when hard feelings prevail

The Italian elderly man wore the face of an ancient patriarch as he marched out orders in his broken English. He urgently needed to renew something he no longer really needed. Carefully, he monitored every move as his middle-aged son drove him to his destination.

“Turn right. Not that way. Bend the wheel further or you'll hit that car.
Stop in front of the yellow post.
No. Not there… closer to the entrance.”

Caught in this hail storm of directives, the son felt more like teenager than a veteran driver in his fifties. When things didn’t go his way, the elderly man broke out into something part way between a tantrum and a panic attack. That day was no exception. When asked respectfully to calm down, he got hot and defensive and sulked silently in resentment the rest of the way home.

When they returned the ordeal apparently had only begun. The elderly man wanted to justify his behavior while his son wanted to hear no more. Both men exchanged harsh words that resulted in some out-of-control behavior. Finally, as if entering a temporary state of insanity, the elderly man broke out into a torrent of verbal abuse and curses as one pours acid into a fish tank.

The days that followed ticked away painfully slow as everyone retreated to their corner. Heaviness mingled with restless thoughts. Father muttering something to himself; son trying to block out his father's despair. The rest of the family were ineptly caught between the two opposing forces.

When it comes to family conflicts, the redemptive lessons hide themselves like insects of the night. You can't distinguish the guilty from the innocent; the abuser from the injured. It's tempting to sweep it under the carpet. It’s easier to focus on the irrational and combative behavior while forgetting the destructive inner brooding that can wear out the physical and emotional self. The concept of forgiveness can become insurmountable because it’s often muddled up with religious clichés. What remains clear, is that no one can win while hard feelings prevail.

wearing a mask

“The kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.”  Matthew 11:12

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wearing a mask
drains emotional energy
until eventually
all sense of spontaneity
becomes eroded
it places you
in long-term acting roles
where you feign
presence and enjoyment

-- intuitivefeeling

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"No matter how difficult it may seem, make the choice to live consciously. Do not succumb to that half-conscious realm of fear-based thinking, filling your life with distractions to avoid facing what you feel in those silent spaces between your thoughts. Either exercise your human endowment of courage and progressively build the strength to face your deepest, darkest fears to live as the powerful being you truly are, or admit your fears are too much for you, and embrace life as a mouse. But make this choice consciously and with full awareness of its consequences. If you are going to allow fear to win the battle for your life, then proclaim it the victor and forfeit the match. If you simply avoid living consciously and courageously, then that is equivalent to giving up on life itself, where your continued existence becomes little more than a waiting period before physical death - the nothing as opposed to the daring adventure." -- Steve Pavlina

Note: Steve Pavlina is an independent thinker with some fresh ideas. However, I do not endorse his ideas about religion nor anything about open "love relationships". 

grief work

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People are generally threatened by emotional vulnerability. Whenever you happen to open up to others, you'll find their eyes oftentimes glaze over. This reflex is strongly aligned to society’s emotional insulation. LeoTolstoy in his novel “The Death of Ivan Ilyich" tells the story of society's deep commitment to this insulation. Everyone wants the main character Ivan to believe he will pull through his sickness when all evidence proves contrary. It's the typical portrait of the denial. As one commentator wrote,

“The artificial life is marked by shallow relationships, self-interest, and materialism. It is insular, unfulfilling, and ultimately incapable of providing answers to the important questions in life. The artificial life is a deception that hides life's true meaning and leaves one terrified and alone at the moment of death.”

Parental figures and authorities involuntarily mistreat us because they were mistreated by previous generations.  These unresolved traumas get swept under the rug and therefore interfere with our present adult existence producing codependence, addictions, depression, mental illness and anxiety.

-- intuitivefeeling

grieving loss as a releasing agent

“If we are grieving, it is because of our blessed capacity to embrace life and take risks.” – Kathleen Hawk

Although writing usually helps clarify my thoughts, composing this journal entry isn't as easy as I imagined. I not only encounter multiple issues that resist translation, I come into collision with my own perceptions. No matter how the words arrange themselves, they look back at me with trifling glances. The deeper I excavate, the less justice accorded to the lived experience. I find I can only endure so much time addressing this topic before I'm consumed with nausea or fatigue.

My Story

When we believe we are undeserving, we may involuntarily open ourselves to unsuitable company without understanding why. These unsuitable personalities have abilities to decode susceptibility and hoodwink others through false assurances. While being charming on the surface, they are volatile, combative, and disrespectful of boundaries. They maintain a persistent self-referential attitude and suck away energy like vampires. Yet, as one therapist put it,

"The abuser may be loving between abusive episodes, so you deny or forget them."
These abusive episodes operate within cycles and begin with measured doses of seductive sweetness, followed by days of increasing tension, then finally erupting into violent verbal and/or physical attacks. They're called cycles because the sweetness, tension and acting out become a recurring pattern played over and over again like a loop cassette tape.

This kaleidoscope of emotional contradiction is just one example of the drama I faced. After each explosion I’d put on an antic disposition, not wanting to eat nor take care of myself. I breathed a peculiar kind of calm because I didn't have to walk on eggshells. I’d go for long walks alone; I'd interact with strangers on the street; I'd sit near my daughter's bed at night and cry as if to mourn an unforeseeable exile and I’d tuck away a small suitcase with carefully packed clothes, important documents and other essentials, in case I needed a quick getaway. For many years, I strained as I listened to cheerful voices celebrating family achievements or special occasions, yet such joy seemed out of my reach.

Usually when society thinks of grief, it fails to acknowledge losses that are not death related. For many years I have been involuntarily experiencing what therapists refer to as “disenfranchised grief”-- grief that is not socially validated because of the stigma attached to emotional abuse.

Recovery from abuse is as elusive as it is profound. The hardest part is having so few models to follow. You frantically seek help, only to realize the subject at hand is foreign to the general public. Just as support can hold you steady, the opposite can throw you into perplexity.

Only when we embrace trauma, can we release it. Recently I came across a list of “grief” descriptions that I converted into questions to reflect upon. To this end, dear readers there is a means...

Who was I before the abuse began?
Why did I not take action when the abuse first happened?
What about the life I could have lived?
What about the dreams that never bore fruit?
What about the person I thought she was?
What kind of father would I have been had my marriage been different?
What kind of life could my child have lived?
How do I grieve a life I can no longer recover?
How do I come to terms with the way it was -- the way I wished it had been?

-- Intuitive Feeling

when dreams depart

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When it comes to traumatic events, sometimes the underlying issues are obscured even to those who experienced them. The most anyone can do is to be as objective as humanly possible, trusting he has made the best evaluation possible.

It's usually with apprehension he opens his wounds to anyone, for just as the support of a friend can hold him steady, the disparaging of the latter can throw him into an abyss. At first he seeks support from anyone who'll listen, but eventually comes to realize the subject at hand is foreign to the general public. He therefore devotes large chunks of time to understanding what went wrong and its effects upon interpersonal relationships, health and personal growth.

I came to realize as long as you live with some people in an Gilligan-Island existence, all is love and peace. To the public eye it is difficult to perceive there are human beings who are incapable of sustaining long term friendships except nominally. Some will work day and night to sabotage your connections by 1) seeking to poison your view of others and 2) absorbing your energy with a long list of demands.

Some people also inflict terror so eventually a flash of the eyes is all that is needed.  Cycles of abuse consist in measured doses of sweetness and calm, that eventually lead to periods of tension and hostility, that eventually erupt into verbal attacks. As Darlene Lancer says, "The abuser may be loving between abusive episodes, so that you deny or forget them."

This shift back and forth, can push you into a role similar to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. After each “explosion” he’s walk about in an antic disposition for days not wanting to eat nor take care of himself.  While to others the list below may seem to be a collection of cold clinical data, to me each trait is a condensed prompt that elicits more distressing personal stories.

-- Intuitive Feeling

Paranoid Personality Disorder -- ICD-10 is characterized by the following traits:

- excessive sensitivity to setbacks and rebuffs;
- tendency to bear grudges persistently, i.e. refusal to forgive insults and injuries or slights;
- suspiciousness and a pervasive tendency to distort experience by misconstruing the neutral or friendly actions of others as hostile or contemptuous;
- a combative and tenacious sense of personal rights out of keeping with the actual situation;
- recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding sexual fidelity of spouse or sexual partner;
- tendency to experience excessive self-importance, manifest in a persistent self-referential attitude;

- preoccupation with unsubstantiated "conspiratorial" explanations of events both immediate to the patient and in the world at large.

-- The World Health Organization