Anger

It is said that anger is a secondary emotion;  that it masks another primary emotion,  like sadness or hurt.

A theme of this past week has been my aversion to expressing anger with even a single other person present.    Basically,  I do not,  under any circumstances,  express anger in public.   When I am by myself I can feel angry.   This may seem silly,  but the place where I can most get in touch with my feelings of anger is while I am mowing the lawn.   Maybe there's something about eviscerating little blades of grass that gets me in touch with those feelings.   

My therapy group has been helping me to take baby steps toward expressing anger.   This week they asked me to write a letter to the school community I transitioned out of a year and a half ago.   It was a letter I would never send;   one whose purpose was to release the anger I carry around with me all the time.   I wrote the letter and read it to them.   My anger was largely contained,  but I was able to express some of it.   Baby steps.

So why don't I like to express anger?   I think the reason is that I was never allowed to express my pain around the abuse,  abandonment and neglect I suffered as a child.   Oh yeah,   and basing basic elements of my personality on the dynamic that  my one remaining parent had untreated bipolar for most of my childhood.  Part of my personality took on the M.O. that I would not "lose it" under any circumstances.    I would not cry.   I would not get angry.   I would maintain an even keel.   Or else.

The "or else" is that I became an adult,  in a certain way,  at age six.    By that time I had experienced sex (molestation),  seeing my dad exit (abandonment) and seeing my mom teetering as she tried to make a living and get food on the table.  I had to take on adult responsibilities because the adults around me who were supposed to,  were not able to do what was needed:  care for me.      They were largely oblivious to my needs beyond the basics of food and shelter.   In many ways,   I was on my own.    I saw that I had to reduce my needs to an extremely low level and be emotionally available to my mom,  rather than expect that she do that for me.     I assumed a parental role,  in a certain way.   Parents have to put the needs of their children above their own.   This is what I did,  from the time I was six,   vis-a-vis my mom.

So anger was not something I was going to express.   How could I?   My being calm,  easy-going and having very few needs was part of what made my mom able to keep her job and keep the basics of life going.   If she had burned out,   life could have gotten much,  much worse.

  

Of course I had deep-seated anger that was always there,  especially when my mom yelled at me or did something to me that I saw as unfair.   "How dare she treat me in this way when I am taking so much responsibility!"  my little self cried.    "Doesn't she see that I am a key part of our family holding together and surviving!?"     When she decided to remarry when I was fourteen I felt betrayed,  because she expected me to click back into the "child" role after years of being an adult.   

The thing is,   she did not,  and does not to this day,  have any clue about what my actual experience was while I was growing up.    She was not able to empathize with me much at all.   She could express affection and caring towards me but it was always on her terms.   Largely because of her illness,  she has a high degree of narcissism.   Not the best quality when it comes to successful parenting.

Even today,   when I try to share a little bit of my experience,  even the tiniest bit,  she becomes defensive and changes the subject as quickly as possible.      She has a whole fantasy going about her role as a parent.   My perspective is inconvenient to how she wants to view herself.      

So I have never yelled and screamed and kicked and cried about this.   About what I felt I had do in order to survive;  and how the person I did it for is unwilling to acknowledge my deed.

Anger.   I am very, very angry.  At a basic level angry.   But I maintain my pleasant exterior most all the time.     Luckily,  I am less able to hold up this mask today than I was ten years ago.   It's hard work holding up a mask.   

Anger serves a variety of important purposes.   Anger can defend one's boundaries.   Anger can be the fire that furthers healing.     Anger can be the fuel for rightful action.   Obviously,  anger can also be negative,  but it has several important and useful functions in life.    Someone who is unable to get angry is going to have problems.   

I have problems.

It's time for me to admit that I am pissed off.   It's time for me to admit that I can get pissed off.   I am not "Mr Nice Guy".   That persona is the face of my survival mechanism.   There are parts of me that need to be expressed.   I don't need to smile when someone is trying to screw me over.

Were I to continue to stuff my angry feelings I would be leaving vast areas of my soul unexamined.    I would continue to be stunted.   My goal of being fully adult would likely stay at a distance.

If I am going to grow up and be a complete human being I am going to have to learn how to get pissed off.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Becoming an Adult

How does a person become an adult ?   What does it mean to be an adult?   Obviously it does not have to do strictly with chronological age.    Some younger people are clearly more mature than some of their elders.     Often,  people are mature in some ways and not so much in others.   What accounts for this variation and wide range of experience?

My sense is that a major factor is often early-childhood experiences.   This blog is, in large part, about my looking at as many of my childhood patterns as seem to pertain to transforming the parts inside myself that hold me back.    It's clear to me that these patterns have stood in the way of my becoming fully adult.    The overwhelming influence has been the models my parents gave me.    And by models I mean this:

Children model their parents very profoundly.   I believe that the depth of this modeling is only very partially understood by modern science and psychology.   Children imprint on the movements,  speech,  and thoughts of the parents very, very deeply.   If the parents are careful and successful with their parenting,  they are able to provide good (enough)  models and then help the child to find their own unique voice and expression,  as s/he matures.   

At the same time,  we must keep firmly in mind a paradox about us as humans:  while we imprint out parents very deeply,  we are also,  each of us,  an individual whose true identity has nothing to do with our parents or anything earthly.   We are spiritual beings on an earthly journey.    

So while I must deal with these patterns,  I must also keep in mind that I am not,  essentially,  in any way touched by them.    This knowledge gives me courage to tackle stuff that might otherwise be too scary.      I know that the shame I feel is not related to my essential self.   Shame is something I have learned through difficult formative experiences.   Shame is not intrinsic to who I am.   

The knowledge of myself as a spiritual being does not mean I get to skirt the hard stuff and just focus on rainbows and flower-filled meadows.   It means I can tackle my lower-self issues and work to transform them.

As I ask myself this question about becoming an adult,  an obvious fact immediately comes up:   neither of my parents ever fully became an adult themselves.  

 My dad was not able to find his way successfully into adult life.   He was a Marine.   He was in college for the better part of a decade and got a PhD.   He had prestigious jobs for several years but his alcoholism kept pulling him under water and he ended up drowning.   He was not able or willing to follow through on his commitment to be a father to me or husband to my mom.     One could see his choice as "I'd rather drink than face my issues and create the life I am capable of having".   And  "I'd rather drink than face my pain sober."

My mom also became well educated.   She earned a Master's degree and had part-time jobs with a University and as a consultant.    After my dad and she split,  she got a professional job and did that for about eight years.    At that time,  her boss was about to fire her when she quit and moved to the town where her mom lived.   From then on,  her employment and ability to support herself was firmly protected by the family.      One way of looking at mom's path is that she "gave a shot at being an adult but, when it didn't work out,  she came under the family wing."   

A major stumbling block for mom is that she has not acknowledged many of the "facts of the case".   She did not admit that she was being supported by the family.  In her mind she was the one who was supporting my grandma,  and not the other way around.   My mom often creates fantasies about what has happened.   These fantasies are self-protective but ultimately keep her from growing up.   We cannot make sense of such difficult and complex personal issues if we are not able or willing to acknowledge facts.   And obviously,  her having bipolar didn't make things any easier for her.

Interestingly,  my mom is making more strides in acknowledging facts now than she ever has.  It seems like baby steps from my perspective,  but at least there are steps!   It seems like she is more of an adult now than she has ever been.   This is also great for me because it means she is less reliant on me for basic moral support.   Her growth in this area is my windfall as well as hers.

So where does this leave me?   

In some ways I grew up pretty normal.   I did well enough in school.   I had friends.   I had relatively healthy movement and became fairly good at sports.  I was able to learn the basics of a musical instrument and sang in a choir.   

But I missed a lot along the way.    I was imprinting,  in all kinds of ways,  the thoughts, feelings, attitudes,  behaviors,  etc. that led both of my parents to do well in school but not know to make life work in the long-term.   They were not able to show me how to become a successful adult.   What do I mean by "successful adult"?  

1)  Someone who is able to support themselves financially.   If they choose to spend time raising children (and making less money),  it is a conscious and rational choice.

2)  Someone who takes on responsibilities, especially the big ones,  that they know they can follow through on.

3)  Someone who can accurately assess what is going well and not going well relative to those key responsibilities.

4)  Someone who does not make excuses if they fall down relative to the responsibilities.   Acknowledging error is key to correction of ensuing problems.

5)   Someone who is able to consciously defer their own needs,  if needed,  in service of key responsibilities.

I have found myself in mid-life realizing that I am,  like my parents at this age,  not yet an adult.     I am not blaming myself.  I'm just stating a fact.

Growing up I did not receive much guidance as to how one makes his way in the world.   My mom deals with the broad stroke and has a lot of difficulties getting into the details of any given activity.     For example,  she has always styled herself a gardener but has never gone beyond a surface level of working with plants.    She has trouble developing her skills in a methodical way and therefore has gaps in her skill and knowledge base on most subjects she's interested in.   

And when she presents herself to others as "gardener" she has a protective gesture due to her having less knowledge than others who call themselves "gardener".   So people who interact with her soon learn that they have to be tactful so as not to pop her bubble.

I was raised through the lens of my mom.   How this worked for me is that she projected a similar kind of structure regarding competencies on to me.    The main way this worked is that she did not orient me to a lot of things.   She struggled in showing me how to develop a skill of any kind.   She often assumed I would just spontaneously know how to do something;  then she'd get mad at me for not being able to do very well.   

This created two challenges for me.  

1)  I was confused about how to go about becoming competent at something.

2)  I assumed that I had some kind of defect or that I had missed some secret information that others had about getting good at things.

This transfers today into my seeing myself as having natural gifts but not a lot of developed skills.    So now that I am seeing into this pattern more,  I can work both to heal the wounds and to build the skills.   

Being aware is good.   Forgiving myself is good.   Forgiving my parents is good.   I still have a ways to go before I achieve #3.   

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Impact

I have started running this week.   It's the first time in my life I have run just for the sake of running.   I played sports as a kid and would run to train for the sport.   I was pretty fast but,  for some reason,  running for running's sake just did not appeal.  For me,   it was like the t-shirt worn by the high school cross-country runner:  "Our sport is your sport's punishment".   Somehow,  I have always seen running as punishment.

But in the past month I have begun to think differently about running.  My step-daughter,  an avid runner,  is my inspiration in this department.    I made up my mind to start running a 2 mile course through our neighborhood three times a week.   My step-daughter told me that beginners do well by going back and forth between running and walking.   She suggested I run three minutes,  walk three minutes and repeat pattern until I return home.   Then,  when I feel fairly confident with the 3 and 3,  go to 2 minute/2 minute,   then 1 minute/1 minute,  and finally,  run the whole course.

So far I've gone a grand total of 3 times,  and have the sore legs to prove it.   But,  I am enjoying it so far,   and am not discouraged by the fact that I probably could walk about as fast as I'm currently able to run.

Something I've noticed is that running is enlivening for me.   I am more perky,  more wakeful after I've done my run/walk.   Normally,  my exercise tends to be walking with my wife,   riding the recumbent bike at the gym I belong to, and some light weight lifting.    Since I was in high school I've never been in great shape;  neither have I been in terrible shape.   I've skirted this place of being "sort of" in shape.  Exercise makes me feel good (as do the spa, sauna and steam room at the gym!)   It helps me to stay relatively grounded.   It helps me to process tension, anger, frustration and sluggishness.  It helps the chromic stress that builds up in my shoulders to soften a bit.   

One way to look at my relationship to exercise is to see it as reflecting the thought:   "Keep yourself at a basic state of readiness for the bad shit that is bound to be coming your way".     

I have never really pushed myself to see how far I can train my physical body.   I have not tried to get really good at any sport or physical activity.   I have,  truth be told,   plodded along a mediocre path of "basic readiness for the coming bad shit".   I have been pretty sleepy around this issue.   I think I may be ready to wake up around it.    My model for reforming my thinking on the issue is my 18 year old step-daughter.     She seems to have a very healthy relationship with fitness.   Sometimes it just takes hanging out with people who are doing things the way you'd like to do them.

Another reason I never thought much about running was this:   I thought that I should do low impact exercise so as not to stress my joints.   My dad blew his knew out when he was in high school and had to forgo a football scholarship because of it.   My wife suggested that perhaps my carefulness about "joint stress" had to do with my knowledge of dad's injury.   Could be.    What's for sure is that I have been very cautious in this area.   Very likely too cautious.  Boring.

The wakefulness and alertness I feel after running is not due to simply getting exercise.   I don't feel that way after the stationary bike and Nautilus.   I think it has to do with impact.   My body,  205 pounds worth,  coming into impact against the earth.   It wakes me up.

An insight I had today was that,  when I was growing up,  I was always "bracing for impact" in some way.   Shocks came to me early on that turned my life upside down.   Then I had a mom with untreated bipolar who was the only one really looking out for me.    I got,  at a basic level,  that she was not well suited to create a stable family life for me.   She did her best,  but I was always on guard for the next shoe to drop.

So I developed a personality that was,  and still is,  trying to avoid "impact" of all kinds.    And if I was not able to avoid it,  at least I would be in a state of readiness so that I could absorb the impact,  whatever it might be,  without being swept away.   

Problem is,  this survival mechanism I've created doesn't even do the job it's designed for.   It does not protect me from shocks.   It does not even work all that well in absorbing the shocks.   The reason is that the mechanism is an instrument of the lower self.   It's based on fear.    Fear of loss.   Fear of being overwhelmed.   Fear of having whatever is currently good in my life being swept away.

I don't need to judge this coping mechanism of mine as "bad".   I can readily see why I created it in the first place.  I can have compassion for the little guy who was trying to survive in difficult circumstances.    But I also do not need to keep this same mechanism going into the future.   I can become aware of it and make other choices.

Just maybe,  the "impact" of my body against the earth when I run is a good thing.  Maybe I can step out of the exercise rut I've been in for most of my adult life.    Maybe I can redefine my relationship to "impact".   Healthy impact is the kind that builds strong bones,  joints and ligaments.   It could help me to get in shape and maybe drop a few pounds.   Healthy impact may help me be more confident and less fearful,  to be stronger and more empowered in my body.      

What do I have to lose?

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben

Work

This past week I've had two communications from people I used to work with.     They had been colleagues I was close to;  now I don't talk to them much at all.   It has brought up some very difficult and conflicting feelings about my transition from teaching a year and a half ago.    

Last year,  about this time,   I blogged about how I had faced burn-out as a teacher, how I had resigned from my job mid-year.    And how my burn-out seemed related to both of my parents' career fizzles when they had been about my age.

A part of my motivation for writing this blog is that I need to gradually transform my relationship to work,  and become a more grounded member of the workforce than I have been in the past.     My bottom line depends on it.

To be clear,  I have enjoyed success as a teacher.   There are a number of reasons why I suffered burn-out at my previous job as a teacher.    The primary one is that I had personal issues to work out.   The issues weighed on me more and more,  until I had lost the spark needed to be a good teacher,  and the parents started to complain.   

Interestingly,  some of the issues which were weighing on me had to with my relationship to work.   Both my models for how to be an adult,  mom and dad,   had basically been fired from professional jobs when they were,  give or take,   the age I am now.   

It wasn't just that I saw them fail at their jobs.   It was that I imprinted the field that got them into that kind of trouble.   I imprinted their behaviors,  mental attitudes,  and so on,  that both enabled them to be hired as professionals,  as well as their not being able to persevere in those jobs.   My mom was bailed out by her parents' small business.   My dad was not able to get his career on track,  was consumed by alcoholism,  and ended up killing himself some years later,  totally penniless.

Both of my parents are/were very smart.   They each had advanced degrees and held demanding professional jobs for at least some part of their working life.   I am also smart enough and though I don't (yet) have any advanced degrees,  I do have a several important things going for me:   1)  I don't have a mental illness,  2)  I don't have a drinking problem,  3)  I am willing to look at my own icky bits that get me into trouble,  and 4)  I have my wife.  

For the past few years,  as I've delved into my personal issues,  I have been somewhat fragile.   There is part of me which is confident,  self-assured,  and ready to take on the world.   This part of me is much less likely to be present lately.   One reason is that I am still rattled by having burned out of my job a year and a half ago.   Another reason is that I have been bringing up past traumas and trying to process them.   

My wife is an essential part of creating the home context where I feel safe enough to spelunk into these caves.   Because my wife is a steady and strong support to me,  I am able to "fall apart" a little bit so that I can see the pieces of my pain, have the space to acknowledge and  grieve them,  then move on with my life.   For the time being I am "underemployed" while I am going through this healing process.   My wife takes up a bunch of the slack.   The idea is that I will be stronger in the future and will pull my weight to a greater degree.   I see no reason to doubt that will happen.  And yet,  being in a more fragile state is not easy.   I am going to have to build back my confidence from where I am now.   

Sometimes I can go for days feeling like a wounded,  frightened little child.   In fact,  I have felt that way for the past few days.   

Ironically,  this state I find myself in is often sharply juxtaposed with my current relationship to my mom.    Just this week she was traveling in a big city by herself.   She lives in a small town and is not at all used to big cities.   I called her and she was walking down the street of this city,  happy as a clam,  as she chatted with me.  She had been to museums,  was going to meet distant relatives for lunch,  and so on.   She was definitely on the manic side of life,  though she seemed to be managing the logistics just fine.   

She was telling me how she wanted to take the bus back to the airport,  rather than take a cab.   "A cab costs so much,"  she said.   Immediately,  my mind went into parental mode:  "Is she aware enough of her surroundings?"  "What if she takes a bus and gets into trouble?"   I have had too many experiences to number that involve my mom's poor judgment leading her,  and often me,  into situations which rate from bad to very damaging.   My mind,  for just a second,  flashed on the "worst case" and I thought about how soon I could get a flight to that city.

As it turns out,  it must have all gone fine.   No phone calls since I spoke with her a few days ago.  No news is good news.

The irony is that here I am feeling like a wounded and frightened little kid inside,  while at the same I am acting like a parent to my own mother.   Welcome to my life.   Past,  present,  and hopefully to a lesser degree,  future.

So here I am in my life transition.    I am waiting to hear back from the graduate program that will move my aims along.   If I don't get in I will have to go to one of the plan Bs that are much less appealing than plan A,  at least from where I stand today.   It's all a bit uncertain.

I am also in my healing process,  which is a long process.   My therapy group work is helpful.   It's slow cooking of them seeds.   Last night I went to group and was pretty quiet.   I had all kinds of feelings swirling around inside of me but I did not share them.   They were too scary to speak.   They have to do with my fears about being a successful wage-earner,  about being able to rebound from my professional burn-out eighteen months ago.    My parents did not show me a way through this dark wood that I would ever want to take.   I have to find my own way.   It can be terrifying at times.

The sun is out,  the garden beckons.   Time to get dinner on the table.  Time to play with the dog.   Keep moving it forward.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben