When you are so busy that you feel perpetually chased
when your worrying thoughts circle around your head
when the future seems dark and uncertain
when you are hurt by someone has said
Slow
down
Even for a moment.
What do you hear?
What..does..you’re..body..feel?
What does the sky look like ?
Only when we slow down can we finally see our relationships, our thoughts, our pain
As we slow down, we are no longer tangled in them
We can slowly step out and appreciate them for what they are.
The faces of our family and colleagues whop always help, the scenery we pass by every day
but..fail to notice, our friends stories that we fail to pay attention to
in the stillness of the
pause…
the entirety of our being is quietly revealed
Wisdom is not something we have to strive to acquire.
Rather, it arises naturally as we slow down and notice what is already there.
As we notice more and more in present moment, we come to a deeper realisation that as silent observer is within us.
In the primordial stillness the silent observer witnesses everything inside and outside.
Befriend the silent observer. Find out where it is, and what shape it has assumed.
Do not try to imagine it as something you already know. Let all your thoughts and images merge back into silence and just sense the observer already in silence.
If you see the face of the silent observer, then you have found your original face, from before you were born.
Haemin Sumin, The Things you can see only when you slow down (2012)
The Epilogue of this book, written in full, for you, a gift, an encouragement, to slow down, and let the silence speak and for us to see more as we notice.
In my last piece I shared a little about how we love ourselves through healing, what it means to be kind on ourselves, as we do so, forgiving our missteps, not over dwelling on the tiny attempts to try that fail in the bigger picture of overall healing. Today I have come across this concept. Post Traumatic Growth, after reading this tweet.
The staggering thing for me is that this is only 10%.
But then again, I realise that looking back how many times in the last 10 years I ignored the warning signs. How scared I was to try and deal with things that I couldn’t describe. How I thought I could just ‘keep going’ and be ok (a trauma response in itself).
Thats me overthinking to the point where it was ‘safer’ and ‘easier’ to stay stuck, swirling in the muck of abusive relationships.
Healing is undoubtedly about growing, and changing. As you change, others around you either do, or dont, and reveal themselves through their actions (even if their words say something different).
And to anyone reading this, especially, but not exclusively men, – lets not be afraid to change, and become a better version of ourselves.
That ‘self-help’ guru that you dismissed in your criticism, that you now have to admit is right… thats ok. Humble pie is good, when it means that you are healing too.
That breakdown, that illness, that continual knowing ache… might be the sign and symptom that is trying to tell you something, that something isn’t right, and a reason to stop.
One of the key factors in helping me to grow, was that 2 of the friends who walked with me through the easiest time had also been through therapy, had also experienced what I had in different ways. They were the wise guides, showing me paths that I could take (though never forcing it).
I recognise some of myself in this article. I have been relentlessly optimistic about my own capacities since I was about 11 and a strong, if coherent, sense of self, even in the difficult times, and doing lot of practical and written tasks to keep going, though I also know that my coping styles were avoidance , not wanting to deal with things. Maybe thats a key one for us all.
Learning to turn around and face the trauma.
To name it, see it, and understand it for what it is.
To deal with the root thats been nagging away.
It was for me. Maybe it is for you.
Theres definitely no sense of ‘look at me ive made it’ as I write, dealing with trauma is an ongoing struggle, healing and recovery takes time, and requires so many new, daily moments of inner work. Its too simple to say ‘What doesnt kill you makes you stronger’, too trite. As in this piece..
But as stories and literature often reveal, it is possible not only to recover from trauma, but to actually grow from it and flourish. Suffering has long been romanticized in literature, art, and folklore as transformative and empowering. There is an element of truth to this concept. But it needs to be looked at more closely. Simply experiencing suffering and trauma does not guarantee that you will become a better, stronger person for it. This attitude is a trite and irresponsible one that men for centuries have used as an excuse to abuse their children in the name of “toughening them up.”
Also, this isnt trying to say that ‘if you do this, X happens’ , for me the growth happened in the process and took a lot of work. It’s not a promise, but it could be a new reality. Its about how to rethink the abuse, how to put ourselves in the centre of our lives, and this takes significant effort.
Right now, approximately 50% of you who have experienced trauma are reading this and saying, “I’m supposed to be grateful for all the crud that happened to me? Each day, I struggle for even a modicum of what other people take for granted. There’s no amount of ‘growth’ that can stop me wishing this hadn’t been my life.”
Post-traumatic growth is not a given. We’re not going to gloss over the long arduous road to recovery from trauma that for the most part does not feel victorious or courageous for those who are on it. However, at least 50% of survivors have found that they can begin to define themselves and their communities by their strengths and that in no small way these strengths have been forged by adversity.
“Out of the hottest fire comes the strongest steel.” – Chinese proverb
My hope is that this piece is an encouragement to you. Not a burden of expectation. My hope is that it causes you to see what can be possible, what is possible. We dont choose the trauma we have experienced, but we can start t choose how we heal from them, how we live our lives from and beyond them. In the midst of it all, tiny shoots of green start to appear. They may be tender. They may be small. But they are there.
Additionally: Since 2020 its not just a personal thing, trauma, whilst we have all experienced the effects of Covid in different ways, how we rebuild from it, healthily may have something to do with what our reactions have been during it, this piece on ‘Why PTG might be what we all need in 2021′ has some helpful insights in it.
Ok……… FUCK…… (in the tiniest of calmest of maturest voices)
YAY..well done!
Learning to say fuck was one of my healing moments.
Saying it, with my voice.
Allowing the word to bubble up, and be out of my mouth before my head tried to stop it. Maybe not the first time. The first time was the excruciating torture I describe above.
Do it, do it, do it.. Being taught to swear, was like everything I hadn’t been allowed to do since I was born. And definately something I stopped doing since I had to grow up and be the responsible one, the morally good one, the leader…
Writing it didn’t count. Because often what I can type, is my head playing with words, its not my heart, my feelings actually making themselves felt in my body.
Paralysed by politeness, inhibited by responsibility, fearing consequences. Thinking it was shameful.
I was inhibited.
Anger dormant.. (and it still is being worked on)
Uptight
Needing to loosen up.
The ‘always responsible’ needing to let himself go.
Relax.
Saying F**K was a beginning.
and trying not to give a F**K about it either.
Enjoying it.
It felt good.
Saying it.
Talking of inhibitions, I realised too that being the responsible one had meant I had never got drunk in my life. And especially not drank when I knew that emotionally unsafe people were drinking. Though also not because of the same reasons as above too.
Not wanting to let myself go. Worrying about what I might find.
Saying F**K was part of my healing process.
I needed to say it, to bring out to the surface all the ‘F**K’s I had held in, all there built up rage, anger, frustration, hurt, pain inside.
Sometimes F**K is completely and utterly appropriate. Because it described how you feel when you have been treated appallingly and abusively.
It may not be the ‘release’ for you that it was for me, it may be something else.
Maybe its to do something spontaneous, fun, silly, and let yourself go. Maybe we all need to do a lot more of that anyway.
Part of my healing and recovery in those first few months was actually trying to toughen up a bit. To care less. To worry about others less. To give more of a F about myself.
As well as the space to discover what was good for me, to see the situation pdf my marriage, and childhood, in a new light, and to get therapy to help me with tools, part of my recovery and healing involved me discovering who I am.
Until then I had in the past done the odd personality test, but had done my best to invalidate it in my mind, filling in the answers I wanted to, dismissing the enneagram in college 12 years ago as ‘weird’ and not important compared to ‘real’ stuff in youth work..like theory.
In the space of safety, part of my healing and recovery meant starting the process of who I am.
Up until then ask me and I wouldn’t have known, ‘I dunno’, I think im ok, I think ill be ok, I think im good at a few things. I might have gone as far to say that I was a person of faith, but it all felt flimsy, loose, uncertain, unconvincing. So ill say that not knowing who I was, not knowing my real self and me, was part of how I ended up in situations. Drifting? Probably, taken advantage of? Yes..and not knowing who I was, meant I had nothing to protect or stand up for. You cant defend a castle if its made of water.
18 months prior to actually accepting it, one of my friends had already mentioned me being an introvert when they saw me present my Thesis findings at this event but like everything else, I ignored, dismissed it, was almost scared of it. Scared of Discovering myself.
That same friend reminded me of this, in the same month I started my first season of Therapy, and so, the second book I read after this one, was Quiet by Susan Cain.
It was like a breath of fresh air on so many levels.
Stopping to discover who I am. And know that it was ok.
This isn’t a piece about introvert/extrovert thinking, it is instead about the process of discovering who I am as part of my healing.
Who I am, not just how I am in relation to other people
Who I am, not just what I do
Who I am, in terms of the detail of my inner, real self.
Who I am – and what I can start to defend.
Putting off learning about myself was now out of the question. A breakdown was the opportunity to painfully discover the hidden treasure of myself. I couldn’t love myself if I didnt know myself.
It began with accepting my introvert side, as I was lapping up self discovery like a drug.
I say to any men reading this, or anyone, its not too late, its not too early to discover the real you. What you may have hidden for so long will make its way known in actions, behaviours and reactions. You are more valuable than you think, and the process and journey is so worth it. You may have already started this, and so my deepest encouragement to you as this continues in your life. The best person you can be for yourself and others, is the one that accepts, knows and understands itself.
Discovering my introvert side was just the start, but Im glad it was a start.
Starting to accept, not run from discovering who I am, realising how important it was…realising how important I am.
The next chapter of my life, was about to me made with me knowing myself, for who I am.
Its such a trivial thing, I said to my therapist (almost as I put on my jacket to leave at the end of the first session)
But I’ve realised how much I like to feel appreciated
Me, early 2019
‘Its not trivial at all though is it‘, he said to me.
When you’re appreciated, you know where you stand with people
My therapist
When you’re appreciated you know where you stand with people.
I was used to trying to find appreciation
Trying to please
Then told I was trying too hard
Not knowing where I stood, so in a relationship always continuing to try to do the next thing.
A slave to uncertainty.
A slave.
Emotionally immature people dont give their certainty away often.
So, it means that there’s unsaid expectations to keep trying, to keep trying to revolve around them, to try and meet an unexpected thing that doesn’t ever seem possible.
Because it isnt possible
Because that’s what they want you to do.
To exhaust yourself.
Appreciation from the emotionally immature, the sociopath or psychopath is often a manipulation to get you to do the thing they want you to do, or give you a rope to hang yourself on.
Its never ; ‘You’ve all done really well fighting the virus, despite the corruption, narcissism and sociopathic entitlement of us, the Tory Government’ – but a continual blame of others.
What I didnt realise was how important this was, being appreciated. What I didnt realise, until I was in a safe place and my friend thanked me for cooking a meal.
I couldn’t take the appreciation. I shrugged it off. I wasn’t used to it.
I hadn’t ever had it.
A project was messy throughout its duration, but dont expect a medal for finishing it
‘Oh, do you want brownie points, just for cleaning the bathroom’?
What I didn’t realise was how important something was, that I didn’t think was that important.
Because, well, I got by without it. It was the way I had expected.
Nothing right, nothing perfect, nothing good enough,
I had given it to others, praised the young person for what they did, tried to appreciate staff in workplaces, but I know now how hard that was for me. It was easier to be critical and reflective, the hardest thing was to appreciate the work others did. Deep down it was coming from an empty place.
Yet I thought it was a trivial thing.
That I gave away to my therapist a few years ago.
Its not trivial.
The thing that you are trying to hide from, run from, or the thing that made you feel good for that moment.
When the tears fall.
And you, important human being, start to realise – from the simplest ‘Thank you’ , from the simplest ‘Thanks for cooking this’ that something inside felt, cracked, and was safe to reveal itself as tears.
This meant that I could stop. I didnt need to add more, cook more, try harder next time, make a three course meal…
It meant I could stop and enjoy it.
I could stop, certain.
So
Notice.
A therapist helped validate, legitimate this.
Notice what happens when you are treated well.
how do you respond?
From day 1, a few friends and then a therapist were the spaces I needed to feel safe, safe to feel, safe to reveal myself.
Realising how important it is to be appreciated.
Realising how uncertain, how abusive relationships are when this is absent.
Realising this in structures, workplaces and ministries too.
That was one of the first things I learned, felt in my healing and recover journey. It started from day 1 in a safe place, and continued as I reflected in Therapy a few months later. Join me in future articles as I share some of my healing and recover journey, the concepts that were key for me, the learning and reflecting I did. Some of these I shared in real time on my other blog, 2 years ago. (Please do follow and like to keep up to date with this series)
‘Being appreciated’ that was one of the first things I had to feel, to embrace, to hear, in the process of rebuilding.
Beyond the healing and surviving. Beyond the self understanding, and in the safety, peace, love of my new life.
Maybe I thought i wouldn’t get these. Maybe I had a vision that once undergoing therapy, once with the tools in the box, life would be a continued breeze, one rainbow dance after the other.
I guess once I stopped trying to survive – Ive started to heal.
And healing is taking a number of methods.
Healing is occurring, as I have had to get closer to the past I tried to run away from.
A treacle day is when my brain is showing me things that its been holding.
A treacle day is as when I have the emotional space to feel things I hadn’t felt before.
Yesterday I had a dream about my High School – what does my brain have space to show me there?
Its also my birthday week. So for some of mothers day grief, my birthday only brings me memories of embarrassment and disrespect, a chance for the traumatising to have centre stage.
I thought I could avoid treacle days.
Nope.
Avoiding isnt healing is it. When I’ve been holding it, avoiding it, trying to forget.
But I shouldn’t feel like this, I should be happy all the time, I have no reason to feel….no, I am healing…this is going to take time…I might ‘understand’ what happened to me, but my body has alot to unravel…
So what do I do?
Ive got to take my own advice haven’t I?
Breathe. Just stop. Breathe.
Yesterday I tried to walk it off, walking, taking photos, and I was genuinely looking forward to a day in the sunshine, walking the nature walks, but when I woke up, post dream, it was a treacle day.
That was the plan, original plan, but my mind had other ideas…I still took some good photos though…
My head was spinning.
Overthinking the fact that I shouldn’t be thinking this way.
‘Be kind to myself’
I said to myself.
Try and help myself realise that I am ok.
And, that this is hard.
Grief is hard.
I could do some destructive things at this point, like be angry on the internet, get passionate about something. Distract. Get a whole load of sympathy from ‘the internet’ and bring others down to me. When actually it wasn’t what I needed to do with this.
I did go shopping and buy myself some nice food – it is my birthday this week after all…
Having space to heal, might mean encountering new parts my life that I didnt realise I had been holding. Might mean seeing the same situations each year in a new way.
Somehow Ive got to get closer to heal from.
Let it happen.
Let the things that need to heal to be revealed
Not run from them.
Wade the treacle.
Wade the treacle with a warm spoon so it starts to melt.
(Fog lifts with the warm sun)
A warm spoon.
Speak to myself with kindness.
Actually realise my mind is trying to help me be kind to myself.
One of the main reasons victims of abuse dont get believed is that the actions that perpetrators do is so shocking that no one could believe it actually happened.
Ironically the same people who describe such things have to articulate something so awful and shocking, that it would be beyond their own mental capacity to make something up. They have no need to lie when the actions that occurred are scandalous enough.
Another is the default positions that people hold about parents, especially in situations of parent -child abuse and emotional abuse.
If you’ve been on the receiving end of emotional abuse in childhood, you’ll know how you feel when people say these things, the myths of what parents are supposed to be:
All Parents love their children
A Parent is the one person you can trust
A parent will always be there for you
You can tell your parents anything
Your parents will love you no matter what
You can always go back home
Your parents only want what’s best for you
Your parents know more than you do
Whatever your parents do, they’re doing it for your own good
Some parents, mine included, even use these statements to describe something that they have absolutely no intention of actually acting out. Many of these myths are not true when you have emotionally immature parents, as Lindsay C Gibson (2016, p142) they never even see the light of day, they’re distant hoped for lands, where other children live in families, but not you.
Some parents also have the word ‘Christian’ or ‘Faith’ to that list. As a christian, they wouldn’t do that..would they??
Yet, society trots these things out, as if good parenting is the default zeitgeist.
It’s strange that when many tales of children, and fiction represent children abandoned, abused and tormented in their upbringing. Or where adults are pretty useless, like Harry Potter, Cinderella, and the many others.
But when some of these statements above are held widely in society, then it can often become the first instinct not to believe the person who shares of the abuse from their parents.
It’s not just as if their parent couldn’t do that, its that ‘no’ parent could.
But they can. And they do.
For many of us, those statements are just not true. In emotionally immature parents, these are those who are fit these criteria:
Then more than one can exist in a family. I have 2, and 1 is very strong at that.
So, we must as a society, as youthworkers, social workers, counsellors, clergy and therapists, do our best, and do better, than believe the myth of parenting, rather than the actual experience and victim of parental abuse is trying to communicate. Because in many many cases, articulating emotional abuse is phenomenally difficult to do.
One of the issues that Gibson writes about too is that as children, or adult children of emotionally immature parents, we may be unable to see our parents clearly, given that accepting that our parents are actually none of the above list (and more like the 4 types) that we care to imagine.
Though, for others, like myself, I’ve know my parents have been weird, odd, since a very young age, and that may bring about different effects, and barely entertaining that they would be any of these things at all, because they barely acted in a way that it was true.
My healing journey, and possibly yours too, is about beginning to see the past in a realistic and actual way, and not in a mythical hopeful sense, like the child who may hope for better or change. If you’re in your mid 40’s and hope your parents change now, then youre on a hiding to nothing. The only person who can change is yourself, especially as you heal and grow. Its not only time to educate ourselves about the truth of our parents, but also others so that they see too.
Parents are supposed to be these things, and in some cases, hopefully the majority, they are. If you have a good relationship with your parents, please dont assume that others do, or the myth of parents, because thats what they are, myths. Myths that stop truth from being believed.
References
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Lindsay C Gibson, 2o16
Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents, Lindsay C Gibson, 2019
James Ballantyne 