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Who is the dummy? – on boundaries.

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Who is the dummy? If Jane asks Bob for ten dollars every day, and Bob gives it to her happily, then there is no problem. If he resents her asking but says nothing, then she isn’t in the wrong, he is. He’s the dummy.

Whatever someone wants from you – time, energy, money, whatever, if it is a burden for you, you must say no.

Consider if someone shows up to your house unexpected. They ask if they can come in. You are tired after a long day and you are about to go to bed. You don’t want to stay up entertaining them. You have to work early tomorrow morning. Do you let them in?

What if they want to stay in your house overnight? Or for a week? Or for a month? Or a year? Or forever?

Where do you draw the line?

At what point do your own needs come into play? If you do not stand up for yourself, who will?

I know several people who if they don’t respond to a text message immediately, their friend or relative will start to freak out. They will send another text. They will call. They will contact another person to check up on them. This is their normal behavior.

But the friend or relative isn’t the dummy. They haven’t been told “no” in a way that they understand. Perhaps they haven’t been told “no” at all.
It is up to each of us to establish boundaries of what is OK and what isn’t.

Now, here’s the funny bit – the other person can establish their own boundaries too. There is a lady at work who wears a really strong scented lotion. It triggers my asthma. The smell is so strong that if she has walked through that area, the smell lingers like a cloud.

Years ago I just suffered quietly, harboring my resentment that this horrible smell was affecting me. She didn’t know that it bothered me. So in that case, I was the dummy for not saying anything.

Then I bolstered up my courage and said something to her. She brushed off my concern. Sadly, this is common. People don’t understand asthma. They don’t get that I have to stop breathing for a little bit when I encounter a trigger smell, in order to not overexpose myself to it. If I get too much of it and the asthma attack starts it feels like someone has grabbed my left lung in a vise every time I breathe in. I cannot get in a full breath. It is terrifying.

And it is preventable. If I had my way, a whole lot of perfumes would just stop being produced, because it isn’t just me that is affected. But that is another post for another day.

Because this lady doesn’t work in my area, I’ve not done anything more about it. She doesn’t spend a lot of time around me. If she did, I’d have to talk to a manager about it. I talked to her, and she ignored me. This was months ago.

Then, yesterday, she saw me in the break room and said that she’d just be in there quickly, because she “had heard” that I was allergic to her lotion. She “didn’t want me to throw up.” Throwing up isn’t part of an asthma attack. And she “had heard” it from me – it wasn’t gossip. She was a bit confused all around, but she had decided to just not be around me. I mentioned that she could choose to not wear it, and she said she didn’t like the unscented lotion.

It was a weird compromise, but it was a compromise. If I’d not said anything to her, then I’d be in the wrong – not her. In the best of worlds, she would have understood the depth of harm her overly-scented lotion does to me. I don’t think that is possible considering her statements from yesterday. It is obvious that she misunderstood what I’d said to her before.

It is weird that she somehow “got it” months later, but that isn’t the point. The point is that I had to say something, and she had a choice.

Death guilt – on the relief you feel after a parent dies after a long illness.

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There is a lot of guilt that comes when a loved one dies that we have taken care of. If you have been the primary caregiver, you are suddenly relieved of the majority of your duties. You duties don’t end totally – there is most likely an estate to settle – but they change. You aren’t “on duty” constantly.

There is part of where the guilt comes in. If your loved one has been sick a long time and you have been the main (or only) caregiver, you are worn out from that constant work. Sick people take a lot of attention. They are often sick at very inconvenient times. The middle of the night is a common time for things to go south. Everything is harder to deal with when you have just a little sleep. It is even harder to deal with when that has been going on for weeks. Or months. Or years.

Very few people talk about this, but there comes a time when you look forward to your loved one dying, because that means you are free to start living. It sounds cold to say this, so people will say that they want their loved one to “pass on” or “transition” so that they can be free of pain. They want that too, of course. Part of the pain of dealing with a very sick loved one is seeing them suffer and knowing there is little you can do for them other than bring them food and fluff their pillows. Death is a release and a blessing at times.

In reality, death is a release and a blessing for the patient as well as the caregiver. When the patient dies, the caregiver is now free to live. The caregiver no longer has to stay by the bedside of the sick person. She no longer has to sleep on the sofa, hurting her back. She no longer has to call in to work, using up personal leave or vacation time (if she has it). She no longer has to do double duty of taking care of her parent’s home and her own.

There is something to be said for having families live together. The more the nuclear family explodes into satellite units, the more problems are created when a member needs help. Also, why have three households who have to buy three sets of lawn equipment, when you can have one big one that shares? I wonder if this is part of the “commune” idea. Instead of having friends living communally, start at the source and have families live that way. But I digress.

Sometimes the reason children leave the household as soon as they can is because they don’t really like their parents. Just because someone is your parent doesn’t mean that he is a good person. Becoming a parent isn’t the same as being an adult or a mature person. Sometimes “parent” just means someone who has reproduced. The parent is little more than a maladapted child himself.

Our society doesn’t speak about this very much. We laud parents. We think that parents are all knowing and all powerful. They aren’t. Nothing magical happens when they have a child. They don’t suddenly stop being neurotic or needy. In some cases their problems just get deeper and darker. So when such a parent-person gets sick enough to need help, the child is conflicted. They are expected by society to help. They are expected to drop everything and take care of their sick or dying parent. The only problem is that the abuse that the child received is often never revealed. Sometimes even the child is not aware of how mistreated she was. She just knows deep in her gut that she doesn’t want to take on this task. It isn’t because she is selfish.

It is a double bind. The child was taught her whole life to serve the parent. She was taught that she deserved to be treated badly. She was taught that her own needs didn’t matter. So when the parent is terminally ill, the child is expected to drop everything to take care of him. Then she feels conflicted.

It is hard enough to take care of a really sick person. Nurses have training for this. The average person does not. You don’t just wake up with the know-how to be a competent caregiver. When that sick person is your parent it is extra hard. When that parent was abusive it is nearly impossible.

When your parent is very sick, you have to become the parent. You are in charge. There aren’t classes for this. We don’t talk about this in Western society. I’m not sure any society talks about this, but I know this one sure doesn’t. But Western society rarely talks about anything real anyway.

For years, the child is subservient. Even if the child has become an adult and has a family and household of his own, he is expected to defer to his parents. That role never stops unless he establishes boundaries. The only problem is that there isn’t training on this, and there isn’t a lot of social support for it. If his parents die before he has established these boundaries and stood his own ground, he has a lot of ground to make up.

Even if none of this is going on, even if the relationship is healthy and sound, there are conflicting feelings when the parent dies. One of those feelings is relief, but that feeling alone causes guilt. You aren’t supposed to feel relief when your parent dies. You are supposed to be sad. Often you are sad. Sometimes you are angry too, at them having left you. Sometimes you are frustrated about all the mess they left you to have to clean up. But sometimes it is relief, because it is a lot of hard work taking care of a sick parent. Sometimes it is relief because now for once you can live your life your way without being second guessed by your parent.

It is healthy to feel whatever you feel when your parent dies, regardless of what you feel. Your feelings are yours, and they are valuable. If they have died after a long illness where you were the caretaker, your feelings will be even more complex. Don’t ignore those feelings, and don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed. They are natural. It is healthy to feel them and express them. You may not have heard other people talk about the relief they felt because they thought they shouldn’t talk about it – but it doesn’t mean you are alone. Sometimes just sharing this feeling with others who have been in a similar situation is very healing. This is why I’m sharing this with you.

Morning meditation

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I know many people who say “The whole day is blown” when they’ve had a bad morning. I like to think of it as the bad stuff has gotten out of the way early. It isn’t a foretaste of the way the day is going to go.

It is the same thing with your week or your year or your life. Just because it starts off bad doesn’t mean it is going to finish that way.

If you look for the bad then that is all you will see. The more energy you give it, the more it will have. There will always be bad things happening, but do you really want to give them your time and attention?

I know plenty of people who think that bad things always happen to them, that they are victims. They think there is some cosmic joke and they are the punchline, or the punching bag. The interesting thing is that the same events, or worse, happen to other people and they just let it roll off of them.

Just because you have always thought in a certain way doesn’t mean you have to continue thinking that way. Just because your parents and their parents and their parents were gloomy and doomy doesn’t mean you have to be. Attitude is not genetic. It isn’t like a tendency towards heart disease or diabetes. And even with those, a genetic weakness doesn’t mean you will get the disease. It just means you now know what to watch out for and prevent against.

How do you prevent against an unhealthy attitude? Isn’t it just like a reflex? Something bad happens and you react to it. You get hit in the knee and your leg pops up. You get hit with a subpoena and your blood pressure pops up.

Attitude is controllable. It isn’t easy. It takes a bit of unlearning. But this is true with everything. The first step is knowing that there is a way out, that you don’t have to stay in that mental space.

Then, every time you find yourself getting angry at an event, try to notice yourself doing it. Observe without judgment. This is hard, because judgment is all you had going for you for a long time. Just look at your reaction as if it is a small child having a temper tantrum. It isn’t you. It is a thing outside of you. Forgive it, because it is a childish thing. It doesn’t know better.

This will take a while to get to. Forgive yourself for not doing it right. Nobody makes a change instantly. It isn’t possible. Forgiveness is essential. And if you can’t forgive yourself all the time, forgive yourself for that too. Being thankful is helpful too. Be thankful for the bad situations, because they are teaching you how to change. They are opening you up to a new side of life. They are your way in.

Soon you will be letting things just roll off of you. They will happen, but they won’t affect you. You’ll be like a boat in the sea, moving with the waves but not toppled by them. They won’t wash over you and drown you like they used to.

Then, because you have a better control of your reaction, the event won’t have as much power as it did over you. Instead of events controlling you, you have control. Because you have control, the events don’t seem as bad.

My name is Betsy, and I’m a drummer.

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“Hands are not for hitting.” This phrase is used to teach kindergartners that they should not hit people. It is used to teach them that they need to keep their hands to themselves. But then the lesson deepens, whether it is meant to or not. Don’t make noise. Don’t stick out. Don’t take up space, be it physical or audible.

“Hands are not for hitting.” Unless you are a drummer. Somehow I’ve become a drummer. I feel like I’m admitting that I have some sort of communicable disease.

Is it a disease? Is it a sickness? “Disease” is really dis-ease. It is to be ill at ease. To not be comfortable, not well. Invalids have disease. An “invalid” is someone who is in-valid, who is not right, not true. “Invalid” is the same as invalidate. We are used to saying IN-valid with the emphasis on the first syllable when we mean “sick person.” We don’t hear it as the same word when we pronounce it as in-VAL-id, meaning wrong.

There are a lot of jokes about drummers. What do you call a guy who hangs out with four musicians? A drummer. How do you know when your stage is level? Your drummer drools out of both sides of his mouth. It isn’t seen as acceptable to be a drummer. It isn’t seen as civilized.

Mickey Hart, the longtime drummer for the Grateful Dead, wrote a book about his life with drums called “Drumming at the Edge of Magic”. He recounted a story about when his grandmother saw him at a family gathering while music was being played. He was very young, still in diapers, sitting on the floor. He was swaying rhythmically to the music. His grandmother looked at him swaying there and said “Oh no…” while shaking her head. His mother, hearing this, thought that the grandmother recognized some sign of a genetic disease in his movements. She asked, concerned. His grandmother shook her head ruefully and said “Another musician in the family…”

I don’t feel like it is a disease, but a healing. I feel that I’m becoming more myself the more I practice percussion. I’m having to be patient with myself, sure. I want to be perfect. I hate it when I get a good rhythm going and I hit a snag and it sounds like a skip in the record or a bump in the road. I have to remember to slow down. I have to remember to breathe too.

I forget to breathe sometimes when I get into things. I get so involved in getting the rhythm or pattern right that what should be an automatic, unconscious thing just stops being a thing at all. I catch myself holding my breath and sometimes the pattern falls apart. Sometimes not. Sometimes it is like juggling. Sometimes I remember to stop thinking about the rhythm and just let it be what it wants to be.

I like hitting things with my hands. The big wooden book bins at the library all have beautiful sounds that only I know. I’ve found many different notes on them. I’ve not figured out how to make a song yet, and I’m not sure I will. Then it might stop being fun.

Something I like about hand drums is that there are only so many “notes.” It is part of why I played bass guitar for a while. There isn’t a lot to learn. I greatly respect drummers who play on drum kits with sticks, but I feel that is too civilized for me. There is something very primal about hand drums.

I knew where the line was today when I walked into an instrument store that was next to the drum store I go to. It was full of stringed instruments and keyboards. The clerk invited me to try out anything I wanted to. I felt out of my depth. I explained that I had just come from the drum store next door and wanted to know what this store had.

Somehow I felt like I had to identify myself. I told him that I am in the “hitting on things” tribe, and not the “things with strings” tribe. I did ask if they had any wind instruments. I am in the “blowing in things” tribe as well. They just had some slide whistles and pennywhistles. Not quite what I wanted. While there I fooled around with an upright bass but I don’t think I’m ready to make an eight thousand dollar investment in a toy. Bass guitars are a hybrid. They are kind of rhythm, and kind of notes. I could handle a bass, if I felt like learning all those notes. There are a lot of notes.

I have a hankering for a French horn, but then again we are back to the idea of the steep learning curve. I’d have to relearn how to read music, and how to play the thing. There are only three keys to depress but there are different combinations. You can do one at a time or two, or all three. There are also three different breaths you can use. If you combine all of these things you can play any note you want. The problem is knowing what you want and knowing how to make it at the same time.

Sometimes I feel around musical instruments the same way some of my students felt about writing when I tutored in college. They had varying degrees of learning disabilities and writing down their thoughts was often an impossible task. By the time one particular student remembered how to write the letters he would forget what he was trying to say. Since his essay was on his grasp of the subject and not his ability to write, I was employed to help. I would read the question and he would answer and I would type it up. I didn’t change anything he said or do any fact checking. His grade was purely his. Essentially I was the human version of “Dragon Dictation.”

I made it easy for him. I got the words out of his head and onto paper. But there isn’t such a way for me to get the music out of my head and into reality. So right now I’m sticking with things that don’t have a lot going on.

Part of it is just allowing myself to make noise. Playing an instrument takes up space in the world. Making up your own compositions takes up more space. It isn’t physical space, sure, but it is still space. I’m noisy when I bang on things. I have to bang on them a lot to work things out. Children are supposed to be seen and not heard, after all. Making noise is kind of rebellious, and kind of brave.

It is the same kind of bravery that I employ when I write, and especially when I post my writings. To write my thoughts and share them with strangers all over the world is to take up space. It is to say that I think that I have something worth hearing. It is to say that I’m not going to be silent anymore.

In the same way that I’ve had to write a lot to feel like I can easily express myself, I know that I’m going to have to practice a lot to express myself musically. So I’m drumming. Everything needs a beat, a rhythm, after all. It is what our lives start with, that heartbeat, that boom boom boom.

I’m drumming to find myself, to make a space. I’m drumming because it is fun. I’m drumming because it is unexpected. I’m drumming in order to heal.

I’m not going to rescue you.

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I have this situation going on. I’ve come up with a way to explain it. It is all a metaphor, but it works.

Say I have a friend who is terrible at driving on the freeway. She gets all flustered and upset with all the racing traffic. She needs to go downtown, so I tell her the best route to take that doesn’t use the freeway. I’ve taken that way myself many times. I give her my GPS with the route programmed in. I give her a map.

And she takes the freeway anyway. Then she gets frustrated and upset. Then she freaks out and just stops her car on the side of the road on a freeway overpass. Then she expects me to come rescue her. She expects me to leave work and drive to where she is and take care of her.

She’s created the problem. She had a perfectly acceptable way to get where she needed to go and refused to use it. She doesn’t try to take care of the problem herself. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a surprise. It was the logical result of the situation, because that is what always happens when she drives on the freeway.

Even though I did my best to prevent the problem that she is experiencing, she’s created the problem by ignoring me. And now she wants me to rescue her.

And I refuse.

And I’m seen as the bad guy.

She’s not acting like an adult. She’s not acting in a responsible manner.

If she did her own thing and got into trouble, but rescued herself, then it would be fine.

But that isn’t the situation. My plan is always to prevent the problem before it is a problem. And if I rescue someone when they ignored me to start off with, I’m enabling their bad decision making.

If someone keeps doing this, then I stop talking to them at all. They want me to help them, but only after they’ve made the situation infinitely and unreasonably worse.

I have no problem with helping people who try their best. I have a big problem with helping people who cause their own problems again and again. I feel that I’m aiding and abetting if I help someone who refuses to take care of herself.

If I wanted dependents, I would have had children.

The end of suffering.

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1) Acknowledge the pain.

2) If you can do something about it, do it.

3) If you can’t, then accept it by giving thanks for it.

Further on this –
1) Acknowledge the pain.
It does us no good to ignore pain. Pain is a sign that something is wrong. Ignoring pain doesn’t fix it. It prolongs it. Pain, when ignored, will often come out in very unhelpful ways. This is the source of self-abuse and addictions. Drinking, drug use, overeating, and other addictive behaviors are maladaptive techniques to deal with pain. They are a response to pain. They are a symptom. Any addiction is a repetitive, albeit misdirected, attempt to cure a problem. If you address the root cause of the problem, then the addiction will go away. Addictions just delay the cure.

Pain can be in many forms. Pain doesn’t have to be physical. Pain can result any time your needs are not being met. Grief is a form of pain. Any loss can cause pain. Not being respected, heard, or understood can cause pain.

2) If you can do something about it, do it.
Address the pain head on and see what the source of it is. Dig down to the root of it. Then dig down further. Often our first answer to “what is wrong” is just a surface answer. Keep going deeper. How do you feel? Who made you feel that way the first time? Is it the situation, or your reaction to it that is the cause of the pain?

Is there something you can add or subtract from your life to change the situation? Even if it will take a long time to get there, just getting started is good. Every step towards your goal is one step further away from your problem. Are you frustrated with your job? Look at transferring. Start taking classes. Do you feel that your needs aren’t being met? Is part of the problem that you aren’t telling people what your needs are? Is part of the problem that you don’t know yourself?

A lot of pain comes from settling for it. We are trained to be quiet with our suffering. This isn’t healthy. We are taught to say “I can’t do that” or “Nobody will listen to me”. Ignore those voices. They aren’t yours. They are the voices of a sick society that wants people to stay miserable. Get started, one foot in front of the other. Every step towards your goal is a step away from the problem. It is hard at first. It gets easier, but you have to keep doing it. Nobody is going to do this work for you.

3) If you can’t, then accept it by giving thanks for it.
Just like Jonah in the whale, giving thanks to God for your problems can be very healing. He gave thanks for God while in the middle of his problem. He didn’t say that he’d give thanks once he was released. He gave thanks right there and then. He was released just after that.

Sometimes the painful situation is temporary, but we just can’t see the end. Sometimes it is meant to slow us down long enough to see things from a different perspective. Giving thanks is what makes us human.

Recovering, not recovered. On addiction.

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So what is the deal about the term “recovering” addict? You are never described as a “recovered” addict. It is as if you never get there. You are never home safe.

And really, you aren’t.

Even if you have been sober for twenty years, the fever is still there. Even if your last hit was so terrible that you ended up in jail and then the hospital, and you lost your wife and house over it, that fever is still there.

Because you forget. You forget how bad it can be. You forget how bad it was. All you remember is the high and the good times. All you remember is how it took away the pain.

You forget about all the pain it can bring, and did bring, to you and to everyone you love.

You say you are “recovering” as a sign to you and to others that there is no escape from addiction. You never ever are the same after you’ve been an addict.

You know what it tastes like, and you want it again. You forget the bitter and only remember the sweet. And you think that just because you were able to escape it then you can do it again. You think lightning can’t strike twice. You think you can just do a little bit of it and be fine. You think you are smarter than it.

It is the same as playing with fire. While fire can help, it can harm. It can light up the room and keep you warm, or it can burn down your house. It can be the difference between cooked food and raw food – it can also be burnt to a crisp and made worthless.

Drugs burn us up and make us worthless.

The trouble with drugs is the same as the trouble with fire – it can’t be contained very well. You think you’ve gotten it under control but really it controls you instead. You don’t do drugs. They do you.

When you forget, you’ll start doing drugs again. Just a little. Just to “take the edge off.” Soon you’ll be sneaking out to buy drugs. You’ll make up excuses. You’ll lie to your loved ones. You’ll call in sick to work. You’ll miss out on all the activities that you used to do for fun – because you are using drugs.

You think – that can’t happen to me. That is for suckers. That happens to losers. And I say to you – what makes you so special?

You aren’t special to drugs. You are another conquest. They are like a virus, eating away at all that is you. Slowly, slowly, you lose your fight. Slowly, slowly, it wins.

Quitting doing drugs doesn’t mean you are cured. You can’t get immunized against drug addiction. No matter how much you’ve done and how long it has been since you stopped doing it, you aren’t safe. You haven’t built up a resistance.

The only hope is to never let them back into your life again. The only way to do that is to continue to say you are “recovering” and not “recovered” as a reminder to keep that door closed and bolted shut.

My brother, the alligator.

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My brother sent me a second letter recently. I’d not written him back after the first one, in part because I didn’t want to ruin his Christmas. I didn’t write back immediately because I wanted to make sure I said things correctly. It is best not to respond to someone when you are angry.

I’d composed a letter, but I’d not sent it. I had put in reminders of all the things he’s accused me of, insane accusations. I’d put in reminders about all the ways he has hurt me over the years, that he has not acknowledged or apologized for. I’d pointed out that there is no relationship of any account.

We aren’t friends. I don’t like him as a human being. I don’t trust him. I certainly don’t want anything to do with him. If he was anybody other than my brother I would have stopped talking to him decades ago. Come to think of it, I probably wouldn’t have talked to him at all. He is very selfish.

He has harmed me in many ways, and has never shown any sign of awareness of the damage he has done to me. It isn’t just me he abuses. This is just who he is. Then he blames the other person for his own problems. He even said that the reason he was a quarter of a million dollars in debt is because I’d “prayed for his downfall.” That is just crazy. He needs professional help. This is part of the reason he’s been divorced four times. I really wonder if his fifth wife knows his backstory. My suggestion that he get therapy and they both get counseling before they got married is what precipitated the last time we quit talking with each other.

So I thought that to be kind, I’d wait until after Christmas to reply. Getting a letter from your sister saying that she’s not your sister in any real way isn’t that great right then. Christmas is hard enough without something like that. I thought I’d be kind by waiting. At least one of us should be, right?

So then there was another letter before I could send it. He didn’t wait for my reply. I’m learning that I shouldn’t open these letters. I gave it to my husband to read it first. It was kind of like giving a bomb to a professional. He read it and it was innocent enough, but clueless, and still unrepentant. There was something about some writer his pastor had mentioned and here’s a blog address for me to read. My guard went up – once again he’s telling me what to do, rather than acknowledging his role or admitting his errors. The last thing he’d said to me before I stopped talking to him a couple of years ago was to tell me to read “How to Make Friends and Influence People”. He said that I should read that and then talk to him again. It was an ultimatum.

I decided that was the last time he was going to tell me what to do. I decided that was the last time I was going to be bossed around by him, or anybody. I decided that he’d made my task easier. If I don’t read that book then I don’t have to talk to him again.

Scott went on with the letter and came across something that sent up a flag. He started reading out loud these words – “The next time you decide to cut someone out of your life…” and I put up my hand and said “Stop!” Done. Right there.

I’m glad that I didn’t fall into that trap. In years past I would have heard those words and gotten stuck there, like a deer in the headlights, waiting to be run over. It is why the phrase “trigger warning” is so useful. It lets you know that something that might trigger a bad response is coming. This is helpful if you’ve been abused in the past. But life doesn’t have any trigger warnings. Sometimes you just have to toughen yourself up to be able to handle them from wherever they come. Sometimes it is like martial arts, but with words. When a person swings a fist at you, you know to duck or to divert their energy by grabbing their wrist. When a person swings a verbal attack at you, it is sometimes harder to see it, and you get flattened.

I’ve met people who are walking trigger warnings. They are so broken that all they can talk about is their brokenness. Being around them is like getting punched in the stomach repeatedly, and with no warning.

This time I stopped it. I didn’t “decide to cut someone out of my life,” I decided to get away from being his punching bag. I decided to stop being abused. I decided to take my life back.

He chose to harm me, again and again. When I told him how I felt from how he treated me he continued acting the same way. It was his choice to act in that manner, both before and after I told him he was harming me. Then, to stay would have been my choice. It would have been me saying that being abused by him was OK.

He chose to abuse me. He chose to not get therapy. He chose to not acknowledge the damage he has done. He has never apologized. He has never made restitution.

I didn’t make an arbitrary decision. I chose to live in a sane way, in a healthy way, by establishing boundaries. He chose to ignore them.

So now I’m really glad I didn’t reply to the first letter. To reply, even in the negative, is still to reply. It is still to further a relationship. Even if it is a bad relationship, it is still a relationship if two people are communicating. It gives it energy.

It is just like a child who constantly misbehaves. If they act in a good way, they get ignored. Their parents take them for granted. But if they misbehave, they get attention – even though it is negative. Negative attention is better than no attention.

A negative relationship is better than no relationship, if you are an unhealthy person.

I choose to only give energy to the good.

Sure, I’m giving energy to it right now. I’m doing this in part to exorcise him out of my psyche. I’m doing it in part to let others know they aren’t alone. I’m doing it in part to show that if someone is harming you, no matter who they are or whatever social obligations are put on that relationship, that it is healthy to walk away to save yourself.

I’m also doing for total disclosure. I’m no saint. I’m not a guru or a counselor. My advice on how to live life is hard-earned. I’d love to foster peace in this world, but I can’t even get along with my brother.

But I’d rather have no relationship than one where I’m being harmed.

After I wrote another piece about my brother recently – after the first letter he recently wrote, members of my family got involved. A cousin wrote another cousin and there was something of a request for me to make peace.

I’m not the one who is to blame. I’m the victim. To insist that I make peace with him is insane, and revictimises me. It says that the fault for the broken relationship lies with me.

A minister told a story once that I identify with. He grew up in Louisiana. When he was a child many years ago, it was common to keep alligators as pets. He had a small one, and he gave it shade and nice food and a place to play. He took good care of it. Then one day, it bit him.

It bit him, not because of how well he’d treated it, but because it is an alligator. That is its nature.

My brother is an alligator. This is just how he is. I’ve done nothing to provoke him. I’ve done nothing to deserve his abuse. I’ve done nothing to deserve him stealing from me, lying to me, harassing me, and falsely accusing me.

I accept that this is the way he is. I wish it wasn’t so, but wishing won’t change things. He has to want to change. He has to understand that he can’t treat people the way he has all of his life. The longer people keep letting him steamroll over them, the longer he’s going to keep doing it.

I, for one, am done. Perhaps this will help him. Perhaps this will be something that makes him see that he cannot abuse people and expect them to take it. I want him to be well, but I can’t do that. All I can do is stop allowing him to harm me. All I can do is stop putting my hand near him enough for him to bite it off.

Even if he changes, even if he turns around and gets it, I cannot trust him. He’s harmed me often enough and deeply enough that I cannot ever allow him into my life again.

I’d rather write only about positive things. The more energy I give to negative things, the more I give them strength. Sometimes I may need to write about Ian, because he has provided such an amazing example of what NOT to do, and how NOT to be a good human being. I really wrestle with this. I don’t want to dwell in the past. But I also sometimes may need to refer to it to illustrate a point.

The answer, to everything? Pray. Give thanks in all situations, and in all times. Balance. Acceptance. And trust that God is working through all of this.

Fighting the Nothing.

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I went to yoga class today. This isn’t normally a big deal. But today was different because my wrist hurts.

I’ve skipped class for various reasons recently. It is too cold outside. I’m tired. I’m out of town. The last one is the only valid one. My wrist hurting seemed like a good reason as well, but I decided that I had to go anyway.

I think I’ve stretched a ligament at work. My work involves a lot twisting my wrist and picking up heavy books. My wrist is getting worn out from it. It would be great if we could replace body parts like we can with car parts. Some we can. Not always. Until then, rest is required.

There are several yoga classes at the Y that don’t do any moves that involve wrists. This is not one of them. Downward facing dog, plank, upward facing dog, fallen triangle – all wrist moves. This is the class I’ve committed to going to because this one is on my day off.

I haven’t been in the past three or so weeks. In part I’ve used the holidays as an excuse. But I’m starting to think that seasonal affective disorder doesn’t have so much to do with less sunlight and a lot to with less activity. Sure, they are connected. Less sunlight means it is colder outside, and it gets darker sooner. Thus, we are less inclined to go exercise outside, or at all. We think we’ll take a break, just like the Earth does. We’ll fly south for the winter, even if it is in our heads. We’ll hibernate as much as we are allowed. We still have to go to our jobs, but that is it as far as activity. Everything else can just wait.

This year of writing has taught me the danger of that. Slow down too much and the doldrums set in. We are dead in the water, going nowhere. There’s no wind in our sails.

Then depression comes for a visit.

And when depression comes to visit, it isn’t really interested in a quick stop. It stays, longer and longer, gathering energy while we lose it. Depression is self perpetuating. It feeds on itself and gets bigger and bigger while our control on our minds gets less and less.

Writing has taught me this. It has made me stop and see patterns that never made sense before. It has made me realize that the only way out of this funk is to pull out the paddles and start rowing for dear life.

So I went to class today. I went even though I could only do half the moves. I went even though it meant that I had to modify all the other ones. Downward facing dog became dolphin. Plank was done on my forearms as well. I’ve never looked forward to doing warrior one and two nearly so much as today. I took child’s pose a lot. I did some of my favorite twists at other times. I tried some moves on my fists instead. It wasn’t that great.

But I went. And I stayed. And I did what I could do and didn’t push myself today. Sometimes yoga is about pushing. Sometimes it is about backing off. You don’t ever want to hurt yourself. The motto “No pain, no gain” is not a healthy mantra.

But really, I did push myself. I pushed myself to get up out of bed, and showered, and dressed, and to the class on time. I know me. If I’d let the doldrums win, that horrible inertia, that nothing that just feeds on itself and gets bigger and bigger, then I would have stayed at home all day and done nothing. Then I’d feel worse. Then I’d do more nothing. And I’d use it as an excuse to not go next week.

And while I wrestle with the concept of stillness, I know that doing nothing is death.

On process and pain – chewing the steak.

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We all have problems. Don’t identify with your problem.

You aren’t an addict. You aren’t an abuse survivor. You aren’t a cancer patient.

With the new guidelines for talking about children with disabilities, we are supposed to talk about the child first, and the disability second. He isn’t an autistic child. He is a child with autism. He is a person first. He isn’t defined by his diagnosis.

Apply the same rules to yourself. You are a person first. The diagnosis is second. It isn’t you. It isn’t who you are. It affects you, certainly. But you are so much more.

When you define yourself by your diagnosis, you are giving it power, and you are diminishing your own.

Now, you also aren’t going to win any friends if you are constantly talking about your terrible childhood or your abusive husband or your sciatica or how you have to take care of your Mom with Alzheimer’s.

We all have problems. We all have something we have struggled with. Sometimes we have overcome it. Sometimes not. Sometimes it seems we can’t ever catch a break. But if you only talk about this, you are going to be lonely. The only companion you will have will be your problems.

Buddhism has a story that speaks to this. A lady’s child had died, and she was unable to accept it. She carried her dead child around the village, going to every house asking for medicine. They were all horrified. One kind person suggested she go to the teacher and sent her to Buddha. Buddha told her to go to each house and ask if they had experienced a death in the family. If nobody had died in that family, she was to get a mustard seed from them. She was to collect all the mustard seeds and bring them back to Buddha, who would then make a medicine for her.

She went all over the village and wasn’t able to find a single family that had not experienced death. She came to realize that her experience wasn’t unique or special. She came to realize that death was part of life, and to hold onto it and identify with it was causing her more problems than the death itself.

Simply going to each person’s house, she created her own medicine. Buddha taught her to look outside of herself, and to not identify herself with her suffering.

How often do we hold on to our pains and sufferings, just like that lady carried around her dead child? How often do we think we are alone in our suffering, that we have it worse than anybody else?

We all suffer. That is just part of life. Holding onto it makes it worse. Accept your loss and your pain, but don’t identify with it. Accept it, because to not accept it means to not process it.

Pain, like a big steak, needs to be chewed thoroughly to be digested. Choke it down and you’ll get sick. Spit it out and you’ll miss the lessons it has to teach you.

Pain teaches us about holding on and letting go. It teaches us about what we think we have to have in our lives and what we really need. It teaches us to accept, and live in the now, rather than in the past or the future.

The past never was as awesome as we think it was. Even in the past we were looking back to “the good old days” and thinking about how great things will be “if only I get…if only I can have…when I finish…” In the future we will do the same thing.

The only island is now. When we aren’t on that island, we are drowning in the sea, stuck away from the solid stability of that island. The past isn’t real. The future isn’t real. The more we live there, the more we are missing out on the only real thing that is, and that is now.

How to get back to now? Start looking at it. Start being thankful for it. Make a gratitude list. Notice what you have, right now, and be thankful.

Pain teaches us about ourselves.

Once we are through chewing on it, we need to swallow it, and then digest it. Then it does its work and then we have to let it go. Holding into pain is just like holding onto poop. We get sick if we can’t eliminate our toxins. But it still has to go through us, all the way. Resist it, fight against it, and you’ll only hurt yourself. Just like a tree in a strong wind, if you don’t bend, you’ll break.