Sticky Side of Heaven


Please feel free to respond to any of my thoughts. I love interactive discussion!
My e-mail is liltoad2000@aol.com.

 
Unfortunately, this isn't a sweet blog about life's little doings, nor is it a soft blog about my 'woe is me' attitude. This one is about anger...and beauty.

I had all sorts of to-do things planned tonight once Will fell asleep. However, he was exceptionally hard to get to sleep tonight and tested my patience to its limit. More on that in a minute. The end result being, when he finally fell asleep, I had 'lost' two hours of work time that I had counted on. I came downstairs and flipped a mental bird at everything I felt I needed to do, the day-old laundry in the dryer, the food in the kitchen carpet, the half-stained wood shelf project, the toys scattered everywhere, not to mention all the unpacked boxes and endless clutter on the counter. Instead, I had decided to write my blog to help me vent my feelings.

I took off work early today and Will and I went to Wendy's, one of my favorite places to eat. (We don't go there often, I know, I know). I like going there because the staff is friendly and it is very pleasant place to be along with having (I think) good food. Throughout the meal, Will and I were chatting back and forth and laughing. Occasionally, he would lean over and request a hug or a kiss (He's such a sweetheart!). Across the room from us was a man and a woman and two boys, I'd say about age 7. It took me a while to realize that they were dressed in similar shirts and I figured they were twins, nothing extraordinary. My thoughts were rambling on the stressors and joys of twins when I saw the family stand up to go. All of a sudden, I realized that the woman (I'm assuming she was their mother) had kicked one of the boys to get him to stop playing around. Nothing nice and gentle, but a good hard kick, very uncalculated...she forgot she was in a public place. Now she had my full attention and I believe she knew she had my attention. She was very polite all the way out to the car, but she walked like a large woman who thinks she has a lot of power and wants everyone to know it (my humble observation). This type of power is often physical in nature and directed at others to compensate for the lack of or perceived lack of power or control in one's life.

I can't begin to describe all the emotions and thoughts that ran through me in that single moment. Mainly, it felt like she had kicked a part of my soul. It was a feeling that I would do almost anything to prevent, and yet there was absolutely nothing I could do in that moment. It was a very ineffectual feeling. It gave me a flashback to a meeting that I had this morning. We were discussing an assessment case and the patient's history was narrated. Her history was rife with episodes of verbal, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse (no apparent sexual abuse, thank goodness for small favors, right?). This patient, at 47 years old, had numerous, debilitating problems that were most likely due to this dysfunctional upbringing. I remember feeling so ineffectual. If that was my therapy patient, what could I possibly do to help her? There is no cure for this patient, she will never feel 'normal,' whatever that means. I might be able to help her manage some of her symptoms. But she will always carry that baggage, that history of her shaping. A sapling that is forced to bend one way while growing will never straighten as an adult tree, even if the original bending force is removed. I fantasized that it would be most helpful to be able to travel back through time 40 years and help that little girl whose own grandmother would hold her upside-down by her ankles and bash her head against the floor.

People were outraged recently when a mother was caught on tape hitting her little girl. 'Of course, only a truly depraved person could do such a horrible thing'. Wait a minute....stop and think here. Have you never, ever, ever felt that kind of rage? All of us have done something, at one point or another, that if caught on tape, would be upseting. Not necessarily that beating-type of incident, but none-the-less, we all have our secret moments. I'm not justifying what this mother did, but I am asking you (and myself) not to judge until you have met this mother and heard her story. Maybe she was beaten every day since she can remember and that is an acceptable thing to do in her family. Maybe she was under the influence of drugs or medication. Maybe, just maybe, no one ever bothered to take her hand and teach or model to her some appropriate coping behaviors to use when under stress and she had no other way of expressing her feelings. My heart just aches for the mother, as well as the child, as well as for the family in Wendy's. I know I may not be the best therapist because when a patient shares his or her deepest pains, I am right there and just as liable to cry alongside them as I am doing now. Being an empath can be a terrible burden but it can also be enlightening and a way to create bridges and understandings.

So now I've spoken about both sides of pain, inflicting and receiving. In my role as a counselor, I constantly struggle with the fact that the pain I'm trying to heal has already happened. My futile frustration is that I can never make it so that the pain was never there, never completely smooth those scars away. But where would we be without those scars...they add character and build strength, they are what makes each of us uniquely individual. Think back to your own moments of pain, how have they shaped you? Would you have the depth of character that you do now without those moments? Would you have any understanding or comprehension of other's pain without having experienced your own? Indeed, would you have anything to talk about with other people if you had no painful memories? The most fascinating people are those who can talk about great pain and how they learned and grew from it. Their souls shine through with great strength. Think of David Pelzer, author of 'A Boy Called It,' or Anne Frank and Eli Wiesel, who both suffered in the holocaust, or Rosa Parks. It doesn't have to be that dramatic. I think back on my own life and perceive that I have experienced pain that, on first thought, I would rather not have experienced. After thinking about it, I cam e to the conclusion, that I would not be the person I am today without that pain, without my scars. When people tell me I am beautiful, I try to listen and remember that the absence of scars does not equal beauty.

The patients I see are the ones whose souls are so disfigured with scars, that they believe they don't know what a beautiful soul feels like, or how it functions. They are unable to be complete, functioning members of society, or fully able to share their pain to help others because of how they perceive themselves. The good news is that, often, this is simply a matter of perception. I can help people who firmly believe their souls are ugly and help them see the beauty and rejoice in themselves and help them to share that beauty with others (easier said than done!!). I need to emphasize that beauty is not the absence of scars or wrinkles or all those things we consider to be negative in our externally-obsessed culture. Beauty is the character that living a full life brings to each person. Try it...the next time you recoil from a person's external appearance or unexplained behavior, look into their eyes and dare to find out who they really are. Maybe they will turn out to be ugly inside, if so, send them along to me. More than likely, I find that people are like raw gold, you have to dig and pan a little to find the beauty, but its there if you are willing to look. So what makes one person's soul grow more beautiful from pain and another's grow more horrifying, either pulling the pain upon themselves or inflicting it upon weaker beings? I don't know, I'm only human and facing my own pains. And facing the real possibility that I may knowingly or unknowlingly cause Will to experience his own pains.

All these thoughts have raced through my head in a matter of minutes back in Wendy's. Then I start rationalizing..."I would never have the inclination to do that" (remember, this is in Wendy's, with Will in a pleasant mood and giving me hugs occasionally.) "I've been angry with Will before but I've never been tempted to do anything other than gently swat his diapered bottom." (Is that why he never minds me?) To be honest here, I don't believe I would ever kick another person deliberately, let alone a child. However, I cannot claim to be innocent of the frustration that these mothers may have been feeling during their horrific acts.

Tonight was a case-in-point. After an hour and a half of Will getting in and out of bed, up and down and kicking me and crying and me reading to him and singing to him and gently re-directing him back to his pillow, I realized how much time had gone by and how much work I wasn't going to get done and if I stayed up to do it all, then I would lose out on my own precious sleep time and I began to get really angry and frustrated. Logically, what was going through my mind was that "Will is in the process of learning how to go to bed and it is my fault for not teaching him how to do it properly, I need to go research and find an appropriate approach to bedtime that will make this process easier." Emotionally, it was a whole different ballgame. I was beginning to get furious and was less and less able to redirect him without showing him that I was upset. However, the main difference between these other moms and me is that I have a better self-detection and redirection method than they. I recognized that I was seriously upset and reviewed my options (none of which involved Will). I could leave and go down the stairs (but he might fall down them), I could take out my anger physically and punch a wall (I know that would feel so good, but I can't afford the emergency room charges to fix my hand or the landlord charges to fix the wall), I could take Will back downstairs with me and try to work on chores (I've already done this once, it didn't work and it was almost 10pm). I finally decided on turning my back to Will in the bed, letting him kick my back non-stop, taking nice calming breaths, and composing the beginning of this blog in my head. It was eventually effective in getting Will to fall asleep but it did nothing to ease the frustration I felt. Typing this blog is what has immensely helped me to end a frustrating and anger-filled day on a more positive feel. Those who know me will understand that anger is not a defining point in my personality and I believe that they would have difficulty coming up with a time when I have displayed anger physically. I am grateful for this medium to express my feelings and thank you to those who have made it thus far. It was not an easy blog to write and probably not an easy one to read. Thank you.

"Never dismiss a person's dreams, they may be all that person has to hold on to." Unknown Author.

posted by Candice at 7:08 PM