Healing the children

       I intended to begin with the huge steps of healing I have seen occur within my youngest daughter as she gained trust in me with each step I took in becoming the sole, supreme authority in our environment. The more I appropriately asserted myself, the more she opened up and began to heal. The more I defended her, the more she trusted me, opened up to me, became reliant upon me for example and guidence. But it occurs to me, we cannot give to another what is not already within us. Before I could even begin to know what to do for my children, I had to rise to the defense of myself, my own inner child, the parts of me that have been wounded, twisted and repressed.
      My mother yelled at me this past summer "You need to stop blaming everyone else and take responsibility for yourself" and "You just show up every ten years blaming everyone else for everything". Number one) as an abused child whose motives were always brought into  question, who was always blamed for everyone else's emotions and problems, I am always the first to blame me for ANYTHING wrong in my environment. I was raised hearing constantly how we children were the cause of all my mother's troubles. Even upon this return to Maine, the response was "I have to check with ("my boyfriend"). After all we have been through because of you kids I am not sure he will want me to help you. I will not lose him because of you. He has stuck by me these past ten years through everything you kids have put us through", but even more revealing "I am getting old and no one else will want me". So, now we are responsible for her age, her insecurities, and worse, those will take priority over mine and my young children's well-being. She, in essence, is saying we will have to remain homeless and peniless if this man does not agree to allow her to take us in. I highly doubt this man would deny a home to my children. He is, if anything, overprotective. But who knows what twisted version of events my mother would tell him. She is a praticed liar and denier. I do not blame her completely. I love her dearly and passionately. I know her growing up environment. At the same time, I balance it out with the fact that I am 43 years old. She has had 20 years more of life and far more resources available to her than I ever did, and yet I am taking responsibility in defending myself and scratching my way through minimal resources to access books and programs to help myself help my children. And number two) 10 years ago I only began to ask people not to speak to my children in certain ways and not to touch them in certain ways. I blamed no one for anything, I simply changed the standard of behaviors I would accept in our envirnment. It is not my fault anyone else took it personally. It was not my fault their own consciences condemned them , because I certainly didn't. As a matter of fact, the reason I ended up being the one punished for their irresponsibility with 10 years of exile from my children and family was because I failed to make other people take responsibility for THEIR mistreating me and my children, THIER emotions, and THEIR poor choices. I accepted responsibility for everything. No one need preach to me about taking responsibility. I need reminding NOT to take responsibility for everything.
     THAT is what I am now changing. As a child I did not invite my father to touch me inapropriately. It was not because I failed to put my clothes away in a timely fashion that my mother smashed my head against the wall. My father had predatory sexual dysfunctions and my mother couldn't hold her temper. Another accusation that comes from my mother is "You only remember the bad things". This is a lie. I remember the good, I live in the good. The god is why I am even alive. The problem is that the good is the only thing anyone else acknowledges. They do it forcefully, defensively, publically, before any accusations are ever made because they are determined to avoid and deny the bad for themselves. They claim to be above "drama". They claim to be focused only on positive, making them "good", "positive", "upbuilding" people to be around, making them oh, so much better, politically correct and socially acceptable. This only forces the equal and opposite to assert it's self. I am, in essence, forced to assert and acknowledge for myself the rest of the picture. It is a matter of FULL acceptence. It is a matter of complete honesty. It is a matter of intellectual and emotional survival. THIS is all of me. This is ALL of my family. This is ALL of my community. THIS is the true picture. Forcefully projecting and emphasizing only the positive is only allowing the existence of one half of the truth. It is crippling one's self and everyone else. It is a lie. It is lopsided, imbalanced, unhealthy. It creates the need for those who do not want to die inside with courage to explode with "the rest of the story". It is the cause for the increase in violence in our society and amongst families. 
    So, ten years later I come back facing the same projecting of responsibility for everyone else's problems and I defend myself. That is hardly blaming everyone else for everything. You know what is blaming everyone else for everything? When I was accused with blame for my neighbor's daughter's drug habit because I moved my daughter (who was her best friend 10 years ago) away. I was blamed for a former friend's hurt and her world suddenly growing smaller because she never even offered to help me escape my abusive circumstances, so I instead moved out of state. Of course I'm going to deny responsibility for any of those problems. They are not mine. I did not create them. Those people created them for themselves. I already sacrificed my soul for these people once. It won't be happening a second time. They have had 10 years to learn how to love and take responsibility for themselves. It is they who have failed, not I. And now a part of me wants to declare instinctively "Just give me my children and I will go in peace". But is that in essence what I long for? Is it what any of needs? No. I just want to be able to love and help heal my children. I just want to stop being blamed for everything. I want to stay and love my neighbors and family, even if they choose to stay in a state of denial. I do not wish to change anyone else, I just want the freedom to be my whole compassionate self. And the reason why I can be so compassionate is because I understand from first hand experience why people behave as they do. I have been there myself. By accepting and asserting all of me, I am better able to accept, respect and assert, defend, other people appropriately.
     I remember as a child once going to a classmate's house for an after school visit. Her house was clean and spacious, bright and sunny. Her mom was baking and her dad came home, giving her mom an affectionate kiss on the cheek. They were pleasant to eachother and their children. Inside I panicked and screamed. This was abnormal, it had to be a trick, deceit. I wanted to run out of the house screaming. I wanted to cry and ask to go home. That place was not natural. Later in life I worked at Subway. I was promoted because one customer came in and told the manager how unsafe they had felt when a drunk came in. The customer raved about how I had adeptly handled it and the man left without hurting anyone or causing damage. I didn't think I had done anything special. Isn't it only natural to know how to diffuse an angry drunk with laughter? To question why I may not have been able to make "better" choices in men or to go without them completely is unreasonable. I grew up with my environment teaching me you always had do whatever it took to have the attention and approval of men. A woman could not live without one. If she did not have one, there was something wrong with her. And ther type of men a woman wanted to please where men like these. Anyone's natural basis of self-approval is a product of their environment.
    It is only now that I come back and see what is here as unhealthy. It is only now I am metaphorically at a friend's house watching the interactions and shocked by how unnatural it is. Respectful, honest, affectionate interactions are now what is natural to me. If I did not perceive myself as having to be subject to it, I would perceive no need to defend myself against it. But it has something I need: my children. It will not give them back willingly. It tells me not even trying is the best thing through the mouths of my mother and grandmother. Do I really need my children? No, but I want them. I would heal any child in this world I am able. But these children are the only ones my environment will even recognize any possibility of a right to do that with. And in good conscience, I cannot replace my children. They are a part of me, a piece of my very flesh quickened to life, released from my body and given a voice of it's own. A voice that is twisted and oppressed. A voice I wish to release into this world for it's own benefit. They are each unique and valuable. In my heart they each have a place of special affection, a connection of shared memories and experiences. A need within them to be loved and fully accepted by the parent from whom they were born. That cannot be replaced for them. I am not replaceable for them no matter what anyone tells them. And I know it.
   Part of my healing is occuring in a small part because my mother is allowing me to stay here after all. Because of the stand I took, she no longer stalks me and harrasses me about money or responsibilities. I am able to at least take on the electric bill now that I have an income. I did so freely without anyone asking. It's only natural to want to, not only for my own sense of security, self-worth, etc but also out of love, affection and appreciation for my mother's allowing me to be here. I know it is not easy for her. I would lift all her burdens from her if I could. If she lay sick and dying I would lay in her hospital bed with her if she allowed it. But that is the problem. We who have been twisted into thinking we do not deserve love and respect, simple honor, do not allow it in. We shove it away. We deny our need for it. We won't even accept it from ourselves, so why would we take it from someone else? Thanks be to God, I am beyond that. I absolutely prefer love, respect and honor. It is no longer even awkard for me to receive and allow it. I naturally return it freely. I naturaly offer it first, before even asked or invited. I assume it's natural right to existence and to be given priority in my environment while allowing and overlooking it's occassional absense in those around me if able, if appropriate.
   The road home can be a long, hard journey when it seems everything is working against you. But that journey home within one's self is well worth it, in my opinion. And if it brings you home to your family, we are all that much better off for it.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.