Everyone Comes From Somewhere

 Sometimes, the place or the people we come from aren’t all that great. Many of us were raised in a tumultuous home and for various reasons have tried to keep that a secret. Many have experienced abuse or traumatic loss during childhood that we just don’t bother to let other people know about. We are ashamed and think that people will judge or pity us if they found out. But these feelings and thoughts aren’t the truth; they are deceptions that make us feel alone. The following is the start of my life story, the way that I grew up. I hope that it can show others that they really aren’t so different after all.

           

My father had been abusive to my siblings, my mother and I since before I can remember, both mentally and physically. As a means to protect itself, my brain hid away most of those painful memories (and unfortunately many happy ones as well), but there are certain very traumatic instances that still remain. I was maybe six years-old when I was forced to lock myself in the bathroom to get away, only the door was kicked in and then so was my stomach. When I was fifteen my father choked me so hard I thought I’d died. We were thrown into walls and dragged across rooms by our hair. It was a constant torture to always be walking on egg shells, watching every word I said and thing I did; I still flinch at the cracking sound of a belt and shrink in size when people yell.

            Still, it wasn’t all bad, there were a few good times and a lot of neglect too. My dad often recognized my high intelligence by calling me “the smart one” (unfortunately it made my older sister “the dumb one,” my younger “the one that tries hard” and my little brother “the boy”). He taught me to play golf, baseball and how to fish (my younger sis and I were surrogate boys before my brother came along). Work always came first, but when he was around and in a good mood, he found the things that he liked about himself in me and celebrated them. The things that he hated about himself he made my fault; he made everything everyone else’s fault. Of course, I didn’t have nearly as much psychological insight at the time to know that.

            So I believed all the lies his words and his actions told me. I felt insignificant, worthless, weak, and that I wasn’t entitled to my emotions. I felt that it was my responsibility to hold everything together, to try to fix everything and everyone.  I felt like I would never be good enough and that I had done something to deserve being treated that way. It seemed like I was fated for that horrible existence and the best thing for me to do was suffer in silence.

            Some of these feelings I also learned from my mother. She never really tried to change anything, but sometimes she would manage to pacify a heated situation and cope just enough to tolerate more abuse (twenty-eight years of marriage and several more through a bitter divorce, to be exact). My mother was so busy coping that she instilled a sense of abandonment on her children. I can’t tell you how many times I attempted to run away and was drawn back because I felt obligated to my siblings. They needed protection and they didn’t deserve to be punished and I was the only one who would do anything about it.

            Honestly, there were many other ideas for posts that would have been easier for me to put up, but there are two good reasons why I have chosen to tell my story instead. The first is because I started reading a book that inspired me to. The second, and more important reason, is because my father recently made choices and actions that would change the lives of everyone in my family (except for my older sister who lives on the other side of the world and couldn’t careless) and it has been weighing on my mind..

            I am currently a third of the way into The Happiness Makeover by M. J. Ryan. It’s a rather short, kind of quirky publication that is marketed as a self-help book, but reads more like the memoirs of a life couch. The chapters are brief and don’t always flow from one to the next, but there are noteworthy little gems every few pages; my blue-green sharpie marks and dog-eared pages stand as proof.

            In Chapter 5: Are You Envious of Others? M. J. Ryan says “Everyone struggles with inner demons, everyone has challenges. The more we share them with one another, the less alone we feel and the more we understand every life is a mix of happiness and sadness.” She goes on to say that being open with one another is the way to alleviate the negative feelings people get when they compare their lives to others. Ryan explains that, often, this kind of dialogue reveals a mutual jealousy. While I do agree that people can find comfort and resolution in realizing that nobody has a perfect life, I feel there is more to it than that. By simply letting others in on our troubles, we are showing ourselves that what we feel is important. We are asserting that our stories are significant; enough to have someone listen to them and maybe even get something out of it. The person listening gives us validation as well, validation that we return when we listen to them. Exchanging stories reminds us that we are all worthy of being heard. As for the other reason, my dad gave up any bit of sanity he had left and ran away.

            At the beginning of the month, my father was supposed to show up for a child support hearing because he hadn’t been paying it. This meant that there was a very small possibility that he may go to jail (again) if he attended the hearing. Instead of going, he chose to pile his cat, dog and whatever he could manage into his truck and “head south,” knowing full well that this would guarantee that a warrant would be issued for his arrest. If he couldn’t pay child support where’d he get the money to leave? Well, he’d just received an insurance check from a claim he filed a few weeks prior. A car he doesn’t really use mysteriously caught fire and subsequently burned the garage he kept it in as well. It may be a coincidence, but I will let you draw your own conclusion. I suppose you could say that my father is “in the wind,” but really he was the wind. He was a violent hurricane that flooded our heads with lies and broke our hearts with his hands. Like being devastated by, but surviving a natural disaster I am feeling conflicting emotions. I am relieved that the storm is over and experiencing a sense of loss.

For many years, I’d struggled with the idea of taking my father out of my life completely. The physical abuse stopped a number of years ago, but being around him has always been and will always be emotionally damaging. But I loved my father for the good things about him and because children can’t help but love their parents even if they don’t really deserve it. Sometimes, we would talk about the way people think and act. I would discuss psychological issues and new information I’d read or heard about. I was careful never to show that I knew he had these problems; his ego could never tolerate the sympathy of others. Many visits were like covert therapy sessions because I thought that I could save him. Now that my Dad is gone, I am saddened by the fact that there is nothing I can do to help him. He is severely mentally ill and there are no arguments that can cast doubt on that fact.  I already miss the good things he brought into my life, but I find comfort in knowing that I will never again trade pain for those things. Fixing him was never my responsibility and I don’t have to try to do it anymore. Sure, it would have been better for me to figure that out and have made that choice for myself, but what matters is just that it happened, not when it happened.

It was very difficult to write this all down and to share it with people. Because I was taught that my emotions are invalid and irrational, part of me is still afraid that I will be criticized for it.  By putting this out there, I am actively working to release the power that this lie has on me. Thank you for reading this. Your time is valuable and I am happy that you have spent some of it listening to me. If you are someone who needs to tell their story, I hope that this one has pushed you closer to doing so. I am sure that there are many people you know who would love to be let in on your life. Give them a chance, give yourself a chance. You can even share your story with me if you have the desire to. Whatever you choose to do, be good to yourself.

Be Good to Yourself

            For many people, this is a difficult thing to do. There are layers of reasons as to why we struggle with this, but the root cause always seems to be the same: we just don’t care enough about ourselves to care for ourselves. Let’s take a moment to explore why we need to be good to ourselves and how to do it.

            Simply put, negativity is like a poison and the only antidote is positivity. If you’re too hard on yourself, you’re feeding into the negative energy instead of the potential positive energy inside of you. This creates a snowball effect, a perpetual circle of physical and psychological pain.

            Our minds and bodies are opposite sides of the same coin. If you have emotional pain or stress, chances are your body does too (and vice versa). Lack of confidence, for example, is often the source of bad posture. In turn, bad posture causes all sorts of pain and strain throughout the body, especially in the back, neck and shoulders. When we finally decide to change our behavior, we have this chain reaction of difficulties to overcome. Fortunately, this cycle works in the other direction as well. Once you start improving one area, a positive reaction is brought about in all areas. If you make an effort to have better posture, your body will hurt less and the release of physical stress will improve your confidence. If you’re too hard on yourself, you’ve probably been taking advantage of the negative side of this cycle.

So how do we turn this wheel in the other direction so that it works for us? We start by understanding how difficult it will be. A lifetime of negative thinking and behavior cannot be turned around in a short period of time. We may struggle for years to reach our goals. Of course, I am not saying this to be discouraging, but to be realistic. The more objective we are about our goals and ourselves, the more room we have to forgive the mistakes we make along the way. These mistakes are the key to success; the sooner we accept this the easier our journey will be.

Mistakes are not the end of the world. If you’re on a diet and you give into a slice of pizza, the answer is NOT to eat more junk food. That voice in your head that says “Hey, you’ve already fallen off the wagon, might as well eat what you feel like” is the negative spinning wheel. It is the part of you that says you don’t matter, that doesn’t care about your well-being and wants to hold you back because it doesn’t want to move. If you eat a slice of pizza, be happy that you didn’t eat the whole pie. Be happy that you went as long as you did without pizza. Be happy because that slice showed you that you may have set your standards too high. Use every setback as a means to re-evaluate what good you are doing instead of an excuse to revert to bad behavior. Making a mistake means that you have more to learn, not that you’re an idiot. Often, the setbacks we have show us that we are trying too hard and need to take a different approach to achieve our goals.

The greatest catalyst for positive change is forgiveness. Criticizing ourselves and making things “off limits,” reinforces our bad habits. It highlights the lie that says we’re not good enough and that we do not have the power to conquer our shortcomings. Forgiveness allows us to accept that the things we are not good at are things we can improve. Positive reinforcing the good we do will encourage good decisions in the future. Rewarding yourself for good behavior (even a simple pat on the back or giving yourself an imaginary high five) will inspire you to do more good things. Even when doing wrong by yourself or putting yourself last has become almost a default setting, you can change. If you keep working hard, being good to yourself can become second nature. 

You're too Hard on Yourself

            I believe that this is the case for most people who struggle to be happy and do right by themselves. We set too high standards and can’t help but criticize ourselves when we can’t reach those ideals. Of course, in setting goals we are trying to be better, which is a good thing, but we go about it all wrong. Instead of embracing who we are and bettering ourselves to make ourselves happier, we try to better ourselves because we think we’re not good enough the way we are. This is the lie that stands in the way of happiness.

            So how do we conquer our problems? Well, that word “problem” is one of our biggest enemies. This is a word that needs to be erased from the dictionary when we think about ourselves. Be honest, do you use the word “problem” a lot when you think about your habits? How many of us have a “weight problem,” “shopping problem” or “cleaning problem?” Another trouble word is “fix.” We are all trying to “fix” ourselves instead of healing, improving and honoring ourselves. By using words like these, we are whispering to ourselves “you are not good enough and your struggles are more than you can overcome.”

            It may sound silly, but simply removing words like “problem” and “fix” from your mentality is a huge step in the right direction. This seems like such a small thing, but it is rather hard if you’ve been doing it for most of your life. So just be easy on yourself. Now, let’s try putting this idea into context.

 Like many people, I struggle with weight loss. Currently, I’m about 100 lbs over a healthy weight for someone my height and age. For years, I have tried dieting with little success. This is because I’ve been thinking of my weight as a problem and have used it as a way to judge myself. It has been a barrier that keeps other people and good things out, while keeping the negative in. All because somewhere along the way, I’ve incorrectly learned that I am not deserving of happiness.

I thought that if I could lose weight, it would somehow “fix” me and make me more worthy. This idea is crazy, even though so many of us believe it. With that in mind, I would obsess about how much weight I needed to lose and how great it would be to lose it in this ridiculous, impossibly short period of time. So I’d start a really unhealthy diet of extremely low amount of calories each day (like 1000-1200).

For a short period of time, I’d always keep up the diet, and feel good about reaching the goals I had set and seeing the numbers go down on the scale. But I had set myself up for failure. Not only is it difficult for my body to survive on this diet, but it is impossible for me to maintain because I haven’t built up enough self-discipline. The other day, I found myself about to repeat this same process when I suddenly realized the insanity of what I’ve been doing.

So how can I better this situation? Thankfully, having worked through many other struggles and changing other aspects of my life, I have learned that the best strategy is to simply be good to myself. Instead of setting unrealistic goals, I can recognize my own patterns and replace my bad habits with opportunities for success. I’ll be talking about just how I’m doing this in a future post.

If you’re too hard on yourself, chances are, my own struggles are a familiar echo. I encourage you to stop reading this for a moment to enjoy how it feels to know you are not struggling alone. Most of us feel trapped inside ourselves. We only have our own eyes to see the world from and it is easy to feel like you are all alone staring out your window. This blog is proof that you are not alone. It is proof that you care enough about yourself to look for help and find others that you can support and can support you. You’ve already made a step in the right direction. You might be too hard on yourself, but at least you’ve done one thing to be good to yourself. This is the truth that is the path to happiness.

P.S.

You’re standing at the start of that path.

A Little Introduction

Hi! If you don't know me, my name is Jacqueline. I'm 26 years-old. I attend college at SUNY New Paltz and split my life between somewhere around there and in Western Massachusetts where I was born. I am on a lifelong journey in bettering myself and my life.

The reason for this blog is to share my journey and have others share their journey with me. I've walked rather far on the road already and have things to share. There is still so far to go and there is so much I would love to hear about and learn from those farther along than I. My hope is to spread encouragement and happiness to one another by sharing our successes and struggles.

As for the title of this blog, when you're feeling down, whether it's because you feel guilty or frustrated, remember this: "Chances are, you're being too hard on yourself. Be good to yourself instead."