So... What's Going On Here?
Well, now.
After sitting back and looking at the situation, I've reached the conclusion that I recently pulled the most genius move of my entire emotional career:
I tried to get [an] abuser[s] to stop being abusive by abusing [him] them.
Oh yeah, that's really going to go somewhere constructive. But as attractive as a 2-day ***headdesk*** session might be [and it is, oh it is] I think it's going to be a lot more constructive if I sit with this and try to learn from it.
First: yes, you read that accurately. My behavior, by my own evaluation, was abusive.
What you aren't reading or seeing - here and now, anyway - is how adroitly - and desperately - I've been trying to excuse, rationalize, shift blame for, etc. etc. etc. my own abusive behavior in this instance.
Trust me on this. It's been remarkable to watch myself. Wiggle wiggle, squirm squirm. Avoid, distract, excuse, justify, squirm, wiggle. Whew.
The amount of mental energy I've put into trying to avoid facing this plain fact is truly impressive.
I really really don't want to see that behavior as abusive. I've become honest enough that I can't duck the abusive part. So Wiggle Wiggle Squirm Squirm wants to see it as "abusive, but..."
No, uh-uh. That road's closed. There is no "abusive, but". Abusive behavior is unacceptable, and there are always non-abusive options. I know this. I've been explaining it for two years now, I'd better know it.
So. I'm going to take this in baby steps - it's very tiring, being partly outside myself ['Just Saying No' to my Inner Thug] and at the same time, being in there wiggling around trying to cook up a credible excuse for acting like a cretin. What's more, I know that wiggling squirming stuff is going to resume the minute my 'executive function' attention shifts elsewhere. So I'll tag it as MonkeyMind, aka the Old Adam [or Eve, in my case], and just let it squirm, and try not to believe anything it says.
Onward.
By the way, prayers are being said and will keep being said throughout this process, as they have been throughout other processes. I hope to spend my latter years 'in community', and I have no intention of bringing this in there with me, if at all possible.
After sitting back and looking at the situation, I've reached the conclusion that I recently pulled the most genius move of my entire emotional career:
I tried to get [an] abuser[s] to stop being abusive by abusing [him] them.
Oh yeah, that's really going to go somewhere constructive. But as attractive as a 2-day ***headdesk*** session might be [and it is, oh it is] I think it's going to be a lot more constructive if I sit with this and try to learn from it.
First: yes, you read that accurately. My behavior, by my own evaluation, was abusive.
What you aren't reading or seeing - here and now, anyway - is how adroitly - and desperately - I've been trying to excuse, rationalize, shift blame for, etc. etc. etc. my own abusive behavior in this instance.
Trust me on this. It's been remarkable to watch myself. Wiggle wiggle, squirm squirm. Avoid, distract, excuse, justify, squirm, wiggle. Whew.
The amount of mental energy I've put into trying to avoid facing this plain fact is truly impressive.
I really really don't want to see that behavior as abusive. I've become honest enough that I can't duck the abusive part. So Wiggle Wiggle Squirm Squirm wants to see it as "abusive, but..."
No, uh-uh. That road's closed. There is no "abusive, but". Abusive behavior is unacceptable, and there are always non-abusive options. I know this. I've been explaining it for two years now, I'd better know it.
So. I'm going to take this in baby steps - it's very tiring, being partly outside myself ['Just Saying No' to my Inner Thug] and at the same time, being in there wiggling around trying to cook up a credible excuse for acting like a cretin. What's more, I know that wiggling squirming stuff is going to resume the minute my 'executive function' attention shifts elsewhere. So I'll tag it as MonkeyMind, aka the Old Adam [or Eve, in my case], and just let it squirm, and try not to believe anything it says.
Onward.
By the way, prayers are being said and will keep being said throughout this process, as they have been throughout other processes. I hope to spend my latter years 'in community', and I have no intention of bringing this in there with me, if at all possible.
posted by Stormchild at 26.1.09
2 Comments:
"The amount of mental energy I've put into trying to avoid facing this plain fact is truly impressive."
Only someone with both feet on the Recovery Road could write a sentence like that! LOL!!!
My resistence is rather impressive, too. Only once I've used every trick-in-the-psyche, do I relent and repent and consent to being human.
Speaking of abuse though, I question my motives whenever MonkeyMind takes over. Was I trying to Control the other person and thereby silence them? Or was I shouting because they refused to hear me and disrespected me as a peer?
Sometimes the bone-chilling answer is "yes. I'd like to squish them like a bug." If so, time to get out the kneepads.
My desire to be intentionally malicious is rare. Most times, I get angry because someone has repetitively discounted or dismissed me as inferior, irrelevant, inconsequential, and subordinate. Not that my FOO issues have anything to do with that perception, LOL!
Getting clear on "what was then" and "what is now" has been a very long process. Far longer than I could ever have imagined.
Hugs,
CZ
Oh CZ,
yes, yes, yes, all of the above, re MonkeyMind.
and it is a long process. Thank God, we have our whole lives here, and then forever, afterwards.
Hugs 2U2
Storm
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