It happens, that when something is challenging, difficult and messy (mild words for ‘WTF is going on?’)
I write. I write for myself, with words you will never see.
I write for myself – and they end up in the draft pile
I write for myself, with words that you sometimes see
I have thoughts and ideas of stuff I could write about and come back to later.
I also, in the moments through the mind swirl of the WTF moments, develop new creative interests.
Oh, I just realised.
STFU James.
I haven’t existed without ‘that’ mind swirl.
There has barely been times when the damaging effect of my psychopathic parents doesn’t have some underlying, or explicit effect, that I might be in the midst of processing, learning, and regrouping myself from, the ‘big’ feelings.
But what I find interesting, is that I struggle to write, or even want to write when im not having to wrestle, churn or try and deal with something.
Its as if there’s creative energy from within it.
Expression through Depression for want for a better word.
And there’s something interesting too.
I find it really easy to invalidate my own work – not because it’s not any good.
But because of what I was going through at the time.
It’s like ‘ I dont think I’ll publish that, because I was definitely having a WTF kind of day?’
Yes I should check what motives I have for writing, and sometimes I get that wrong, I know – I mean not every one of 1000 blogs in 12 years is with a perfect motive, some cross the line – especially if I have been angry with the government ;-)
But it’s like saying that The Verve shouldn’t have written Bitter sweet symphony when in a depeessive state and waited until they were feeling ok… and as for Damien Rice..
Maybe I have been conditioned to only validate what I write when im feeling good – so not to overshare too much darkness? But is that hopeful or real? Because you really want to hear how I am ok now, but felt shit a few weeks ago, and look at me, giving a great redemptive arc story.
Maybe there’s inspiration in the sticky muddy mess of life, and creativity through and in the pain, maybe thats more human. Maybe polished, is just that, polished, pretend and shiny. Maybe I should just write, because that may be what I am good at. Maybe there is no perfect time to write, maybe actually there will only be ‘in the midst’ of long term processing and remaking (I still reluctant to use recovery as a term tbh) , and there will be pockets of light punctuating the revealing and discoveries. Maybe there’s something about the gritty struggle as much as when it’s like riding s bike downhill with the wind in the back. The glimpses of blissful consciousness concurrent in fields where poppies and thorns grow.
Isnt that what good poetry or songwriting is all about anyway?
Creativity in and through the rainbows of clouds, sunshine and rain.
Holding the float out to surf on the calm and choppy waves
To let the flow of creativity ride, sink or swim on the waves.
Time to write about surfing, sinking or swimming through the waves,
Time to write about life in all its becoming wholeness
Time to release the wrestling with writing, and let it flow.
To open up the doorways into which the channels of life flows.
Spiders, Clowns, Heights, Buttons, Spaces, The dark, Nuclear war, being bullied at school….
These weren’t the things I fear in most of my life. It wasnt things.
It wasnt just ‘that parent’ that gave me considerable terrors. Have a read of my story above for more.
That was bad enough.
That voice. Those footsteps up the stairs. That coldness.
But there was something else.
Something that I think we all fear at some point in our lives.
Was something I feared from the age of about 14
Even if we have half decent respectable parents – it can be that weird thing of starting to act like them when we get to ‘that’ age, or ‘that’ moment – often when we have kids of our own.
But what if your parents have been utterly abhorrent, in one way or another? What if they have been physically, emotionally or sexually abusive? What if they have few redeeming features at all? What if they are narcissistic/psychopathic to their core?
When we see those parents for who they are – the light dawns – and for me it was a fairly early age – but could do nothing about it – the fear becomes very real.
The fear is this:
How do I stop myself becoming anything like them?
And it plagued me.
It might plague you too.
That has been one of my biggest fears all my life.
Will I end up being abusive? Will end up treating others the same? Am I psychopathic myself?
Its a question I remember asking when I was still a teenager.
Will the pattern continue? and Am I likely to turn out the same?
how can I stop this? Will I be able to prevent it?
Theres something else that caused me to worry about this. Its that the same abusive parent would often suggest that I was just like them.
“We’re just the same James‘ she would often say – we both have this kind of personality, and I remember thinking, even then queasily, no I’m not – people actually like me, and I think I know how to be kind to people.
But have you ever had that situation where your abuser wants to alleviate themselves by saying that they’re not much different to you. Its like they’re trying to convince themselves, and yet at the same time be utterly bewildering at the time.
Youre just like me, Don’t you dare think you’re better than me, we’re just the same.
Oh the horror.
How to emotionally confuse , gaslight, me as I knew then, that I was and am nothing like them and have no desire to be, at all.
Yet with that fear in mind, what happens?
It’s complicated.
On one hand to try and not be like abusive parent, I become like other parent, accommodating, boundary less, unable to stand up for myself. In other words….too nice, helpful, open, and then walked all over..and also a shell of a person….. but on the positive… at least my fears aren’t realised….
Im just then a walking punch bag ready to be pierced with defence mechanisms so high.
Its like from over compensating in one way, I end up somewhere else – instead of damaging others deliberately, im damaging myself.
But was there any real alternative anyway? Thats what I had to do to survive the childhood with the monster anyway. Stay small, stay out of the way, and fearfully accommodate with eggshells like landmines.
Yet in another way, I would ‘end up’ like them… told you it was complicated.
In desperate attempts to be seen, heard, validated and affirmed…that never arise anyway – (so quit this when you can – emotionally immature parents cant give this, however hard you try) – I sort of end up in places of work that they might acknowledge and validate. This isnt unusual either, how many kids become vets because their parents are – how many children do this out of ‘trying to please’… ? So, subconsciously, I think, I end up working in churches and ministry for 20 odd years, a default on one level, and somewhere in there is a thought about deep conformity, as the older, trophy child.
So I would end up becoming ‘a bit’ like them, in the work that I do.
Id spend most of my lifer up until the age 40 wrestling with that voice in my head, that fear of ‘don’t be anything like your mum’ thing, I wouldn’t know how to stop it, and a torment of analysing my actions to assess my motives, my behaviours.
What I know now, is that kind of emotional trauma suffered by me , that I normalised to an extent, through childhood, has needed a place of safety, the reconnection with my family to share the common stories and name the abuse, the love of friends, and my partner Christelle, two, maybe more bouts of therapy, lots of books to help me see and understand everything. To realise now, though that I am not like them, because unlike one parent I have protected myself, and others from them, I am making others aware of them, and also the wider world aware of the effect of abusive mothers, and also reconnecting deeply with myself, to not be the shell, the mask even, that was.
They do say that if you are worried about becoming like that person, your own self reflection is likely to cause you to be very different, as this is often a quality they dont have. If you think you might end up being a psychopath, you’re not one.
That mask and shell might be the subject of a future piece.
Do have a look on the resources page for books and articles on emotionally immature parents, that I found useful, and you may do too.
Thank you for reading, please do like this blog, share with others who might find it useful, and if you can make a donation to my work, you can do do in the KO-FI link below. Thank you.
My Dad was, and still is, a very practical man, the shed and garage was full of saw, drills, spanners, screwdrivers, bits of wood, metal, nails, screws, pipes, plastic, levers, sawdust..loads of sawdust and grime , my Dad was a self employed Plumber and heating engineer, and basically everyones favourite repair man in the town.
We didnt even have a car, we travelled around on a bench in the back of ‘the van’ , shovelled in to a space that in the weekdays was also a home for work bags, tool boxes and the dust sheets. The same tools built and redeveloped our entire house (as well as everyone elses).
Used in the wrong way tools were harmful, some blades were sharp, some drills too heavy and powerful for even an enthusiastic 7 year old to use, some tools were the wrong ones selected for the job, some tools will make jobs easier, some harder, depending on what you wanted to do. The grass could be cut with scissors, but its not worth it, hand sawing wood at times very hard work, not worth it on some occasions.
But that kind of makes sense, doesnt it, selecting the right tool for the job, when cutting the grass, making a shelf, wood turning or refitting a gas boiler?
And the tools we select for finance work or academia or community work – are also honed, cultivated, chosen, practiced and reflected on, for the purposes of the task in hand, to be effective, meaningful, quick, cooperative or productive.
As some of you may know, and from my other blog (Learning from the Streets) , One of the books I have been reading this year is this one
The English Pastoral by James Rebanks. Its a true story about the changes in farming in the last 100 years, compared to the previous 1600 years, though there were changes in medieval farming, to rotational farming, and then with the intensity farming with the development of fertilisers, chemicals and so called efficiency. Do have a read. Its ultimately fascinating.
One of the things he says towards the end of the book, and throughout is that farming is precedented on the ongoing quality of the soil and how this affects everything, crop growth, wildlife and ecosystems, all of which are important for the present and future.
But what he concedes is that one of the principle tools that has brought the most disaster, ecologically, is the one piece of equipment that farming has relied on for centuries.
The Plough.
The plough breaks open the soil, exposes it to the harsh realities of the weather, disrupts nutrients and ecosystems. Its a staggering thing to admit for farmers (p239), it’s like saying that church buildings are harmful for Clergy or calculators for economists.
So in understanding about the need for the quality for soil to be preserved that new, or maybe older ways of farming, and a change of tools is required.
In our understanding of soil – there is a requirement, for a number of reasons to change the tools – if we want to restore, preserve and maintain the health of the soil. If farming pushes on regardless with chemicals, responding to profits and supermarket demands, the tools are items of destruction. But only if different motivations about the meaning of life, and the countryside and ecology are changed.
So, what about us? As individuals? As Men..specifically?
What about Emotional tools, rather than the physical ones?
If our life is about the ‘bottom dollar’, work and efficiency – what might be the cost? And what tools do we use in dealing with emotions, when money and profit are the main motivation.
I can say, that diverting, distraction, hiding, pretending were the tools I used for emotions, because that was the only option I had. They were the only emotional tools I had in my tool box.
What are the tools you’re using, that without realising are causing long term harm? Is putting off dealing with difficult emotions your way of coping ? is it go through the motions of work, drink, sport, sleep and back to work again without any recognition of being a person with emotions – unless its about getting drunk and being angry? In the same way you might re decorate a room – what parts of you need some attention? Whats the quality of your soil like? Full of life? or dry? barren, lifeless?
What damage was that doing to me? What damage might it be doing to you?
Did I value the very thing all life stemmed from, the soil of my heart, my soul or mind? Did I love myself? What part of me was being destroyed – for the sake of what?
Tools may have been given to us as children growing up, explicitly or implicitly about how to grow up, what was expected of us, what rules to keep, what to value, what to not – and for some of us those tools may well have been the suitable ones for life and to enjoy it, but thats not the case for everyone, when my therapist asked me what guidance I had growing up from my parents, I struggled – I knew what not to have done after the event, but tools for life? hmm not so sure
We might still reach for the wrong tool, without knowing other tools are even available – new pain experienced, old tool grabbed for. Same pain or experience, same tool, same pattern, same again…and its ok…start to see the pattern…
What tools did you receive – when dealing with emotions – that without realising are damaging you? Which are you trying to deny space to work and deal with? Are you avoiding? Are you digging a hole with the wrong tool? Or trying to cover over the cracks with a temporary grass , that looks good, but is ecologically disaster ?
Other people, even those close to us, are giving us nods and hunches all the time that we have stuff to unlearn, to see differently, to have the nudge to change – they see things we dont always. A new tool might be required for a moment, that we might default into distract or divert, deny or depress – when it might be better to accept, to feel, to open up, to listen, to respond. Fear might keep us using old tools, loving ourselves, and others might help us to pick a new tool out of the toolbox, its not a hammer with a blunt edge, but a delicate chisel, to sculpt, shape, mould, gently.
New growth in a farm without a plough takes time. Its the same as dig free allotment gardening. But, nature does recover. It just need humans to help it, not destroy it.
Maybe its time to realise the damage of our old toolkit, thank it for what it brit, made and kept safe, but a new us requires new tools. Theres pain in throwing out the old equipment that served us well, but maybe its time for something new. What of your behaviours feels like the plough? And maybe thats the one to talk about, to be vulnerable about, to seek professional help about, maybe its time to put the nutrients into the soil and grow from goodness and depth.
100th Post!
Thank you for reading and sharing and liking my written work here on Healing for Men – ive just noticed that this is my 100th piece, so, I just wanted to thank you for all your encouragement and support. If you would like to make a small gift contribution please do click the link on the right. Thank you all
James Ballantyne 