Healing

The thing about healing is that in some cases it can be instantaneous, and thank God for that. But most times it is a process. It's like the donkey in Shrek says about the layers of an onion. You peel off some layers, come to terms with them, feel like it's all you can handle, so you put the onion away for awhile. Then some time passes, you are thankful for your new found freedom and something happens that makes you delve a little deeper. I think in talking to my sister when I was home for Ava's first birthday, I could feel some of the sadness over my childhood creeping up and I was surprised that I was so sad talking about it, it really caught me off guard. I have dealt and come to terms with a lot of things about my dysfunctional parents....and yet, much to my chagrin....THERE'S ALWAYS MORE!!! grrr! I decided that my summer project...of which I just started and have a week to complete is to conquer....the closet...ugg...the extra closet and so I began yesterday. I am realizing that talking about cleaning out a scary closet has a lot of similarities in making peace with my past...hmmm....coincidence?! Anyways, I came across a study I started awhile back, it got really intense and I put it away for awhile. Coming across it I thought, maybe it's time to pick it up again. I just don't like all the sad feelings that come along with it. As I read through the weeks I had already completed, I had some new revelations. It was interesting to read about how a dysfunctional family revolves around the emotions of one person. And how my emotional well-being was formed due to the rage-aholic, alcoholic father that we tiptoed around. And how friends had to go home once my father was home from work. Or that opinions or emotions were not ok to have. And that emotional eating has its roots in helping you to "swallow" feelings that you...scratch that....feelings that I was not allowed to have. I have wondered often why I don't like to feel angry. Anger inside of me feels so out of control and scary. And something I went back and read yesterday just clicked in my brain....this is from Making Peace with Your Past....
A dysfunctional family puts limits on the expression of feelings....if she expresses her anger, Dad might get dangerously angry. To make the emotional pain go away for awhile, she may learn to swallow her feelings by eating. The expression of unacceptable feelings may be ignored as a way of communicating that these feelings are not permitted in this family. After receiving these messages thousands of times , the child adopts a powerfully destructive thought: " My feelings are not important. My feelings don't matter. I don't have a right to feel pain. I don't have a right to feel." The child learns to live through the feelings of the addictive/compulsive parent who is the primary focus of the dysfunctional family. When this person is happy, the child thinks she is happy. When this person is sad, the child feels sad.

When I re-read this I understood about being scared about being angry or mad....growing up I didn't have the right to feel angry. I didn't have the right to feel angry about being called down from my bedroom to put my father's plate in the kitchen sink for him. Or being called downstairs to bring him the salt. Not allowed to be angry about being hit. Not allowed to be angry about hearing my dog yelp and wail as he got beat by my father in the garage. Not being allowed to feel angry each time my dad told me I was stupid. Not allowed to be angry when my father was yelling at my sister.

And what about learning to eat to swallow feelings?!?! How do you reverse that?

How do you honor two parents whom you have a deep seated anger for and whom you do not even enjoy their company?

How do I heal from this completely and allow myself to be involved in a healthy, loving relationship? How does all this become something of the past that stays in the past?

I sat across from my dad a week and a half ago, listening to him tell a story and thinking, there isn't anything I like about him. I can usually put on a good face and pretend. Or I can pity him. But this past week, all of that was gone from me. I looked at him and just felt disgust, dislike and just couldn't bear to sit there.

It's interesting that my parents would still like to play that role. Of leaving the house or someone coming in and everything is just wonderful. A nice family...blah, blah.... and I believe they would still like my sister and I to play that role...and having been in the world and see that that is not how good families act or that life isn't meant to be that way...the pretending is over. And my parents are baffled...that we won't vacation with them or don't want to see them more often. My dad still pulls his punches (verbally) I just can't imagine how the relationships we have or don't have with them isn't crystal clear to them. That truly baffles me.