Healing the shame that binds you

“Healing the shame that binds” you is the title of a book by John Bradshaw it is about shame and I am currently reading it. Or reading and sobbing or being all over the place is a more accurate description of my current state. Can I call that a state? Hmm, changing the subject again. Ok. Shame. It says shame, like all emotions has its function to keep us from going outside boundaries which are healthy. Shame in people with an addictive personality is the core position from where ‘they’ (i!) view the world. I guess this is true for me. How many times in this blog have I written something like ‘If I despise myself, at least I do something good.’ That would be living from shame. It sucks. But I need to because I can’t let go. If I let go terrible things happen. My corrupted instinct says I will be killed if I let go of shame. (And here I deleted a paragraph on the subject of sex and shame and being killed because I feel ashamed about the subject and the relation and because it might actually contradict something I wrote earlier and I do not feel like I can currently handle any more progressive insights.)

I got this book second-hand and left it outside for 2 weeks because it was formerly owned by somebody smoking the heaviest type of tobacco. Awful stench! Hello ex-book reader, fellow addict, hope the book helped you. 🙂

Earlier in the last 1,5 year I did a post on John Bradshaw and shame and guilt and gosh I disliked him. In his vids he preaches and I feel little acceptance and a lot of shaming going on. Still, what he says and writes is very interesting. Still, my not so humble opinion is that he has not done the last bit of the processing or healing of the issues because in the vids he still meets me as shaming.

Well, the above was written a week ago. Since then I have been paying attention to the shaming that goes on at my work. It is funny in a very sad way to notice that every ‘instruction’ we receive from our boss includes shaming. 😦 Not sure what to do with it. Some days I feel like I need to log it and think about it, other days I fear that logging would make me hang on to the issue. On the other hand: I would like to speak with her about this, some day and she will make minced meat of me (that would be a Dutch saying translated to English) if I do not show examples.

The other day, in a meeting, she told me that the colleagues who were not present dislike the fact that I speak with them. It felt weird, it felt like being lied to. I told her I would take it up with them. She looked a bit weird then, I could not place it. I was a little surprised because the girls and I have a lot of fun and this feels genuine. The next day my boss told the collegues what she had said to me. The collegues immediately came running to me to inform me that the have NEVER told her that or did anything to give her such an impression and that they appreciate the liveliness I bring. I believe them. It feels true, what else can I go by? So next when my boss, again, tells me to shut up because I ‘irritate the girls’ I informed her that ‘the girls’ had told me that they appreciate me and my ‘chatter’ and that they assured me that they never said anything to her about this. Boss was FURIOUS and said she would take it up with them because she did not like to be called a liar by them. I was a little detached, I was detached big time so the only thing I thought was ‘Well, maybe you should not say these things then.’ And continued working, did not give it another thought untill my male colleague cracked up after the boss left and said: “My god, DO YOU EVER LEARN?!!! You just called her a liar in her face with all of us here?!! No matter how right you are, she will get back at you.”

“Ooh yeah, ooh shit. Fuck! Hmmm, I just thought I would inform her of what I heard. Ooh shit, here I go again, this Don Quixote tendencies :-(.”

Yeah, in fact I did call her a liar in her face with others present :-(. Which is indeed, technically what I did. I guess what got to her is that I did not even show anger or irritation, I showed absolute surety might have upset her more. I don’t know, doesn’t matter. She did not get back at me. 2 Days later I got a new contract with the words “I can’t give you more hours yet but I can give you a raise.” Good enough for me. I’m not ready to go yet. I feel like I have not learned what I should learn. I need more organisation in my mind and it is time to do more complex stuff than I do. More time management of my/our production, more awareness. I find the fact that I only have to follow orders VERY luxurious. After having been the prime source of initiative in any job and in my own company for years, only following orders is so, so, so very, very comforting. Also: initiative is dead, or possibly resting. I think it is hibernating somewhere in the ground somewhere. It will come back to me, it needs rest. 🙂

Another wisdom on the work floor: One of my colleagues said the other day ‘I spent the whole Sunday afternoon crying because here I am, 44 and still at a lousy salary working for a boss I dislike.’ And I replied: “Yeah, sometimes life is like that. 😦 That is what it is. :-(” Which are actually his own exact words to me when I said something like that a few months ago. He nodded and I continued “I spend the whole weekend trying to figure out what I want from life. NOTHING!! Came up.” (Well, yes the chips and sex but I wasn’t going to say that, and that was the weekend before the other so technically I did not lie.) And he replied: “Well, maybe that is it then?” Which, true or not true, was a tremendous eye-opener.

Sometimes, when words are spoken my energy moves with them and him saying this made me internally topple over into nothingness because suddenly I realised there was indeed NOTHING out there. Because of the toppling over I had to refind my balance in the center again. So this tremendous emptiness I experienced threw me back into myself. I’m guessing, thinking now of what my therapist ones said, hope I do him justice in translating it: “Life in itself has no purpose, we have to make our own purpose.” Which I still hope is not exactly true but the effect is that it made me look inside instead of outside. 🙂 Haven’t found shit but that is ok/ok-ish/very frustrating.

Not sure where this needs to head or should or whatever, but realising that maybe, maybe, maybe I am not a person with a tremendously interesting life and future is something that I need to accept. This ‘tomorrow I will be fantastic’ mode has kept me looking into the future, floating on a false hope and irreality, feeling all succesful when no reason can be found connected to the real me in the real life. It is an addict trait connected to the wanting to feel normal and being special. Not sure how it works today. It would be where I write this very mediocre blog and still, somehow, hope that someone, somewhere may see that it is actually grandiose. 😀 Yeah.

So, future? No idea. I’m thinking I stay with this job at least till (A. if you read this, hold on to yourself now) the husband of one of my best friends has died and she is at least sort of settled back into ‘normal’ life again. He has cancer in a very advanced state, very little body weight and life force left. It is difficult to see how his, I don’t know, life force? personality? consciousness? is disintegrating. Like his aura is getting vague like a badly taken photo and it, well, flickers (is that a word?) on and off like bad reception on TV when we still had an antenna. I have seen this before with the eight other people in my life who have had a long death-bed but I drank it away. Seeing it now for real is confronting. Brings back memories of my mother, and the others, but mostly of my mother’s death. Adults of average length weighing 40-50 kilo and the presence of death and decay. 😦 It is tough. With drinking this is one of my biggest regrets: that I drank during the years that my mother was ill and leading up to her death and after. Not that I was drunk when visiting her. Well, I was once. But I drank the reality and discomfort away, and with that I flushed away my senses and the awareness of what was going on. I am sorry mom. I am so sorry. I wish I could have done it differently.

I am happy that I quit. Every morning I make my bed and I set my mind for the day by realising that I am happy that I quit. No matter what, everything would be worse if I had not. Well, I am pretty sure I would not have been alive today if I had not quit. Sometimes that is not good for a few seconds, but most of the time it is. I have realised that ‘wanting to quit it all’ has, over the years, become a standard reply to adversary. Which, I guess, in itself is something I would now call ‘a misunderstanding of Life’. 🙂 Like so many of my standard reactions and well, addiction in itself.

I need: whaa, don’t want to realise it but I need to do my finances. Check up on what has come in over the last few months. Don’t want to.

I want: some more money to have some freedom in ‘small’ things like going to the sauna. But I also realise that I think… that my relation with money should improve and that I will have money issues until I start to take it seriously and not be in denial about it. This is a thing where addiction is still active in my life.

WWAWWLHD: she would ask help with this. If she dared. Brrr, can’t. I did put up signs with ‘WWAWWLHD’ all through the house to again and again make me realise that I can make good choices instead of ‘just’ go along with my (destructive) tendencies. It worked very well for a few days. Now I don’t see the signs anymore, the belong to the furniture (another Dutch saying). So I guess I need to set the egg-timer to remind me. What I think is really funny about the ‘What would a woman who loves herself do’ question, is that at first I thought it would make me eat more chocolate, watch more Netflix and go to bed deep in the night. While actually it makes me do the opposite AND enjoy that. 🙂

I take: some Schuessler salts to lift my breasts. Ghegheghe, it looks like it is working. Don’t want to take them too often because I think I’m starting to find out that the workings of the salts are actually pretty strong in me and I lose balance easily.

On sugar: still eating chocolate and dates. I try to quit over and over again and it does not work so I let it be. Let’s see how this develops. There is one thing which has changed while sobering up: I can not force anything anymore. It is like all my decision power is stuck in ‘not drinking’ while actually…. I don’t really think I need that because not drinking has been, no guarantees, but it has been easy for me. Or maybe I can imagine I do not need it because I did pour everything I had in that decision. 🙂 Dunno. Is there anybody who recognises this or has something similar?

Ooh, thought on my life and future I want to note down. I think my inner most problems are actually my many abilities and my one ability to streamline them. My life force is shattered and not focussed. Working helps but I guess that at this moment I am ready for something more. More challenge. I do have doubts because I do not feel safe with my boss. I feel she likes to set me up for failure. Hmmm, we’re going to do a review any of these days so I’ll bring that up. I have no intention of hiding. But haha, this time I should take time to verb my thoughts better than the last time.

Aaah! The other day, my boss and I were speaking about my plans for Kings day (BIG, very festive national holiday): I told here I wanted to set up a stall and sell ‘niets is het nieuwe iets’ which translates into: ‘nothing is the new something’ and sell literally nothing. Small nothing for 1 Euro, medium nothing for 2,50, large nothing for 5 Euro’s and a sample nothing for 50 cents. I have a whole philosophy behind that which include terms like decluttering, tax- and worry free and a whole lot more. I love sales talks and I am actually very good at making up entertaining nonsense on the spot. Which is part of the flea market sales of Kings day. My boss looked at my like ‘You are every bit as crazy as I thought you were.’ and said: “If you make more than 10 Euro’s with that….” And I added: “You will double it?!” She grinned and said: “How do I know you speak the truth?”
“Well, you know me by now. I can not lie.”
“I’m thinking you are starting to learn that when it comes to speaking with me.” (which is actually an attempt I made some day to protect a colleague so yes, well, she knew I knew she knew I was lying so it was not actually lying…. :-D)
And I, in all my enthusiasm replied: “Ooh! Yeah! That is true! :-)” In a ‘glad you noticed my efforts way and continued: “I was thinking that would be good for me. Life skills, you know.”

Gheghegheghe…. She rolled her eyes. 🙂 Yeah, what can you say? I can’t lie, I can try, but give myself away when one asks if it is true. Ghegheghe, aaahrg… Life skills. I’m guessing she herself is so totally skilled in manipulating people who this guileless approach confuses her sometimes. I guess in that I do not take my job seriously. I do not want to have to plan, and set up a scheme and ‘when she says this I will say that’. I want to believe that this is a good thing but I am starting to doubt if it is not laziness or lack of focus disguised as guilelessness. Dunno, we will see.

‘Love’, sex, intimacy and loneliness are still big topics on my daily thoughts but nothing substantial is happening apart from that I sometimes, when I can, if I can, try to observe my presence in this and how I approach the subject. With vigour. 😀 Sigh.

Ok, wishing you a nice sober day/evening. Hope you are happy that you quit and if you are not: I found it very informative to check out what misconception of booze I have/had that is/was standing between me and sobriety/living clear/living. The misconception will show up when you can not be happy about it. It is possible that you think it is a real reason. That exactly is the trap. Alcohol is poison. Right at this moment I think: “I wish I was not so susceptible to is so I could phase out with a beer.” Which tells me that I am suddenly not happy that I quit and that my need to phase out is big. Alcohol was the tool by which I did so. So that what I think is my initial source of addiction ‘not really wanting to be here on this earth’ is showing up again. It normally does that when I feel pressure from the outside to do something I am scared of. Finances mostly. Finances to me are the absolute proof I am a failure. Maybe my fear of finances is not because of the finances but because of the failure feeling I associate with it. Ghegheghe, I check these kind of thoughts by tricking my mind into thinking that I rock! finances and yes, there it is: it are not the finances. If I would think I rock them there is no problem in picking up anything. So, it is the connection with failure. Hmmm… Don’t want to think more about this. End of the paragraph.

Again; nice day! 🙂

xx, Feeling