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Tuesday, May 30, 2017. It takes a life force to stay alive. This is true from the instant of our conception. Life force. Living is a battle. At the same time, having our personal needs met means that others are a part of this force – our combined life force.
There is certainly an aftermath to the battle. Any battle. Today the word “recuperate” comes to mind. Yet even with this word, tied as it is with “recover” and recovery, I find myself having to look yet again into how severe trauma survivors from birth do not have the same ‘platform’ to recover – or to ‘go back to’ or ‘go back to get’.
How DO we restore ourselves – and to WHAT do we restore ourselves to?
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In the final battle over the birds (see previous post) last eve, I won. The neighbors FINALLY realized that I mean business. I need my peace. The horrible racket from the pigeons they have evidently been feeding across the street for the past 13 years HAD to stop. And, yes, if I had to contact the city to enforce their ordinance about not feeding those birds in town, I would have.
Angry neighbors on every possible level.
So what.
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What matters to me, other than the fact that in spite of what those people said – that the birds would not go away for a very long time once feeding stopped – the birds are GONE TODAY after missing one in-the-dark feeding – what matters to me is that my body is remembering the trauma of the hundreds of brutal beatings of my childhood.
I feel beat up. The body never forgets. It is best to try to live a life of protection and sanctuary so that those kinds of memories do not need to be remembered and are not awakened. That is not always possible in THIS world. That is for sure. There is often very rugged terrain in this world.
Beyond feeling completely battered and bruised, I also having to deal with the more complicated issues. Why do many people feel so entitled to just plain be selfish and mean people?
Beyond that question lies my own struggle to NOT be a selfish, mean person. If I were ABLE to – just BE MEAN – would I have come through this battle feeling differently than I do now – and having felt differently all the way through this battle – which began many weeks ago as it took me a long time to reach a point of utter exhausted desperation before I ever took on any attempt to STOP THE RACKET of those birds – which meant, of course, I had to tackle what I have been going through with the people who so gadfly-like have been feeding those pigeons?
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In their final angry email last night I was told that the 13 years’ of feeding took place not out of attachment to pigeons, but to keep them from eating the songbirds’ food.
So it took me less than ten seconds online to find out what the very simple solution to ‘that problem’ is: Build any sort of cage, chain link fencing is perfect and their yard is fenced with that material, so that small birds can get in and the big ones cannot. Make the cage with a roof of some sort, big enough to also keep within it the tossed out seed mess the songbirds will make.
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So, really, I think it takes a helluva lot more life force to work to heal, to face the world as peacefully, kindly, reasonably, patiently, respectfully, compassionately with empathy, wisely and forgivingly as possible than it does to just FIGHT – FIGHT – FIGHT!!
And if we want to try to leave peaceably, we BETTER have somebody on our own ‘life force’ to help us. Nobody helped me the first 18 years of my life stand up to the beast, stand up for my self (I didn’t even remotely know I was a self). And now?
Not only do I need both inner and outer life force to take care of myself, I need it as I have to work (yet again) to RECUPERATE. What a WASTE! But – that’s life.
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NOTE: Part of the constellation of my continual trauma healing process is that I know for fact that my mother HATED me. I don’t imagine that. It was fact. Now when I stand up for myself and my needs to people who have opposite agendas, as with these neighbors, I end up believing that now those people hate me — and this process is completely entangled in the fibers of my being with the hatred my mother used as her weapon against me every moment of every day during the 18 years I could not escape her. No wonder I have such trouble standing up to anyone, or being able to tolerate conflict.
Trauma survivors do not make these difficult conditions up. They are very, very real.
So…… I just practiced my own advice and called a dear friend who is a member of my Life Force! She immediately told me not to feel guilty in this situation, that I did nothing wrong. In other words, in my inner universe I can recognize that I have RIGHTS, including the right to take care of myself when I need to, as I did in this situation. I did NOTHING wrong — and whatever those people might think of me is not remotely of my concern. I will focus on this. I am aiming at recuperation that restores me to happiness.
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Click here to read or to
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Here is my first book out in ebook format as it provides an outline of the conditions of my malevolent childhood. Click here to view or purchase–
Story Without Words: How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?
It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge. A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.
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Tags: adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame
Stop the Storm 