone else that these stories were small, each one different, each one colored with a different emotion and filled with a different tale. None of these were grand or spectacular ‘stones’, but when I woke up I knew that the story that each one contained was specific to the person who picked each one up, as individual as were the fingers that gathered them and carried them away.
There were plenty of these pure colored objects left in the grasses on that field. I knew they belonged to other people who would come along in the future to pick up their share. There seemed to be no end to them. No matter how many had been gathered there were plenty more. I could see them glistening and sparkling in the sunlight.
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There is no writer or a teller of spoken stories who has not plied their trade with words. Words, those gems in the fields of human understanding belong to no one. Yes, they are gathered together in patterns, but the words themselves don’t actually leave us once someone else has plucked them from the invisible fields of the mind. It strikes me what a miracle that is, and how different our existence would be in a different reality, in one where once a word was chosen it then belonged only to the first person who found it.
So is there such a thing as ‘the perfect story’? That would mean to me that this perfect story could be written in ‘the perfect way’ — and no other. Yet because there has never been such a being as the perfect human, how could a perfect story ever be told? If humanity were to suddenly decide to only keep the perfect stories and to throw all the other stories away, what story would be left?
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I can’t find a way to think about ‘my story’ or about anyone else’s story without at the same time thinking about the person-people who hear or read the story. All the words that pass through another person’s mind in response to a story matter to me as much as the original story does, only I have no idea what those invisible responses really are.
THOSE invisible words, those ‘response’ words, simply exist for me within the realm of what I call ‘the mystery of creation’. While they don’t belong to any actual story of mine I might tell or write, they are connected to the story. Those response words come from connection between one’s story and somebody else’s and happen, as far as I know, only among the living.
Therefore story, to me, is a human part of being alive. The field in my dream I watched other people mine for orbs and spheres and tear drops of faceted colored crystal glass, the field I mined myself for my portion and share, is the field of story: Story lived, story remembered, story told, story shared.
Somehow I know that every one of these stories is perfect.
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I am for some reason reminded right now of these words I found in this book written by a neuroscientist: A User’s Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain by John J. Ratey (Jan 8, 2002)
“Consequently, I have decided that I will have to replace much of the technical language about the brain with a language more akin to what the brain itself uses. Throughout this book I will be making constant use of metaphors and analogies…. Although metaphor and analogy are unconventional in scientific circles, I am firmly convinced that a more nonlinear kind of thought will eventually supplant much of the logical reasoning we use today. Chris Langton, one of the primary researchers in the field of complexity theory, has speculated that in the future science will become more poetic. Our troubled world, too, is becoming too complex for logical argumentation, and may have to change its thinking: real trust, when emotions are running high, is based on analogy, not calculation.” (page 5)
At the same time I am thinking about yet another article I found this week in a magazine I pulled out of my friend’s trash: The secret life of metaphor: How metaphorical language inspires emotional insight and psychological change by James Geary, published in Ode magazine, Spring 2011 in which Geary states —
“Metaphor lives a secret life all around us. We utter about one metaphor for every 10 to 25 words, or about six metaphors a minute.”
And then I think about these words:
“When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love.” [from Paris Talks: Addresses Given by ‘Abdu’l-Baha in Paris in 1911-1912 (London: Bahai’i Publishing Trust, 1995), p. 2]
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In my own way, with my own words, I am reflecting upon the story of my severely abusive infancy and childhood that I am in the process of writing for the book my daughter and I are ‘making’. I often wonder why I do not feel anger about what was done to me. It seems that ever since my earliest years I have always chosen ‘peace’ and ‘love’ rather than ‘war’ and ‘hatred’. I find that I must not have any intention of changing my choices now.
At the same time I write I continually encounter the words of my abuser, my Borderline mother both as I remember them and as I have found them in her own writings. While most of what my mother said to me and about me as well as what she did to me I can call EVIL, I do not look at ‘the story’ of her life as it included me as being evil.
It seems that as I lived within her Borderline world I had my own lines that were different from hers, and it is my own lines that I did not cross. It is from within my own lines that define me that I tell my side of the story — my story.
My story is extremely complex because my mother’s story was extremely complex. My mother became lost in a universe of metaphor very early in her childhood. She ‘made those metaphors real’ — and as she did so she captured me within them — and certainly not in anything like a good way!
Yet in my thinking this does not make the story of my mother’s (or my father’s) life any less perfect than the story of my life is. Our stories were very different, but each of them was a story of LIFE itself as that life played itself out. Life itself is sacred to me. Life itself is perfect because it is the great gift given by the One Who Creates all.
There must be a very fine line for me here, a line infinitesimally finer than a hair. This is the line that ultimately divides life as we know it from death as we imagine it but it is not the line that divides a imperfect life story from a perfect one.
I was forced to spend the first 18 years of my life ‘hearing’ my parents’ life story as they lived it. But because their life stories belonged to them and my story belongs to me, I know that how they responded to me, to my story as I lived it, had no more to do with me than how I responded then and how I respond now to theirs. My response is a part of my story.
I choose to move forward in my life story leaving my parents’ stories in a state of perfection with them. I am free to ‘name’ what they did to me as evil because it was evil. It was criminal. This ‘naming’ is itself a part of my story, but I am very clear that this ‘naming’ is my response and has nothing to do with my parents.
I do not join with them in their state of war. I do not join with them in their state of hatred. I am free to oppose those states in any way I can think of, and telling my own story in written words is part of how I am doing that.
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SCARS THAT WON’T HEAL: THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF CHILD ABUSE
“Because childhood abuse occurs during the critical formative time when the brain is being physically sculpted by experience, the impact of severe stress can leave an indelible imprint on its structure and function. Such abuse, it seems, induces a cascade of molecular and neurobiological effects that irreversibly alter neural development.”
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+WRITING A BOOK? MY STORIES? WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?
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Stop the Storm 
Hellooo! 🙂
Seems like you’ve a perfect dream? Let the world be a part of it at http://www.my-perfect-life.com!
I do too but even with all the progress we have made…there is still so much the world tolerates. And there is poverty and people who dont have access to education and mental health assistance isnt a priority for the world.
I get what ur saying that children need to be our focus…but “anyone” including 15 yr olds can have kids and “raise” them . Thats scary.
Only a species with as much potential for brilliance as ours has could be so stupid.
I wish I knew more about her younger years. I will ask her how old she was when her dad began the affair with the maid.She doesnt have any memory of this but her younger brother told her how their parents would fight and the kids would be on the balcony shaking.
I know her dad had a temper. When I was living with her and all the craziness was happening, what struck me is how unaffected she was about my presence and that I had to go thru that. She had no acknowlegement whatsoever. Now to me, only an emotionally crippled person could do that. Even today, she has no idea at all of the impact that had on me.
I hated my life.I was envious of others who had a normal home. I was ashamed of her.
Today, I see all of the crap belonging to her. I own that.
My job today is to heal from the mess her crap left.
Makes me so glad I am of a generation that has access to so much more ‘help’ and information than our parents had — your mother’s parents screwed her up big time!! And she passed all that right down to her kids
I want to live in a world where the rights of children are guaranteed and protected from conception — no matter what!
I am sorry again Linda but I dont understand the above blog about putting together the 4 points..I feel a bit lost. What are the 4 points? Do u mean like words of how she would (or I would) identify her ,as in shame, mistrust, betrayal and abandonemt? I need more clarification.
And Im not sure how old my mom was when her parents started having problems, not before 5 im pretty sure.
Bingo on the before 5 troubles for you ma — same with mine
Easiest to list the words to start – let’s try this: look for her “You” words — “You are (this n that)” – “You did (this n that)” —- as she would say this to ANYONE else
This dialoging about our Borderline mothers helps me to try to clarify and think through what I am understanding…..
Our mother’s minds created a DIFFERENT reality — that was NOT real like REALITY really is — but was completely real to them
I believe there is a pattern we can find that will show us what their reality was like — as their behavior affected us
When we find this pattern, their pattern and this ‘structure’ of their mental world — then this understanding can work like a gigantic magnet for us! All their crap will go stick to their reality so we can be free to see OUR OWN REALITY clearly
that’s what I’m going after, anyway!
Linda…U are so precious. Just felt I had to tell ya!
🙂
oh thank YOU!!!!!!!
I have asked her if she ever was sexually abused ,several times and she said she was not.
By respectable…her dad was religious and the family was known and a well to do family . For someone to portray as religious and then go do that…well well. Hypocisy here I come!
My mother would have said the same thing = no sexual abuse. And I was just going to post that in reply – religious fanaticism is definitely one of the core contributing factors I suspect for trauma-altered development to end up going in the direction of Borderline.
I bet your mother as I believe was true about mine was already well on the way to Borderline-ville by the age of 10! People are then roped into — and born into — the ‘roles’ we play in their dramas — like being born into the SHAPE of the Borderline’s inner mental ‘figments’. (I am seeing pieces on a chess board…)
YOU AND I NEEDED TO BE RECOGNIZED AND WE NEEDED TO BE REMOVED FROM OUR MOTHERS during out childhood!! I have NO HOPE in cases like yours and mine that such mothers can EVER parent in anything like a normal way. ALL MY MOTHER’S children needed to be taken away from her!!!
I see the same developmental changes in your m and my m — that led to what Dr. Martin Teicher calls the ‘evolutionarily altered brain’ – in which very ancient genetic combinations lock into place — the mother’s DEVOUR their children — the mother is COMPETING for resources in a desperate environment of scarcity where the body-brain has perceived that survival is severely threatened — women and men then ‘cheat’ and COMPETE FOR MATES on a BIOLOGICAL LEVEL that will rarely if ever become consciously recognized
my mother competed with me — I bet your mother was competing with you —
and in a Borderline’s matrix pyramid world whoever ‘SITS” on the executioner’s chair in any one of those four primary-point positions GETS IT — but these patterns are CONTINUALLY SHIFTING AND CHANGING! Who is who? Who is father-son-husband-lover/prey- male predator at any given time?? Who is mother-daughter at any given time? Who is the female version of ‘mate’ at any given time? In my mother’s case, even GRANDMOTHER was in ‘the loop’ — my mother’s conflicts with her own grandmother, competition as a child with her mother for her grandmother’s affections (and her grandfather’s but he died when m was 5) – with me for her mother’s affections — there were no BORDERLINES here – any one of us could ‘be’ daughter as child, daughter as grown up, mother as daughter, grandmother as mother, and on and on in the ever-shifting mirror reflections it goes!
It is all madness!! And to leave children alone with these parents is tantamount to complicity to murder!!
No only are all the roles continually changing and shifting between ‘who’ is in each of the four executioner’s chairs at any given moment, but the patterns of the interactions between these four corner positions also changes continually at the same time!! This is part of why I think it is so important to identify ALL THE WORDS, ALL OF THEM, in a big old long list — that are in the LITANY because it is the repetitions of those WORDS in the litany that holds the whole damn thing together!! The WORDS are in the thought patterns right along with being SPOKEN/SCREAMED/SHOUTED, etc.
Now I see the image of a kaleidoscope — true this image is continually shifting for the adults, but it is the CHILDREN I AM CONCERNED WITH!! The children are trying to grow UP in this madness with everything continually shifting and changing IN AN UNSTABLE, UNSAFE UPROAR OF MADNESS!!
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My bet is, however, that we as adults CAN describe all of this madness by defining the matrix pyramid itself. My mother’s madness did not have EXACTLY the same ‘roles’ that people played in the chairs, at least they weren’t played in the same way
although perhaps mother, mate/(father), child and ‘curse’ were all the same, one in each of the four main positions with a very specific verbal litany that held it all ‘together’ in OUR Borderline’s universe!
Any idea how old your mother was when her parents began to play out the cheating/leaving/coming back patterns?
mistrust and betrayal of men.They cheat and can;t be trusted.She witnessed her father cheat with the maid,move out and have children with her and then come back,her mother leave,then back together ,then leave. This brought a lot of shame to the family as they were a respectable family.Then when she married …she played out the whole scenario in her own life. Always accusing them of cheating.It was like she created an arena to play out all of her delayed rage towards her dad onto all the men she came into contact with.
She also always had big drama to go with it. The crying to me, the depression, but most prominate was the rage. She was so full of rage against the men. Over and over again she herself would take away men from their wives(she was very beautiful..but an empty shell).and then the whole scenario would start. The screaming and accusations to them was completely insanity. She would go beserk.And it was frightening to witness. I used to have panic attacks. I can remember this one husband who was usually so together and in control..one day lock himself in the bathroom and look at me with terrified eyes telling me “she is a witch!”. I was about 13 at the time. One time she even pulled a knife. Just completely out of control.
I cant think of specific words except ..” that Moth-r F–cke- cheating bastard.
And uusally it was true. She would hire private detectives and see that indeed they were cheating.
Does that help with the pyramid????
I will think about this — yes, ‘it helps’ — so very different than my ‘loyal, proper’ mother that way, and my father was completely faithful to her — but STILL she accused him of ‘cheating’!!! Was your mother sexually abused as a child that you know of?
What did ‘respectable’ mean?
I really admire and appreciate how u are able to make a real clear seperation btw their life, their conduct, their choices with yours and how u are able to see a line that seperates two. That is so important for the child of a borderline mother because somehow I find our identities can get emeshed. I also think that that could be how some of us can then “adopt” a self of self hatred. I know in my case the way I was treated and being an “observer” of her insanity somehow infused itself into an identity of shame, self -hatred that actually belonged to her and not me. I needed to realise that to move on.
What a journey we are on!! Boy, did I get an eye-opener talking with Ramona last night – yes, discussion about the writing ’cause I gave her ‘the fox’ story to read and react to
It became clear to me that I am completely ON THE INSIDE while she is (so gratefully!!) COMPLETELY ON THE OUTSIDE — hard to explain but I bet you know instinctively what I mean
She can FEEL for ME as a child and as the adult I became, her mother, me as a person, etc. I CANNOT!! I am INSIDE ‘the story’
ALL THAT MATTERED TO ME WAS STAYING ALIVE AND MOVING FORWARD INTO THE FUTURE
That’s it. No frills. No extras. No thinking as a child or even now about, “Oh, gee, I wish things were different. Oh, gee, why am I being picked on? Oh, gee, I feel angry about or jealous about or envious about or have self-pity about………???”
My concerns then and now must be about the same! Feeling ‘all sad’ for little/big Linda (or even angry at my parents) — while a legitimate reaction from my daughter who has ALWAYS been outside the story that abuse creates — has never (yet????) been a reaction that has any relevance to me as an insider to the trauma story. I am not at all sure that I ‘can get there from here’!
As survivors we spend our entire lifetime trying to ‘fit in’ as if we have a single clue what the nonsurvivor universe is like or is about — and the nonsurvivors have no real clue what our universe is like, either.
I want in some way to take THESE readers TO THE INSIDE that’s about the universe we KNOW — We will NEVER NOT KNOW our reality — I will never have my children’s point of view or their reaction to ‘my story’ — this is part of what we identified last night that Ramona will be writing about from her side
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Again, asking you related to this — “I know in my case the way I was treated and being an “observer” of her insanity somehow infused itself into an identity of shame, self -hatred that actually belonged to her and not me. I needed to realise that to move on.”
Can you identify FOUR MAIN POINTS that were the cornerstones of your mother’s reality? Two of them could easily be ‘shame’ and ‘self-hatred’ — but I believe these ‘states’ come from the MAIN POINTS, rather than being main points themselves
But even if you can start thinking with ‘shame’ and ‘self-hatred’ as being two of the cornerstone points — what might the other two be???
xoxox
I have a name for this today: Take the matrix pyramid challenge!
I gave it to my daughter to think through when she has time ’cause she knows a mom that this probably fits — and I asked her to find the four points on Hitler’s matrix pyramid
I strongly suspect that when a person ‘suffers from’ a trauma-altered body-brain that later forms its reality as a matrix pyramid that the topmost 5th point is ALWAYS A LITANY!!
What you describe as “her insanity somehow infused itself into an identity of shame, self -hatred that actually belonged to her and not me” means to me is that VERBAL ABUSE — BOTH DIRECTED AT YOU AND AS YOU HEARD AND WITNESSED IT in your environment IS DIRECTLY TIED TO YOUR MOTHER’S LITANY
The litany, as I can hear the rhythmic patterns in my mother’s 9-year-old ‘black berry’ story — COMES FROM early verbal abuse as it changes those regions of the brain that are the foundations for language!!
The litany (think about what Hitler’s WORDS had the power to do/his litany) is what POWERS the matrix pyramid
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but to start on the matrix pyramid (or pyramid matrix?) challenge, one has to locate the FOUR FOUNDATION POINTS
the clues are directly IN THE WORDS USED IN THE LITANY
and
in the repeating patterns of how the nonverbal trauma drama played itself out
(yet again the italics are not behaving here as I want them to!!)
We are caught in someone else’s litany!!!!! We MUST identify the patterns of the litany — in words and in repeated trauma drama FIRST before we can distinguish our own self and our own story ESPECIALLY from a Borderline parent’s!!
In other words, and doing this in writing can help a lot — what were the repeated WORDS your mother used AND what were her forever repeating behaviors?