cycles of abuse

Although writing usually helps clarify my thoughts, sometimes it clouds me over with angst. I not only encounter complex issues that resist translation, I come into collision with my own perceptions. No matter how the words arrange themselves, they look back at me with trifling glances. The deeper I excavate, the less justice accorded to the lived experience. I tackle it in bits and pieces – save it to draft, then return to it another day. I find I can only devote so much time before I’m consumed with heartache and fatigue.

When we believe we are undeserving, we can involuntarily open ourselves to unsuitable company without understanding the damage it may cause. These unsuitable personalities have abilities to decode susceptibility and hoodwink others through false assurances. While being charming on the surface, they are volatile, combative, and disrespectful of boundaries. They maintain a persistent self referential attitude and suck away energy like vampires.

Abusive episodes operate within cycles and begin with measured doses of seductive sweetness, followed by days of increasing tension, then finally erupting into violent verbal and/or physical attacks. They’re called cycles because the sweetness, tension and acting out become a recurring pattern played over and over again like an endless loop cassette.

You come to a startling realization. What seems real is imaginary. You hold on tightly, only to discover it brings instability, desolation and untold stress. This kaleidoscope of emotional upheaval erodes the soul with unpredictable bouts of dissonance.

You let go. You move on. You grieve. You open up to others. You isolate yourself. You realize many are called but few confidants are chosen. In real time grief is too alien a subject. Society at large fails to acknowledge or comprehend it. There is an unspoken aversion to it. Online, writers convey their thoughts through a generic-sounding-scientific lens. Cold and sterile. Colorless depictions.

Grief is an inner work. I came to realize I needed God to give me a new viewfinder, for mine was passed broken and looking through it, I only grew more anxious and fearful, even when reading the Scriptures. It was when I was at dead end of myself with no sense of direction did Christ answer my prayer.

~ vincenzo ©

*parentheses mine

 

emotional healing

When you face the tears and ongoing agony of codependence, you value every insight that comes your way. You hang on to each word of wisdom as it speaks to you. Not just any words will do. You can identify which ones, by the intense need to return to them as steady reminders.

What follows are treasured excerpts from John Bradshaw’s book, “Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child”.

~ vincenzo ©

“Some of us may have difficulty trusting ourselves to meet our needs and therefore think we need someone else to meet them.

We have difficulty trusting others so we feel we have to be in control all the time.

We fail to detect body signals such as not being aware how tired we are.

We may feel we don’t belong anywhere or to anyone.

In social situations we may be invisible so no one notices us, yet not even be aware why we do this.

We may attempt to make ourselves indispensable to others to make sure they will not leave us.

We may have a great need to be touched or hugged that could make us vulnerable to bonding too soon, too deep with someone we don’t even know and who could even be harmful to us.

We may have an obsessive need to be valued and may have difficulty establishing boundaries for fear that others may not like those boundaries.

We may isolate ourselves out of fear that people might end up rejecting us or we might end up rejecting them.

Some of us are gullible and don’t see other people’s hidden agenda or else we see the hidden agenda but go along with it all the same.”

 

extroverted ideal

Throughout youth, many children seek to fix or “unbe” themselves. Their social role call them to adopt a highly charged, extroverted front — to cover their highly sensible, introverted nature. Regardless of their true temperament, they matter to others only to the extent they reflect the resilience and tough-mindedness of the high school jock or spirited cheerleader. ~ vincenzo ©

 

distorted mirrors

When you believe you are undeserving you open yourself to unsuitable company who hoodwink you through false assurances.
~ vincenzo ©

 

boring partners

Never settle for a partner who confuses résumés for poetry. ~ vincenzo ©

 

self-promotion

What makes this technological age disturbing is how those in power are deciding for us what we will watch, what we will listen to, what we will wear, what we will eat, what medicine to take and even what we will believe. It is a world stripped of values where only external attributes and financial status matter. This emphasis on personality and self-promotion have produced a vacuum in the center of the human soul.

~ vincenzo ©

 

on changing others

Whoever seeks to change anyone but himself, only adds to the misery he wishes to eliminate. ~ vincenzo ©

 

cognitive dissonance

I like the sound of the term “cognitive dissonance”. I feel sophisticated and deep when I say it. It is also something I am recently experiencing.

Part of my training as a volunteer counselor at church requires attending Bible studies. However, Bible study is hardly a good name. It is more often a monologue in which one dominant member expresses his or her opinions while everyone else sits passively silent. How many secretly tune out is another question.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the Bible is irrelevant. However, some Bible teachers seem to run on automatic pilot. They have a gift of presenting life superficially — low on soul searching or imagination. What I find equally disquieting is how anyone could be taking notes or nodding their heads in such a bleak context. Are they just pretending? Am I just crazy?

As usual, I am conflicted. I am forever questioning myself about issues that seem cut and dry to others. I tend to second guess myself whether I’m just being too hard while at the same time dreading the thought of another meeting.

I am also imagining what kind of dialogue I will have with the coordinator if or when I announce my resignation to her …rehearsing in my head line after line what we will be saying to each other.

Is faith about upholding the status quo? What does humility look like in such situations?

~ vincenzo ©

 

grace over repression

i began life emotionally bankrupt
though i didn’t know it at the time
some debilitating grip
as if once bitten
the serpent disappeared
nameless insecurities and doubts
slithering fears
they loomed large
and out of proportion
it seemed unfair
to wage war with the invisible
to be a victim
of my own emotions
it took time to understand
grace over repression
to see my re-parented child
unfolding, interacting and playing
yet I still have days
when my wounded self
overrides my hard-earned sobriety
© vincenzo

 

beyond superficial

One Toronto morning while strolling through a nearby drug store, I noticed this greeting card by artist Gary Larson. The caption read, “Wish I’d brought a magazine”. Through this fuddy-duddy* caricature, Larson injected a stinging indictment on religion. That pathetic figure loomed large in my mind and embossed itself into the wall of my personal art gallery ever since.

I came to a painful awareness I devoted much time to church and religious activities and yet something was amiss. On one side I see people who want to live a life of love without God.  On the other, I see a pseudo religious piety devoid of love.

Literary writers have described this insular effect as a superficial understanding about oneself, about others and about our true nature. We seem to make excuses and resist our true calling to journey inwardly or spiritually. We dread discovering what’s below the surface. However, to the extent we avoid this journey, we invite shallowness of personhood and the ultimate possibility of a broken-world experience.

~ vincenzo

* fuddy-duddy = old-fashioned person
Synonyms:
conservative, geezer, old fogy, old geezer, square