Writers go through periods of writer’s block. I believe that people working on their emotions also go through emotional blocks – periods of emotional overload. My overblown responses to situations this last week told me that I needed to work on something but I could not put my finger on just what. So I bring out all of the tools, do some visualizations to determine what the fear is all about, and come up with more fear and no clue as to where it is coming from. So I start looking at what is different about last week than the weeks before. There were three things that were weighing heavily on my mind last week
- The growing concern over my lack of many childhood memories
- An on line relationship that seems to good to be true
- Spending Christmas with Dad
A visualization exercise really triggered the concern over the lack of childhood memories. In the visualization I knew I was trying to find my way through a deepening darkness and I could feel my fear and anxiety growing to the point where I felt a hand around my throat pushing me back against a wall. When I pulled myself back to the present, my fear still had a strong hold over my reason and determined that I didn’t remember because the events during the blank periods were worse than what I did remember. Once the fear became less intense, I could also see that the blanks could just be a result of practicing my childhood survival technique of shutting down too well. The second option is easier to accept at this point in time. The first may be true but until memories arise that prove it true, I am not willing to let that fear and dread prevent me from enjoying the now.
A month ago I decided that I am ready to start developing a relationship so I posted a profile on a friend/dating network. I had a few people who showed brief interest and one who showed quite a bit of interest and we were corresponding with each other every day or so through the network’s anonymous e-mail service. After about a week, I found myself looking forward to coming home and seeing if there was a new e-mail. We lost contact for a little while around Thanksgiving and we caught up again last week. In his e-mail he suggested that we go the next step and take our correspondence off the network and use our own e-mail addresses and plan on meeting each other eventually. As I was getting ready to send back my response, this tidal wave of panic and self-doubt hit.
What am I doing? I’m starting a relationship doing 2 things I said I would not do – have a long-distance relationship and have an on line relationship. Am I doing this because I feel I NEED a man to be complete or am I doing this because I WANT a man to share my life? Writing a half-crazed email to my help buddy helped to calm the panic and look at this more rationally. I know that I do not need a man to feel complete but I do want a man in my life. I miss the different perspective men bring to a conversation. I miss the smell of their aftershave in my hair. I miss the feel of a man’s touch. I am going to quit worrying about the what-ifs of the future with this relationship and enjoy the happiness that I am experiencing with it now.
Now the big one – Christmas at Dad’s. It was while I was driving home last night from a support group that I realized that this is the core of the fear and anger this past week. And it was at group this morning that I realized what the belief was that was keeping me immersed in the fear. My father has always been and still is physically, mentally, and verbally abusive to his family. In order to remain Daddy’s good little girl and to keep the worst of his abusive behavior from being directed at me, I have spent a lifetime trying to please him and feeling like I have failed miserably. My sisters sought an escape from the abuse through drugs, alcohol, and promiscuity which in turn just fueled Dad’s anger. I sought to please him by adopting his own drugs of choice as my own – over-responsibility and work. I felt his displeasure not through physical retaliation or a shouted put-down but through a sigh or an allusion to some lack in the performance of my responsibility to him or the family.
I have reached a point where I need to have some answers to some questions. Answers that I think I know already but have been too afraid to ask because they would verify that I have been as big a disappointment to him as my sisters and that I am not worthy of his love and respect. This morning I realized that I was placing my value as a human being in how he would respond. Right now I feel that I have finally accepted within myself that I am a valuable person with a purpose for being that has nothing to do with his or anyone else’s expectations. I will still ask him the questions but now I am asking them to get the answers out in the open so there are no what-ifs for me to fear.
Writer’s block for me is not my inability to find a topic to write on; it is my inability to focus on one topic without being interrupted by half a dozen others and then getting nothing written. My emotional blocks are not caused by indifference but from too many emotions and feelings and beliefs screaming for attention all at once yet none of them wanting to be looked at too closely. If I take them out one at a time and look at them close enough to peel away the layers of meanings and beliefs, I take away their power to dictate my behavior. I take back the control in determining my purpose in life and making it a reality.
Sue Wiseman
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