psychology

Giant Anteater

Posted on by SomatiCat

My high school best friend recommended me to watch a Japanese drama series, titled Brush Up Life. It is a story of a young woman, who suddenly died in a freak accident. She arrived at the reception desk of the “upstairs” office. A clerk at the desk told her she was assigned to re-incarnate as a giant anteater. She refused to be reborn as a giant anteater and asked the alternative option. The clerk told her that she could redo her life from the birth with her current knowledge and consciousness. The woman chose to start over and changed her life as she went. To make a long story short, every time she started over, something didn’t work and she died. So she kept going back to the start. Eventually she got the result she wanted (she saved her friends’ life).

My friend asked me if I could start over with current consciousness intact, what would I do. I thought about changing this and that. I would be on SSRI as soon as it’s available–I wasn’t diagnosed until in late 30s and I had developed a basketful of disorders. I would focus on physical fitness –I had eating disorder and was out of shape, a heavy smoker with alcohol dependency. I would move to the U.S. as soon as possible–I moved here in my late 20s and didn’t know my old country’s restrictive culture had traumatized me. I would study harder to get in a medical school –I applied for but wasn’t accepted and instead went to study liberal arts.

Then I realized I would be born into the same family and would have to do it all over again. The heroine of the drama has a “normal enough” and functional enough family. She tries to change things to save others. I can’t change my dysfunctional family. I can’t change how my parents deal with me. I would be born into the same family with all the pain, fear, shame, and anger. No. I would rather be a Giant Anteater. It would be much better.

My friend said she wanted to change one event, which traumatized and defined her life. Her parents moved from a metropolitan area to a rural city due to her father’s job and she was transferred from a private school in a large city to a local public middle school in a pretty tough district, where she was bullied as an outsider. She still can’t get over the trauma. She is now a professor of psychiatry at a local medical school, established and lives in a large house. She is married, has two sons, and they both are well-respected medical doctors. She has grandchildren, who live in the same city. I am freelancing, living in a small apartment with an old dog. I’m divorced with no children. From outside, she seems to have a good enough life. Still, she wanted to change.

I’ve been thinking about starting over, but every time I think of it, I end up choosing a giant anteater. I had a volatile life and I wish I could choose differently here and there, but if I changed any event I wouldn’t be able to be here. Every mistake I made, every bad choice I made, it was a ferry to carry me here and now. I have realized I am very content and happy with who I am now.

I just spend much of my life in constant stormy weather, hanging onto whatever I could to survive. And the deadly wind and current pushed the boats, ferry, or sometimes just a wooden lifesaver to where I am now.

So it’s possible to make peace with your life. I never expected to have this calm ordinary days at the end. (Of course, I spent large sum of money and time on this and that therapy.)

Father’s Daughter

Posted on by SomatiCat

If by chance I talk a little wild, forgive me; I had it from my father.

— HENRY VIII, ACT 1 SCENE 4

My childhood home was not a happy place. I didn’t know how being loved felt like. My younger brother told me once he made his presence as sparse as possible to avoid unpleasant encounters, well, mostly with our father. He also told me he had never felt loved by our father. When he was a pre-teen boy, he was always attached to our mother, like a baby monkey, while I don’t remember my mother’s touch. I had never felt loved by her, either.

My parents fed, clothed, and provided a bed and more than enough schooling. So I wasn’t neglected and was physically well cared for.

After multiple of failed relationships, I realized I didn’t know how love feels like. I didn’t have felt sense or reference point of being loved. I still don’t grasp the idea of being loved for just being me. I have to be needed and useful for the other person to be loved. That’s my false belief. Becoming aware of it was a great step.

My father passed away about 10 years ago after suffering Alzheimer’s disease. He was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in early 30s and he was insulin dependent for most of my life. His father and his older sister died young from complication of diabetes. There are many diabetics in his family.

After more than half a century of dodging genetic bullets, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and since I can’t take medications due to a severe and weird side effect from raised insulin level, I have been controlling it by diet and exercise only. Currently I wear CGM (continuous glucose monitor) and I finally understand what my father was going through.

I remember he said that he never enjoyed eating. He considered it as a bitter medicine. Even though he was on insulin, he was on tight calorie deficient diet. Our family never enjoyed dining out because of his diet restrictions. I always thought I didn’t want to be like him. So I enjoyed eating a lot. Now I am on a very strict diet. I can’t eat anything which I used to love–ice cream, cheesecakes, chocolates, sweet fruits, pasta, rice, pancakes… I don’t enjoy eating out with friends, because I can’t eat most of what they eat. I’ve learned that my blood glucose level dictates my moods. My father’s diet was not as scientific as mine. It was just a guess work and he was so disciplined. He needed to if he wanted to live. Now I am also disciplined regarding what I eat because I want to function.

It also dawned on me that my father must have experienced no felt sense of love. He used to say his mother, my grandmother, had loved his older brother, but never loved him. He didn’t know how love feels like. I had never felt sense of love from my grandmother, either. She cared for me when I was a little girl, but I didn’t get the sense of love. It didn’t start with me. And if you have not felt loved by your parents, it’s almost impossible to love yourself. I used to hate myself.

Fortunately my dogs taught me how loving and being loved feels like in my body. I remember my father used to take home a puppy and took care of it. The dog might have been the only thing he could feel love.

I don’t have children and it’s a good thing. Neither my brother. At least it stops with us.

If your family is loving, make sure to teach your daughters and sons to stay away from those who don’t know love. They could often be very attractive in a way only damaged people could be.

Trauma Walking

Posted on by SomatiCat

The young woman walked straight to me and introduced herself. “Hi. I’m a survivor,” she said. “Hi,” I said.

It wasn’t a meeting for survivors of any kind. It was just a shamanistic drumming circle gathering. I was in a process of healing journey and was trying out many modalities. At that time, I was highly sensitive to other people’s emotional state and somehow my attention was habitually drawn to traumatized people’s energy. Even before she talked to me, I sensed a tightly wound vortex with thousands of black birds swarming against the dark sky and the vortex was walking toward me.

No, I don’t want to be sucked in that, I thought.

I was taken aback that the woman introduced herself to a total stranger as a survivor. I don’t remember if she said what kind of survivor she was. However, my mind interpreted as a child sexual abuse survivor. The fact she identified herself as a survivor made me think hard. She had chosen that word to define her state of being.

During the drumming, my attention was relentlessly drawn to the woman. No, I don’t want to be sucked in that, I thought again. I could sense that she was looking for a “hook” in people around her. She was looking for a survivor to share the vortex with.

After the gathering, I told my friend about the woman and asked, “Did I look like that?”

Do I look like that? Is a survivor my identity? Does that word represents my entire state of being? I had to think hard because I saw myself in her. Trauma walking, vulnerable and dangerous at the same time.

When there are predators outside of the room, we need to survive. Our sympathetic nervous system needs to be on high alert, like a tightly wound vortex. Once the predators outside of the room leave, we can unwind (deactivate) the sympathetic nervous system. For some of us, the predator is inside the room. We carry the predator with us.

After decades of therapy and numerous healing works, I don’t carry the predator with me anymore. I survived but I don’t define myself as a survivor. The trauma doesn’t define me.

You can’t clean with oven mitts on

Posted on by SomatiCat

“I was a slob,” I said, “I knew the drawer of the dresser was half open and I couldn’t close it. It must take nothing to close it, but I couldn’t. So it would be half-open for weeks, months.”

Mia’s younger sister, Norma, has been suffering Depression on and off for a while and occasionally locks herself in. Mia was planning to visit her parents and to stay at her sister’s place. “What should I do to help her?” she asked. She knows I have a clinical Depression and often asks advice from me for her sister. Mia is that kind of person who always tries to offer solutions to “problems,” to fix.

“I think I should tell her to stop taking medications,” she said.

“NOOOOO!” I said. “That’s the worst thing for a Depressed person!”

At one point, I felt so great and I stopped taking SSRI without consulting my shrink. (My shrink thought I had a hypomania episode.) I quickly fell into a state of Major Depression and didn’t go out of my apartment (except for bare necessities. I’m not agoraphobic. I just didn’t have the will to move.) During the three months, I was diagnosed with a variety of mood disorders and prescribed different medications, which made my condition much worse. Nothing stuck, well, except for the original straight forward SSRI. Eventually I came out of Depression organically and since then I’ve been on the same SSRI, currently with a minimal dosage.

“I take it for the rest of my life. I can’t risk having another episode,” I said. “It’s like you have a bad eye sight. You need to wear contact lenses just for functioning normally. Nobody tells you you shouldn’t wear contact lenses. You might fall into a manhole.”

“My sister doesn’t answer our calls, doesn’t respond to texts. We are sure she has read our messages… My elder sister thinks Norma is irresponsible. She doesn’t even care how our parents are doing..,” Mia said.

“It’s not that she won’t. I she can’t. Any contacts from others are threatening. When you have a migraine attack, any noises, any flash of lights would hurt badly. Phone calls and messages are like that. Especially messages to blame her or tell her to do something,” I explained. When I was depressed, every time I got a message, I felt like I heard a gun shot. Mia’s family bombards Norma with messages. “That’s the worst thing. I would feel like I want to cover myself with a blanket, in a fetal position,” I said.

“So what should we do?”

“Is she still seeing her psychiatrist?”

“I think she is,” Mia said.

“If so, just let her know you are there for her when she is ready to come out of the cave. Just send a message saying that you are thinking about her.”

Every time I talk to Mia about Depression, I am made to be aware how little “normal” people know how it feels. Many people around me have Depression with varying degree and we don’t have to explain to each other. We speak the same language of pain. It’s refreshing to realize it is not a universal state of being.

So I explained how I am when I am depressed.

“Norma is like that. She used to be very neat and tidy. But last time I visited her, her apartment was in a mess. She left dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. I thought she became lazy,” Mia said.

“It’s not that she is lazy. Depression is like having oven mitts on. It becomes very difficult to do anything with oven mitts on. Without them, it’s nothing to pick up a piece of scrap paper from the floor. With them, it takes tremendous time and energy just to do that. We see it and we know it’s there and we don’t have energy to pick it up. Then another piece of scrap falls on it, and another… Eventually we get buried in trash and can’t even move. That’s how Depression feels like.”

I don’t know if Mia understands. It’s damn difficult to clean with oven mitts on. So be compassionate to yourself. You are not lazy.

Do I Want to See Tomorrow?

Posted on by SomatiCat

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a cruel film.

If I should get totally paralyzed and lose my independence, do I want to live? If I have a choice, what would I do? I thought it was no brainer. I would certainly choose to end my life.

Then, my friend, Maria, was diagnosed with ALS. It is a cruel disease. She had been independent and lived alone. She didn’t have close family except for her elderly mother. She lost her mobility quickly and became dependent on friends. Within 6 months, she was admitted in a hospital and had to make a decision. She had to choose. If she chooses life prolonging measures, she would be bed-ridden for the rest of her life, which she wouldn’t know how long, and would have to depend on public assistance. She wouldn’t be able to move, eat, nor talk. She would have to wear a diaper, breathe through a respirator, be fed via a gastrostomy feeding tube… All of us, members of volunteer care team of her friends, thought it was no brainer. Nobody would be able to take care of her forever. One of her friends had a mother with ALS. She begged her mother to choose to live even in locked-in condition and she now regretted that. It’s cruel, she said.

Maria couldn’t make a choice for a long time. Eventually, she chose not to. She was admitted to a hospice and passed away peacefully in a couple of weeks. (So I was told.)

It’s no brainer, isn’t it?

It was until I heard a story about a nurse. I don’t remember where I heard or read, but it totally changed my perspective. The story was told by a husband of a nurse, who became paralyzed or immobile. When she was healthy, she had always told her family she would choose not to receive any life-prolonging measures.

She once happened to be at the scene of a serious accident. The injured person needed medical attention. As a nurse, she could tell he would surely be fully paralyzed, worse would stay in coma, or brain-damaged, and for a moment she hesitated to give an assistance to save the life. Of course, as a nurse, she provided necessary help and that person lived, with the predicted consequence. Since then she thought about her moment of choice again and again, and she concluded that she wouldn’t want to live in that condition.

So when it was her turn to choose, her husband and her children were sure that she would say no to life prolonging measures. She didn’t and they were surprised. They respected her choice and took care of her for the next several months.

Then, one day, finally she said it was enough.

What her husband said hit me hard. It’s not a question of if you want to live. It’s a question of if you want to see tomorrow. It’s not that she wanted to live in that state of being for the rest of her life. She just wanted to see tomorrow. She wanted to see her husband and her children smile tomorrow. She wanted to see the sun rise tomorrow.. She wanted to feel the air, she wanted smell the rain, she wanted to feel the warmth of sun, tomorrow.

Do I want to see tomorrow?

When I am seriously/clinically depressed, tomorrow does not exist. I am in a timeless state of pain. I become pain. I desperately search for the way to stop the pain, which lasts forever, because time stops when I am in major depression. We only are in now and here in hell. (That’s quite zen, isn’t it? ) So only thing I can think of is how to stop being myself. A depressed person doesn’t have tomorrow. That’s the tragedy.

So I constantly ask myself, ‘Do I want to see tomorrow?” And I am glad my answer was yes yesterday.

Is it Illness or Who I am

Posted on by SomatiCat

My high school bestie, Suki, who is now a psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry, once told me about her young patient, who killed himself while she was away for a conference. She told me that he was doing much better in the last session. “It’s because he had already made up his mind,” I said. “He made peace. Once somebody made up his mind, nobody can stop it and I guess for that person the life was too painful and if so, I can’t find a way to tell the person to live.”

“But it’s his illness that made him kill himself,” Suki said. And I have been thinking about what she said for a long time. I am not suicidal per se, but have been thinking about killing myself since I was 8 years old. The thought has never left me. It’s just how I am. I have been on SSRI for almost 30 years on and off and after the last bout of major depression, I accepted that I needed to be on meds for life just to live normally.

I explained my friend that when I was in major depression, there were no line of demarcation between who I was and the illness, ie. depression. I am not in pain. I become pain. It’s not that I want to kill myself. I just want the pain disappear. I just want to have peace from who I am.

Fortunately, when I am in major depression, I can’t initiate any major action. I just passively exist with minimal action for survival. So I am not suicidal. I am now stable and am quite happy about my life. I can not be sure but It could get better as you age.

Then I got Meniere’s Disease. Meniere’s Disease is an illness. It is a condition I have. It is definitely not who I am. When I have an acute episode, I scream in my mind, “Kill me now!” I am in tremendous pain and suffering and I want to have it stopped. But I don’t wish to die because I know once I recover after 12 to 24 hrs, I will be my usual self.

On the other hand, I’m not sure if I could survive another bout of major depression. After being depressive for half a century, I sometimes feel tired. I wonder if the day would come when I feel too tired to keep on going. But it would not be because of Meniere’s disease. It would be because who I am.

To younger suffers of major depression, I want to tell you it could get better. I didn’t imagine I could have this peaceful life when I was younger and tormented. It could get better.

Throat Chakra Story: Voice

Posted on by SomatiCat

Voice

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

When the little voice learned that nobody would come running to give her hands when she fell, she stopped asking help. She stopped even crying. When she cried, they came running not to help. So she locked herself in a dark small cave and waited silently until they forgot about the little voice and left. In the cave her hurt turned into anger and the anger pulsed and grew into fury. The angry voice was big and strong. The little voice couldn’t speak up for herself, but the angry voice could scream and yell to protect others. When the angry voice spit a fire, it was always for the little voice in other unheard people.

In my original family I had never learned to make a conversation because nobody heard anybody and they just talked at each other. “Conversation” was like throwing rocks at each other. Uttering one word could start a full-blown war. I’ve learned to make a Molotov cocktail. The louder and the more violent your voice are, better chance of survival.

My brother took up a different strategy, learning from how I fought. He was a talkative child, but he stopped talking to his parents at all. When I was in 30s I confronted my father and told him what he did and what he said damaged me. It was not a conversation. I threw one Molotov cocktail after another at him. The next day, he didn’t come out of bed. My mom forced me to apologize for yelling at him.

“Did I say those things to her?” My mother said to me that he asked her. He didn’t remember. He didn’t remember his words, which denied me of having a normal teenage girl’s life. In his mind, he was a loving father. I learned unless I engaged the person in a conversation, throwing a Molotov cocktail at them wouldn’t work.

About 15 years ago I was on a subway train at night. A young black guy came into the car with a cart-full of stuff. A burly white guy started to harass him, calling him welfare thief and such. The young guy remained quiet and sat still. The white guy kept on harassing him. I felt a red hot anger bubbling up inside of me and burning my throat. I knew yelling at the burly guy would not help the situation. I could feel the young guys anger in my guts. I thought of standing up and sitting between them, but if I provoked the burly guy, it could have the young guy involved. That was not good. My station was coming next. I stood up and walked to the young guy and stood in front of him. “Sir, may I shake your hand?’ I said to him. He looked up at me with a puzzled expression and then he extended his hand. I shook his hand and he smiled. My station came and I got off. That was the most powerful voice I ever have had.

The Flayed Hare

Posted on by SomatiCat

“What should I do?” my friend, Mia, said. Her younger sister is not answering calls from her family nor responding to text messages nor emails. “Does she still see her psychiatrist?” I asked. “Yes. And she seems to manage to go to her office everyday,” Mia said. Mia’s sister has been suffering depression on and off for a while and occasionally locks herself in.

“She can go to work. That’s a good news. What is the issue?” I said. “She doesn’t respond to anybody. My big sister has also been trying to contact her. Our niece will be visiting her from Australia with her baby. I’m going there to see them and we want to have family get together. Our parents are getting older, you know,” she said. “Why she doesn’t want to see her family. Isn’t it selfish of her?”

It hits me. She doesn’t understand. Mia has never been clinically depressed.

So I explained. I am Mia’s “How to deal with your family member’s depression” coach.

“Family gathering is one of the worst things when you are depressed,” I said. “Doesn’t she feel guilty not to come out to spend time with her aging parents? I would. That’s why I’m going. I would love to see my niece’s babies, too. They are coming all the way from Australia,” she said. She is flying westward across the Pacific Ocean to Japan to see them, while her niece is flying eastward across. She seems to be half concerned and half annoyed by the depressive sister.

“Do you know the story of a flayed hare?”  I asked.  It is a folk tale everybody knows.  A trickster hare befooled sharks and was stripped of its fur.  In pain he asked a group of passerby for help.  They told the hare to bathe in saltwater and dry in wind.  The hare did as told and ended up in excruciating pain.  Then a kind man found the hare in agony and told him to bathe in freshwater and then roll in the pollen of cottontail.  Eventually the hare’s fur grew back again.   

“Your sister is a flayed hare now.  When you don’t have skin, everything hurts.  Being with your family is the worst.  It’s just like bathing in salt water.  Phone calls are like wind blowing on the flayed hare.  It gives her excruciating pain,”  I explained.  “Then, what should we do?” Mia asked.  “Wait until her fur grows back.  Don’t call.  Just check in.  Texting and e-mailing are gentler.  Don’t expect her responding.  Just make sure she is alive and o.k.  Let her know you care, and let her heal in her soft bed of cottontail pollen.”

I’m not sure if Mia understand what I mean.  If you have never be a flayed hare, you don’t understand how it feels.

The hare in the story was actually a god and the kind man was rewarded.

It was not Love but not to Feel Guilty

Posted on by SomatiCat

I was having dinner with Sookie, my high school BFF, now a psychiatrist, in a local restaurant.  Her phone constantly buzzed.   We reconnected a couple years ago after three decades of being out of touch, mostly on my accord.  I moved across the Pacific and I didn’t want to be found by anybody from my hometown.

“It’s my mother,” she said.  “Sorry, but I have to go.”

Sookie was taking care of her mother, who was on a wheelchair, at home.  Although her kids were all grown up, she had a full time job, as a professor and clinician.

“You are lucky.  You left home early,” she said to me.

At that time, I visited my elderly parents once a year.   I spent more time with them than my younger brother who lived in the same country.   I usually got badly depressed before and after the trip.  My original home was toxic to my soul.  I called it a tour of duty.  It’s my duty as a daughter to show my parents I cared, or at least to pretend.

Later, Sookie told me what was going on.  She prepared breakfast and lunch for her mother before she left for work, then she cooked dinner after she came home.  I asked, “Why?”  “My mother only eats what I cook,” she said.  “Once I ordered food delivery service because I was too busy.  I came home and found the food in a garbage bin.  She said it tasted awful.  She didn’t like aids I hired.   She refuses to go to a day care service because she doesn’t want to mingle with “those people.” ”

So Sookie took care of her… as her mother, a perfect housewife, took care of her husband and her children.  Now Sookie’s mother demands the same from her daughter.

Sookie has a younger sister.  She left home and live in another city with her own family.  Sookie’s sister calls her mother once in a blue moon.  They chat and her mother loves her.  Her sister won’t even visit her.  “Don’t you feel it’s not fair?” I asked.  “I do, but that who she is.  I don’t dislike her,” she said.  I didn’t understand.

“Why?”  I asked again.  “Why you have to take care of your mother by yourself?  Why you  accommodate her unreasonable needs?  You have a career and your own family to take care of.”

She pondered for a moment and said, “Not to feel guilty.”   It made a sense.  She was honest.  She didn’t say because she loved her.

I traveled 24 hrs door to door once a year spending thousands of dollars that could have been used for a vacation not to feel guilty.    Sookie cooked for her mother every day juggling her career and family life not to feel guilty.   We were doing the same.

Both my parents and hers did their best to take care of us and at the same time planted the sense of obligation.   It was not love.

I decided to do what I could do for my parents, as long as it wouldn’t destroy my life.  My mother constantly tells me to come home to take care of her.  (She also tells me to come home so that she could take care of me.  I don’t know why she thinks I need to be taken care of.)

No.  I set a firm boundary.  That’s the line for me.  Once a year visit has become three times a year visits since my mother needed my help after my father passed away.  It has wrecked havoc on my financial, physical, and emotional health but hasn’t destroyed me yet and it spared me feeling guilty.

As for Sookie, her mother passed away in a hospital from in-hospital infection and she was feeling super guilty for a long while as if she killed her mother.  (She chose the hospital when she fell ill.)

This is what happens when parents treat kids as their territory.  Colonization doesn't foster love.

If you love your parents, you are the lucky one who experienced unconditional love from them.

We did not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family as a Bootcamp

Posted on by SomatiCat

“It sounds like you were brought up by a pack of wolves,” the teacher said.  “I guess I was,” I said.  I took a semi-private class to explore family dynamics.  We were doing show and tell of old family photos.  I don’t remember which story or photo led to that remark but it made a sense.

Nobody taught me how to be human, how to communicate, how to deal with feelings, how to foster relationships, how to love, etc.  My father taught me how to survive in a hostile world.

It was the world of his construct.

My father didn’t say, “Don’t show your vulnerability.”  He just pounced on me when I was vulnerable.  He was the kind of person who instinctively knew where it would hurt most and push the spot hard.

My father didn’t say, “The best defense is offense”.  I just learned to attack back harder, verbally and energetically– if I were a big man, I would have fought back physically but I was a petite girl — and retreat fast so that my father wouldn’t catch me.  I ran back to my room and block the door with furniture, since the door didn’t have a lock.  He yelled from the other side of the door.   “You have your father’s temper,” my mother said.  I was just defending myself because I didn’t want to be eaten by the wolf.

He never hit me but his verbal attack was violent enough.  “I’m gonna beat the shit out of you!” he yelled from the other side of the door.

“I’ve learned watching you and Dad,” later my younger brother said.  “I just stayed in my room and didn’t talk to Dad.  We didn’t have any interaction.”  I guess he was smarter than me or just adopted a different strategy for survival.

When I got hurt or felt weak, I didn’t cry.  Crying would attract wolves and they wouldn’t come to comfort you.  I learned to lock myself in a cave and wait until I regained strength.  I felt like an injured dangerous animal, licking the wound in a dark cold place, with body tightened, claws out, growling.

My father made sure that I understood the world was out there to get me.  He made sure that I knew I was ugly, unlovable and worthless, so anybody who might offer a hand to me must be trying to get something out of me.   When I was proud of something about myself, he spat at me, “Got a bighead, haven’t you.  Who do you think you are?”

I had beautiful hair when I was a teenager.  It felt like expensive silk threads.  That’s the only part of my body I was sure I could be proud of, because I got compliments all the time.   So I kept it long.  “Your stinking loose long hair is everywhere,” he complained.   I had my hair cut very short.  “What a stupid haircut. You look so ugly,” he said.

Home was not a safe nurturing place for us kids but a bootcamp.  It was as if he was preparing me for being ridiculed and shamed by the world outside of my family.  If he could harden me and toughen me enough, I wouldn’t be beaten down by anybody else.

If you are a wild beast to be afraid of, nobody would come to you to take advantage of you.  Being asked of a favor is in itself the sign of weakness on your part.  Don’t be off guard.  Let them know you are somebody not to be messed with.

My father told me again and again never to be a guarantor of anybody.  Actually it makes a sense since many people he knew lost everything because they trusted somebody and co-signed their debt.

He did a good job.  I grew up a woman who saw everybody a potential aggriever.  When somebody wanted to be friends with me, I thought, “What do you want?”   I didn’t understand that somebody could want to be friends with me just because who I was.

My high school BFF called me a barbed wire.  Somebody I worked for called me a naked blade.  I thought it suited me and that I was satisfied.   The message was loud and clear.  Don’t you dare to come close to me.

My father passed at the ripe age of 86, after suffering several years from Alzheimer’s.  At a nursing home he was slightly paranoid delusional but most of time pleasant old man.   However, once in a while he suddenly yelled, “I’m gonna hit the shit out of you.”   The staff thought it was Alzheimer’s disease that made him say such a violent thing.   “No, it is how he always is,” I said in my mind.

And I grew up to be an angry she-wolf.  At one point I really believed showing my kids having power over the others was the best defense.  I called it a baseball bat strategy.  I imagined myself threatening them with a baseball bat, to make them follow a line.  It was because I loved them.  I had to teach them how to survive.  The threatening energy of my father’s yelling was registered in my psyche as a destruction of a baseball bat blows.

It was fortunate that I just had imaginary kids.

This is how a family trauma is inherited through generations.  I was locked up in the world his negative paradigm shaped.   My father painted over his daughter’s vibrant world with his gloomy palette.  I don’t know what made his world so grim because we didn’t tell stories about ourselves.  But I’m sure he thought his life sucked.

It took me 20+ years of therapy to attain paradigm shift.  The world is not dangerous.  (Fortunately I don’t live in a war zone.)  People just want to be friends with me because they are interested in who I am.

I had to peel the old paint chip by chip to reveal the original vibrant pallet of mine.  I had to demolish the wall that confined me a brick at a time.   Next to me there always was a ghost of my father putting back the brick that I took out.

I had to learn giving up anger wouldn’t make me a victim.  I had to learn I could be open to the world if I knew how to set a firm boundary.  I had to learn acknowledging my vulnerability would make me more strong.  The skillset I learned in the bootcamp would be with me no matter.  And I could be a tough cookie and an emotionally vulnerable person at the same time.

Don't paint your kid's world with your pallet, just teach them skills and let them paint theirs.