Ending Toxic Relationships And Forgiveness

How do you end a toxic relationship?  I know there are many answers to this question.  I have been finding my own answers over the past few weeks.  I sometimes forget that just ignoring a situation or a person doesn't end the relationship when the other person isn't willing to let go or if one of the two of us or both of us hasn't learned whatever the lesson was that we were supposed to learn from each other.

I know that neither of us is all good or all bad.  I don't see things as all or nothing, especially in relationships. If the relationship is toxic, I have played my part in the healthy and in the toxic parts.  I am not perfect.  I make big mistakes when it comes to relationships and feelings.  I am still learning my way with feelings, especially anger.  For the most part, I hope that I am healthy in feeling and dealing with angry situations but I do make mistakes.  I am not always right or always wrong.  Neither is the other person.  I always have room for improvement.  Where anger is concerned, I still don't always recognize what I am feeling and don't always handle anger as well as I wish I would.  I am human.  We all are.

A friend recently told me that I am not responsible for fixing other people and I am not responsible for protecting them either.  I know that I am not responsible for fixing others.  That has been one of my lessons this lifetime. 

Raised in a dysfunctional family with incest and alcoholism, my family role was that of hero and caretaker.  I was the oldest daughter who was expected to do well in school.  My parents had 5th grade and 7th grade educations.  I had to do well in school so that they could feel good about themselves.  I even majored in Special Education in college because it was my mother's dream.  My brother was in Special Education from 3rd grade on.  I think my becoming a Special Education teacher was to ease any guilt that my mother had toward my brother's special needs. I took years to realize that being a Special Education teacher was never my dream. That is why I quit college when my husband graduated. 

Early in my childhood, I became a caretaker of everyone in my family.  At three years old, I took on the job of protecting my mother from her feelings.  At eleven years old, I became a wife to my dad taking care of the house, learning to cook meals, and becoming the sexual substitute for my mom.  My mom unconsciously pushed me into that role.  My dad actively pushed that role on to me.  My feelings were never considered.  My permission was never asked.  I had already learned that their feelings, wants and needs were more important than anything that I wanted or needed.

As an adult, I continued the caretaker role in my marriage and in my friendships.  Anything that I could fix, I did.  Any advice that I could give, I did.  I thought that if I could fix your problems, you would like me and give me value as a woman.  Women were supposed to take care of everything.  We were the nurturers.  If I could fix you, I could feel good about myself.  What I didn't know was that I didn't have the time to look at myself and my own issues if I was busy fixing you and your issues.

12-Step meetings in the 1990's taught me that being a caretaker was not a good thing for you or for me.  What helped me to stop my caretaking was when someone said that when I was fixing you, I was also teaching you that you were too stupid to do it for yourself.  I didn't like that message and didn't know that was what I was saying.  I would never call someone stupid.  I know what that feels like.  My parents both used that word a lot. I am not stupid and neither are you.  Today I recognise a caretaker pretty quickly.  I learned that I don't have to take care of you in order to feel safe in my environment or in order to feel loved. Today I love myself and I feel worthy just by being me.

Today, I rarely give advice because of my caretaker days.  I know that you can find your own answers without my help.  If you ask my opinion, I will give it.  When I give my opinion, that is what it is.  My opinion is my truth as I know it.  I do my best not to be judging when I give you my opinion.  I can't say that I am always successful in not sounding judging.  

Recently a friend asked my opinion about a situation.  She wanted my approval for what she had said to someone else.  I disagreed with her.  I wasn't judging her but she read my comments as judgments.  I do my best to be discerning which is seeing things as they are rather than as telling the person that they are bad.  This person is very sensitive.  She is not bad. I didn't agree with her behavior toward another friend. In stating my feelings and what I think about a situation, I will sometimes trample all over the sensitive person's feelings, not intentionally, but I still do it.  My best friend helps me with this lesson.  She is sensitive when all I want is the truth, even when it is about me. I don't mean to hurt her feelings, but sometimes I do.  Together we are working our way through this lesson. I am far from perfect in this area. I constantly stumble and get up and try again. I am aware of this in myself and I am working on it.  If you are one of those sensitive people that I have done this too, I am sorry.  I am working on doing better. Being aware of how I act and react and changing how I react is my way of taking responsibility for my part in my relationships. 

I have spent the last two weeks working my way through this issue and looking at my part in the relationship disagreement.  This friend blocked me on Facebook and called me a stalker when I went to her husband's Facebook page to ask if she was okay and to let her know that I didn't intend to hurt her and that I was sorry that I did.  For myself, I look for patterns of behavior in myself that I might want to change about myself if they are hurting me or someone else.  I told this person about the possible patterns that I was seeing in her. I have friends who do this for me.  I don't see it as them judging me.  I see if as them helping me with some awareness that I might not have otherwise. I don't want friends who are going to lie to me about my behavior. 

I am not telling you any of this because I want your sympathy. I am sharing with you that this is how I process things for myself.  Because this is the way that I work, I never thought that the other person would see my words as a personal attack.  For that I am sorry.  I don't see these patterns of behavior as character faults in myself or in anyone else.  I just see them as things that I can change for me and you can change for you.  No, I don't see it as my responsibility to tell you about what I see unless you ask me.  If you ask me, I assume that you really want to know.

I have a best friend who will very quickly tell you not to ask Pat unless you want the truth.  I know that most truths are not absolute and that my truth may be different from your truth.  My truth is the only one that I have and yours is the only one that you have.  That is where awareness is key to healing.  If I am not aware of my patterns of behavior, then I cannot change them.  Neither can you.  It was from this space that I shared my opinion with my friend. As much as I didn't mean to hurt this friend, I did. This hurting will make me more careful next time if this situation arises again in my life.

I know that I am not responsible for fixing another person.  I do believe that it is my responsibility to protect those that are weaker than me.  Maybe I am wrong in that belief.  Some people are strong enough to protect themselves.  Others are not.  Maybe this is my belief because I wasn't protected as a child.  Even as a young adult, I didn't have any idea how to protect myself.  Until I did become strong enough to protect myself, people continued to come into my life who abused me.  I can't stand by and watch someone else being bullied.  If that is bad, I am sorry.  I think the strong should protect the weaker ones.  How are you supposed to learn how to be strong unless someone else shows you how?  I only grew strong enough to protect myself because of the human angels that God put into my life at each step of the way that I needed guidance and support.  My life would have been so different if those strong people had not showed me how to protect myself.

Out of my wanting to protect others and to vent some of my own anger over the situation, I went on someone else's blog where this friend had commented about the original situation on my Facebook page.  For that I am sincerely sorry to the owner of the blog and to her readers and commenters.  I should not have said the things that I did that told everyone exactly who I was talking about.  I should have come to my own blog if I was going to put it on a blog at all.  I made a big mistake in judgment in that area.  As I said earlier, I am human and I make mistakes and this was a big mistake on my part.  I am not trying to justify what I did.  I was wrong.  I have no problem accepting responsibility for my part in this whole thing.  I played the game even when I knew that I shouldn't.  I am not a good game player. 

I want the truth, not game playing in my life.  I haven't contacted this person since she called me a stalker.  I let it drop and was processing my part in the whole thing.  I don't want to react in this way again so I have looked at the whole situation and my part in it.  I can't change the other person.  I can change myself. Denial of my mistakes would change anything.  Taking responsibility for my part is all that I can do.

For me, the relationship with this person has become toxic.  I don't like drama.  I know it is a coping mechanism but it is one that I don't want in my life.  I am not saying that the person is toxic.  Our relationship, which we both created together, is toxic to me.  She is free to see it otherwise.

I chose to leave the relationship behind and to work on changing my reactions.  I didn't expect this person to take off her block of me on Facebook but she did this week so that she could send me a two-page expression of regret and blame.  I know where my fault lies in this relationship.  I can honestly say that I forgive the person for what she said.  I wish her well in the future. I can only hope that she will find forgiveness in her heart for me.  As long as either one of us is angry with the other, forgiveness hasn't happened. 

I can forgive without wanting that relationship back. A big part of my decision has to do with trust.  I don't trust her or myself to not re-enact or recreate this whole thing over again at some point if we remain friends. I don't need that in my life.

Over the past few weeks, I have gone into two major bouts of grieving the loss of this friendship.  Possibly for the first time in my life, I actually was able to allow myself to feel the heavy grief for a few days and then to slowly start coming out of it.  In that grief, I was able to look at how much I still want the appoval of my peers, my fellow survivors. I probably lost some of that approval because of my words on the other blog.  At the same time, the people on the other blog saw me at my worst with the mean little girl in control of my words.  I take responsibility for letting that mean little girl take control.  She is the one who feels the hurt and the grief of my childhood and she is the one who carries my anger.  I am not excusing myself for my hurtful words.  I meant them at the time that I wrote them.  I am not asking for approval or condemnation. I know what I did was wrong in identifying her in the way that I did. 

I am not apologizing for my anger.  I have a right to feel what I feel.  So does the other person.  I am sorry that I allowed my anger to hurt another person just because she hurt me. We were both wrong in striking out at each other on someone else's blog.  Her words seem more innocent than mine but they were not.  I knew where her digs were even though others never saw them.

Yesterday or the day before, I received two anonymous comments here on my blog.  Both were from this person.  To me, at this point the anonymity thing felt like a slap in the face to me.  I know who she is and she knows who I am.  I am being curteous here in allowing this person the anonimity of not using her name in my post because this post isn't really about her.  I didn't write this post to place blame. This post is about me attempting to figure out all of my stuff, not hers.  I am sharing this hoping to save someone else the pain that I have experienced with this issue.  I hope by sharing my mistakes with you that I may save you from doing the same thing in your life.  My blog has always been about sharing my journey to healing with you.  Well, the past few weeks have shown me some major areas that I still need to work on.

I am also sharing this so that if you have put me up on a pedestal as an expert or as the perfect way to do healing, please take me off that pedestal.  People keep telling me how I have a large influence upon others in the survivor community.  Well, here is your opportunity to learn from my mistakes and to see that I don't deserve to be put on a pedestal any more than anyone else does.  I teach by sharing my experiences.  Well, some of those experiences have negative consequences. I can't change what happened.  I wish I could but regret doesn't heal anything.

In case this person is reading my blog post, I accept your forgiveness in the manner than it was given by you.  Now, please leave me out of the drama of your life.  I have learned my lessons where you are concerned and I intend to move on.  I hope that you can do the same, just not in my life. I hope that you can one day forgive me for trespasing on your feelings.  Your feelings are just as valid as mine.  I won't invalidate what I feel to make you happy and don't expect you to invalidate your feelings for me.  With that said, I don't want you in my life. Thank you for what you have taught me about myself and what I still need to learn.  I always have the right to approve or not any comments that come here to my blog.  I welcome respectful comments. To save anyone from looking, I did not publish the two comments from this person. They were too personal and too shaming.

Patricia

Love And Incest---My Mother

The Ultimate Betrayal, The Enabling Mother, Incest and Sexual Abuse, by Audrey Ricker, PhD, See Sharp Press, Tucson, Arizona, 2006, page 167:

"This book is about your mother's role in your sexual trauma. But it's also about all of the feelings relating to your abuse, impulses resulting from it, and reactions to it that you weren't expecting."


This area of healing is probably where I have done the least amount of work. Why, because of my fear of seeing my mother for what she was---the parent who did nothing to prevent the incest from happening. As a woman and mother myself, somehow my mother's role in the abuse is worse than the actual physical abuse from my dad.

My mother played the passive role of the parent who enabled the abuser mostly by sending me places with my dad. My mother didn't openly abuse me like my dad did. She just didn't object when he took me places instead of taking my brother with him. She ignored signs that said something was wrong. She ignored my occasional pleas to stay home. I didn't often have enough courage to object. I usually just did what I was told by both of my parents.

As a child, I needed to be able to tell myself that at least one of my parents loved me. Since my dad was the one hurting me with the sexual abuse, my only choice was to believe that my mom loved me no matter what.

As a child, I told myself over and over again, "I know she loves me. She just doesn't know how to show me." You see. My mother was always emotionally unavailable. At some point in my childhood, I quit calling her "Mother" and starting calling her "Mom." She wasn't my mother as much as I wanted her to be. I was hers. I was the one who nurtured her by being sure not to upset her because she had an unspoken rule that said, "Do Not Disturb."

That "Do Not Disturb" rule is one of the reasons that I didn't tell her about the incest when I was a child and young adult. The second reason was my fear of being judged and condemned by her. She would have said I was bad. If she knew about the incest, she couldn't love me. I needed her to love me too much to chance telling her about the abuse. So I kept silent. I didn't disturb the silence of her inner world. She didn't hear my inner screams or feel my inner hurt and rage. She didn't see my outer sadness. She didn't hear my outer sighs which were the only sign of my inner turmoil.

My mother was emotionally unavailable. She was silently angry. She was always lost in her cigarettes, coffee and romance novels. She was passive-aggressive with her anger. She knew how to use silence to let you know that she was angry. If you asked if she was angry, she would deny it. You could see the anger and judgment in her eyes and how she tightly held her body.

I learned to read body language early on to tell if I needed to stay out of the way of either of my parents. This was just one of the lessons that my parents taught me about Life.

The Ultimate Betrayal, The Enabling Mother, Incest and Sexual Abuse is the only book that I have read that goes into detail on the part of the enabling mother and the roles that she played. What I learned from reading this book is that my mother could have been much, much worse that she was. I caught small glimpes of my mother in some of the examples shared in the book but I didn't really find her there as I was afraid that I would. My mother just wasn't there in my life. She was an empty body with no emotional attachments.
Patricia

Finding The Answers---Do You Have Them All?

How do you condense one very eventful week into one article and not have it go on and on and on? You start at the beginning of just one day. I am going to start with today, Sunday, March 15, and go backwards. On the surface, my week doesn't look eventful. I was sick with a stomach virus and diarrhea for 3 days. Where was my week eventful? In my mind and heart, I made several important connections this week.

This morning when I opened my emails, one of the first ones that I read was from Lance over at the blog, The Jungle of Life. Every Sunday Lance does a "Sunday Thought For The Day" article. Today's article was the words and a youtube video about the song "Circle of Life" by Sir Elton John. The video is of Sir Elton John singing the song "Circle of Life" while you watch scenes from the making of the movie "The Lion King". You can click on the following link and go watch and listen to the youtube video:
http://www.jungleoflife.com/2009/03/15/sunday-thought-for-the-day-43/
Come back here when you are finished.

Sir Elton John's music was a hit starting in the 1970's when my husband and I were dating and then married. He has always been a favorite of mine, long before he became a knight in England. When "The Lion King" came along, I watched it with my children. I loved it and the song "Circle of Life". Both are so metaphysical in meaning. Thanks Lance, for reminding me of all of these memories today. This was a great way to start a glorious day.


Next, on my morning trip to the bathroom, I read the December 28, 2008 (which was also a Sunday) article (Hey, so I am behind. At least I am finally reading it.) of Daily Word, December 2008, page 42. It says,

"I am grateful for the constant flow of God's blessing in my life.
Gratitude
I welcome this day with a thankful heart. Beginning my morning in this way cultivates an attitude of gratitude not only for special occasions but for every day.
As I arise from a peaceful night, I give thanks to God for rest received and for blessings to come. This sets a positive tone, one that attracts life-enhancing experiences to me.
Sharing a simple 'thank you' with others generates good feelings. My gratefulness is contagious and becomes a positive, attitude-changing influence."

Next, I read this morning's March 15, 2009 Daily Word on page 29. It starts out with the words,
"Trusting in God, I am fulfilled.
Centered
When events do not turn out as I planned, I don't let myself become bogged down in disappointment or allow my enthusiasm to wane. In prayer, I bring myself back to center. I turn my perspective around so that I see things in a new way and celebrate the good that is always there for me. . . . ."

"Turning around to face my good, I realize that what might have at first discouraged me will prove to be the dawning of a greater, more fulfilling experience."

I will leave you on your own to gather what the above statements might mean to you personally. If you want to share in the comment section below, you can. I am still sorting through my own stuff right now so am not yet in a place of sharing it with you.


On the past few Wednesday nights, I have gone to an Al-Anon meeting with my friend. When she asked me to go to these meetings with her over a year ago, I didn't realize that I needed the meetings as much as she did. I don't live with an alcoholic. I haven't since I was 19 and left home. What I do live with is myself and my husband. Both of us are adult children of alcoholics. Those patterns of behavior seem to be engrained within both of us and still get activated in times of stress like I wrote about in last week's article "More Patterns of Behavior Means More Awareness" which you can find at:
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2009/03/more-family-patterns-of-behavior-means.html
At this week's Al-Anon meeting which was on the topic of "You are only as sick as your secrets.", I was aware of a part of me that some call "the watcher". A part of me was watching and listening to what was being said and to my reactions to what was being said.

Usually as I am listening to every speaker, I am planning what I will say when it is my turn, rehearsing it in my mind. This time, instead of rehearsing, I touched the part of me that I have been holding back from the group. To a degree, I do this all the time. I think we all do. It is easier for me to do this because of the childhood belief that I need to protect myself from you or you will hurt me. One of my secrets that I got in touch with but haven't shared with the Al-Anon group is that they scare me still. (I haven't shared it because as I was typing the last sentence, I just got it myself. So you can see, I am still figuring out some of the lessons that came at me this week.)

What I did share with the Al-Anon group was that when I came into Al-Anon in 1989, I didn't trust women at all. In my mind, women were more likely to judge me harshly because of the incest than men were. (This was my belief. I don't know if it was true or not but it was my belief.) For awhile, trusting women less than men didn't make sense to me because it was men that sexually abused me. What I said in the meeting was that I thought women would judge me harshly because the women in my childhood were judgmental.

My mother who was always angry but rarely voiced it. Silence was my mother's weapon of choice. I have attracted people to me with that trait until I learned that their silence wasn't a weapon unless I allowed it to be. I also found out that if I didn't act out their anger, then they were more likely to voice it for themselves. Voicing it makes it possible to deal with the anger. With anger came judgments.

My grandmother and mother were always angry at each other since before I was a child. I could always feel the judgments going back and forth between the two of them without understanding what it was about. I know they loved each other and they were also angry with each other.

I think that I have probably shared the story about one of my maternal aunts telling me that I was going to Hell because I was wearing shorts. I was about 5 or 7 years old at the time. A part of that child must have believed her because that is still a strong memory of mine. She was never one of my favorite aunts. I was afraid of her as a child. As an adult, I felt angry with her for being such a religious fanatic. Now I can see how unhappy she was. I can forgive her.

I can forgive those women in my life who were judgmental and who taught me to be judgmental. For me to fear being judged, some part of me is still judging me or I wouldn't be afraid. I can take this a step further and forgive that judgmental part of myself. She is still a child afraid of being hurt. I can take her into my arms and into my heart and hug her until she doesn't hurt any more. Usually my solar plexus is where I feel all of this. My heart is what feels this and hurts for the little girl. I think that I need to go and just sit with this for awhile.

I hope that by sharing the above process it will help someone else to heal what may still need healing. As you can see, I still don't have it all figured out for myself. Isn't that what this life is all about---finding the answers for yourself?
Patricia

Judgments---Discernment Or Prejudice?

This article was inspired by Reverend Bea Arline's sermon at Christway Unity Church, Hot Springs, Arkansas on April 20, 2008.


What do your judgments say about you?


With your judgments, are you being discerning---seeing reality for what it really is? Or, are you expressing personal prejudices?


Are you allowing those judgments to guide you away from negative people and situations or are they dragging you down into anger, fear and hatred?


Are you using judgment to disconnect with your own shadow side by projecting it off onto others that you are then judging as bad, as less than you?


Are your judgments helping you to see what is or are they allowing the ego to keep you separated into "them against me"?


Judgment, as discernment, helps you to see others as they really are, not as you want them to be. Discernment can also help you to see yourself as you really are, rather than the fairy tale image that you would like to be. Discernment can keep you out of harm's way. It can keep you real.


Take off your rose colored glasses and look at the world through discernment rather than prejudice. Reclaim the shadow part of yourself with love and acceptance, then change what you don't like rather than projecting it on to others.


I ask to be guided to release judgments that may harm me or others. I ask to become more aware of discernments that may protect me or others from harm. I ask that this be done for the highest good of all concerned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


Reverend Bea's closing words were, "We often have wisdom missing from our judgments."
Patricia Singleton

Tools Of The Ego

Page 86, Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth says the following:

"A shy person who is afraid of the attention of others is not free of ego, but has an ambivalent ego that both wants and fears attention from others. The fear is that the attention may take the form of disapproval or criticism, that is to say, something that diminishes the sense of self rather than enhances it. So the shy person's fear of attention is greater than his or her need for attention. Shyness often goes with a self-concept that is predominantly negative, the belief of being inadequate. Any conceptual sense of self---seeing myself as this or that---is ego, whether predominantly positive (I am the greatest) or negative (I am no good). Behind every positive self-concept is the hidden fear of not being good enough. Behind every negative self-concept is the hidden desire of being the greatest or better than others. Behind the confident ego's feeling of and continuing need for superiority is the unconscious fear of inferiority. Conversely, the shy, inadequate ego that feels inferior has a strong hidden desire for superiority. Many people fluctuate between feelings of inferiority and superiority, depending on situations or the people they come in contact with. All you need to know and observe in yourself is this: Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you."

I am reading so much from this book that resonates in me.

"Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you."

How often in your day do you feel one or the other of these two? The majority of my judgments about myself and other people probably come in the form of feelings of inferiority or superiority. This book is giving me so many awarenesses of the tools that ego uses to stay in control.

I can relate so much to the feelings of ambivalence of a shy person. Believe it or not, I was extremely shy until I was in my late 20's. My husband helped to tease me out of most of my shyness. He helped me to come out of my protective shell.

I remember spending most of my free time at school in the library with my head stuck in a book so that I could hide from people. I didn't know how to talk to any of the kids at school. I was so afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing. I was afraid of drawing attention to myself and at the same time, I craved the attention. I was starved for attention at the same time that I was terrified by it. I remember wearing make-up to school one day. I probably put it on in the bathroom at school so my dad wouldn't see it and tell me to wash it off. One of my teachers commented on how beautiful it made my eyes. I was in heaven and hell at the same time. I was pleased at the compliment from my teacher and I was terrified by that same attention and didn't know how to react to it. I didn't know how to handle the ambivalence. I went home and washed my face and didn't wear make-up again until I was in college.

I didn't know that I was pretty until one day, I overheard someone talking about me. I was 19 years old when I heard this friend ask another friend, "Doesn't she know that she is pretty?" I had no clue. I was so shy and withdrawn. I wore neutral colors and did my best to be invisible to others. I doubt that most of my classmates would recognise me as the author of this blog. Today, I am quite vocal about my beliefs and feelings. I doubt anyone that I went to school with would imagine me as a writer.

Are You Judging Others As Less Spiritual Than You?

Yehuda Berg's Daily Kabbalah Tune Up on Monday, December 24, stated that "A common pitfall to avoid in spirituality is judging others as less spiritual than we are." This lesson was taught to me a few years ago and brought back to mind by this article.

Our ego likes to think it is bigger and better than others. About 2 years ago, my ego was doing some accessing of my spiritual growth and comparing it to where my husband appeared to be at the time.

My ego was feeling very smug and thinking I was so much better than my husband. Ego was patting itself on the back and laughing at Daniel, when suddenly I heard an inner voice say, "Maybe he is waiting on you to catch up to his growth level. Maybe he already did his spiritual growing in a past life and it is your turn to grow in this lifetime." What a shocking, enlightening idea!!! Ego drew back in anoyance at that idea.

I like that idea. We really don't see the bigger picture when we are comparing ourselves to others. I am grateful that Daniel has given me the space to do my own growing in my own way.

Who do you make judgments about that you are better than they are? Look deeper and see what gifts have come your way because of that person. Share those gifts with that person. Tell them how valuable they are to you. Tell them that you are grateful that they are in your life.