to him

Every once in a while, I am contacted by a man from my past. Despite my best efforts to leave this person behind, I am still affected. How disappointing. Instead of jumping back into an endless argument, I have always chosen not to respond – until now. The last time he contacted me, it was through the Contact Me portion of this website. Congratulations sir, you’ve found me, and after all this time, I was rattled by your message. I will address you now.

Dear you know who you are:

After it was all over, I tried to be your friend – against my better judgment. But the truth is that I never wanted to be your friend at all; I wanted you to love me. I hadn’t fully accepted things between us; I hadn’t acknowledged or understood what had happened. I still believed that if I could just prove myself to you, maybe you would love me.

By the time you and I met, I had already developed a deep hatred of myself. This had nothing to do with you. You certainly didn’t help things, but the problem was there well before.

From the moment we got together, I lied. About everything. I never gave you the opportunity to learn anything real or concrete about me, because my underlying belief was that I was not good enough for your love. How could I show myself to you when I was so certain I would be rejected. And I was at first, which only made me need your approval more. I became a person that you might want to spend time with, and it worked for a little bit.

Then you became mean. Not just mean but also cruel. A healthy person would have walked away at this point. Instead, I willingly accepted that your cruelty was entirely my doing, and I worked tirelessly trying to please you. Only it wasn’t my fault, I realize now, because you were just as damaged as I was. Hurt people hurt people, and you were hurting too.

The longer we stayed together, the worse we both became. I became weak and desperate. You became angry and violent. I am not an idiot, but I was doing my best impression of one. I don’t believe that you’re actually a heartless asshole, but your portrayal of one was impeccable.

I am not hurting anymore, nor do I hate myself. I have no impulse to hurt you, or anyone else for that matter. You did not deserve my lies and I am sorry for them. I did not deserve your anger or your violence, but I forgive you for them.

I am thankful that I met you though. 2011 was easily the worst year of my life. It was also the most important. It was the year I was knocked flat on my ass and forced to take a long hard look at myself. It was the year that ultimately forced me to stop.

You didn’t understand when I abruptly stopped trying to be your friend, when I cut off all contact. My attempt at an explanation was inadequate because I didn’t know why yet either. I just knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed to figure myself out and I was finally taking the time to. It has taken years of hard work, but I know exactly who I am and I love everything I have found. I am a beautiful, strong, and kind woman who is worthy of love. I don’t need to lie anymore; I accept my truth, including my past.

-EC

problem child

Little Johnny had been acting out in school, disrupting the other students, cursing at the teachers, and fighting. The school wanted to expel him. His mom and dad were frustrated and desperate, so they took him to therapy.

Little Johnny slouched in his chair with his arms crossed, bored and unimpressed, as his parents proceeded to complain about him. The therapist listened patiently then asked what each of them did for a living. They got to talking about their jobs, and soon they began to bicker.

Around this time, little Johnny began to spin in his chair. As his parents’ bickering progressed into a full-blown argument, little Johnny began to spin faster. This finally caught the attention of his dad, who told little Johnny to stop. He stopped, gave his dad the finger, and then resumed spinning. His mother joined in and told little Johnny to stop. He stopped, told his mother to fuck off, and then resumed spinning.

Exasperated, they looked to the therapist, “do you see what we have to deal with!” Then they told little Johnny to stop spinning because: “the man doesn’t want you to.”

Having observed the show quietly and intently, the therapist now piped up. “Johnny, I really don’t care whether you spin in the chair or not; knock yourself out. But how about you stop just for a minute so I can tell you something important.” Little Johnny stopped.

The therapist thanked little Johnny for keeping his parents together for so long and for eventually getting them in to therapy. He told him that his parents’ marriage was no longer his responsibility and he could go back to school. He told him that he doesn’t have to be bad anymore, because his parents are going to keep coming to therapy to deal with their issues. Little Johnny’s mom and dad were flabbergasted.

My therapist told me this story a while ago and I find myself thinking about it now. Like little Johnny, I was a problem child. I used to tell my parents to fuck off on a daily basis. And what a great way for two people who aren’t getting along to come together, to discipline their child.

Here’s the problem: the life of a problem child is no life for me. Carrying around everybody else’s anger, and doing all of the fighting for them, stunted me. I became mean and argumentative and impossible to live with.

In an interesting twist of events, my parents sat down with my soon-to-become therapist years ago and desperately asked what to do with me. He suggested that they back off and give me space to figure things out for myself; and even though they were terribly worried about me, they did as he suggested. Without anybody to fight with, I could no longer avoid the fact that I was deeply unhappy. I became very depressed and eventually asked for help; enter therapist.

Now I am returning the very kind and unselfish act of love that my parents once showed me: I am backing off and I am letting them fight it out without stepping in. It is very difficult to witness. There are times when I would really like to be little Johnny. But their marriage is not my responsibility and I will not rob them of the opportunity to deal with their issues. Eventually, they will ask for help too.

My therapist doesn’t like the term “problem child.” He prefers to call us “whistle blowers.” We’re the little shits in the family who look around, throw our hands in the air and scream, “does nobody else see how fucked up this is?!”

As it turned out, little Johnny’s parents kept going to therapy every week. Each time they would remind little Johnny that they were working on things and everything was going to be okay. Little Johnny never got into trouble again.

-EC

allowance

As a child, allowance was the small amount of money that my parents gave me every week that provided a sense of independence as a reward for being good. This typically ends when you turn 15 or something? It ended prematurely for me because I was just the worst.

I have recently decided that I have gone far too long without an allowance. No, I’m not going to start demanding $5/week from my parents again… although… imagine the back pay!

Allowance, I have decided, is my resolution and my theme for 2015. It only took me all of January and half of February to figure this out. Here’s the gist: I have resolved to allow myself to feel whatever the fuck I am feeling, and to do whatever the fuck I feel like doing in regards to that feeling.

Perhaps I am feeling lazy today. Well, that’s allowed. In response to my lazy feeling, I feel like sitting around and watching Netflix. Well, that’s allowed too. Oh, I feel sad today. Well, that’s allowed. I feel like crying and I’m not sure why. Well, that’s allowed too. Woo! I feel hyper today. Well, that’s allowed. I feel like wearing my hair on top of my head and dancing around. Well, that’s allowed too. And so on.

An interesting thing happened when I started giving myself an allowance. Guilt vanished. By paying direct attention to my feelings and putting my needs at the forefront of my priorities, I am dealing with and moving past negative feelings very quickly, I am not stuck dwelling in things, and I am experiencing unadulterated joy as a result.

Sidebar: isn’t it interesting that the word adulterated, which means tainted or impure, has the word adult in it. Haha, get it? Because we’re a bunch of assholes!

Moving on, here are some examples that I put in a fun table for convenient comparison. Because I fucking felt like it!

Before allowance	With allowance
Laying around the house being lazy and unproductive made me feel so guilty and terrible that I would become exhausted. Ultimately this kept me laying around the house accomplishing nothing.	Actively deciding to skip a shower, stay in cozy pajamas, and aggressively indulge in Netflix is a joy that everyone needs to experience. After a few hours, I feel satisfied and suddenly have the urge to get up and do something. Unproductive? I suppose that depends whether you think joy is an accomplishment.
Oddly enough, by holding in my tears as an attempt to keep everything nice and peaceful, I would often stay in my state of sadness for days or even weeks, completely immune to anything good that may have been happening around me.	Crying loudly with gusto (and sometimes even in front of people) means that I am letting out all my sad feelings as soon as I feel them; and after a while, I don’t feel like crying anymore. Actually I end up feeling pretty amazing afterwards.
I can’t just dance around or sing along to this sick beat just because I feel hyper! What would people think? Sure I am uncomfortably holding in all my energy, but at least I am not making all of these strangers around me uncomfortable.	Fuck these people! I wanna dance! What’s funny is that more often than not, openly expressing good feelings by singing or dancing without shame has a very positive affect. Sometimes people smile, sometimes they join in, sometimes I start a party, and sometimes I make friends. Other times people laugh at me; but hey, everyone loves to laugh! You’re welcome! Joy is contagious.

You may have noticed that I am cursing a lot more today than I usually do in blog form. Well, the truth is that cursing is really fucking fun. There is a time and place and all that, but today I just felt like cursing. So fuck you, I’m allowed! Have a lovely day, friends 🙂

-EC

the ritual

Five years ago, at a very different stage in my life, I was sitting in a local watering hole with two close girlfriends. We three had gathered in support of our mutual relationship failures. Sitting in that booth were the dumped, the cheated on, and the unrequited.

Hours later, after much sulking and even more drinking, a ritual was birthed. Without judgment we listed the names of everyone we had given ourselves to, whether physically or emotionally and regardless of significance or brevity. A description was sometimes required in lieu of a name.

Recounting our disappointments, losses, and regrets of the past was a sobering experience. Then, with love and acceptance, we went out to the patio, lit the list on fire, and watched as the past dissolved into nothingness.

There was a scary moment when the wind blew the flame toward us that sent us running back into the bar in a fit of laughter. The laughter continued for the rest of the night, carrying with it a sense of healing and friendship.

As a devout non-believer, I have often balked at the complicated rituals performed by religious organizations. The sit-stand-kneel-pray-sing-repeat of the Catholics. The hands-in-the-air speak-in-tongues slain-in-the-spirit of Evangelical Christians. The five daily prayers of the Islamic. The chants and sacrifices of the Hindu. The resting and fasting of the Jewish. Plus millions more that I am not privy to.

But rituals are not limited to worship alone. Both inside and out of religious communities there are rituals for birth, death, puberty, graduation, marriage, accomplishment, etc. A ritual can be any sequence of events, often used in repetition, which serve to symbolize a beginning, an end, a transition, a rite of passage, a celebration, or any personalized event in your life.

It may sound silly but that long routine of brushing, washing, exfoliating, and moisturizing that you do before bed is a ritual.

Many athletes invent rituals to help themselves get in the mindset needed to focus or perform on a competitive level.

Whenever I am feeling sick or sad, I eat a shit ton of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Certainly that is a ritual, despite the negative effects it has on my health and weight.

Humans are highly emotional beings and rituals can be helpful tools of control. When faced with uncertain situations especially, they can be an excellent way to deal with difficult feelings. Or as my therapist explained it to me, “A ritual can be a good place to put the feelings that you are struggling with.”

These days, I struggle to deal with anger that began nearly 20 years ago. An anger that has stinted my personal growth and impacted my ability to trust and interact with people.

It is disturbingly easy to hold on to anger. In fact I’d really like to. For me anger means safety from hurt and safety from the unknown. But as comforting as my anger has been, it has been equally poisonous.

And so it has been advised that I complete the impossible task of letting go in the same manner that three young women once dealt with broken hearts; by creating my own ritual that acknowledges my anger and then releases it, allowing fire to burn it until there is nothing left.

a letter to the past

I have spent many years of my life feeling angry about the way that I was raised. My primitive years were wasted trying to adhere to the beliefs of a religion that I did not support. My youth was spent fighting for the right to make my own choices. Now that I am an adult and have made up my mind, I struggle to let go of the past, something that keeps me from achieving goals and moving on with my life. I am 29 going on ten.

I was recently given an assignment by my therapist. Something that would put words to the feelings I can’t let go of. I was asked to write a letter to my younger self – the me that existed before the mental breakdowns, the failed relationships, the poor decisions, the wild rebellions, or the awkward conformity – the me that existed way back when I was just an innocent child. He asked that I get into the head of that child and remember what was happening and how I was feeling. Then he asked that I think about what she needed to hear.

Writing this letter was one of the more difficult things I have ever done. It took me two weeks and three boxes of tissues to complete.

Hello:

I know you very well. I know all of your dreams and fears and secrets. I know that you feel confused about who you are and what you are doing. You are scared that people will find out that you are always pretending. You worry because you are so different from everybody around you – things are much easier for them so there must be something wrong with you.

The things you see and hear scare and confuse you, but when you ask questions, it makes people angry. People are always angry with you. Some days there is fighting all around you – because of you. At night you imagine that you could be somebody else, somewhere else. It fills you with guilt to love a family that you do not belong in.

You want to be a good girl and make your parents happy. They tell you to pray, to have faith and to believe. So you pray. You pray so often and so hard that it makes you want to scream. But the answers never come. The God they love must not want you.

With desperation you express your unhappiness, but they speak to you only as Christians, not parents. Talking is useless; they aren’t listening. You feel completely alone.

Your fear and confusion will turn to anger. Where you once saw the need to please, you will see hopelessness, so you will rebel. You will want to hurt others, but punishing someone else will not make your pain go away. Be kind to people, your grief is not their fault.

You don’t have to feel guilty for being different, even if you don’t meet the expectations of others. You haven’t done anything wrong. You are not crazy and there is nothing wrong with you.

You have the right to decide what to believe. Never stop asking questions or expressing yourself. Don’t be afraid of your emotions. Whatever you are feeling, it is valid. Don’t go silent. Hiding from your feelings will only stifle you. Trust your instincts – they are good – and use them to discover who you are and what will make you happy.

You deserve to be happy.

Writing that letter left me feeling completely exposed. I was surprised how easily I returned to the mind of the child I once was. The pain still felt very real, but I’m glad that I wrote it. I needed to hear those things just as much now as I would have back then.

For the record, I love my parents and they are good people, despite how that letter may have painted them.

My therapist said something that really struck me. He said his goal is that one day I will understand how my entire family was victimized by the institution of religion, and that I may feel as badly for them as I do for myself. Just because they still believe, doesn’t mean they didn’t suffer struggles of their own. One day soon, I will be able to love them completely, without any pain holding me back.