Life: A Camera

 

Sun Inside Us

 

Things To Remember...

 

You’re Not Wrong!

 

“You’re Not Wrong!”

Is that music to your ears? A soothing balm? Something you cannot trust or believe for yourself?

Abuse survivors often live under the judgment of always being wrong: in thought, in word, in deed, in appearance, in beliefs, in identity, in sexuality. You name it; you and I have probably been told we’re wrong, not right, about it.

We are disempowered and deceived into believing we need “fixing” of some sort.

Why is that? The answers can be complicated, unique, and varied. But, perhaps, here are some explanations to this “certainty” that we are wrong, never to be “right.”

An In Utero Job Description:

Well, there’s just nothing like going back to the start of it all.

Trace ALL the way back, before we even arrived on the planet!

And it’s not such an absurd premise to think along these lines. After all, how many expectant parents, preparing for their new arrival, project their hopes, dreams, plans, goals, and yes, jobs onto their unborn child? It may not be intentionally malevolent, but its impact, nonetheless, can be harmful and devastating.

Because, however overtly or subtly, we have a job description subscribed to us.

It could be that we need to fulfill the parent’s unrealized dream. It could be that we need to keep the parent from being lonely or depressed. It could be that we need to carry on the family name. It could be that we provide identity and purpose to the parent. It could be an actual job description that we work in the family business and financially support the parent(s) as the designated moneymaker.

Some examples of job descriptions and pressurized circumstances to rise to the occasion, from birth on, exist all to serve the parent.

Being Made Wrong:

What’s the purpose of being wrong here?

Being the child, just born, assigned this job or role is a set up for failure. There is no real winning here. For, inevitably, our life and performance will not match the parent’s vision of what that looks like in their own head.

We fail to fulfill a job description and a purpose we didn’t ask for, in that exacting specification. Nevertheless, we were still given that job to execute successfully. Therefore, our failure to do just that can better absolve the parent, the family belief system, and the necessary sense of responsibility these individuals have for their choices. The blame shifting begins, from their role, as adults, to us, as the children we are, no matter what age and stage we are, in the situation.

The child is the problem, not the adult.

And that’s easier and more comfortable for the adult to accept. The adult parent doesn’t need to address, face, change, and accept their own dysfunction, disorder, addiction, failure, weakness, or any harmful dynamic, if the child is the solely wrong party.

If the child, you are I, are wrong, then the adult, our family member, gets to be right.

Inability to Be Constantly Perfect:

Often, along with our in utero job description, lies the mandate of perfection. Perfection can translate to any number of associations and meanings. Perfection can equal such things as  safety, comfort, aesthetic image, success, and love.

We must look perfectly, speak perfectly, act perfectly, obey perfectly, respond perfectly, and meet needs and expectations perfectly to be considered “right.”

There is nothing shy of achieving those criteria that will do.

So, we can turn to addictions and eating disorders, as a way of executing this perfection, or consoling ourselves for not achieving it. We can punish ourselves through self-injury. We can get tunnel vision and become Machiavellian in our pursuits, doing “whatever it takes” to accomplish that perfection, including committing crimes and making choices that are not ones of personal integrity.

Image is prized over truth, certainly over human imperfection. That is not allowed.

For some of us, being imperfect is, as extreme as it sounds, punishable by death.

Being Made Wrong:

What purpose does this tactic of striving for unattainable perfection serve?

If we, as the children of this kind of parent, fail to reach and perpetually sustain perfection, we again, get to be designated as “the problem.”

How much more so if that parent is putting out a well-honed and false standard that keeps up those necessary appearances?

If the parent is highly achieving, with accolades, while the child gets all As and one B plus, the message is that it’s the child who is not measuring up, not the parent. The parent can achieve perfection. Therefore, really, how difficult is it for the offspring to do likewise?

The apple doesn’t fall from the tree, right?

It’s convenient for the adult parent, because the focus from others often goes to the source of imperfection, not to the good-looking, pulled-together adult instead.

If, indeed, the proverbial apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, it can, then, be reasoned that the kid, is the “one bad apple.”

“The problem child.” The “issue.” The “wrong” party.

Again, who is exalted and spared and who is punished and made responsible?

Who is right and who is wrong?

And who derives power from that determination?

Being right can feed the ego.

And if a person is dysregulated and dysfunctional, that ego-feeding can reach a desired sense of all-importance, with raising their child coming in at a DISTANT second.

Being Yourself:

“To thine own self be true.”

Act I, Scene III, “Hamlet,” by William Shakespeare

Nope. Forget about that!

There is no such thing as “thine own self.”

We, according to a certain parent, need to be someone else. Sometimes, it’s them, a little “mini-me” or an exact clone. Sometimes, it’s a particular archetype: the “good boy or girl,” the star athlete, “The Star,” in general.

Yes, indeed, many decades ago, some mothers tried to fashion their little girls after famous child star, Shirley Temple. How many two, three and four-years old had their hair set in curlers each night, while being shoved into dance classes against their will? All to become the next Shirley Temple.

Yeah, you get the picture. Maybe some of you have flashbacks from being forced to sing “On the Good Ship Lollipop.”

And although Shirley Temple now is long gone, child beauty pageants and kiddie talent shows, unfortunately, keep the star search alive and well. The promise of “getting discovered” lights up the eyes of many parents who desire to live vicariously through their children. Fame, wealth, attention, and luxurious perks are to be mined within the child who is just ripe for the picking.

With this emphasis on choosing “other” to make up for the child the parent already has, very little focus or positive association is given to the concept that this child is their own unique, wonderful being, with individuality and traits all their own.

Nope, that concept only classifies the child as wrong, defective, in need of changing, somehow.

Being Made Wrong:

What purpose does this tactic serve?

Again, it’s a game of who’s right and who’s wrong. Certain adults, certain parents can decide, with the utmost authority, that any choice a child makes that does not exactly align with their world view, is wrong, wrong, wrong.

And that includes the choice for the child to be their own separate person. How dare they? That’s the cry when the child defies the adult “who knows better.”

So, perhaps, the only way in the adult parent’s mind to be right is to make another person, their child, wrong. It’s ego-driven. Being “right” is more important to them than raising and loving their children. It may be deliberate or unconscious.

Nevertheless, the explanation that the dysfunctional adult needs, even in the context of relating to their own children, is that they are inherently and forever right. A child becoming fully who they are is betrayal, disobedience, evil intent, even. The adult personalizes it and makes it about them. They do this instead of recognizing that each child, including their child, is a separate human being. And that is not an aggressive declaration of war on the parent.

The adult will not, or cannot, see it as such.

You’re Not Wrong! You’re Right!

Maybe you have never heard that before. It’s not about a person being perfect, never making mistakes. We all do. But who you are is separate from what you do. You can have wrong actions; you can make mistakes. But who you are is NOT wrong. The individual, in all of your uniqueness, is not wrong. You are right. And your individuality is to be celebrated not condemned.

The next time you encounter the decree that who you are is wrong, consider the statement’s source.

And its agenda.

Copyright © 2022 by Sheryle Cruse

Not a Single Person

 

Let's Start the Day Off

 

It Changes Everything

 

It’s Intermittent: The Abuse Factor We Need to Address

 

A rollercoaster relationship. Up and down. Unstable. Insecure. Uneasy.

Ever been involved in one of these suckers? Are you in one now?

As an abuse survivor, I have had my fair share of unhealthy relationships, and, at the center of them all, was the intermittent, unreliable quality of good treatment versus toxic treatment. It didn’t announce itself with trumpets and obvious signals, and often, that’s what added more fuel to the blindsiding fire I felt seared by.

Sound familiar?

The rude awakening, whether executed by a blatant or a subtle method, can range be everything from a passive-aggressive dig we only catch twenty minutes after it’s been said, to the full-on physical slap, kick, or punch to our person, threatening our very lives.

But usually, the common denominator, no matter what method is chosen, are such questions we seem to ask ourselves, like…

Why can’t they always act loving, kind, and affectionate?

Why are their moods so unpredictable?

Why don’t the happy times last for long?

Based on my personal experience, in an attempt to answer those questions, here are a few of my theories.

They don’t love us; they only love what they get from us.

“Narcissistic supply” is a well-trotted out term used to describe how we are used and abused.

The person choosing to mistreat us often does not love us. They only love the supply, in a myriad of forms, we provide for them: emotional, financial, sexual, convenience, ego-driven supply, for example. Whatever it is that we represented to- and give to- them, they love that. They don’t go any further to recognize our individuality, our humanity, our needs, or our feelings.

We are an object, a means to an end, something to be used.

And they may have absolutely no clue, whatsoever, that they are viewing us as such. They may be completely convinced they love us, that this intermittent, unstable, using way of relating to us is, in fact, love.

Or, of course, they may fully be aware they do not love us and are using us for their own purposes.

A more constant and healthy solution? Our self-love needs to be consistent.

If we feel we are deficient in the love experiences within our lives, we will often put up with, and settle for, mistreatment, neglect, and all forms of abuse. We may operate from the principle of “well, something’s better than nothing.” Therefore, as long as we get an intermittent “I love you,” hug, gift, or met need, from time to time, we will endure the insult, the slap, the exploitation, or the prevalent misery.

“Well, something’s better than nothing.”

That’s music to the abuser’s ears, as they often employ their choice of intermittent behavior, be it good, or bad, loving, or cruel, unintentional, or deliberate.

As harsh, impossible, and unwelcomed as it may be to hear and apply this, we need to love ourselves so fully, unconditionally, and doggedly, that we raise the bar on what is considered acceptable and unacceptable, when presented in a love context.

Many of us have been groomed, from our families or origin, to accept abuse as love, all when we were helpless children. We were victims, who should have never experienced that. We should never have learned those lessons.

Now, as recovering (because it is a lifelong, unfolding, ongoing process) adults, we can choose to pour the same amount of focus, energy, effort, and passion into ourselves, as we have poured into our intermittent abuser. Therapy can help with that. Information and education about abuse can help with that. Deciding we are worth healthy, safe, and satisfying love can help with that.

And again, to relieve some of any potential perfectionistic pressure, accepting it is an ongoing, imperfect, and compassionate, self-compassionate process, at that, can help.

Choose to take that tiny baby step toward that help right now.

Another possible reason for an intermittent abuser’s mistreatment of us?

They have decided we are responsible for their happiness and fulfillment.

Talk about a no-win situation.

Yes, we were assigned a job, without our knowing it.

Many of us, have been employed like this since childhood. Whatever the case may be, however old we are, whatever stage of life we find ourselves in, the abuser has abdicated their responsibility to take charge of their own level of personal happiness and fulfillment. Here’s where some of the “walking on eggshells” feelings pop up for us, the “or else” mentality of performing to a certain level. We feel the pressure to entertain, to allow them to live vicariously through our lives, our successes, our dreams.

That is, if we are allowed to have our dreams, and not solely live out their unrealized or failed ones.

What’s that? You and I didn’t always want to become an attorney or a doctor, yet we find ourselves in law or medical school? Par for the course, because our abusive “so and so” wanted that dream but couldn’t get there. But now, through us, they see their golden “second chance.” And, hell, yes, they’re going to take it!

So, what, if we don’t want it for ourselves? A minor detail, because, after all, this realized dream, goal, this attainment of whatever is desired, is all that matters. Eye on the prize.

The abuser’s myopic perspective, therefore, becomes our vision.

Still no matter what we do, if we achieve this object or realization of happiness for the abuser, it doesn’t deliver. There will, inevitably, be something wrong, something imperfect, something unfulfilled, in some way.

Trying harder won’t solve things. But do we think we’ll get permission to ease up? Do we think we’ll be able to avoid having to pay for the rest of our lives? Not so fast.

We failed at our job description’s criteria. We didn’t achieve those much-desired results of our abuser.

Plus, an added fun feature. What if we did realize a goal or a dream that makes our abuser happy, only to encounter their jealousy of us for achieving it, instead of they, themselves generating those results? Ah, yes, the green-eyed monster. Now we are their villain, “rubbing it in” as we, according to our abuser, “flaunt” the success in front of them. They will make sure to punish us for that.

We chose to pursue none of this. Yet here we are…

We’re damned if we do; we’re damned if we don’t.

A more constant and healthy solution? Our self-acceptance needs to be consistent.

A lot of this is about choice, personal choice. Accepting, or rejecting, personal responsibility for one’s behaviors and actions is a matter of personal choice.

That includes the level of happiness and fulfillment.

And, unfairly so, it’s going to take extra hard work on our part to recognize and apply separating our self-acceptance, our sense of self, for that matter, from theirs, and their self-rejecting spirit.

You and I are going to need to fight, however secretly, personally, and valiantly, to find, create, and maintain anything that brings us joy, having nothing, whatsoever, to do with our intermittent abuser.

We cannot count of their satisfaction levels to be stable. They are, often, miserable people, refusing to address much their bigger issues like depression, addiction, or anxiety. That is their choice to make, unfortunately, a poor choice, at that.

But we need to constantly remind ourselves they- and their choices- and not us- and ours.

It is a constant, hard-fought, hard- won battle. But we are worth so much more than being absorbed by an unstable person, who, at best, is only capable of forcing us to create and execute a constantly moving target, unrealistic, and oppressive to achieve and maintain.

Our happiness and fulfillment, sad to say, will be more mercenary for us. It will exist, spiting the intermittent abuser’s desperate and cruel world view.

It will be an act of defiance on our part, to be and remain ourselves in these hostile surroundings.

Further expounding on yet another possible reason for an intermittent abuser’s mistreatment of us?

They choose not to deal with their own issues; we are a much more convenient scapegoat for their problems.

This extends beyond the happiness issue we just dealt with. This speaks to any and every emotion, experience, feeling, dream, expectation, frustration, or circumstance.

Well, there’s nothing like an abuser being thorough, huh?

As mentioned before, many times, our intermittent abuser refuses to deal with the deeper, more complex issues, that are beyond our scope of solving. Addiction, abuse, trauma, depression, anxiety, and any kind of mental illness struggle are included in that. This is the realm of professional treatment. The answer does not reside with us simply “trying harder.”

But our intermittent abuser insists THAT IS the answer. And, of course, when we fail to solve things for them, we are scapegoated as the villain, the bane of their existence, the reason for their lot in life.

Again, the abuser’s thorough, covering it all, huh?

A more constant and healthy solution? Our self-regulation needs to be consistent.

The intermittent abuser, unfortunately, has rejected personal responsibility for their own healthy self-regulation.

Therefore, once again, we need to be mercenary about addressing and maintaining ours.

It can be difficult to separate our self-regulation issues from that of our abusers, especially as we try to survive their inability and unwillingness to self-regulate in the first place. We cannot change them, fix them, help them, save them. Brutal, especially if we love them.

Nevertheless, we must love ourselves, accept ourselves, and take responsibility for our own self-regulation.

Are we depressed? Anxious? Struggling with our own mental health? Again, what are we doing about our own lives and their corresponding issues?

Are we an addict, even if that addiction is to our abuser? How are we dealing with the answer to that question?

Are we only “okay” if and when they are “okay?”

Part of our healing involves regulating ourselves, with or without the cooperation and permission of our abuser.

And here’s a secret: we will never get either from them.

They are not hard-wired to allow for our separation from them, or our healing from them. It serves their best interest if we operate from a place of disease, dysfunction, low energy, and confusion. Clarity can give peace, and, with that peace, the ability to make better choices. Intermittent abusers don’t want that, typically, for us.

They want us desperately making unhealthy and unsafe, destabilizing choices, because, that way, they can continue to have the upper hand.

And that is a must for abusers. They must be all-powerful, while we remain power-less.

Discerning Between the Two:

The intermittent abuse and abuser we experience, therefore, can often require a shift in focus. We need to change the emphasis from them, to us, instead. We must be focus number one.

Many of us have never been allowed that. We have been at the mercy of reacting to the abuse and the abuser. Intermittent behaviors, be they desired or hated, have kept us off-kilter.

Again, it comes down to separation. The intermittent factor we have experienced demands we examine, discern, and separate.

Is what and who we encounter dependable? Is this person, relationship, experience, word, or deed dependable? Healthy? Safe? Loving? Trustworthy?

Or are there extreme, destabilizing conditions which confuse and torment us? What are they? Name them!

Do you and I feel loved… consistently or conditionally?

Yes, there are changes and fluctuations to life, moods, and experiences, but there should not be the widely swinging gamut of personal treatment from one human being to another. That is about an unhealthy abusive pattern at work, not the regular changing vicissitudes of life.

Mistreatment is NEVER normal. Abuse is never normal.

Love is… and always should be the norm. And it should not hurt us to our core or threaten our lives.

We deserve lives that are consistently ours. No matter what the intermittent abuser thinks about that, we still deserve that consistent stability.

Let’s keep working and living towards that reality.

Copyright © 2022 by Sheryle Cruse

Be Gentle With Yourself...

 

Dear Scapegoat…

 

Scripture references it. Long before any talk of Narcissism, Narcissistic abuse, “the scapegoat,” or “the black sheep” within the abuse context, there was the practice of employing a goat as the means to dealing with life issues, and more harshly, life sins.

Yes, Leviticus lays it all out there. And, as I checked out Scripture, I noticed how relevant this ancient practice translates relevantly for the scapegoats of abuse and unhealthy dysfunction. Can you see yourself here, Dear Scapegoat?

First, There is the Necessity of “Roles…”

“Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for the LORD and the other lot for the scapegoat.”
Leviticus 16:8

Scapegoats, a/k/a, The Black Sheep, Troublemakers, Truth Tellers, The Problem Child, The Rebel.

Have you ever been called one of these names? Has a parent or a family member ever described you in one of these terms? A safe bet of an answer is probably, yes. That has been the role assigned to you. And if there is abuse, addiction, behavioral dysfunction, and trauma? You better believe you were assigned this role of blame and shame.

Never mind that most, if not all, of the issues going on have nothing to do with you. Intergenerational abuse and addiction, for example, have often been firmly in place, entrenched into a family system, so much so, that, it’s now unconscious. No one may be aware and deliberate about the labelling that is being subscribed to us. It's more insidious than that.

Nevertheless, is there is a raging addict or an abuser within the family? Instead of tackling the reality surrounding that person, it’s easier, safer, and preferable, many times to blame “elsewhere,” meaning, at us.

Dear Scapegoat, you were chosen for this impossible role. You had no say in the matter. It’s not your fault.

Next, The Goat’s “Lot in Life…”

“But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make atonement upon it, and to let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness.”
Leviticus 16:10

Scapegoats are often safer targets and explanations of problems. It’s the preferred method to identifying, changing, discussing, and treating the harmful behaviors running rampant in a disordered family system.

Nope, don’t stop drinking booze and using drugs. Nope, don’t get the entire family into thorough trauma therapy. Nope, don’t financially cut off the person bankrupting other family members. Nope, don’t press charges and file a restraining order against the person beating someone with their fists.

Nope don’t do any of that. Make, instead, someone else the sole cause, avoiding any talk of the cumulative effects of an unhealthy dynamic, infecting the entire family.

Reducing a person down to a role, especially if the motive is to blame, shame, and indict that person as the source of all that is, or will ever be, wrong with the family’s life and circumstances, causes more pain. It does nothing to heal the real problem.

Dear Scapegoat, you are NOT the problem. You are evidence that the family around you is sick, and that they are more interested in making you more unwell, than possessing healing for themselves.

“Washing One’s Hands Of” Equals “All Better Now?”

“And he who released the goat as the scapegoat shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp.”
Leviticus 16:26

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

Scapegoats can be the living embodiment of that statement. Think about it. Did you speak up, out, or against your family? Did you see something going on, that you thought was egregiously wrong? Did you call it out? Did you get punished for doing so? Are you still punished, in some way, to this day?

If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, it’s probably confirmation of your scapegoat status.

The collective family unit, remember, when it’s disordered, often is NOT interested in dealing with the real problem when it comes to dysfunction, addiction, or abuse. Deflect, deflect, deflect! The family wants the easy remedy of blaming another (you), and then, casting out that person (you) from their sight.

Poof!

Problem solved! They got “rid” of it, by getting rid of you.

You probably didn’t see ANY of that coming, as, after years, or even decades, you thought you were helping by addressing the issue that needed attention. You thought the family would want to stop hurting. You thought that they loved you, would be able and willing to listen to your cry for help. You found out the hard way: “no” was their answer.

You also found out the hard way: you were expendable, and they felt they were legitimately entitled to rid you from the family camp. Once that was done, now the family was restored and at peace.

See? You really WERE the problem all along!

Dear Scapegoat, are you experiencing the damage from any of these harmful lies?

It’s by design.

Your recognition of noticing disease when family insisted on health, your recognition of misery when family insisted on happiness, your recognition of danger, when family insisted on safety, all was too close for comfort in their eyes. Now, you, the Scapegoat, were seen as THREAT!

Yes, in capital letters: THREAT!!!

And that threat, known as you, had to be dealt with.

Maybe they saw it as much-deserved punishment; maybe they saw it as “damage control.” Regardless, the resulting action was the same. You had to go so they could be okay and stay the same. You were the approved-of sacrifice. That was your only value to your family.

Harsh, I know.

It is personal, while, somehow, at the same time, it is also “nothing personal.” “Family” doesn’t think that much about you or toward you.

That’s what the scapegoat is for, after all. Not lovingly or thoughtfully considered.

Congrats on being chosen.

Subscribing Blame:

“Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.”

Leviticus 16:21-22

Exile.

Such a comforting word, isn’t it? Makes you think of hot cocoa and fluffy blankets.

Scapegoats are sent to the wilderness of some sort. Perhaps, it is an actual wilderness: wild animals, a cold ground, no roof over your head, being literally homeless.

Perhaps, the wilderness is more subtle than that. The frosty reaction of family who treated you as persona non grata. The tension. The sibling rivalry. The “friendly ribbing.” Exile can take any number of forms. But a consistent theme appears to be you, the scapegoat, are “out,” while we, the family, are “in,” and inclusive of one another.

Therefore, you, as the scapegoat, have probably learned the harsh reality that you will never fit in to the family structure. You can be there for holidays, gatherings, one-on-one events, but you won’t be accepted. And you certainly will never be viewed as valid by the abusive individuals within that family system.

Nope. Forget it. It has been decided.

Painful. And it many times prompts the scapegoat to leave. Geographical exile can be the final step, after, perhaps, years of trying to make things work. Years of pleading, negotiating, trying to please and perform, and speaking up about the wrongdoing often end with the final realization: “It will never change, at least where I am concerned. I have to go.”

Dear Scapegoat, please don’t blame yourself for this exile. You had no choice. You tried. It was rigged against you. If your family was healthy, loving, and functional, you wouldn’t entertain leaving. No one really feels they need to escape healthy, loving situations. They take refuge in them instead.

There was no such refuge for you. You are not to blame for your exile.

Kill the Hope, Not the Scapegoat.

“Toxic Hope” is at the center of much of your pain. The hope keeps you hanging on, staying with a harmful situation. The hope keeps you waiting, trying, blaming yourself, and staying trapped. You keep hoping for change, don’t you? You keep hoping it will “get better.”

It won’t.

Dear Scapegoat, you need to be the one to make the shift in thinking. No one else in your disordered situation is not stepping up. You need to shift from thinking that the “killing of the scapegoat/problem” (you) that was decided upon by others, will give way, instead, to the killing of the destructive, toxic hope that purports you just “hang in there until.”

Until what, though?

The unhealthy situation at work claims a life? Your life?

The thing that, indeed, can kill this toxic hope could be the life-threatening wakeup call. (Spoiler alert: mine was my cancer diagnosis years ago).

Look at the undeniable proof, as it is, right now. Don’t wait for things to get worse. Don’t excuse it away. Don’t minimize it. Don’t wait for something that will not happen. The “promise” at the end of the waiting rainbow is a lie. And it can kill.

It can.

With as much passion and commitment as the harmful individuals had in designating you as scapegoat and threatening your existence, you, Dear Scapegoat, now need to apply that same amount of force to embracing the comfort-less radical acceptance.

Concerning the bleakness of your experience, role, function in this scapegoat dynamic, it is hopeless.

It will not change.

You, Dear Scapegoat, need to be your own change agent. You need to change your life.

The Scapegoat in Us Stopped Being an Animal and Starts Being a Valuable Being…

Beginning to recognize your worth, you are now poised to fully be the incredible person you have been all along. You are not a defective animal.

Dear Scapegoat, you have learned, are learning, and will learn in the future that, in the name of self-preservation, you need to separate from the unhealthy dynamic. “Changing your life” translates into such things as relocation, getting therapy, cutting off contact completely with harmful relationships, working on building your own self-esteem, assessing, talking about, and reframing how the unfair role you were forced into has affected you.

So, yes, “change your life.”

It means learning how to be a healthy person. (And, yes, we all need help with that).

You, dear Scapegoat, have extra challenges here; there’s no sugarcoating it.

But while you have these extra challenges, I want you to know, remember, and remind yourself OFTEN just how incredible you are! You survived harrowing, life-threatening and life-altering circumstances. You withstood enormous pressure, oppression, and punishment. You saw and called out things that no one else dared to or could see. Harmful, sick, abusive, dangerous things.

And how many of these things did you witness and speak up about when you were a mere child, or powerless in any other way?

YOU did that, dear Scapegoat.

You.

Therefore, please take it from a fellow scapegoat, themselves, you have the right and the permission to heal, thrive, and rest.

I pray you do you just that for the rest of your life. You deserve it!

Copyright © 2022 by Sheryle Cruse

Anonymous, For Most of History...

 

Change Back or Never mind in Recovery?"

 

“Change Back” or Never mind in Recovery?” confronts the challenge of toxic people being threatened by the healing process we live out. | elephant journal

Perspective

 

In high school art class, I was taught the definition of perspective:

“Two seemingly parallel lines meet at a vanishing point on the horizon.”

And, to get a more tactile lesson in that definition, my art teacher had us students draw our high school hallway, capturing that perspective.

So, there we were, a bunch of ninth and tenth graders, perched at various points of the hallway, our 18 X 24- inch sheets of paper taped to gigantic drawing boards that could be used to bludgeon someone.

And, from there, with our pencils and rulers, we endeavored to capture that illusive perspective line. No easy feat. I learned an art class lesson very early; draw LIGHTLY. It was hard to thoroughly obliterate a mistake of a dark line, even with the thickest of pink gum erasers.

Furthermore, the challenge of capturing perspective’s line, on the first attempt, was usually incorrect, meaning, what was supposed to resemble the flow of a long hallway, quickly became the row of lockers colliding into the opposite wall.

Two seemingly parallels lines meeting at a vanishing point on the horizon?

Hardly.

It was more like you’re never going to be able to open your locker again.

For the few weeks we students were doing our artsy sit-in, probably, while being fire/safety hazards. And, I have found myself learning a few lessons, beyond the drawing of a hallway, ever since.

The Seemingly Never-ending Row of Lockers:

They seemed to stretch for miles.

With my trusty-dusty ruler, I had to carve out several of these sliced buggers while, again, making sure that they, somehow, met at a vanishing point on the infernal horizon. These drawn slivers of locker had to be spaced accurately. You couldn’t just have a three-inch block of locker next to a two- millimeter slice. They had to TAPER!

TAPER!

As I was lightly drawing with my ruler and pencil, I kept thinking about the school lockers. How many instances of bullying, getting shoved into them and getting sexually harassed near them have occurred, since the dawn of high school time? I know I experienced a little of my own hashtag Me Too back in the day.

As I was sitting in the exact same spot on the hallway floor, day after day, I started realizing how much lockers were a metaphor for life.

Each locker was a contained space. Each locker held something: unique, personal expressions of its master. An athletic calendar of upcoming events, a photo of a boyfriend or girlfriend tacked on the inside of the door, books, lettermen’s jackets, gym clothes, maybe an unwieldly instrument like a trombone for band practice. Each locker was a representation of a life, positioned next to another locker, representing another life.

And so on, and so on…

But, as I was vexed with the task of drawing locker slice, after locker slice, it also occurred to me how much lockers represent something more universal and philosophical.

Uncertainty? Monotony? Tediousness?

Life going on, regardless? Yay.

Who, in their adolescent mind, really thinks about boredom, the disappointment, the loss, beyond that of high school experiences? It can be further challenging as the “adults” force feed teenagers glimmering promises of pristine futures, limitless achievements, happily ever after, perhaps?

I know, I know, I know. You can’t break it to ‘em just what life actually is. Each person needs to find out for himself/herself.

These lockers just captivated my attention, way back when. If you focus on something for long periods of time, other thoughts show up.

And, no matter what age or stage we find ourselves in, past high school, there is still that row of clustered sliver blocks, lockers, representing us, veering toward some point, which, one can argue, is our mortality.

Decorate your locker with that!

The Floor:

You know the scene in the 1991 film, “Terminator 2?” There’s just endless road, lurching forward, ominously predicting how cyborgs were going to kill all of humanity? Well, that’s how I viewed the hallway floor as I went about my art project back in the day. It’s was smooth, polished green, and it seemed to keep going, always with the threat of tripping you up.

It appeared to be more menacing than the lineup of endless lockers. After all, there was no personalization here. To quote the band, REM’s lyric, just “three miles of bad road.”

Fantastic. Higher education.

I couldn’t quite get a handle on the hallway floor, this buffed, jade-green surface, for which many a times, I’d tripped and fallen, splat, onto it. Being uncoordinated didn’t help; slippery Minnesota winters, trudging in pools of melted ice further also created obstacle courses, en route to the lockers and classrooms.

But, overall, I suppose what got my attention was how the floor represented the path, life’s path. It just stretched before us, yes, tripping us up from time to time. There would be falls; there would be injuries. Graduating from high school would not- and could not change that.

So, hit the ground running, hit the polished hallway floor running, hit whatever pathway we encounter running, sooner or later, well, life happens.

Breast cancer, for me personally, was just one bit of evidence to support that theory. Although, yes, I was always uneasy with my breasts, no one ever told me, as a young person, that this experience would be part of my hallway floor, my path, the ongoing stretch of life set before me.

Sometimes, disease, illness, loss and death are the floors we must walk on.

Exit Sign:

As that high school student, drawing the hallway, my vantage point had an Exit sign within my sight line. Nothing extraordinary about it. You’ve seen one Exit Sign, you’ve seen them all.

It was positioned to my left, so, I proceeded to draw it in the top left corner of my paper. A simple, slightly rectangular box, with “Exit” written in it. Not much to write home about.

I thought my little sign was adorable. It made a statement. And it wasn’t just, “Go! Get out of here!”

No, rather, it was, “This is the way out.” Simple, less violent, no teenage stampeding, crushing bodies trying to escape the hell of high school.

I was enduring high school. Most of us do. It’s a time fraught with angst, bullying, rejection, awkwardness and lonely insecurity. So, naturally, we’d probably do anything we could to escape that.

All things are subject to change. It’s a universal truth, Inevitably, life does change, some way, somehow. Signposts, signaling an Exit here or there, prompt us to acknowledge and remember we will move on a have different experiences.

For me, personally, high school would end and an era of eating disorders, in their full expression, would begin throughout college into my young adulthood. And then other transitions arrived: marriage, my writing career, loss of one parent, caregiving to another… and cancer.

No one could prep me with a big enough Exit Sign for THAT one.

Yet, here I am, supposedly, in Survivorship mode, navigating the uncertain reality of what the ultimate Exit may mean. Yes, I think about how I once so innocently drew that little sign on the top left side of my paper, never entertaining how much thought I’d give it later.

But eventually, you and I do give our personal Exit Signs a lot of thought, don’t we? Something ends, something “phases out.”

And we need to start over again.

Vanishing Point on the Horizon:

Back during that high school art project, as we sat at the end of the long hallway, there was the destination apex, where, supposedly, our two seemingly, parallel lines met at a vanishing point on the horizon.

When it came to the literal high school hallway I drew, that was represented by a large window at the end of the smoothly polished jade-green floor.

A window- well, there’s a metaphor, huh? Let’s look outside. What’s beyond it? What does the world look like, from here?

The trick, in drawing the beast, was that, on sunny mornings, blinding sunlight would stream through. You had to be careful, looking directly at it. No one here was a wise Native American elder, practicing the ritual of staring at the sun until his/her retinas burned out, while simultaneously, achieving an enlightened vision.

Hardly. Remember, we’re a bunch of teenagers. One needs to lower that expectation a bit.

Still, as I averted my eyes, trying to capture the window, noting how the entire end of the hallway was Madonna’s white-hot set in the “Lucky Star” video, I couldn’t avoid one simple truth:

There is more.

Perspective.

We don’t always see everything when we think we should see it. That, I guess, is what hindsight is for. When you and I are finally mature, wise, compassionate enough to handle the deeper truth in life, then, the vision revelation often comes…

“Oh, so that’s what that was.”

If we try to force things, before we’re ready, we can burn ourselves out. Our retinas may be intact, but something else can be destroyed, if not seriously damaged.

We’re not ready for “it” yet.

Hopefully, we will be someday. But today- now- is not that day.

And, until we are, we need to keep learning the lessons our spirits were assigned, our cosmic homework.

We don’t get finished, actualized, enlightened, all, in one fell swoop. It’s a series of smaller vanishing points on the horizon, smaller, “Oh, so that’s what that was” revelations.

One after the other.

“Draw what you see, not what you know:”

This quote was uttered daily by my high school art teacher and it sticks with me, to this day.

In the drawing context, the point she was trying to hammer home with us was to not get ahead of ourselves. Yes, we may know there’s an ear or a flower in the still life’s vase, but are we actively experiencing drawing the shape and the line of what is before us?

No, we, instead, want to go full steam ahead and draw what we believe is that ear or flower. We’re not in the moment, experiencing it with our pencil. We are assuming instead. Assumption rarely leads to great art.

Going beyond art class, my teacher’s wisdom is the gentle reminder to experience what I’m going through, not make assumptions about what I may or may not encounter. I have yet to master this skill; I can be a bit of a control freak, wanting answers.

Cancer was a doozy for me, therefore, in that department. I don’t know, I REALLY don’t know, what the future will look like. Sometimes, I’m uncertain about my present.

And the past? Well, I’ve had to face it and challenge myself with what truly happened. That’s more painful than just assuming the tale I’d like to believe.

So, yes, I’m currently in a state of challenging the past, present and the future. Although I’d like the tidy, fairytale, “happily ever after,” I have to face and live “what IS.”

I need to draw WHAT I SEE, AND NOT WHAT I KNOW.

And, the irony in doing so is this: I discover, learn and know more from practicing the “what IS.” Truth over story.

Eventually, when you and I face what we see, we, inevitably, stumble upon something. Some personal revelation. Some lesson.

I’ve read some affirmation statements, encouraging us to rejoice, to make the best of things when we find ourselves stuck in a hallway, known as our life circumstances.

Don’t worry. Soon, a door will open and ta-dah. Chin up. That kind of thing.

I don’t know how realistic that advice is. Some hallways are quite brutal. Waiting is the equivalent to agony.

Perspective: “two seemingly parallel lines meet at a vanishing point on the horizon:”

Not all of us draw our high school hallways, trying to get the accurate look of 3-D dimensions from lockers, doors and floors.

But ALL of us can achieve perspective. What do the issues, events, people and places mean to us?

What vanishes from prominence? What emerges as predominant?

No two perspectives are exactly alike. They are fingerprints; they are snowflakes.

A challenge, perhaps, is to recognize that, to find meaning from it. To face what intersects, what disappears and what remains visible.

Perspective. More than just an artistic term.

Copyright © 2022 by Sheryle Cruse