Severing Unhealthy Family Ties - a necessity for continuing growth, part 1

     Sometimes moving forward involves letting go of what no longer works.  We need to let go of the past to fully live in the present.  The Universe has challenged me in untold of ways during my life.  If anyone had a right to wallow in self-pity it would be me, but I can't and I won't.  I have chosen to allow my life circumstances to mold me into the precious human I am today.  I have chosen to love myself and all the scars that brought me to this magnificent point in my life.  I am great and only getting better.  This doesn't mean there won't be challenges, but I have learned to trust that everything I am, everything I'm becoming will help me surmount the life hurdles I may face.
     Over this past New Year's holiday I checked myself into Brighton Center for Recovery for a medical detox.  I had been prescribed numerous addictive substances over the years to deal with the many health challenges I had faced.  I was waisting away.  I was dying.  I weighed just 117, and am 5'8" tall.  My skin was hanging off my frame, and I could barely move.  I had been trying to detox myself from the medication I was taking, but I didn't have the time nor energy for such a long process.  Making the decision to face my addiction head on was the best thing I have ever done.  Well...one of the best things...lol...
     Following detox I was quickly confronted with some challenging life decisions.  How was I going to choose to live my life, and who was I going to welcome back in?  At 51 years old I have the luxury of deciding who stays and who goes.  (Actually, I think we all have this luxury, but it's a scary power to have so we disown it - but that's just me...)  Choosing to live a happy and healthy life, a life dedicated to service, was the easy part.  Choosing who I would allow to continue in my circle was a whole different story.  We are conditioned to believe that family, regardless of how crazy or toxic they may be is always in our best interest.  This is a myth long in the making.  Sometimes the best, healthiest thing we can do for ourselves is to sever ties with those who no longer service our higher good, and sever I did. 
     The first person off the block, so to speak, was a cousin.
     Jackie started calling me after my release from detox.  I had spoken with her a few times over the years, but in truth I had been abandoned by my friends and family during my time of greatest need.  The detox was only a resolution of a much longer and agonizing story.  Those I should have been able to turn to had deserted me.  Now that I was getting my life back on track my phone was suddenly ringing.
     I lost my car in an auto accident in 2009.  I was dependent on others for transportation of any kind.  Jackie had, in fact, given me a ride on two or three occasions, but when you live in a city with no mass transportation you are dependent on others for pretty much everything.  So the few rides I did get from her didn't really amount to much.  It was kind of like spitting on a raging fire.
     Jackie is married to my cousin Mark.  Their relationship is wildly dysfunctional.  Mark is an active drug addict.  He was able to clean himself up for a time, but soon relapsed back into his old ways.  They communicate by screaming - an age old tradition passed down through our familial genes.  Theirs is a hallmark example of a dysfunctional relationship. 
     Jackie called me on a few occasions.  I managed to dodge her, but she was persistent.  She called my Mom and complained I was being mean and discourteous.  My Mom called me and told me I was being mean - and so the dysfunctional family story unfolds. 
     Initially, I had been avoiding Jackie because I didn't want anything to do with people who are actively engaging in their addiction.  One of the hallmark rules of staying sober initially is to avoid people who use, and I was.  Eventually, it all came down to setting healthy boundaries for myself.  It was no longer a need.  It was a desire, and I desired peace.  Engaging with Jackie would not bring the peace I was seeking, and  I have struggled long enough.  Jackie, however, persisted. 
     When we initially set a boundary in life we have to expect it will be tested.  I had managed to avoid Jackie's phone calls so one day when I posted something to Facebook she "commented."  "This is all very spiritual, but I want to talk to you."  Jackie couldn't take no for an answer, and she was willing to track me down on a public domain if that's what it took to get a response other than silence.  I didn't comment back on my post.  Instead I sent her a text message, and in the kindest way one can possibly tell someone to leave them alone, I did.  I knew it would hurt, but this was about me.  If she truly understood and honored me she wouldn't have tracked me down and tried to pull me back in.  She would have listened to the silence of no response, but my family is dense that way.  I received a scathing reply about how good she had been to me, and how I had hurt her, etc.  And of this I have no doubt.  When we grow accustomed to an unhealthy interpersonal dynamic we fight against change.  The change, in this instant, had occurred within me and I was no longer willing to back down to accommodate the needs of others.  Sometimes in life we need to sever unhealthy family ties to move forward unencumbered, and sever I did.  I thought I was being nice by avoiding the issue, but quite the opposite was true.  Silence, to those embedded in chaos, creates more disharmony.  Not saying anything was my way of avoiding the pain I knew my decision would cause, and the expected backlash I received.  Sending the text - cutting the cord was indeed painful, but it was a good pain.  I had freed myself from a situation I chose not to carry into a future.

*****stay tuned for part 2...who stays and who goes...   

No More

I've held my voice for far too long.  I've held it to the point of getting an infection in my jaw.  Dentists, Doctors might not understand this concept, but I do.  When we don't say what we need to for our own health and happiness it will come to us in the form of disease - dis-ease...

I was recently visiting someone I love dearly.  Someone I cherish.  That's a tough one given the family I come from.  I grew up in a family of anger and rejection.  We all did what we needed to in order to survive.  We all gained skills that would help us to navigate our future even if our futures weren't quite we had hoped and imagined them to be.  We are all, in our own ways, survivors.  But I want more.

I've survived most of my life.  I learned very early to sacrifice my own needs at the expense of those around me.  AS if this was, somehow, a noble trait.   I've sacrificed my voice to keep the status quo.  As I've aged, however, I realize I was never meant to keep the status quo.  I have a voice, a strong voice.  To not use it is a crime against myself. 

I've been shut down and shut up by people long enough.  I'm tired to listening to the words of others, and not being heard, honored and respected in my own right.  I have always been a good listener - too good listener.  I was always being told to shut-up.  I was told my opinion didn't count, wasn't valid, didn't matter.  Nothing or no one was ever there to build me up.  In my family, a compliment was invariably followed with a smack in the face, and I'm tired of being hit.  So much so I am willing to step out on my own, and to cut the ties with those who continue to shut me up at my expense.  It's scary, but I'm ready, willing and able to take back my life.  A life free of family criticism.  When they've done the personal work I've done then maybe I'll listen, but until then forget it.

No more hearing or listening at my own expense.  No more self-sacrifice for those who wouldn't sacrifice for me. 

No Way Out

I'm the poverty you hear about.  The poverty you never really have to see.  I'm here, I'm alive, and I'm sorry to ruin your day.

Most of you woke up this morning, shuffled around the house and got ready for work.  I woke up this morning terrified.  Terrified that what I have, what I am won't be enough to get me through the day.  I would love to get ready to go out, but I can't.  I've been cast aside, thrown out, deemed unworthy of respect and honor by those around me.  The minute I was hurt everybody walked away. Here I sit, alone and scared.  Afraid all my efforts. desires and hopes will go unnoticed by those who could really help if they wanted.  Oh, wait, I'm asking too much.  So sorry...let me crawl back under the rock you've relegated.  I'll try not to bother you again.

My sin - I broke my neck.  I fell into a trench holding my then infant daughter, and snapped my neck at the C-3 vertebrae.  I heard it.  Snapping your neck is a distinctively sickening sound.  One that happens right between your ears.  You can't pretend it didn't happen.

My second sin - I got up and walked away.  It doesn't happen often. Ask Christopher Reeve, Superman.  Oh yeah, he's dead.  My point exactly.  I didn't know I was supposed to be dead or paralyzed from the neck down.  My then husband picked up our daughter, went into the house and shut off all the lights.  Not before, however, telling me to "get my fat-ass up, and quite making a spectacle of myself."  I was left alone to deal with a tragedy.  This is a theme that plays itself out far too often in life.  The minute we can no longer produce we become expendable.  We don't count, and no longer matter.  We become the problem of somebody else.  The problem with this line of reasoning is who exactly is the "someone else?"

My then husband picked up our daughter and went in the house.  The doctor's I saw dismissed me as hysterical.  My family too.  Sad, very, very sad.  When you fall down in life somebody should be there to give you hand and help you back up.  It doesn't happen as much as we might like to think, but it should.  We live in a society that shows us when we're down we should stay down.  Don't get back up.  Don't heal.  Cease to want or need because we can't see you.  We don't want to see you.  Seeing might make us have to change the way we do things, and we do things perfectly.  Right?  Wrong...

I fell.  I got hurt.  My circumstance changed, but I didn't.  I'm intelligent, creative, loving and compassionate.  I'm still the same, but I sinned.  I needed to check out for a while to recover.  I needed a time-out in a world not meant for them.  In Detroit there's a t-shirt that reads "Detroit. Where the weak are killed and eaten."  I suspect the creator understood far more than this saying would indicate.  Refusing to acknowledge the needs of another doesn't make a problem go away.  It makes it worse - much, much worse. 

I'm the poverty you hear about.  I fell and I got back up.  I won't stay down, not for anybody.  I have a choice.  What about those who don't?

I'm trying to return to work.  It's harder than it looks.  I'm well-educated, intelligent, and ready to put in the necessary time to make a go of it in todays world, but I don't have the one thing that will ensure my efforts will pay off...a car.

Sometimes I wish I lived in a City with mass transportation.  Frankly, I wish I lived anywhere but Oak Park, Michigan.  Blight and poverty rule.  I can't walk down the street without some sort of protection.  I live in a building with paper thin walls and floors.  Opening the door is an open invitation for trouble.  How did I get here?

I know how I got here.  I had a car accident and needed help.  Silly me.  I actually thought there were people in the world who were genuinely willing to help others.  I needed help paying my bills on time, and meeting the needs of my daughter.  I got neither.  What I did get was a man, two men, three men willing to drain me of all my financial resources to meet their needs.  My daughter and I were moved to a controlled environment.  Like lab rats in a cage.  The "help" I received was nothing short of abusive.  Unskilled and uncompassionate people were hired to help me through a transitory point in my life.  I was screamed at and abused.  My money and belongings stolen.  My daughter was sent to live with her father, a man who wanted nothing more than to be rid of me.  I was almost killed off.  Sent to live in the underbelly of society to never be heard of again.  I was excommunicated from the world because I had an accident and needed help...silly me...it was my understanding that when you ask for help it's provided.

Now I'm stuck.  It's really hard to climb out of a hole with know ladder.  I wouldn't suggest trying it.  I have the grit, fortitude and determination to improve my position, but once you are cast-out it's almost impossible to recover.  I say almost because I have hope.  Hope for what I'm not really sure.

I have hope the sun will come out tomorrow.  I have hope all my efforts will prove to be fruitful and eventually multiply.  I have hope someday someone will take an interest in my plight and give me a helping hand out of the hole I woke up in.  I have hope because without it I think I'd have to give up.  I'd have to roll over and forget my dreams for a better tomorrow.   I'd have to accept the inevitability of poverty - situational and emotional.

I don't want to wake up tomorrow in an impoverished world.  I want to see the sun, and think it's shining or me.  I want to laugh and play like I did so long ago, before the accident that stole my freedom.  I want to see my daughter off to school, go to work, interact with like-minded people, volunteer my time to the needy.  I want to volunteer to help the needy, not be the needy.

This is America - Land of opportunity, or so I thought.  What opportunities await those no one wants to see?  I don't know.  I hope I find out...one day...before I die, that is.

Catch A Plane To Tomorrow

Sometimes we need to look back to move forward.  It's important to review the events that have shaped us, molded us into the people we are today.  The trick is not getting stuck there. 

For too many life has ben filled with pain.  We tend to gravitate to it, and forget that amidst the pain there is light, hope for a better tomorrow.  Yes, we can recall joy, happiness and content, but far too often these are brief moments interspersed amidst the litter of yesterday.  Pain often outweighs light.  That's how we get stuck.  We move forward by putting down the bags of yesterday.  Allowing the past to remain where it is, behind us.  It's like being at an airport and trying to catch a plane.  The more you carry with you the harder it is to get to the terminal, but leaving with nothing is impossible.  I've never caught a plane to somewhere else with nothing...never.  It's what we chose to take with us that makes all the difference.

Think about the last time you were at an airport.  Close your eyes.  Remember.  Some people move slow, some fast.  Recall.  Who carries what?  I'm willing to bet the people moving quickly carry less with them.  Their lightness allows them to do so.  Just like life.  The more we take, the slower the commute. 

Life is about choosing what we take with us on our flight, our journey to tomorrow.  Since tomorrow never really comes it's more about what we carry with us today.  Reflection is key.  It gives us an opportunity to sift through the bags we carry, and put down what no longer works.  Reflecting on the past moves us to tomorrow unencumbered.  It's a choice.  Our choice.  Sometimes, in a strange sort of way, a painful choice.  Choose wisely.  Your plane awaits.



 

On our quest to begin again we must understand two things.  One, we will never ever be the same, and two, no one else will be either.

Another karmic law, when we change those around us have to change too or risk losing you in their life.  I read a great saying:

When she transformed into a butterfly,

the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty,

but of her weirdness.  They wanted her

to change back into what she had always been...

 

But she had wings

 

 

Sometimes life makes me sad.  I watched as a car stopped in a parking lot outside my window.  A man who was obviously mentally challenged was forced out of the car.  The guy driving pretended to drive away.  He drove a few feet then stopped.  Drove a few feet and stopped.  The man who was pushed out chased the car through the parking lot, obviously afraid he would be left behind.  It's winter in Michigan.  Too cold to be playing games with someone unable to care for themselves.  What happened to humanity?

I wish this was an isolated incident, but I know it's not.  I was forced into an unlicensed group home when the man who was supposed to "Guard" me, protect me from the nasty people of the world, decided I wasn't worth it.  I had received a $155,000 settlement from an auto accident only a few months before my life was ripped out from under me by a Court Appointed Guardian.  I was told all my money was gone, and I had no other choice but to go where he said.  I has no choice and no one to protect me from a system and man with no accountability.  My daughter was given to her father like she was a commodity.  My furniture and belongings, including a rare coin collection, were given to the greedy and hateful woman who owned the group home I was being placed in.  I was alone, depressed, with no where or none one to turn to.  The injuries I incurred in my accident were temporary.  My daughter and I were in a transitory point in our lives.  It was more profitable, though, to keep me dependent on a man and system who didn't care if I lived or died.  The treatment I received is proof of that.  The system was strong.  I was stronger, and I got out.  So many more are still there.  Alone and cold with no one to truly care.

Seeing that man chasing after a car in the parking lot reminds me of a very painful time in my life.  Time I'll never get back.  My belongings are only things.  My dignity is not.  It's a part of me.  no one should ever try and strip me of this.  No one should have to chase a car in a parking lot, afraid they will be left in the cold.  I survived because my injuries were temporary.  What of the man in the lot?  What is he enduring tonight at the hands of those who don't care?

Beginning again often requires us to relearn what we thought we knew, and add a whole new set of tools to our bag of tricks.  Thank God an old dog can indeed learn new tricks.

For me it's the computer thing!!!  I know how to do the basics.  I can turn a computer on and off.  I can read my email, play a game or two and access Bing to do a web search. That's where my expertise stops. Stopped...until the other day.  Until I wanted more than I had.  Until I began to grow...again.

You see we never really stop growing.  We get stuck in how we define this process.  So we're getting older, big deal!  I see my daughter struggling to find herself at the tender age of 18.  Life has dealt her some hard knocks, but she has yet to develop the awareness that she will end up exactly where she needs to be.  She has the skills to move into her future, but she hasn't yet learned to trust herself.  She is green...I am gold...age has its perks.

Beginning again mid-life can feel overwhelming, sometimes demeaning.  It's more difficult than even I want to admit.  Beginnings are for the young.  Starting from scratch...everything and nothing to lose.  Where to go from here?

The good news, we, as seasoned adults, have a myriad of experience to back us up.  We are not truly starting from scratch.  Every second of every previous day has brought us to this point in life.  I am more than a work in progress.  I'm a work in progress with a history of experience.  I am full. Complete in today, and working toward a broader tomorrow.  Experience has taught me I am more than a sum of my parts.  I have already been mother, teacher, therapist, leader and learner.  I've been, and am, all of this, and more.  I am full, and I can become more.  Realizing this has given me the hope I need to begin to stretch again.  I'm testing the boundaries of my personal envelope.  I am only defined by what I choose to do in the here-and-now. Yesterday was a dream, tomorrow a hope.  I only have today, this moment in time.  What I choose today will pave the path to tomorrow...tomorrows hopes become yesterday's dreams...I am whole.  I am complete. I am enough.

I am free

New Beginnings

Beginning again is hard.  Harder then most anyone around will give you credit for.  Begin again anyway.  It's worth it.

I'm starting over...beginning to rebuild a shattered life from scratch.  I'm choosing to move forward in spite of all the negative energy trying to pull me back into old patterns and ways of thinking.  I've changed, but many around me don't want to.  If they're going to continue being a part of my life, however, they'll have to change too.  I think it's some kind of universal law.  When we change others will have to change in relation to us.  Scary, right?  It's also refreshing and freeing.  We don't have to roll around in the same muck day after day.  We can get out and take a nice hot shower (or a cool one if, like me, you happen to be in the throws of menopause...).

I'm excited and terrified at the same time.  If your life is changing you'll probably feel the same.  Another universal law...we all have conflicting feelings...yuck! Yea!  We are alive. We are free.

The last four years have been a nightmare.  What started with an unfortunate car accident snowballed into a use and abuse of power by the jackasses I found myself surrounded by.  Men (mostly) more concerned about money then they were about helping me to pay my bills in a timely manner, and caring for myself and my then 14 year old daughter, Makenna.  This, however, is fodder for the book I'm currently writing entitled Starving To Death In America: A Survivors Story.

I have survived.  I've more than survived.  I'm living proof miracles do happen.  I'm grateful...I'm happy to be alive...I'm excited to move into my future unencumbered by the old, and surrounded by the new.

I only wish my beautiful daughter could understand...but that's another story...