Moving on - Part 3 - My greatest lessons
21/10/08 12:12 Filed in: Psychology | Child Abuse
This will be my twelfth post on coming to terms with, recovery and healing from child abuse. I feel I have only a little more to say. That may change; often the interaction with others causes me to remember feelings and issues that have been important to me.
This has been a very personal account. In some ways, I was fortunate, in other ways, less so. Everyone is different.
By the time I was at the healing stage I had to take a good long look at my behaviour. I’ll say more, but I should have done things that I didn’t properly understand or know about at the time. I was in and out of therapy. Since I had an involvement in mental health through my work I also had ready access to others working in mental health, both therapists and psychiatrists. This was a mixed blessing. On reflection, my own knowledge of issues around child abuse now far exceeds that of most professionals I knew then.
On the face of it, at the time, I had many positive behaviours that had value in my life. I had excellent social skills. Similarly, through my work, I had competences in assertiveness, listening, communication, decision-making, negotiation, conflict resolution and leadership skills. Those things came with the territory that was my work. I was chief executive of one organisation and chairman of the board of another. I was used to functioning in public. I gave media interviews, appeared on radio and television, I could get on my feet and engage and hold the attention of over a hundred people in a talk or presentation.
If only life was that simple.
A lot of my behaviour, although it appeared charismatic sometimes, was flawed and had its roots in dysfunction and coping mechanisms that I had learned in early life.
I had good social skills but I was frequently a “pleaser”. I would behave unconsciously in a way so as to strike agreement and accord with others, despite my own feelings, beliefs and values. I wanted to be liked, to be popular, but my inner self still held the memories of abuse that I was a freak, unlikeable and even repulsive. I looked like a competent leader, but I was solitary and heroic. I was forever struggling with feelings of deep inadequacy I had within myself. I was a perfectionist. I was wresting with words from my father that went, “Not good enough! Not good enough! Not good enough!” over and over.
Heroism and perfectionism combined meant that I would make hoops to jump through, ever higher and higher, until such time as I fell flat on my face. Then there was no one there to catch or support me and I would start over again.
I had big problems in setting boundaries and limits in personal relationships. I entered abusive relationships by the score.
There are many more examples I could cite, but those are sufficient to make the point. Many of the personal traits that others may have regarded as positive in me were not. They had their roots in my early life experience of abuse.
This gave me a truly massive problem. My life was a nexus of hundreds of relationships both through my work and personally. Being bad at setting limits, I had no privacy. Whenever I wanted to retreat and have quiet time to myself, others would come clamouring to my door or call me incessantly on the phone. Through my coping mechanism of taking responsibility to free me from the dependence on others so that they could not harm me, I had created no end of unhealthy dependencies on me, mainly from those unable or unwilling to take responsibility for their own life. I cannot begin to describe how horrific this was. I had a married female colleague who had accidents every time I withdrew from her dependency on me. At first, I thought it was accidental and unfortunate. Then I noticed the same behaviour over and over. If I moved away then she would break her leg or crash her car. Her accidents were always succeeded by cries for help. I tried to help, but I needed her to try to help herself too. She never did, nor did her husband. She had married a much older man who treated her as a child. She was an abused child and had married a new daddy. She wanted me to be her daddy too.
This was a nightmare. People at my main place of work would rail at me for what they feared would be my imminent desertion of them. Predators who were jealous of me saw my withdrawal as an opportunity to take things from me. So-called friends would call me up and scream hysterically down the phone. One particularly nasty piece of work, a psychiatrist, saw his opportunity to use some of the most manipulative behaviour I have ever witnessed, in order to sleep with my girlfriend at the time. He tried to convince her and others that I was going mad and should be certified for my own protection. He failed. I had stronger allies than he could handle. Subsequently, he was struck off and I celebrated. His little plot was seized upon by another senior colleague and a professional adviser of mine, who speculated that they might be able to take control of my personal assets that included a controlling interest in a profitable business. They failed too. I fired them both. These are a few examples to make a point. There were many, many more.
Not all therapists and psychiatrists are good people. I knew two who drew much of their own sense of self-worth from the power their profession gave them over others. Needless to say, they fought my recovery too. They told me I had a fragmented personality, that I was disordered and split. I let this have a profound effect on me. What they were suggesting were symptoms I associated with a schizoid disorder. This was a complete nonsense but it influenced me to behave in a way that I now know to have been very misguided.
Now here’s the point: What I should have done is taken stock and made an inventory of all the problem areas in my life. It would have been a big list. So many areas of my life were causing me to feel downright miserable and unhappy. There were a few glimpses of light here and there, but my work, social and personal relationships were in the main unhealthy and founded on a legacy of problems from my early life.
Looking back, as frightening as it may have seemed at the time, I should have taken the sheet of paper that was my life, screwed it up, chucked it in the bin and started again. I should have refocused on pursuits and friendships that would have brought me happiness. Instead, I sought to maintain some level of continuity in answer to those critics who had called my life and me fragmented.
I got it badly wrong.
Instead I struggled on through. I tried to hold it all together as untenable as it was. Slowly, all the parts of my life I had tried to hold onto crumbled and fell away. Far from a celebration of self-determination, I spent my time clasping at straws and emptiness, trying to piece back together that which I should have let go.
This is my biggest mistake and my biggest lesson. I wasted years of my life, more than twelve years, dealing with its consequences. I continued to work in an area I disliked, when I could have given others and myself so much more by being true to myself. I could have had better and more positive close relationships. The only consolation I have is that I know that now, and I work to change. It is as if the burden of some ten-ton load has been lifted from me.
Finally, I want to say something more about healing. I wrote earlier:
“True healing involves seeing and knowing what is wrong and having the compassion to call it into change.
…It…means that you don’t beat yourself up mercilessly for your past mistakes. Love also means finding responsibility and compassion.
To heal means that you have to see your life for what it truly is. It is being honest about your emotional pain and all the dreadful mistakes and errors that you have made in trying to hide from your despair. Then you have to listen to that despair with compassion and tenderness and let it tell you its own whole story. Only then will your heart be transformed.”
I have talked to a couple of readers here about this already. It’s so very important. I know both these readers extend tenderness, love and compassion to others, but rarely to themselves. They also beat themselves up mercilessly for the suffering of their past. They indulge in self-blame that is so characteristic of abuse. I understand and I have done that too. Beating yourself up will never work. Healing need not be so painful. It is a release too. If you beat yourself up over what has been done to you by others, then sooner or later, you will give up. You cannot change what they did. The suffering will go on. Giving up is not an answer.
My training therapist was a wonderful man. At one time, he was beaten out of my life by the bad guys. In parting I’d like to share some of his words with you. They were in response to my endless questions about what I should do with my life:
“Listen to your heart and hear its message, only then will you discover your own truth…Be true to your heart and to yourself. Keep writing your story, the story of your own life. It may be time for the next chapter…”
I finished writing my first novel in the summer. It’s overlong and needs a lot of editing, but it occurs to me that so many things I say here first emerged in the process of writing that story. It was liberating. The theme of listening and being true to one’s heart recurs over and over in that story. I have heard my own heart’s message. Finally, a few weeks back, I decided on a title for my book. It’s called, “Love’s Passage.”
I’m working on a second book too. This one is a children’s story. It’s a celebration of playfulness written by the now happy small boy who lives inside me. It’s not based on the deep philosophy and psychology of “Love’s Passage”. It’s called, “The Dustbin King”. It’s very funny. It could even be a story for a film, an animated cartoon most probably. More about my books on Farrago later.
This has been a very personal account. In some ways, I was fortunate, in other ways, less so. Everyone is different.
By the time I was at the healing stage I had to take a good long look at my behaviour. I’ll say more, but I should have done things that I didn’t properly understand or know about at the time. I was in and out of therapy. Since I had an involvement in mental health through my work I also had ready access to others working in mental health, both therapists and psychiatrists. This was a mixed blessing. On reflection, my own knowledge of issues around child abuse now far exceeds that of most professionals I knew then.
On the face of it, at the time, I had many positive behaviours that had value in my life. I had excellent social skills. Similarly, through my work, I had competences in assertiveness, listening, communication, decision-making, negotiation, conflict resolution and leadership skills. Those things came with the territory that was my work. I was chief executive of one organisation and chairman of the board of another. I was used to functioning in public. I gave media interviews, appeared on radio and television, I could get on my feet and engage and hold the attention of over a hundred people in a talk or presentation.
If only life was that simple.
A lot of my behaviour, although it appeared charismatic sometimes, was flawed and had its roots in dysfunction and coping mechanisms that I had learned in early life.
I had good social skills but I was frequently a “pleaser”. I would behave unconsciously in a way so as to strike agreement and accord with others, despite my own feelings, beliefs and values. I wanted to be liked, to be popular, but my inner self still held the memories of abuse that I was a freak, unlikeable and even repulsive. I looked like a competent leader, but I was solitary and heroic. I was forever struggling with feelings of deep inadequacy I had within myself. I was a perfectionist. I was wresting with words from my father that went, “Not good enough! Not good enough! Not good enough!” over and over.
Heroism and perfectionism combined meant that I would make hoops to jump through, ever higher and higher, until such time as I fell flat on my face. Then there was no one there to catch or support me and I would start over again.
I had big problems in setting boundaries and limits in personal relationships. I entered abusive relationships by the score.
There are many more examples I could cite, but those are sufficient to make the point. Many of the personal traits that others may have regarded as positive in me were not. They had their roots in my early life experience of abuse.
This gave me a truly massive problem. My life was a nexus of hundreds of relationships both through my work and personally. Being bad at setting limits, I had no privacy. Whenever I wanted to retreat and have quiet time to myself, others would come clamouring to my door or call me incessantly on the phone. Through my coping mechanism of taking responsibility to free me from the dependence on others so that they could not harm me, I had created no end of unhealthy dependencies on me, mainly from those unable or unwilling to take responsibility for their own life. I cannot begin to describe how horrific this was. I had a married female colleague who had accidents every time I withdrew from her dependency on me. At first, I thought it was accidental and unfortunate. Then I noticed the same behaviour over and over. If I moved away then she would break her leg or crash her car. Her accidents were always succeeded by cries for help. I tried to help, but I needed her to try to help herself too. She never did, nor did her husband. She had married a much older man who treated her as a child. She was an abused child and had married a new daddy. She wanted me to be her daddy too.
This was a nightmare. People at my main place of work would rail at me for what they feared would be my imminent desertion of them. Predators who were jealous of me saw my withdrawal as an opportunity to take things from me. So-called friends would call me up and scream hysterically down the phone. One particularly nasty piece of work, a psychiatrist, saw his opportunity to use some of the most manipulative behaviour I have ever witnessed, in order to sleep with my girlfriend at the time. He tried to convince her and others that I was going mad and should be certified for my own protection. He failed. I had stronger allies than he could handle. Subsequently, he was struck off and I celebrated. His little plot was seized upon by another senior colleague and a professional adviser of mine, who speculated that they might be able to take control of my personal assets that included a controlling interest in a profitable business. They failed too. I fired them both. These are a few examples to make a point. There were many, many more.
Not all therapists and psychiatrists are good people. I knew two who drew much of their own sense of self-worth from the power their profession gave them over others. Needless to say, they fought my recovery too. They told me I had a fragmented personality, that I was disordered and split. I let this have a profound effect on me. What they were suggesting were symptoms I associated with a schizoid disorder. This was a complete nonsense but it influenced me to behave in a way that I now know to have been very misguided.
Now here’s the point: What I should have done is taken stock and made an inventory of all the problem areas in my life. It would have been a big list. So many areas of my life were causing me to feel downright miserable and unhappy. There were a few glimpses of light here and there, but my work, social and personal relationships were in the main unhealthy and founded on a legacy of problems from my early life.
Looking back, as frightening as it may have seemed at the time, I should have taken the sheet of paper that was my life, screwed it up, chucked it in the bin and started again. I should have refocused on pursuits and friendships that would have brought me happiness. Instead, I sought to maintain some level of continuity in answer to those critics who had called my life and me fragmented.
I got it badly wrong.
Instead I struggled on through. I tried to hold it all together as untenable as it was. Slowly, all the parts of my life I had tried to hold onto crumbled and fell away. Far from a celebration of self-determination, I spent my time clasping at straws and emptiness, trying to piece back together that which I should have let go.
This is my biggest mistake and my biggest lesson. I wasted years of my life, more than twelve years, dealing with its consequences. I continued to work in an area I disliked, when I could have given others and myself so much more by being true to myself. I could have had better and more positive close relationships. The only consolation I have is that I know that now, and I work to change. It is as if the burden of some ten-ton load has been lifted from me.
Finally, I want to say something more about healing. I wrote earlier:
“True healing involves seeing and knowing what is wrong and having the compassion to call it into change.
…It…means that you don’t beat yourself up mercilessly for your past mistakes. Love also means finding responsibility and compassion.
To heal means that you have to see your life for what it truly is. It is being honest about your emotional pain and all the dreadful mistakes and errors that you have made in trying to hide from your despair. Then you have to listen to that despair with compassion and tenderness and let it tell you its own whole story. Only then will your heart be transformed.”
I have talked to a couple of readers here about this already. It’s so very important. I know both these readers extend tenderness, love and compassion to others, but rarely to themselves. They also beat themselves up mercilessly for the suffering of their past. They indulge in self-blame that is so characteristic of abuse. I understand and I have done that too. Beating yourself up will never work. Healing need not be so painful. It is a release too. If you beat yourself up over what has been done to you by others, then sooner or later, you will give up. You cannot change what they did. The suffering will go on. Giving up is not an answer.
My training therapist was a wonderful man. At one time, he was beaten out of my life by the bad guys. In parting I’d like to share some of his words with you. They were in response to my endless questions about what I should do with my life:
“Listen to your heart and hear its message, only then will you discover your own truth…Be true to your heart and to yourself. Keep writing your story, the story of your own life. It may be time for the next chapter…”
I finished writing my first novel in the summer. It’s overlong and needs a lot of editing, but it occurs to me that so many things I say here first emerged in the process of writing that story. It was liberating. The theme of listening and being true to one’s heart recurs over and over in that story. I have heard my own heart’s message. Finally, a few weeks back, I decided on a title for my book. It’s called, “Love’s Passage.”
I’m working on a second book too. This one is a children’s story. It’s a celebration of playfulness written by the now happy small boy who lives inside me. It’s not based on the deep philosophy and psychology of “Love’s Passage”. It’s called, “The Dustbin King”. It’s very funny. It could even be a story for a film, an animated cartoon most probably. More about my books on Farrago later.
|