Scared Bunny

"I was raped. What's your excuse."?

What a powerful line from a powerful show. And I can't say I was raped I have no idea what happened to me at many points along the way. I know why I am angry with my mother. That's a phrase I said in therapy for the first time today. I am angry with my mother. I am angry because I was neglected and ignored for much of my early childhood.

Remember when they had those after school specials or "A very special Dif'rent Strokes" where Arnold’s friend ended up drugged and naked naked in a shower with the guy with WKRP? When they felt like we needed to have those warnings on TV I was going home with a door key on a shoelace around my neck. On weekends I went to stay with a man whose house only reminds me of pills, beer and a gun.

What I learned in therapy is really pretty simple. When you are a child you are developing the foundation of what you will be as an adult. If that's done badly and you are going to live a healthy life you are going to eventually have to repair the foundation. No matter how wonderful the house you build on that foundation is, it can’t keep standing until the foundations. Get repaired.

Most of us have that done in our childhood. Nobody has a perfect life, but we usually have things that happen to correct the wrongs. I see now I didn't have that. There's not a single point of my life as a kid where I was the object of love and attention that could have made up for the years where I wasn't given that care and attention we need. My childhood was one crisis after another where I wasn't involved. I was a witness to my life for years rather than a player, but the rebuild that foundation takes work, and observers don't work. Let's be fair, children don't even know how to do that work.

So now I find myself working with professionals to rebuild a 30+ year old foundation. I'm scared to death. At times I believe that a foundation that old can't be rebuilt without tearing down the house it is built on. The house is just so weakened by the damage done by the poor foundation. I've lived in Texas long enough to see how years of bad foundation can ravage a house. But they keep swearing to me that we can repair the foundation, and make the house solid.

It just seems weird to me that I can repair a broken foundation that implements itself in trust tissues and anxiety, without learning how to trust the people that did the damage. At the same time I don't really need to trust them much. My ability to be fed, clothed, housed and kept safe doesn’t depend on them. So maybe I can feel safe and have not wake up scared to death and exhausted from a night sleeping full of fear.

The problem with so much of this is that it does take figuring out why you have the problem, and that reason is usually childhood for someone like me. But when you are talking about something like that it sounds like you are placing blame. But I'm not in therapy to retrace my past. I'm trying to learn how to be happy and relaxed.

One thing I do know is that parents like me have to somehow identify when we've let them down in their life and somehow work to repair the damage. Nobody should reach 18 without parents having equipped them for the real word. People like me weren't (and due to my own mistakes still aren't) equipped for this world. We don’t have the foundation to hold up this house through all the rough storms we're going to encounter. And we certainly don't know how to avoid the storms in the first place.

Life can be one storm after another, and right now I have days where I don't feel like I'll be able to keep standing when the storm hits. All I can do is keep on working and find people to be anchors. Yesterday I felt like I had the repairs underway. Today I feel like the walls are tumbling. And not a damn thing has changed but the date.

Labels: childhood, life, parenting, therapy

You know I have to say it kind of frustrates me when people want me to date, or assume I am dating, or any of that. Dating is the furthest thing from my mind right now. I am really just focusing on work, getting healthy and my son.

Even if I wanted to date I couldn’t do it. When I think about being in a relationship it is all I can do to not have a panic attack. I don’t mean dating as a concept. I mean I can see people dating and all that. But if I think about me actually being involved with someone the physical symptoms start up. It is God’s way or my mind’s way or whatever of telling me to stay single. It’s not exactly something I am happy about, but it sure does make the decision easy.

I am not in any condition to be in a relationship. It’s kind of funny though because I am doing real well at work. I am having fun with my son. For the most part I am taking care of myself, my house and everything like that. I am even getting a decent tan. But this one area of my life is just not right, and I have to accept that.

My therapy kicks in to high gear soon. They are going to be using hypnosis to get me relaxed enough to get past my mental barriers and find out why I am like this. I am not talking the “you will quack like a duck when I say watermelon”. This is the kind of hypnosis where they are really just trying to get you to relax and focus. My doctor thinks I will be very responsive because I seem to be able to enter the state already.

The cool thing is not that I would be able to have a relationship if it works though. I know it seems strange, but that is not why I am doing it. I am really just tired of the anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach. I just want to be healthy. I really am not doing this for any other reason. And I have to say this is the first time I ever went in to therapy with a specific goal.

In the past my goals, if I had any, were vague. The first time I wanted to know why I was so angry, and they gave me an answer. Of course they didn’t do anything to make it any better. They never even really got specific with the causes. But they did a bang up job of making me angrier and meaner.

The second time I never found the right therapist. I wanted to “be healthy” but had no idea what that meant. I was always working on what was going on right that moment, even when I was doing ok with things. I needed a solution and understanding, and instead I got coping mechanisms related to things I wasn’t dealing with and advice to “get out more.

This time I know what I am trying to do, and my therapist is working with me on it. I want to first deal with anxiety, but not through just coping mechanisms but with a permanent treatment. If that means I need to revisit my past I will. If that means dealing with some ugly truths, I will. Only then can I learn why my ways of thinking are wrong and learn new better ways of seeing the world.

I think too many therapists are trying to find easier ways to deal with their patients’ issues. If the issues are minor then little coping tricks really can work. Some people just need someone to listen to them. It’s like the old ladies who get their hair done every week not because it needs done, but because they crave the physical contact.

I have a therapist who seems to like to get down in the trenches and fight the wars that need fought. I am not saying she couldn’t help a housewife who just feels unappreciated. I mean that she seems to have a mindset of finding real problems, real causes and real solutions. It makes me feel better about myself, and I see a light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s such a change, yet I still have so far to go.

Labels: anxiety, fear, life, relationships, single, therapy

I have to say life is interesting.

This time last year I was totally single and not even dating. I was on a self-imposed break from anything remotely resembling a relationship. I was not as much healing from the last relationship as I was trying to heal enough to be worth a good woman. I had been through a relationship I considered, and still consider, the strangest I have ever been in. I realized I was not in a good place for a relationship, and that something inside me had to change.

I was working at home and had virtually no face-to-face contact with anyone that wasn’t either paid to talk to me or happened to live near me. I sometimes would get a call and it had been so long since I had spoken that I almost couldn’t make a sound. I had friends, but only one of them was real. I was avoiding dealing with a lot of people from my distant and recent past because I didn’t see any reason to be involved with people who were either unhealthy or pushed my psyche to be unhealthy.

I had a job that barely provided for me, and dealt with sometimes not being paid at all. I had an employer that had promised me the world and delivered nothing. My boss had quit to get away with the bullshit, as had everyone else that did what I did. I was learning that contracts are made to be broken, and some people simply can’t manage. And I was dealing with the possibility I would have to stay in the job because of mistakes from my past.

Now I am dealing with the possibility of a divorce. I am married to a woman I love dearly, but I am learning that just taking time off to heal doesn’t mean you do heal. I have discovered that I have a disorder I never realized I had, and that being isolated masked the symptoms. I have seen that I never handled many of the problems from my past, and have learned what caused so many of them were something beyond my control. I have been taught that it’s possible I am not the piece of shit I have always believed I was.

I have a job where not only have they delivered what they promised; I am seeing the possibility of making more money than I ever dreamed possible. I am learning that success can be as scary as failure. I have a position where not only do I deal with co-workers every day; I speak with dozens of complete strangers daily. I am finding that I enjoy working and thrive on achievement. I have a boss who appreciates hard work as long as your efforts lead to production. We are measured based not on whether or not the boss likes us, but on how we perform. I am in a position where instead of being broke, I might have more than I know what to do with.

With all of these changes I am sometimes finding that I am confused. While I always had low self-esteem, I was able to appear confident. Now there are times I just can’t fake it. I have to do my best to hide it because the world hates a loser, and nobody will trust a man who doesn’t trust himself. I always assumed that if I found a woman that truly loved me and that I truly loved that it would automatically work. I am realizing that the person we are can dictate our present. I am learning that the past has power if we let it, and I have been giving the past control of my present.

In short, I am in a learning mode. I have to learn how to be in a learning mode while remaining strong as a father and employee. I am also realizing that I am not as strong as I want to be, and I can only take on so much. I am also learning that I can control my thoughts; I just don’t do it very well just yet. I am learning that I really do have to work for therapy to work, and that what I thought was work was just spinning my wheels. I am also learning how my childhood impacted me and why. And eventually I will learn how to retrain my mind.

I am emotionally drained and mentally exhausted sometimes. Not only do I have to work all day, even down times are not down time. I have to constantly be on guard to keep my thoughts where they should be. There’s not a moment where I’m not working on something, and when I do stop I pay the price almost instantly and then I find myself working again. Yes I’m admitting I am exhausted. But I’d rather be exhausted and see progress than be rested and live the life I did for 36 years.

Labels: anxiety, changes, life, psychology, relationships, success, therapy, work