James Ballantyne

Blog

  • The Elusive Gap

    Something to do, somewhere to go, something to worry about, something now, something then, something tomorrow, something near, something far away, something someone else said, did, or didn’t do, something, there’s always something

    Something to feel guilty about, something to feel concern about, someone to please, someone to be responsible for, something to react to, something…..

    There’s always something

    Something to read, something to tidy, something to give, something to buy, something to see, something to be addicted to, something to plan, something to make, something

    There’s always something

    Something crowding in, something taking away the space of being

    Something there to soothe the thing that’s a worry

    Something stressful to focus on instead of the actual thing that needs dealing with

    A pressure, a twist, a turn, a plan, a dream, an ambition..

    Something…

    What if there was a gap in the something, the elusive gap

    A gap in the cultural programming

    A gap in the emotional state

    A gap in the responsibility

    A gap that you and I make

    A gap to breathe, slow

    A gap to notice the pace of the things and decide not to be on that pace

    A gap in which the inner voice can be heard

    A gap in the moment, a gap in the mind

    A gap to notice that you notice the inner voice, and that this is not you, just your voice

    A gap to listen

    A gap to feel the present moment

    The present you

    Where no thing else matters but you, inner you

    Human you, conscious you, alive you

    Can you hear the gap calling?

    The voice from the deep, screaming, making itself known to you, wanting space

    Wanting the gap

    The gap between, the Elusive gap

    Thats the power you and I have

    The power of the now moment

    The time is now, yes now.

    A brilliant resource on this, on becoming more aware of your consciousness is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, Im also just reading his follow up – A New Earth.

  • Crossing the Road in the USA; A New script

    Crossing the Road in the USA; A New script

    Over the next few days I will be away, as I’m heading to San Diego for a week to be with my beautiful fiancé Christelle as we plan our wedding for a few months time, meeting folks and importantly getting the license for our wedding.

    As I head there, I’m am reminded of something from the last time I was in San Diego, at Christmas time.

    I had to re-learn ‘crossing the road’ in a new context.

    Yup.

    Everything I instinctively followed about crossing a road in the UK I had to think differently. It wasn’t just that they drive on the wrong side – but that, get this, sometimes, a red light doesn’t mean stop – a ‘walk’ sign might mean walk if clear or walk if the car lets you, even if it says walk – do cars wait at crossings, who drives first at a crossroads – and what if two cars arrive first and why all the stopping and starting..

    At least on one occasion I was half way across a junction driving and nearly froze. On another occasion Christelle and I weren’t seen by a driver as we used a crossing. Madness.

    The rules were different, yet everyone seems to know how to operate in it, or at least, those with respect to these rules, who were aware of their surroundings were.

    But I had to unlearn what I knew and try and learn a new language.

    It felt like I was having to go against all my 43 years of unconscious competent instinct.

    Press, wait for the green man, look and then go

    was now, press, wait, wait and check, the car might not stop for you, then cross, carefully…

    As I think about this today, one day out from travelling, Im reminded of some of the life scripts I’ve become more aware of

    things like:

    You can only relax, when all the jobs are done

    Work hard, don’t be lazy

    Dont think about yourself, thats selfish

    Other people are more important than yourself

    Hurry up, the early bird catches the worm

    Dont be inconvenient

    Make us proud

    Keep things in the family

    Dont upset us

    Be strong…and care for me

    What have yours been?

    What about the words Ive said to myself ; Ill be ok if__________, or ‘that kind of thing happens to other people and not me’ or ‘I always___________’ or ‘If I do this then ill be happy/feel better/ successful/ok’

    Then there was the script about waiting to be rescued – having a magical rescue or disappearing

    The scripts are everywhere, just go to a coffee shop and listen to others –

    but what about yours – what about mine.

    One of mine definitely is ; ‘You can only stop and relax when all the jobs are done’ – and in previous situations those jobs were never done, but even now I have to make a conscious effort to undo that script – because there are still jobs to be done, and I can always make more, like cleaning the inside of the fridge, changing the beds, or the kitchen cupboards…even on my own in my new flat (or old one) being busy was part of my script – I might describe it as cleaning anxiety, conditioning as I was expecting to be ‘told off’ if things weren’t tidy, or putting my own needs last – either way I know that its there.

    I also know that as a response to the ‘Dont exist’ phrases from childhood, I developed a script that was that ‘I was ok to exist if…….’ and this included things like being compliant, tidy, quiet..and working hard – so its not difficult to see where this all came from.

    In Stewart and Joines (TA Today, 1987) they describe scripts to be one of these patterns, Always, Never, Until, Almost, After, Open ended, in the examples ive shared of my own you can hear the ‘Until’ as the common one, the reality is that there’s times I use all of them to some degree, but one might be more dominant than the other.

    I have talked before about the difficulty of doing my own healing work in that piece I noted some of the internal voices that were current verbalisations of past scripts.

    Like crossing the road, I have a choice – as do you

    Do I follow the script of the old pattern – that worked to keep me alive and safe in one context

    or Do I note it, see it, and realise that whilst it was needed, my context has changed? New rules, new awareness, new behaviours are required?

    What if I say

    The tidying can wait, its more important that I sit, in quiet and relax for a while

    I am more important than the things….

    or

    I should go and do that fun impulsive thing, without over thinking it

    I should do something I want to do – rather that what I think other people want for me to do

    The first step has been acknowledging the patterns of the scripts – seeing them

    The second is recognising that they were useful, kept me safe

    The third is about realising that I have a choice to maintain the script – or decide that I can break out of the script pattern – because I am in a new context….and

    Different things matter…..I matter… and I can choose…I am safe – so do I need the same script?

    Of course – I did have a choice before – but the reality was that in abusive relationships that choice is limited.

    Like crossing the road in the UK, its so long since I learned how to that that awareness has completely disappeared – I similarly didn’t realise that I was following script patterns for so so long – And I’m sure there are others I am yet to discover. I just instinctively did it, without realising – or felt I had no choice but to.

    Now some of those scripts, just don’t make sense at all. But others are more subtle….

    Be strong – and dont show your feelings – is another script I heard – as I had to soothe the abusive people around me – no space for me to show any emotions.

    To other men – what were your scripts? What did you hear and take on? and How might you respond to them, and communicate to others around you that this is what you need to do? Changing life patterns is no easy feat, especially if it challenges norms within relationships. Other times if we dont change, its like being continually bewildered trying to cross a road in a different country. A country in which our new self, new awareness is wanting to shape us, shape me, into healthier patterns.

    I am valuable and so are you.

    The world is a better place when we become closer to the core self we are meant to be.

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 30) What 9 year old me had to Become

    So, I didn’t commit suicide aged 9. But everything was pretty dark.

    I survived to tell the tale.

    To tell my story

    To be my story.

    What did I do?

    Age 9, in those dark moments?

    At the time, I remember thinking that something didn’t sit right.

    That something was that however ‘normal’ I was being told my family was. It wasn’t good. Something didnt stack up.

    As well as an internal voice that did often tell myself that I wasnt anywhere as bad as I was being told I was – I was punished for far less than my friends were telling me they were – I also started to be affirmed by firstly teachers and then other adults – I began to assess that the voice of the toxic one might need to be listened to,

    but it didnt need to be believed.

    I wouldn’t say that id worked out that the problems that they said I was was their problem, thats too far – but certainly began to realise that the toxic voice didnt need to be believed.

    Read my previous post on ‘Survival Self-talk‘ here

    I think I did then realise that I had to do life alone, and with the positive support of my year 4-5-6 teachers (Mrs Prowse, Mr Poole and Mrs Smyton, at Little Bowden Primary school) I began to believe that I was clever, in an academic way, and had other qualities too, like listening to people and being able to be responsible. I was also sporty – winning cross country races and playing for the school football team, and it was sports that I developed more in the next few years too.

    Heres me aged 9 – 1987

    My grandparents took this photo, its obvious, im smiling – and i’m near trains…

    That combination intelligence and responsibility took me to do a number of things – one was to dedicate myself more fully to the church I grew up in – a place that was getting safer, as my parents left it when I was about 12-13, but from 11-12 I was helping in the Sunday school and doing practical things like setting up the chairs and the youth club. Oh by the way, the kid who stays back and puts the chairs away to be helpful every time… doesn’t want to go home – find out why….

    Without realising it, or maybe realising it was the place of the role I was in – with that responsibility, intelligence and desire to fix the thing I knew was broken – is that I became a bit like a mini priest or psychologist – trying to work them out, trying to work out how and why my parents got to be like it – trying to also navigate my own safety through it, but also making the suggestions or assertions to improve things; ‘Maybe we should go out for a meal’ (other families do that, we should) , ‘What about a movie night, or take away’ ‘what if we prayed together as a family’ ‘lets play a board game’ …. I remember also praying for my grandparents – thinking this was the thing I needed to do, to help them….

    Somehow believing that I could fix, something I couldn’t then understand – or even do something to make something happier than the normal constant eggshells.

    This, more often than not, was me suggesting these things, and guess who got grumpy at the thought of them – who would belittle, or patronise these suggestions? Agreed… But this became part of my role in the space of having no nurturing, growing up fast, growing up responsible.

    I realise that I couldn’t rely on the parents, it was now going to me getting on with my life. Once I got more and more freedom (a bike), and a job (a paper round aged 13) , access to learning at the school (libraries) and teachers who helped – I needed them less and less.

    I was wanting to do psychology A level when I was 16, my school didnt offer it. But that was no surprise, not to me now. Id studied human behaviour since I was born, never able to relax, trying to navigate the emotional blows and not give my abusive parent what they wanted, and stay sane and safe.

    I survived an emotionally abusive home by gradually realising more and more that I was less of the problem.

    That parent was good though, because the times I started to believe her less and back off, not trusting her even as a child with telling her things, she’d often come out with the line, ‘Dont you believe the gossip other people say about me‘ . How confusing was this to an 11 or 12 year old, parents dont lie do they? So everyone else is invalid, and whats a child going to say then – ‘No of course not mum’ especially while I’m in the house. The gossip was true though, and I knew it. Thats the thing, I learned to pretend.

    On pretending and hiding – this is here

    Maybe it didnt become a surprise that I became a youth worker, interested in psychology and now training to be a therapist. Not a surprise that my primary school teacher said that I was perceptive, from the age of 6. The magical or desperate ending didnt happen at the age of 9, I just had to work out how to deal with what I was being told, or not told, create distance from it, accept the positives elsewhere, and survive.

    Survive, so that 35 years later I am here sharing my story. Sharing a story of how emotional abuse nearly killed me. How a psychopathic woman destroyed a family and abused many around her. Survive, and now thrive, see and get close to the damage of childhood, get close to the child I left behind, get close to the child that was scared and frightened, and live closer to my core. There may not have been a magical escape, just seriously hard emotional work – but 35 years on im sharing my story, in a safe, happy, loving place – not afraid of the demons within, and taking the time to love the James who had to deal with so much in the only ways he could.

    Thank you for reading.

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 29) Actually I nearly didn’t.

    (Trigger Warning: Suicide)

    I wanted to die at 9

    I was 9 when I had had enough

    9

    At the age of 9 years old I was desperate to get out, get out of the life I was in

    9 was the age I contemplated ending it all, suicide.

    At the age of 9, when my blonde hair was barely tinting itself brown.

    9 is the age of fun, playing out, bmx, bikes, games, toys, lego and the rest – and it was

    But it was also the age when I wanted out.

    I had something else to carry, that haunted me.

    Not 13, not mid teens, not early 20’s.

    Before being bullied at high school…

    But at 9.

    Who does that? Who wants to die at 9?

    I wanted to end it all, or end the part I was living in it

    I wanted to sleep and never wake up – or even wake up as someone else – someone famous, someone who wasn’t in my life – anyone, but just not me.

    Im not sure I would have gone through with it, but as the intercity 125’s roared past the bottom of my garden, I wondered if that might have been the place to go – but I couldnt

    Or what about from the upstairs window, would I die if I jumped out and landed through the shed roof?

    Im not sure I could do it – why? for the very reason that I wanted to do it. I’d be responsible.

    I would be responsible. I was already responsible. I was already too responsible, aged 9.

    I was just hoping I didnt exist anymore.

    At 9

    At fucking 9

    Who else thinks this at 9?

    Other people do – other people in so called ‘broken homes’ and ‘non christian ones’ – but not 9 year olds in a ‘stable family’.

    I was 9, and I wanted to not exist any more.

    Because of the weight of responsibility – I had and knew I had

    Because of the criticisms of being messy, being silly, being not good enough

    Because i felt utterly alone. At 9 there was no one to cry for help to – teachers wouldn’t have understood (mum was a dinner lady), church wouldn’t ( parents we’re involved) , and relatives were disappearing from the scene, one family row after another. So who would believe me, even if I could articulate it?

    Alone, cut off and carrying shame, guilt and responsibility

    Aged 9

    I was 9, but hated the responsibility of the drama queen, she who must be obeyed

    I was 9, and unable to ask – for fear of being demanding, spoilt or disruptive

    I was 9, and expected to know things, and so patronised if I did ask?

    I was 9, and bereave of guidance, nurture, or any physical close intimacy

    I was 9, and blamed

    I was 9 and internalised every thought and action I had done – to cause them grievance – I carried shame that stuck in the back like the metal frame of the awful rucksack they once bought me.

    I was 9, and facing the daunting life ahead of me, alone, responsible, frightened, – life was not worth living. Nothing to look forward to.

    I was 9 and had had enough

    I was 9 and not a child anymore and told not to be

    I was 9 and little professor was trying to work out how to survive, and how to respond to feelings of hurt, anger, shame, pain and fear that were continually emerging.

    I was 9 and took it all on myself.

    At 9.

    I would be in my room, waiting for a miracle to happen, waiting for the escape. Hoping beyond hoping.

    At 9 something was wrong. I was wrong.

    At 9 realising that these were my parents and were going to be for the rest of my life, this was going to be my life for another how many years, not something I could conceive of wanting to.

    At 9.

    What would have happened if I had done it? What would the story have been – What kind of narrative would have spun? ‘He was a happy child and no one expected this’ ‘He just couldn’t deal with not being spoiled’…

    In side my head at 9 so many voices. The one that was telling me that I could end it all, the other trying to survive, the other trying to work out what to do, what a solution was.

    What stopped me going through with it? I wasnt brave enough, I was too responsible already.

    Even when I kicked and screamed and tried even to pray – there wasnt any answer. Not even the God of Sunday school was any good. God wasnt doing anything. Yet.

    This is what I felt – these were the swirls of my thoughts at the ages of 9 and onwards.

    Then I felt shame for having them. The thoughts.

    A number of things did start to change for at around this time. One was that I started to realise that I accepted that if was going to make it in life – I was going to have to do it alone. The other was that I was beginning to see that some of those messages of ‘Im not ok’ from that parent – were slightly less valid – my teachers were saying good things, as were people like my Cub Scout leaders, and I started to dedicate myself to sports, and from nearer 10 or 11, to taking more care over myself – academically.

    I tried to keep trying to understand things or fix things – but thats another story. I took on the responsibility for my awful family – yet whilst they were destroying me.

    At 10 I became a Christian – because I wanted the sin and guilt ‘for what I had done wrong’ to disappear – be carried by someone else – because I was responsible. Further safe places emerged in my teenage life, places of rescue, further from the monster. I was crying out for love and nurture but projecting that I didn’t need help and I could deal with things.

    I only ever gave this part of me away twice. Both a few years later. At 14 I wrote a poem in English class in which I wrote it in the first person and then I died at the end , I think my American English teacher was a little surprised and also told me that I wasn’t allowed to write a poem in which I died at the end. And then maybe a year or two later, I was given the opportunity to share my testimony at the church, in it I revealed that as a child I felt suicidal, but wasnt successful. I was partly saying this because there’s a thing about making a testimony sound more dramatic, but also actually because it was true. I waited for feedback, or support or a space for someone to listen to me afterwards, but none came. Maybe they were just relieved that I didnt go through with it, or that I was lying.

    So I started to disbelieve my own story. Started to distance myself from it, shut it away, never to be seen again. Avoid and run. Survive meant blocking it out.

    But now as I listen to that inner child within, I see that 17 year old, the 12 year old, and also that 9 year old, and wonder what he needed, what he didnt have, and completely see how lost, alone, fearful, frightened, despairing and responsible he was feeling. At 9 I seriously wanted to end it all.

    So, when I think about ‘How I Survived psychopathic parenting’ – I actually nearly didn’t.

    Why am I writing this today? For a number of reasons, mostly because the memory of this came to me over the last few days, as I delved into the different ages of my inner child, partly as I read Stewart and Joines book on TA, I realise how many messages I heard that accumulated to ‘Do not exist’ , `Don’t stay a child’ and ‘Dont be important’ – and it took me to the time when I didnt want to carry on any more. I just knew from that moment on, or already, I was in survival mode. Digging deep. The other reason is that I have never spoken about this before to anyone, does anyone want to hear about the damage emotional, psychological and spiritual abuse does to children, to the point where they want to end it? Well, that was me. Im glad I didnt, but I still had a whole lot more to endure that I didnt know at 9, and it would take a long while to unravel the damage.

    Thank you for reading, sharing, and do seek help from specialists if my story at any point has affected you. You Are Valuable, You are worthy, and the world is a better place with you in it.

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 28) After you’ve closed the door … let the Guilting begin.

    Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 28) After you’ve closed the door … let the Guilting begin.

    No I don’t mean the nostalgic return to quilting involving turning fabric into bed sheets. I mean guilting.

    After I plucked up the courage and made difficult decisions to leave and block abusive people in my life.

    People who had treated me badly, abusively in different ways- though lots of emotional abuse, gaslighting, covert narcissism, emotional neglect, bullying and bewildering drama.

    I took steps to remove them from my life – standing up for myself.

    Then, do you know what happened, they decided just to let me go, peacefully, respecting my decision.

    (im being sarcastic..)

    No, you see, even though they make absolutely no effort for a relationship – they have to make it look as though they are now making an effort, and that the person, me, becomes the subject of operation guilting.

    ‘We’re really sad you dont speak to us’

    ‘They’re missing you’

    ‘What does God say about broken relationships – shouldn’t you reconcile’

    ‘ Remember all our happy memories’

    ‘Shouldn’t you….’

    ‘so and so said we were good together’

    ‘You’re missing out’

    ‘Just remember we’re your parents…’

    ‘The Bible says…’

    On one occasion my personal details were given away to someone who sent me a pleading guilt ridden letter, and a book on ‘restoring relationships’. I mean…..

    Amongst other things, they go for playing on the thing that might cause the most guilt or shame – faith, compliance, some tug at a happy memory, in amongst 20 or 40 or more years of suffering. Im trying to draw a slight line here in separating guilting from breadcrumbing. Breadcrumbing is when the person gives gift, or promises that are nothing other than breadcrumbs, trying to win you back. Guilting is when they use guilt to.

    Often guilting appears with breadcrumbs, but its a different one. They might say that they’re not going to try and win you back – but instead play the guilt cards.

    Whats often telling with guilting is the lack of actual effort they make in the relationship (a narcissist never takes responsibility for anything) – they spend more effort in guiding afterwards in victimised mode – that when they could actually do something in the relationship itself. They’d rather play on the heart strings after, and have no heart within.

    They are not wanting you back – for who you really are (nb you were barely anything other than a toy, a slave or a trophy to them anyway) – they are doing everything they can be not to be angry, but projecting anger as guilt – because they have lost control of you. That is what they have lost. A wounded control freak is continuing the same behaviour. The tricks they once used have been revealed.

    The unexpected email may arrive, the card through the door, the letter – after you have made that decision to leave and leave for good – whether friend, sibling, partner or parent – watching for the guilting to begin, it’ll be there. Its just about control.

    One thing to note, guilting can be the last tactic they use, its the final flings of their loaded abusive dice. Once its been ignored – they know the game is up. But that might also be the tone in which any future communication is also. Its just that often, anger, fear and guilt are their only genuine emotional currency anyway, so its to be expected- every thing else is just false breadcrumbs.

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (part 27) Without making a Noise

    I walked on tip toes for a good few years after learning to walk – I must have known the importance of having to stay quiet

    When I was told of for sneezing at the dinner table, I learned to sneeze, without making a noise

    Dont touch the water when peeing, too noisy

    Turn the TV down – I don’t want to hear it – came the voice from the kitchen

    Knowing which floorboards were creaky on the stairs, and avoiding them

    Helped to know this, so that ‘operation turn bedroom light off’ could be invoked when these same stairs were landed on by those whose noise was constant.

    As well as mild, and loyal – being quiet was a survival strategy, don’t make a noise

    Dont draw attention….away from the one who’s attention was demanded

    Dont touch the piano– unless you’re going to play its properly

    I dont want you to learn the violin – ‘I cant bear the sound’

    And as for other noises…

    No burping or swearing allowed.

    No raised voices.

    Learning to be quiet – it was the only way.

    No shouting, no anger, no aggression

    Nothing to upset the monster.

    Creeping quietly around the house, hoping not to be found.

    Sneaking into the front room, whilst she was in the kitchen.

    A parent with a ‘do not disturb’ sign hung permanently around their neck.

    This wasn’t because she was working from home with a major investment project – or on the phone to clients – or with friends round – we were an inconvenience, unless useful.

    My role every day was to set the video each morning, to record the lunchtime episode of neighbours so we could watch at 4pm after school, so that she could be cooking at that time for when Dad got home. That was the ‘shared’ family moment – watching TV, the rest of the time..

    ‘Do not disturb’

    Quiet toys, lego (get them out one by one, don’t make a mess or a noise)

    Trains that didn’t have batteries

    Pocket calculators, chess, colouring

    Books to read

    Toys that didn’t involve anyone else to play with, so I could be on my own, all the time.

    Only one person could make a noise, only one person could dominate the sound.

    Other noise was a threat.

    Challenge it was seen to rebel. So stay quiet.

    What happens when you’re scared to make a noise? Utter inhibition.

    Learning to be quiet

    Learning to stay invisible , except where it was acceptable, on the trophy shelf.

    Noise was shameful, noise was disrespectful

    Noise challenged, noise rebelled

    So to comply, and to be loyal, I stayed quiet. Until I learned

    Until I learned how quiet had damaged me, and others around me, until I realised I could use my voice, speak and let my heart rise again.

  • Wounds like Eyes

    If the process of healing is like an onion

    One layer of tears at a time
    One more step towards the core

    Then wounds are like eyes

    They hurt when stung

    They are the raw, vulnerable awakening

    Of pain needing more work

    Raw exposed and seen

    Wound of black hurt

    The pupil, the dark eye in the middle

    A wound of pain surrounded by levels of anger, grief, torment, fear and betrayal

    Like an eye

    Today has been a wound day, completely unexpectedly

    A trigger went deep

    Rawness to the surface

    Yet it helped me to see

    To look at the pain again

    And see, that I am not the pain

    That i am powerful

    That I am safe

    That I am loved

    And I am not in that place

    Somehow for me, wounds help me to see

    Help me to feel, a reminder to continue to be the new me

    Wounds help me to see

    See me for me now

    See what I need

    Wounds like eyes.

  • From Numbing to Noticing my Feelings

    From Numbing to Noticing my Feelings

    I’d probably describe myself as a former cycling enthusiast, It was a thing I did alot for good period of 2-3 year and then I found it harder and harder to motivate myself to get out on the bike. Though I have done a bit more recently. Scotland was the perfect setting, fabulous quiet roads, scenery and summer nights that were light until very late, and the odd glimpses of red kites in the sky, red squirrels on the roads, and did I mention scenery… that in bucketloads.

    I think this was somewhere between Perth and Bankfoot, but memory has gone. It was only many short 20-30 mile routes and it had a ford near the top.

    Anyway, one such route that was known was ‘The Beast’ – it involved over 100 miles, from Perth, Crieff, Aberfeldy, then up and over the back of loch Tay and over Ben lakers, Killin, Lochearnhead, Comrie, snd Crieff and back again. If you can see the little roads on this map you’ll see the route, what you don’t see on this map is the hills and climbs. A cafe a Bridge of Balgie supplied essential snacks at lunch, but the calories for them were gone after the Ben Lawers climb, and there was still 50 miles for me to get back.

    Anyway, If my memory serves me well, I completed this route three times. It was a summer thing, and needed several 70+ rides in the preceding weeks to build up to it. I didnt ever try and better times on it.

    The second time I completed it I had heard of a way of making myself cycle faster.

    In the bike magazine I was reading, it suggested that to slow down the messages from your leg muscles that you are in pain, listen to music on a ride. So I did. I borrowed a tiny iPod shuffle (it was 2011) and headphones and so, on the ride I listened to music. I dont remember the music, though I think I tried to listen to lively music for exercising and tempo.

    In effect, I was trying to numb the actual messages my body was trying to tell my brain.

    So, what happened? It told me, eventually, for though I had maintained carbs, liquids, gels, food all day – it wasn’t enough, I did complete the ride. If I remember I had suffered some kind of cramp around the route or on the 20-30 miles back. But when I got back I collapsed, on the bed, body fully empty of any energy, shaking, weak and beyond movement or functioning.

    Those messages had been screaming at me, and I wasn’t listening. Yes I responded at strategic stops for food/water – but to get to the end I was numbing.

    I feel like this was such a picture of how I deal with emotions, feelings – whether happy, sad, joyful, angry – I numbed them. I just had to survive. I just had to find ways of ignoring them, distractions, soothing, being busy, new hobbies, shopping, cooking, not stopping, to notice – then working, studying, staying in my head. My head was my safe place – but I also filled it with noise, of news, of podcasts, of opinions, of anything.

    Numbing the pain on a ride was just a metaphor for numbing the pain and emotions that I had been running from all of my life. Go faster, climb higher, ride further – dont stop to hear the messages, until..I …burn..out.

    Fearing what would happen if I could actually feel. Fearing that and losing myself in the soothing of others, denying myself, numbing myself and not listening.

    Why am I writing this today? – well because sometimes when im sitting, thinking, reading, or even processing my emotional reactions to some startling news today – an image, or a memory comes to mind – reminding me of where I was. I needed permission to feel emotions, and safety too, as well as the time to get to know and feel myself. Its funny how cycling 40 miles on bike rides was also part of escaping the childhood house.

    I can see that in this photo taken in 2012, that I am lost, and there is no life in my eyes.

    What I realised a few weeks ago, is that its far easier to ride a bike when it didnt need to do more than be a bike ride. I could relax and breathe and…enjoy being happy on a bike.

    Me in 2022..emotions on display…. a 10 year older face..but with spark and life.

    Its kind of obvious looking at these photos what numbing pain and emotion was doing to me, isn’t it?

    Instead of numbing my emotions, i’m learning to listen to them, learning that I dont need to hold them, noticing anger, fear, anxiety, and responding sometimes by swearing, drawing, moving, writing, listening – also means that I can feel all the happy feelings too, the bliss of being loved, smiling and laughing with my fiancé. I had to learn, and be in a safe place to begin to feel my feelings. Until that point I was numbing them out, like a mad cyclist on a 100 mile ride in the middle of Scotland. Like I used to.

  • I had to make it happen – myself

    I love when I read something and because im in a different time and place, it means something different to me, I see something different in the words and meaning that I didn’t before. When I studied hermeneutics as part of my theology studies and then personal research 10 years ago, I would have understood this as the ‘reader response’ to a text, and thought then only of sacred texts like the Bible.

    I have just finished re-reading The Hobbit, it’s the fourth time I have read it, and the second time I’ve read it out loud, I read it to my son George about 10 years ago, and recently to my fiance Christelle, also as a bed time story.

    It’s the first time I’ve read it in 8 years though, and I had sort of dismissed it as an adventure story, and wonder how I’d find it compared to having just read the Harry Potter series

    As well as finding resonance in the conversation with the dragon part, the sneaky burglar role and the effect of power and wealth – whether got for legitimate or non legitimate means, it was this part at the end that stood out

    And why should they not come true, surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bring them about yourself? You don’t really suppose that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?

    What did I once believe? That God would sort things out? That I couldn’t make anything happen? Maybe even that my destiny was never to be happy and that was what my luck was?

    Or was I waiting for someone else to fix it for me? Me, the passive victim waiting to be emotionally rescued and someone else patch me up, and yes at the point of crisis I needed immediate patching up. But..

    I had to make it happen

    I had to act, even with all the best guidance and support in the world

    I had to make a myriad of choices and actions happen

    I had to learn how to make decisions for myself and also that were for myself

    I had to stop being passive, or waiting for someone or something else to fix it, or play a never ending waiting game of was a manipulation in itself.

    Echart Tolle writes something very similar, stating that in simple terms, if we want to get out of a situation, or change it, we must act, and doing nothing is also action. Improbably misquoting him, but hey I’m writing this on a train

    If I attributed what I did to ‘The Gods’ where would that leave me now? What if how Ive changes and grown and dug deep been all just God and not me? I’m not going to say that I don’t believe God wasn’t in it, and I’m rediscovering God again, but what sense of power, or achievement or self pride would I have in it, if It was just God’s plan or destiny? Or good luck?

    The universe conspires to help the dreamer – Paulo Coelho

    But even then I had to make things happen, i had to take responsibility for myself, make choices and decisions, not all of them perfect or right, but I where I listened to my heart, and sought to do something that I felt was best for me, somehow that did. And that includes every day. Every day even now.

    Whether that’s a positive decision to not have a TV or watch the news, whether that’s a positive decision to listen to my feelings and anxiety and sit, write and express them, whether that’s to cook good food for myself, whether that’s to continue to deal with the mess of the past or survival strategies of the past through therapy, whether that’s to embrace love and vulnerability with my fiance Christelle, whether that’s continuing day by day to attend to myself, be kind to myself, these are all active choices I make every single day.

    So maybe, this is all about power after all. I had to realise I had more power that I thought, more power than I knew, more power than I wanted, and that I wasn’t fatalistically dependent on someone else. That I didn’t need to be scared anymore.

    From a place of fear, of being abused and scared, I had to take power, I had to start to make things happen for myself, sometimes one vulnerable step after another, but still steps.

    Maybe destiny and prophecies have to be found and created, and not waited for…thanks Gandalf…

  • Survival of the Mildest – born to be Mild

    Survival of the Mildest – born to be Mild

    I realise the other day how much ‘second-guessing’ that accompanied every decision I had to make – to do with something that was about me.

    One of the consequences of being ‘Born to be loyal’ was that what accompanied it was the fear of stepping out of line. Conformity was embedded. As was the sheer terror of her, mother. Upsetting her, making her angry, all of which she was capable of being at anything- or nothing.

    What this meant for me, was that to keep myself safe I was fulfilling the role. Survival meant the survival of the mildest, the quietest.

    This was reflected in everything I did.

    The children books that I read were comics and Roald Dahl, toys were lego and trains.

    I didn’t listen to music – in fact music was practically banned in the house, except TV soundtracks (this was the music on cassette tape in the car on family holidays, or tape childrens books) TV soundtracks…and my parents were around during the 1960’s but you wouldn’t know it – its as if they went through the 1960’s in an evangelical cult, avoiding the real world. So, no music. So what was my first single. I was a child of the 1980’s… Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, Metallica, Guns n Roses? – nope…. A TV theme song…. yes that one from ‘Neighbours’ 1989, Angry Anderson – there’s an irony, the closest I got to angry from the age of 11 – mild song, mild me.

    The same theme continued – having to stay safe with music, the most rebellious I got, was to play Meat Loaf loud – and then I was made to feel guilty for it, or asked – ‘Are you sure to be listening to this’? yuk yuk.

    But it meant I didnt buy songs with swearing in, and kept things safe. How many 17 year olds were listening to christian worship music?

    Born to be wild… yeah… frankly anything but….

    Mild.

    So that I didnt have to ask them for anything, I worked from the age of 13, paper rounds, babysitting, and then retail work. Id learned not to ask for what I wanted or needed – but I noticed that even when I bought things it was interrogated – certain things were a ‘waste’ of my own money…too many sweets.. or ‘shouldn’t you be saving some of that’ .

    Everything I chose to buy, even with my own earned money – was commented on or interrogated.

    What I realised was that I hated any comment from them, it was never genuine, it was loaded, with patronising criticism, jealousy, or projection.

    ‘Is it Christian?’

    ‘are you sure thats appropriate?’

    ‘Should you be listening to that?’

    ‘Don’t you think you should have been home earlier’

    So I had to second guess what I bought for myself.

    Useful things were ok, like a bike, a hi-fi, camera – but given that I had the money to buy clothes – I still had to buy ‘bargains’ or safe clothes that weren’t rebellious. Usually plain, unless it was the favourite checked shirt or waist coat – or football tops. What I realise now, is that my second guessing brain was in charge of my purchasing. I remember going to Leicester on a few occasions, armed with a few hundred pounds, and not able to buy clothes I liked – but trying to buy clothes that weren’t too expensive, were reasonable, and didnt stand out , spending hours walking between three different shops to try and make a decision about a shirt, a jacket, jeans or whatever it was.

    I was in a teenage body, but reasoning decisions like a frightened child or adult – and not anything like a normal teenager would be.

    Mild – also wasn’t going out, getting drunk, coming back late. Nothing external to rebel.

    Mild was babysitting at a friends house on New Years eve, so that I could finish A level homework – and still being told off for being late home. When my 18 yr old friends were getting drunk. Mild.

    Mild was doing a Christian gap year at the end of those A levels, but this didnt fit in with their plans/trophied expectations – still a mild way to rebel.

    Mild was taking the car once id learned to drive to Christian music festivals.

    Mild – was never getting angry or emotional.

    Mild – I remember not being allowed to have to colours I wanted in my room – they were too bright. I wanted Red….but a brighter red that I was allowed.

    Mild meant not being really good at something, or failing either. I levelled out somewhere in the middle, and hid anything extreme. If I did something that good, credit was taken from it…

    And definitely not swearing.

    As a consequence of being born to be loyal, survival meant being born to be mild. Being the safe, invisible, oldest child. Doing nothing to upset the apple cart, not asking or needing, not standing out, not rebelling, not noisy, conform.

    I was easily criticised for being indecisive. I had to over think every ‘seen as selfish’ decision – and so this paralysed my decision making. In fact, strange how the persons who caused the indecision that criticised me for being indecisive at times. Utterly overthinking, second guessing, trying to please, partly, moreover, trying to not upset, trying to not stand out, trying to be stay invisible, trying to stay loyal, meant born to be mild.

    Why did I notice recently how mild I had to be?

    Because for the last few years I have bought my own clothes. I put colour in my choice of socks, I bought even more checked colourful shirts and t shirts. I now take my inner child shopping, and little James has fun trying on things, trying on fun things, being brave with colour. Little James makes impulse buys. Little James is growing a music collection.