Pariahs in Pain

Watching someone day in and day out who is in chronic pain (like my daughter is - fibromyalgia, stage III osteoarthritis, temporomandibular joint dysfunction, asthma, and chronic cluster vertebrobasilar migraines) can make a person question the purpose of pain and wish that pain didn't exist. 

However, as unpleasant as pain is, it serves an important purpose. Pain is the body's way of signaling the brain that there is a problem and that it needs attention. Without the ability to feel pain, one might get burnt (severely) without knowing it, or ignore a serious - perhaps life-threatening - condition (such as a heart problem or a severe infection in the body that could cause respiratory failure!)

Pain is intended to be an early-warning system that tells us that something needs our immediate attention. When we heed that warning, we can get help before a problem becomes worse, even fatal. When we ignore it, the pain continues and the problem can become much more serious. When pain is chronic, not only does the body suffer, but the mind does as well. Scientists have linked chronic pain to a host of mental illness, most notably depression (see this link to the Mayo Clinic).

When the cause of the pain is obvious, sufferers frequently receive empathy and understanding from those in the medical profession and among their friends and acquaintances. When the pain is hard to pinpoint, or there seems to be no physical reason for it, the empathy tends to fizzle, and judgment begins.  A prior physician firmly believed that our daughter's pain was a clear-cut case of malingering ... which means that he thought she was faking her pain to get benefits. Having lived with her all her life, we knew differently, but unfortunately, this is the reaction some people have to face things that they cannot explain away with pat answers or banish with pills. People want to be around beautiful, healthy people with no problems. They don't want to hear about the daily struggle of having to get out of bed and do things that they take for granted. They ask how you are, but they don't really want to know the truth; it's just a polite noise people make. Rare is the person who will stop and really want to know how you are. It's human nature to want to avoid unpleasant things. The sad side-effect of this is that those who suffer chronic pain or disease (especially if the disability is 'invisible') become the ones nobody wants to associate with, or pariahs. A pariah - for those who don't know - is an outcast, a non-person ... a social leper.

In the same way, those who suffer from chronic emotional pain can also end up becoming pariahs. Emotional pain is like physical pain. Its purpose is to alert us that something is wrong and needs attention. But our society is so performance-oriented and perfectionistic that often, these early warning signs get ignored and the pain goes underground ... only to resurface in areas we weren't expecting.  

Photo "Lonely Woman On
The Beach" by Sira Anamwong
at www.freedigitalphotos.net

Nobody wants to be around someone who is sad or angry, and so we sufferers put on a mask, pretend, and ignore the pain. If folks were more accepting, and more approachable, we might feel more free about being honest about how we feel. But we've learned that the reaction of a great many people is one of condemnation. Sadly, folks seem to only want to know about our pain AFTER it is done and we have dealt with it and moved on, or overcome it. Perhaps if we had just dealt with it and discovered why we were in emotional pain and start to look after ourselves in those areas, the pain might not be there or be as intense. 

Yet by the time it becomes chronic, ignoring those early messages of emotional pain has made us numb to them. The saddest part is that the numbing also numbs the happier, more pleasant emotions as well; our emotional centre can't tell the difference between "good" and "bad" emotions - they're just emotions. So to protect itself, it shuts them ALL down.  The only ones that tend to get through now are the stronger, more violent emotions - like anger, fear, and sadness. Peace and joy and love get suppressed, or worse yet, warped by being filtered through the anger, fear and sadness.

Enter chronic depression, anxiety, and/or post-traumatic stress, depending on the circumstances that led to our pain. Wow. Talk about being a pariah? NOW we're in for it. As intolerant a some folks can be of unexplained physical pain, they seem to be doubly intolerant of emotional pain. This attitude of intolerance is toxic to us. So we withdraw. We isolate. And that just cements their opinion that we aren't worth the effort. They move on to more pleasant encounters. And we get left behind. 

I identify with those in pain because I am in pain. My disabilities are invisible - and sometimes I feel like I am invisible too. All of society seems hell-bent on criticizing and condemning things about me that I consider strengths: my introversion, my sensitivity, my empathy, and the list goes on. I've battled these prejudices all of my life.  And now, because of my invisible ailments like multiple chemical sensitivities, degenerative disc disease, and the like, I find that I am just another pariah in pain. I feel as though I have to explain over and over again why I can't go to events that "everyone" is going to. People assume that I'm antisocial, when truth be told, I just don't want to have to battle invisible clouds that mean nothing to people who aren't affected by artificial scent. Or, I don't want to stand on cement floors and ache for the next three days.  Little matter the reasons. It's part and parcel of the kind of "if you are not like us in every way, then you are not one of us" reasoning. (Don't get me started on that one.)

What am I saying? 

It's okay to hurt, if you hurt. Pain is not a bad thing. It's unpleasant, to be sure, but it is not bad in and of itself.  It is a signal that something is amiss somewhere, and the sooner we pay attention to that, and get help, the better off we are. But just because someone suffers (physical or emotional) pain on a regular basis, that doesn't make them evil or to be avoided or judged.  It makes them in need of understanding, compassion, and acceptance.

Acceptance is key. I wish we all were better at it, but it's not something that comes naturally; we have to work at it. But I figure, until more people are willing to come forward, like I just did, and talk about it, we'll just keep on being pariahs in pain.

FEEL what you feel

2016.  Wow. 

As the year dawns, I've been reflecting on what I could do to improve myself, to improve my life, resolutions to make.  Since I am in a process of continual growth, I am sure some things will come to me.  However, the one thing I keep coming back to - because I am reminded of it over and over - is the importance of feeling what I feel. 

It sounds ludicrous when you say it like that, doesn't it?  But I am serious!  

I saw this poster someone put on a social media site recently.  It talked about how worry hurts the stomach, fear hurts the kidneys, and so forth.  Let me be clear on this: emotions are a gift - even the "bad" ones!!

The only time that emotions are bad for us is when we hold them back, or hold onto them for a long time.  The act of keeping that grip on them is harmful, yes.  But they are not the culprit.  We are.

The brain has several parts, and people talk about their frontal lobes and occipital lobes and so forth, they talk about their IQ, and may even boast about it.  But few people think about how at the very base of the brain, under all those cognitive processes (like memory, decision-making, logic, reasoning, and so on) are a whole network of what look like nodules - this is what neuroscientists call 'the limbic system' and it is responsible for the emotions that we feel.  

Now, I figure if those things are there and protected by the skull, so deep down that even skull penetration with a foreign object is not likely to strike it, they must be pretty important.  

The limbic system (connected chemically to the brain stem at the base of our skull) is where we get such important chemicals as adrenaline - which helps in fight-or-flight situations!  Our emotions do have a purpose, and it is best to deal with our emotions the way the designer intended.  

I look at it this way.  Our feelings are the nervous system of the soul.  We need nerves in our body to tell us what is hot, cold, pleasurable, painful, and tasty (or not).  When we touch something hot, our nerves carry that message to the brain and in fractions of a second, the brain reacts and tells our body part to get out of there! Pain - and pleasure - show us what is safe and what is not.  Just so with our feelings.  Listening to them will tell us what is safe and what (or who) is not.  Experiencing them can bring us great reward, and suppressing them for a long time not only cuts off the painful emotions, but prevents us from feeling the pleasurable ones too.  

Photo "Silhouette Of A Man On The Rocks At Sunset" 
courtesy of satit_srihin at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I would rather experience some pain than not have the capacity to feel it at all, and eventually end up hurting myself (and those who love me) by not being able to have compassion.  And I would rather be sad or angry or afraid (even though those emotions are not pleasant!) than not be able to feel them when it would be right to do so.  What kind of person would I be (for example) not to feel angry, even enraged, when someone (and that someone also might include me just as well as it could another person) is being treated unfairly?  

A healthy person experiences the whole gamut of emotions (not usually all at once!), listens to them and expresses them in safe ways, and does whatever is necessary to deal with the causes of those feelings - whether it's looking after the self, or comforting another, or even fighting passionately for what's right.

Once feelings have served their purpose in making us aware of something, and once we have expressed them and acted on them in appropriate ways, it is okay to let them go ... they will come again when they are needed.  It's how we are built.  It's what we do.  And it's how we can really live. 

Huh. I guess that's it, isn't it!  If I had to choose a theme for this year (for myself), I guess I would choose the line to a Bon Jovi song:  "... I just wanna live while I'm alive."  (It's My Life, 2000, emphasis mine).

Games people play

It never ceases to amaze me how people can be incredibly caring, sweet, wonderful and generous ... until they aren't. 

A few things I've learned about people in the last five and a half years that I've been in "recovery" have set me back on my heels. These are things that either I didn't know or that I didn't want to know. 

One thing is sure. People will surprise you. You think you have them pegged and then they do something completely unexpected. Like when my co-workers opened their hearts to me after my youngest daughter died suddenly last October. I never expected that - and the caring continues to this day! 

However, I have learned - sadly, the hard way - that no matter who it is, people (because they - er, we - are human!) will inevitably disappoint anyone who depends on them / us. We aren't perfect, and if we try to give that impression, well, let's just say the fall from the pedestal is quite steep. And it seems that the higher the pedestal we think we're on, the more it hurts when (not if) we fall from it. I've learned that it's better not to think of myself as better than anyone else, and it's made me avoid anyone who thinks that way too, for whatever reason (education, position, etc.)

So, for better or worse, I've developed some personal guidelines to help me navigate the world of interpersonal relationships - which can sometimes be a mine-field, especially if there are relationships where one person is in a position of power and the other one isn't. So, in no particular order, here are a few of my own personal guard-rails:

1. I have boundaries. These pertain to my personal space, to my emotional space, and to my spiritual space. I have the right to occupy a place in the world, and to feed my soul with what nourishes me inside. If someone infringes on that right, or takes advantage of my generosity, I have the right to be angry and also to say, "This is not okay." It doesn't matter whether that person believes himself or herself to have the right to demand my respect; if the person has hurt me, it is okay for me to say that he or she has hurt me. 
2. I have the right to make my own decisions and my own mistakes, and the responsibility to learn from them.
3. I have the right to feel what I feel. This means that nobody has the right to tell me that I don't feel something or that I shouldn't feel something. 
4. Other people have boundaries. It is not okay for me to try to fix anyone, even if that person asks me to do it. It is not my place to tell someone else how to live their life, run their marriage or raise their kids.
5. Other people have the right to make their own decisions and their own mistakes, and they (not I) must bear the consequences of their own actions.
6. Other people have the right to feel what they feel too. Just because I might be uncomfortable with it, or I wouldn't react in the same way, doesn't give me the right to dismiss - or to judge - what another's experience might be.
7. If anyone - including me - is in a relationship where he or she feels consistently shamed or bullied or "less than", it is not only okay ... it is IMPERATIVE ... to walk away. NOBODY deserves to be treated that way. Staying in a relationship like that only encourages the abuser to continue abusing.

If this post has helped anyone identify an area where there are boundary issues or relationship inequalities that are taking place, and then figure out what it is that they need to do to take care of themselves, then I have achieved my purpose in writing it.

Breaking the cycle

Hurting people hurt people. 

It's a saying I've heard before - and I use it frequently, because it's true.  If all a person has ever known is abuse, ridicule, abandonment, and betrayal, it's all that person expects, and after a while it is seen as normal, just the way the world works.  

But it doesn't work like that.  There are people who wake up in the morning and don't wonder how many times or how deeply they'll get hurt that day.  For many years I didn't know that, because it was the way I lived life.  And I thought it was normal.  It WAS normal - for me.  

But it wasn't right.

The problem with that cycle of abuse is that once it's seen as normal, the tendency is to react to things the way the abuser did, even if the abuser is long gone.  

I remember an incident that happened when my first child was about 8 months old.  The poor kid was teething, and it hurt a lot. And she cried just about non-stop. Nothing I did helped: ice in a facecloth, Anbesol, bread sticks to chew on, the list went on and on.  I was getting more and more exasperated as the days wore on interminably; my patience was wearing thin.  

I'd taken about six hours of trying to ease her suffering one day, and it seemed to me that she just WOULD not stop (not could not: my perception, another danger sign).  I felt a wave of irrational anger build up in me and I knew that if I stayed in the room with her for one more second, I'd do something I would regret later.  I fled to another room, laid my back and my head against the wall, as if the wall somehow would give me the strength I needed to keep from losing my temper and terrorizing my child.  Before I knew it, one of my legs drew forward and I kicked the wall behind me with my heel, hard, in frustration.  And my heel went through the wall and stuck there ... until I wiggled it out.  

I turned around and saw a five-inch gaping hole in the drywall where my heel had gone into it. 

Found this picture HERE

The sight of that hole, and knowing that if I'd stayed in the room with her... well, it wouldn't have been good ... sobered my thinking.  The anger was replaced with a healthy dose of awe mixed with fear.  I left that hole in the wall and didn't want it to be repaired.  For years it stayed there as a reminder to me that people have feelings and things don't, that I was capable of the same kind of evil that I experienced as a child from angry parents, and that it was wrong to take out my frustrations on my kids. Period.  

I didn't know how to deal with the intensity of my pent-up emotions; I was afraid of them and shoved them down inside of me, and sometimes they'd boil over and I'd scare myself again.  It wasn't until after my children were both in their teens - and had already shut me out of their lives - that God showed me the root of the problem and I knew that I had to break that cycle, that self-perpetuating message I'd heard ever since I was a kid ... and that if I wasn't careful, I'd continue to pass that message on to my own kids without even being aware of it.

You know the message I mean. Or perhaps (lucky you) you don't.  It's the one that comes from a person that thinks he or she knows what love is - but doesn't.  It's the one that says,
- You're no good.
- Nothing you ever do or say is good enough.
- Go away, you bother me.  My problems are more important than yours are. Than you are.
- Your feelings don't matter.  Get rid of them. I don't want to listen to it.
- You don't deserve my protection; I'm not ever going to take your side.
- You were put on this earth to make me look good.  Shame on you if you don't.
- All I need you for ... is to do chores. 
- You don't deserve a "thank you."  Not even once.
- You deserve to be beaten. Hard, fast, and repeatedly. With whatever object is handy (and if no object, a hand.)  Until my arm is tired. And without a chance to tell your side. Not once.
- If you EVER tell people about what goes on here, I'll make sure you suffer for it.  You'll end up looking like the worst liar or the worst ingrate that ever lived. 
- Nobody will ever love you.
- You'll never amount to anything.  If you do, though, I'll take the credit for it for "raising you right."
- What you think doesn't matter.  YOU don't matter.

It's hard to break that kind of cycle.  It took a long time to build - generations in fact - and it took concerted and sustained effort to break it.  Every message I got as a child, even though it screamed in my mind, I had to frequently and immediately counter with the (new-to-me) truth I was learning:
- I have intrinsic worth.
- I can contribute to a conversation and not be ridiculed.
- What I feel matters.  Shoving my feelings down inside of me and denying their existence is hurting me.  I can express them safely.
- I can trust my own judgment. I can be wrong, and I can start over.
- I have a purpose.  I deserve to have a life, to exist, to occupy space.  I don't have to apologize for it.
- I can find pleasure in doing things for people.  It's okay if they thank me; (I should say "You are welcome" when they do, rather than deflecting their praise with religious platitudes.)
- The abuse was WRONG. IT WAS WRONG.  I did not deserve it.
- Children are people too.  Doing something to hurt their feelings and then laughing when they cry ... is sick and wrong. 
- The truth is the truth, whether or not people believe it. I can't change what other people do, think, or say.
- I can be loved for who I am, not just for what I can do. 
- I can take pride in my accomplishments because I worked hard for them. 
- I matter.  I am entitled to have an opinion.

My kids - by the way - will be the first ones to tell you that their mother, while far from perfect, has undergone a radical transformation in the last three-plus years. They feel more comfortable telling me things - confiding in me, because they know I won't "freak out" like I once did and that I'll actually listen.  

Yes, breaking the cycle is hard.  But when I remember what that vicious circle was like - there's NO WAY I'd want to go back to it.

Little Feelings

I've been doing some thinking lately about the reaction of some (if not most) adults when a child throws a temper tantrum or becomes upset over something.  Some think it's horrible and judge the parents.  Others think it's cute and laugh at the child. They chuckle and then say something like, "Aw.  You hurt her little feelings!"

Little feelings.  LITTLE?

As I remarked on facebook recently, seems to me that feelings are pretty big things no matter how little you are.  (Or big.)  Every strong emotion can be overwhelming especially if you have no previous experience with it.  The first time something happens to a person - whether it's rejection, physical pain, betrayal, frustrated dreams, or whatever, it's a big deal...no matter how old you are: six months or six decades - or more. And if an experience is really intense, it can be devastating, even more so if repeated (or worse yet, repeated often).

Think of it this way.  Even ONE horrific experience can cause someone to come home from a war zone forever changed.  Irritable, verbally violent, obsessed, paranoid...the list goes on.  Is it too much of a stretch to accept that a child can be traumatized even in his or her own home, if that home is filled with strife? if every day is like walking into a war zone?  Emotions are emotions.  People are people.  Why wouldn't it be just as (if not more) difficult for a child as for an adult?

The sad part is, those emotions, when stifled, get buried really, really deep.  Then when we are no longer in that stressful situation and we are finally able to "be in control" of our lives, those psychological injuries show themselves in the form of either controlling (control freak) or care-taking (doormat) behaviors, or a combination of both.

There are a lot of unhappy people around; some aren't even aware how unhappy they are.  (I lived in that kind of denial for many years.)


I think these folks would argue that their feelings are not 'little.'  If they allow themselves to feel them at all, that is (perhaps afraid to feel them because they are so big).  Some wake up disappointed that they woke up at all, trapped in a deep depression they can't begin to describe.  Some are obsessed with controlling every last detail of not only their own lives but the lives of those they care about.  All of them wonder why - most of the time - they feel abandoned, unappreciated, fearful, and angry.  That was my life until early 2009.  Thank God that He allowed me to get into therapy!

And when I got right down to it, I discovered that it all boiled down to the suppression of my feelings as a child.  Out of intense fear, I learned to only express what was acceptable - and to live in denial of what my true feelings were.  To hold in disappointment, feelings of betrayal, hatred, sadness, and anger.  Oh yes, and guilt for succumbing once in a while and letting my feelings show.  Then resolving to do better next time. 

But they didn't go away just because I didn't express them. They came out in other ways. I developed survival behaviors during childhood - turning into a chameleon, seeking pity, throwing guilt trips, being a perfectionist - and these continued long after the danger was over. Especially after I had children of my own.  By the end of 2008 I had pushed my husband and children away from me and I felt so very alone, friendless, isolated, misunderstood, unappreciated, angry, you name it.  Dealing with my own childhood feelings was an important part of my recovery: learning that it was okay to express them, then reliving and allowing myself to express the feelings that I couldn't as a child, to face those experiences and come to a place of forgiveness - of others and of myself.  

So when anyone diminishes the impact that their actions have on another human being - no matter how old or young - I tend to be rather skeptical.  

Been there. Done that. Don't want to go back.

What makes us human?

We dance all around it.  We talk about it but then try to hide it whenever possible.  The defining trait of humanity - as I have come to see it - isn't so much our intelligence, our social structure, or our accomplishments (including how much money we make or even that we have the concept of money!)  Rather, it is the capacity to both experience emotion and KNOW we are experiencing it, to have thoughts and know we are having them.  

Psychologists call this capacity "meta-cognition."  We have no problem with the thinking part.  We think and we know we're thinking, and we can even express in words, either verbal or written (another defining human trait), the ideas and thoughts that we think.

However, we have a harder time with the other part.

Emotions.  We are taught (especially in Western culture) that emotions are bad, especially negative ones, even the positive ones - if they are intense - are suspect.  For this reason many try to clamp down on their negative emotions.  I did it for years, even prided myself on nothing being able to affect me.  The problem with that, of course, is that nothing affected me.  In cutting myself off from my negative emotions, I also cut myself off from the pleasant ones.  I lost my self, and not in a good way.  I lost touch with who I was - and at the age of 48, I had no idea who Judy was or if I would even like her if I got to know her.  If there was a feeling there at all, it was of bewilderment... of sadness so profound I could not even begin to get to its roots - by myself.  

Suppressed (shall I put it another way - denied and unexpressed) anger, fear, or disappointment, mixed with a sense of being trapped, are the seeds of depression, clinical (that is, lasting more than 3 months) or not.  

Only now, now that I have been in a recovery process for over 2 years, am I starting to allow myself the luxury of having fun.  In order to get there, I had to express some pretty strong feelings (in a safe way of course and with people I had come to trust).  All that pent-up anger and feelings of betrayal, sadness, and self-pity had to come out, to be brought to the surface and ... FELT.

Yes, it was hard.  It was incredibly hard.  I am not a big fan of pain at all!!  But I had someone who was wiling to walk through the process with me and let me know that it was necessary in order to be free, to come to a place of forgiveness, dare I say acceptance ... and compassion.  Before, I could not get to forgiveness because I could not allow myself to express those feelings that - truth be told - I was forbidden to express growing up.  

Being assured that my emerging feelings were normal for what I went through was extremely liberating.  Just the validation of that carried me through many painful months of having those "normal" feelings... I put it in quotation marks because it felt anything but normal - they came out in a flood because they had been pent-up for so very long and I had only allowed overflows (like a pressure cooker letting off steam enough to keep from blowing up).  The flood was overwhelming at times. And most of the stuff I felt was negative.  A lot of negative stuff happened to me in my life.  My emotional recovery was like a storm in a lake - all the silt and mud gets stirred up and the waters look so dirty.  That's how I felt - soiled somehow - until these things started to be brought to the surface, dealt with, and forgiven.  

Gradually, though, the waters cleared ... and I could begin to see clearly.  I began to experience something I had not known for many years - if at all.  Happiness.

I would not trade that sense of everything being as it should be - for anything.

Emotions. Are. Bad.

(Okay so I got the idea for the title of this blog entry from another blogger who wrote a post called "Sex. Is. Bad." My thanks to you Carrie!)  Here's the link :
Click here to read her blog post.

Now - to my post!!
A friend of mine recently said something like, "... Trusting in your emotions as your only guide is not the way to live a balanced life."

I'm glad he said  "only guide."  I trust in my emotions and my instincts often, because often they are the only things that tell me when something doesn't "feel right."  

The church has done a disservice to its members in telling them that emotions are suspect.  Many of us have cut off feelings like anger, frustration, sadness, or embarrassment because we've been taught the common Christian myth:  Emotions. Are. Bad.  But that was never a teaching of the originator of the Church: Jesus!  His life was one lived in the fullness of emotion: happiness, joy, sadness, anger, frustration, love ... with no apologies.  He felt what He felt WHEN He felt it.  

The suspicion surrounding emotion is not a Christian construct, even though the modern church  culture has adopted it.  In fact, it was the ancient Greeks who thought this one up.  A group called the Stoics, to be exact.  Socrates and Plato as well attacked the emotions as they saw them as the seat of all evil.  What they saw was "self-will run riot" as a book I read once puts it.

I've heard so many people deny their feelings (even deny their circumstances or say they are healed while their body is wracked with pain) and call it "speaking in faith."  Sorry, but this is not "speaking in faith." This is "speaking in denial." It is far from virtuous; it is insanity.  The reason for this is that once you cut off one emotion, your psyche doesn't discriminate.  Eventually, it prevents you from experiencing even the good stuff: happiness, joy, love, tenderness, compassion. 

The admission that one is angry, sad, worried, or whatever is not bad.  It is when we push feelings down inside of us, deny their existence and pretend we aren't having them, that they find another way to surface. Like physical pain for example:  ulcers, high blood pressure, migraines, irritable bowel, possibly even chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia. These have all been associated with high levels of stress.  Medical doctors agree that the worst kind of stress is not necessarily that which comes about as a result of circumstances, but as a result of suppressed and/or prolonged emotion.

I've said this before.  Emotions. Are. NOT. Bad.  Emotions are transient states intended to alert us to something going on in our spirits, something that needs attention.  Here's an example.  So I'm tensing up, and my hands are clenching and unclenching. I'm pacing. My breathing is faster; my heart rate is up.  I check inside and guess what: I'm worried. That's not the time for me to start quoting scripture, though it might come later.  That's my first warning sign to look for what's causing it.  WHY am I worried?  what's behind this?  it doesn't take long for me to realize that this particular time, I'm slipping into the mindset of wanting to control the actions of someone else or fix the other person's problems instead of letting go.  At the root of my worry is usually my just not trusting that God will do what is best (in other words, I know what's best - God, You're not doing it right!)  It is that belief that needs to be addressed... and when it is, the emotion will pass - having served its purpose.  

Anger is another one. Christians tend to jump on their anger like a hen on a June bug.  Can't have that - gotta forgive !!  It's been my experience that Christians want to "forgive and forget" too quickly. As a result - we settle for counterfeits, like "making excuses" (which in essence is saying that what the person did wasn't really bad - which is NOT forgiveness) or "living in denial" (which is saying, "I don't feel what I feel.")

An author I read frequently says this:  "Yes, we are striving for forgiveness, but we still want to feel, listen to, and stay with our feelings until it is time to release them appropriately... God is not telling us to not feel; it's our dysfunctional systems.  ... We also need to be careful of how we use affirmations; discounting our emotions won't make feelings go away.  If we're angry, it's okay to have that feeling.  That's part of how we get and stay healthy."   (Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go ... © 1990 Hazelden)

Forgiveness is the end result of a process that might take many months, especially if the wrong being forgiven goes very deep or took place over a long period of time.  It's not one of those "God-zap" things, although the only source of power for forgiveness comes from God.  It's a process which consists of all kinds of things.  I have described the process in a book I wrote, a book which is going through what I might call "beta-testing" at this point. (grin)


Some of you know my story of recovery from physical, verbal, emotional, and sexual abuse.  I'm still recovering; there are many layers to the kind of self-loathing and shame that accompany this kind of betrayal.  But now I can talk about it, having completely forgiven my abusers.  I have found the freedom that is there in forgiveness.  However, in order to get to that point, I had to experience the kinds of emotions I thought I was never allowed to express ... ever.  

It was an eye-opener to me that I was permitted and actually even encouraged by God to "be angry."  What a revelation that was!  

If the action was wrong ... I was supposed to admit that it was wrong, to admit that I was wronged - and to be angry.  Wow.  In fact, until I WAS angry, I couldn't get past that hurdle to get to the forgiveness part of the equation.  It was actually a crucial part of my healing from those hurts ... to let myself feel the hurt. Once I did, I could move on to look at all the areas that were affected, all the beliefs about myself that were affected, all the self-protective, manipulative behaviors I learned to cope with those suppressed feelings.  I asked Him to take those beliefs, and countered them with new ones from Him (repeated over and over until that wounded part of me "got" it).  

That's when I could finally allow God to free me of the shame of my past and give me compassion for my abusers; He literally taught me, step by step, how to forgive - and every single time it is the very same process, whether it takes hours or months. That's worth all the concentrated effort it took to get there - effort to continually ask for His strength and His grace, for His love and His power, because I had tried to do it on my own and you know what?  It's true what He said.  "Without Me, you can do nothing."

The Good Fight

It had been a particularly stressful day, oh, almost 40 years ago.  I don't really remember much about it, since it was a lot like a lot of other days; tensions always ran pretty high in the home when I was growing up. Usually someone would be having a better day than the other and situations could get defused relatively quickly.  

This one day, though, neither of my brothers had been having a good day. They would be, oh, I guess around 20 and 16 years old.  Tensions built, tanks ran on empty (as they did most of the time anyway) and I could tell that things were deteriorating fast.  They were SO getting on each other's last nerve!! 

I don't remember what triggered it exactly, but I do remember that one brother started criticizing the other for the same old thing that annoyed the life out of him.  Maybe it was the way he chewed.  Something - there was always something.  And the other brother finally snapped; he'd been putting up with the verbal abuse all day long and he was so sick and tired of being harangued and told what to do.

So he lashed out.  Soon, they each started saying things to deliberately hurt the other.  Mom, who would never let us fight with each other, never express our anger or our frustration (thanks for the baggage, dear lady) watched the two of them stomp up the stairs to finish fighting and throw some good punches while they were at it.  

And then she made that ... sound ... the one that froze us in our tracks, the one that meant she was just about to lose her temper.  "AUUGH!!"

Both brothers halted in mid step.

"You guys fight just like cats and dogs!" she cried.

Something about the "over-the-top" way she said it just struck them in the right way.  I saw the oldest, at the top of the stairs, whirl around and drop to all fours on the four-by-four landing.  

His face contorted, his mouth opened wide, and his eyes narrowed as he glared at his brother.  He held up his right hand in a claw-like manner.  And he HISSED.

Not to be outdone, the younger brother put his hands on the stairs and started climbing them on all fours, got within five feet of his brothers face and started BOW-WOW-WOW-WOWOWOWing at the top of his voice.  

"REEEEEEE-AAAAROW"  came the high-pitched reply from the top of the stairs as oldest brother swung his "paw" at his brother's face.  

"RAGRRRRR-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO!!!" went the younger.  

"Pa-AHHHH-T!!" said the elder, and as his "claws" connected with the other's face, we heard "YIIIII!" Then "GRRRRRRROWF!!" 

By this time my mother, my father and I were laughing so hard that the tears were streaming down our faces and our bellies were sore.  

The boys had had their "good fight" and everyone forgot what the argument was about.  

After a few more "wuffs" and "rrwowfs", one boy went one way and the other the opposite way.  Neither of them lost.  And all of us won.