Continue Along My Journey
What’s the difference?
What makes this section in the pie of my life taste the way it does? Bitterness is sure to be found, then and now, but less back then so it seems. It was sweeter back then too, or again, so…
Writer’s Block < Inner Voice of Love
I’m dangerously close to the deadline of submitting my stories for the PTSD/Suicide Prevention book. I’ve always been a procrastinator, and some of my best work has come when I was down to the wire. I decided I’d pick up…
Sore, Not Soar
“Sometimes you have to find your wings on the way down,” I once heard someone say. Hopeful words if I hadn’t already hit the ground. Where did the problems I was born into end and the ones I created begin?…
Bridal Shower Boundaries
But there she was, coming up to hug me, showering me with superficial comments about how long my hair is and how good I look. And there she was, asking me questions that I didn’t want to answer — “Where…
The 7 Types of Negative Parental Mirrors
I decided to continue on with my reading of Beverly Engel’s Healing Your Emotional Self”. It’s painful to read. It brings back many bad memories. During and after my reading it, I feel uncomfortable, highly anxious, and often experience moments…
Great-Grandparents: My Saving Grace
Knowing I would see Mam-ma and Pap-pa saved me from completely drowning in the trauma surrounding me. They provided me with a refuge away from my chaotic home life, a safe place where I could be a care-free child without…
Steps in All Directons
Sometimes I feel like I take 10 steps forward and then 2 steps back. And while I’m still moving forward and making progress, it’s those 2 steps that hold so much pain and anger and frustration. They leave me with…
The Voice of Forgiveness
I recently listened to a guided meditation. There was one meditative point I have not been able to get out of my head. “Whatever you feel, if it brings you to a place – 5-years-old, 20-years-old, wherever you go, tell…
Struggle Forward
Struggle: this is a word I am familiar with. Sometimes too familiar, sometimes way too familiar. Hourly I find myself asking, “Will my struggle always be real?” Talking with my counselor earlier this week, she said something very Oprah-esque. “You…
Learning to be Loved
Most of my life I have steered clear of my sisters’ dad’s family. When we would go and visit the aunts and uncles and cousins, I felt out of place and like I was wearing a sign that said “Not…
Wandering through the Woes
I have these fears about my mother, irrational maybe, but based on her past behavior nothing would surprise me anymore. Actually, I think she could still surprise me with what that woman is capable of doing and saying. What if…
#7 and #8
My reading of Surviving a Borderline Parent by Kimberlee Roth and Freda B. Friedman, PH.D., LCSW has continued. Here are excerpts I connected with. Ongoing or frequent feelings of being hollow, empty, or fake. “Lacking a strong core, a sense…
Ramblings about Growth and Struggle
Can there be growth without struggle? I switch back and forth between contentment, anger, and sadness. One constant is that I always feel blessed. How can I feel sad and blessed at the same time? I really don’t understand my…
Rules to be Written
I finished House Rules tonight, underlining and scribbling notes in the margins because I couldn’t find my highlighter. I saw my family members in hers, Rachel the author. My mother was a key player, of course. But I was surprised…
A Frenchman and a Child
A Saboteur. It sounds like a handsome, romantic, traveling Frenchman. Oh, how I wish it were. After two decades of shitting on anything good that came into my life, it wasn’t until the past few years that I was able…
The Brief: How I Survived Childhood
My manuscript is currently pages of memories and insights. No order, just what I am remembering during the moments I write. I read that writers should not get too caught up or worried about “form,” because eventually paragraphs and pages…
Three Decades of Beliefs
You are an older version of your childhood. Your mistakes follow you. The places you want to get away from is where you will always end up. The words someone tells you are true. You are your circumstance. You will…
P.M. Ponderings
I’m going to try something new. I’m still working on the whole staying consistent thing, so we’ll see how long this lasts. Basically, I’m going to ramble about my thoughts and experiences I’ve had through the day, ruminating thoughts, bouts…
Oldie but Goodie: Counseling Avoidance
The following blog post was written in October 2018. I used to be an infamous canceler of counseling appointments. Infamous because of timing and repetition: always last-minute and approximately 3 out of 4 appointments. My previous counselor once told me,…
The Emotionally Absent Mother Class
During a search for support groups for daughters of borderline or emotionally absent mothers, I came across Motherless Daughters Ministry. As I read through their website, I thought, “This is exactly what I’m looking for. I need this.” Then I…