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jerica
USA
94 Posts |
 Posted - 02/28/2010 : 11:20:16
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I was talking to my mom (she's 76 now) and my niece (13) at my apartment yesterday about various stuff like feeling good, being sick, thoughts and religion etc.
I asked my mother and my niece, when they feel GOOD, do they worry that it will end or won't last or feel guilty for feeling good or well. My mom and niece said no, they don't. My niece said she doesn't think about the future, just the here and now. My mom was saying how she doesn't feel guilty for feeling good etc.
Then we talked about religion a bit because as a child my mother DID tell me that sick people and poor people are "closer to God." That God is jealous and wants you all to himself, how he doesn't want you thinking about anything but him and so on. (My mom had been a nun in her teens and 20's.)
So NOW it's like she is turning around and saying to me, "I didn't teach you to feel guilty, I didn't teach you that God needed you to be sick etc." I feel so smacked in the face!! It's like she is turning her whole story around, she's changing her mind and saying it all never happened that way.
I have spent my LIFE thinking that to be acceptable to God and to get to Heaven we needed to be punished, suffering, offering our pain to God, sacrificing, practically asking to me struck down so we can glorify him in our weakness. So I can get to heaven. NOW I'm being told no, God loves you and never ever would make you ill.
I feel like, "What planet am I ON???" That causes a rage because I have been DUPED. I am so pissed I can't see straight. I have been destroying myself, robbing myself of any moment of pleasure or peace because somewhere inside me I am convinced that if you feel good, experience pleasure, or are happy in this life, you are gonna be PUNISHED BEYOND BELIEF in the next. That you pay for every moment of happiness. No breath is clear and free, no moment the mind is at rest, not one time where you are without pain. You must always be thinking about being in pain when you're not, causing pain when you 're not in pain, wishing or hoping or praying for punishment to atone for being alive in the first place.
Sorry to ramble but I can't stand it anymore. It's MY life. Why do I never ever feel like this is MINE and I don't have to play by these crazy imposed rules? I want to feel good!
Then I talked to my mom and told her how when I am sick and feeling bad it does NOT bring me closer to God, it takes me away from him. I have lost so much faith in the past 3 years, it's like a 180. I was so religious before and now I really don't even think there is a God because he never helped me or healed me. So mom says, he doesn't heal you because you lack faith. Again, it's MY fault. So much pressure to move heaven and earth, no?
Thanks for listening to my rant if you read this far. ANyone else have weird religious beliefs?? |
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catspine
USA
239 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2010 : 11:48:15
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Jerica
You can only have faith in what you really believe in.
So your faith in God is probably still there and strong . it is what you heard that you don't trust anymore. |
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jerica
USA
94 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2010 : 11:57:32
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| I want to believe in a loving God but the God my mom and religion told me about is all about punishment. My dad was like that too, always punishing us. No wonder I'm so sick all the time. I'm trying to earn love from God and from dad etc. Well that's one issue anyway. When I feel sick it feels like it's somehow justified. Like I'm so awful it's just. When I feel good I feel like I don't deserve it. |
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winnieboo
USA
269 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2010 : 18:00:09
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Hi J, The only person who can heal you is you. Not God, not your Mom, not a doc, not any of us. You have to take control of the storm going on inside of yourself. You have to take control of your pain.
It's a rational decision: "I am done with this pain thing. I have (10 pages, 10 years, 10,000 medical tests etc.) of evidence and proof that I am young and strong and healthy. I'm talking my life back. I'm going to focus on: (you fill in the blank--being a great mom, being a great friend, wife, daughter, employee, whatever.) I am not going to allow myself to focus on the pain. No more doctor visits unless I know (with the help of my therapist, husband, trusted confidente) that I am pretty certain that my NEW symptoms are serious and/or possibly sheerly physical. You will still visit doctors, but not for the old symptoms. No more tests. You have had them all.
If you want to go down the TMS route, you have to commit 100 percent. Doubt will re-enter your mind along the way, and that's why many of us relapse. But, by that first lapse, you will have some improvement under your belt from your TMS work, and you'll have to stay strong enough to remember that you improved and had some good days because then, you were in control. You will show up for yourself. You will tell yourself then that you'll get the control back soon.
I'm feeling bad for all you have been through. It is difficult and familiar. I relate. I had the very Catholic family and a treacherous childhood. Much deprivation in every way, yet confusing because the parents were physically there, always verbalizing how much they loved me. It took me 30 years, but I now get that they did. They were flawed and that wasn't great for me, but it's over. Listen, I didn't speak to my mom for several years, and I moved across the country from her 20 years ago. It was all too hot. Compounding familial issues is the Catholicism with all its guilt and the "offering it up" and the stuffing of feelings. It plays into the intense conflict we carry today.
But at some point, you have to discipline yourself to contain your pain and your emotions, at least around your family, your kids and the general public. Especially the kids! I WISH I had possessed more insight when my kids were little. They are fine and strong today, but they have their issues, too. I was much more "uncontained" about my s--t when they were young than I am today. While I never complained in front of them or to them, they sponge up everything, every conversation you have w/hubby, w/your mom, on the phone. And if you're seething with anger about other things, your loved ones will bear the brunt. Say no more. You have to clear your stuff up for your family. You have to decide "no more pain," and "find a way out of this anxiety" for the fam. Because love is your life. Your family and friends will keep you alive, make your life fun and keep your clock ticking.
You're right, no one wants to hear our drama, and you know what? Don't let them be privy to it. Be your own PR person. If you were representing yourself for a million dollar contract, what would you say about yourself? Do that everyday. For one thing, everyone has their own issues. What we don't realize is that our complaints push other people's buttons. Every one is bearing their own cross, as the Catholics will say. And everyone is human. How much more can are people capable of taking or listening to? This is what we have to understand.
My husband listens to me sometimes with an open heart. Other times, (like today) he's sitting with a beer watching the hockey game, typing a message to a client on his laptop, etc. (in other words, he's not listening at all!). People are only capable of so much. He loves me. Aren't I lucky? Yeah. He takes me with all this garbage, all my past hurts and baggage and all my current conflicts and struggles (I guess he thinks I'm cute, otherwise, why would he? LOL). So, I'm thankful for that. Thankful is good. The Buddists know that. They teach that gratitude brings some peace into your universe.
So, you absolutely must use a journal or your therapy sessions as the receptacle for what is eating you. Don't let it pollute your own garden.
Life will improve with just that.
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Edited by - winnieboo on 02/28/2010 19:11:30 |
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jerica
USA
94 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2010 : 20:53:52
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Thank you for your insight, winnieboo. Wow, you really understand the whole Catholic thing. I should read a book on it to not feel alone in the matter because it's been a terrible cross to bear and yes, my mom does use that expression A LOT.
I have a good hubby, he is tolerant and kind but sometimes he just can't take me anymore because I can sometimes make him feel helpless. He reassures me but it doesn't help, so what can he do?
I have a beautiful daughter, the love of my life. I want to get well for her so she will never have any of my s__t as you put it. I will definitely be more careful about talking about things in front of her. She's not yet 2 but I know she is still picking up on things.
I know what you mean about having a victory but it's been so LONG since I've had a victory over my body stuff. If I could breakthrough and have that one victory to hold onto, it would help. I am not sure how to get there. In the past I knew there would be a big hurdle, the dam would have to break and then the flood of relief would come. That's how it always happened in the past. The belief in the sickness had to lose its foothold and then it was easier to fight it. Right now it's got me and I'm trying but I'm in that state of conflict and worry.
I picked up a book from the library called the Presence Process because one of the TMS doctors online recommended it. I am just reading the intro now.
http://www.thepresenceportal.com/index.htm |
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winnieboo
USA
269 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2010 : 05:30:51
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quote:
The belief in the sickness had to lose its foothold and then it was easier to fight it. Right now it's got me and I'm trying but I'm in that state of conflict and worry.
Do this: Find a notebook, sit down this a.m. for 20 mins. and write out all the evidence you have that you are not seriously ill. List all the tests, old and new. List all the comments you've heard from the doctors, saying they can't find anything. Make a list of all the times the symptoms went away, when you didn't notice them and what you were doing. Make having a victory over your body "your business." Use what you've written to remind yourself that your physically okay. Then start thinking psychological. Every time your heart skips, catch yourself and ask "What just happened? What was I feeling right before the symptoms started?" You'll be surprised. Then add those discoveries to your notebook.
Little comments can set me off, trigger past hurts and start my dysfunctional conditioning in motion. To get better, you will have to work to stop all of that in its tracks. You will have to want to change.
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Edited by - winnieboo on 03/01/2010 05:32:02 |
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catspine
USA
239 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2010 : 21:00:24
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Jerica's
quote:
I will definitely be more careful about talking about things in front of her. She's not yet 2 but I know she is still picking up on things.
Yes! this is a very good idea, children have rabbit ears and eagles eyes
So please not only watch what you say but even more specifically what you do as well because you can not undo these things.
I have seen kids do things and the parents ask where did he learn that from I never told him that!...
Too late! he picked it up from what you did already. |
Edited by - catspine on 03/01/2010 23:39:55 |
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mcone
114 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2010 : 22:32:35
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...Well, at age 46, I still frequently feel like I'm laboring under the recycled crap my parents endlessly dumped on me - and yet, I have an extraordinary ability to contain it around others and especially around children...(maybe that explains why I'm often in so much pain - and that notion, itself, just makes me angrier)
But to the original topic of religious values being imposed (at least that was one of the themes) I'm still no where near reconciled with my own, now-deceased father's crazy-making incongruity when it came to religion versus personal integrity: He was very strict in imposing religious disciplines on the one hand, and yet demonstrated disipicable personal ethics like getting drunk often, going to prostitutes and gambling away the needed means to support his family with a normal quality of life.
When I was younger, I had great periods of depression and was often overwhelmed with religous guilt and even felt bad for my father - he manipulated me by claiming that my mother (parents divorced) had taken his money or that things had just gotten very expensive, and I should be grateful that I don't have to share a bedroom with two siblings like he did as a child (He expected me to share a bedroom while I was in my late teens and 20's) And believed him, felt unhappy, and felt guilty about being unhappy.
Of course, as I got older and discovered that he had been lying about all these things for years, I got angry, but he would "demand" respect, and demand that I obey all the religious rules of house which caused great volatility in the household. Eventually, I broke down with depression over all this and tried to take my own life.
My father died in 1998 - One symbol of how I remember him comes from the years right before I moved out of his household for good - around 1990 or so. He would pridefully, and indignantly attend the local synogogue on Saturday, posturing himself outside the house as a member of the Jewish community and an upstanding orthodox Jew. And if I so much as turned on a light, or tried to cook myself breakfast in the house (all prohibited on the sabbath) he would turn into a hostile monster.
And yet, throughout the day, typically, while I would be in another room or outside the house, he would go into the bathroom, close the door, and light up a cigarette! (a destructive and disgusting health habit, a demonstration that he lacked personal discipline and a blatant violation of the sabbath). I can't help but feel that my father was one twisted, abusive piece of sh... (work).
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Edited by - mcone on 03/01/2010 22:34:23 |
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mcone
114 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2010 : 22:52:06
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A small postscript to this...
as I seem to be moving into another phase of my life right now:
I went to visit my brother in Brooklyn - he is orthodox - seemingly because he never was an intellectual (or a pseudo-intellectual like myself) and the appeal of the religious community was the only source of security he could find when he was struggling for identity in his younger years. (Sorry if I've offended people with this perpective). With all due respect to my brother and others, he may have reconciled the issues with the old man, and/or he may have chosen faith based on many positive attributes of that lifestyle and not chosen it based on weakness or fear.
In any case, when I entered the household my brother asked me to put on a Yarmalka (skullcap) and I freaked out. Basically, he invited me as a guest, I had just travelled over an hour to get to his house - and here he was imposing religious values on me. I said right then and there. "If you insist that I wear this ****, I'm leaving. I feel like a clown, and like I'm being dishonest with myself, because I don't believe in this ****. If you want to have a relationship with me, then please accept that - and if you can't have someone in your house that doesn't follow these rules that I feel terrorized by, then next time, invite me to meet you at a restaurant - somewhere else outside the house." And my brother was cool with that.
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Edited by - mcone on 03/01/2010 22:53:20 |
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Wavy Soul
USA
779 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2010 : 23:33:18
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Now, this may sound weird, but something I have some rage about is being brought up ATHEIST. My parents were significant atheists - both physicists, and my dad was, in his time, one of the "go-to" atheists that for example The Times newspaper would have respond to stuff.
There was a kind of bleak isolation behind everything. We were it. We were the center of everything.
I got into spiritual stuff when I was 18 and have been on various spiritual adventures ever since (mostly non-religious and certainly not now).
Basically, when I "went spiritual" my dad rejected me even more totally than he already had. It was a second whammy to his rejection of me at puberty (at which point I could no longer service his ego so he moved out). He was enraged when I got a spiritual teacher.
So, yeah, I've got some rage about all this. I know it must be enraging to have the other kind of religious abuse, too. In fact, that kind of nonsense got my father where he was.
Ay ay ay
xx
Love is the answer, whatever the question |
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mcone
114 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2010 : 00:01:33
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Wavy,
The wisdom you've shared is my takeaway from all this. If I ever get to the point of being genuinely capable and deserving of rearing a child, I think it would be my obligation to expose them to all kinds of ideas and then allow them, as they enter thier teens and adulthood, to choose whatever paths thier hearts and souls tell them.
I would have to conclude here that we could probably diminish much of the angst in this world if no parent ever conditioned thier love, support, or familial bonding (or other willingness to give of themselves to thier children) upon having (or not having) any particular kind of religious or spiritual beliefs.
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Edited by - mcone on 03/02/2010 00:10:47 |
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marsha
252 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2010 : 09:38:59
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Having a belief system is a good thing. Making it a condition for love is not.
Marsha
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2010 : 11:00:25
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quote:
Originally posted by jerica
My niece said she doesn't think about the future, just the here and now.
Your niece is wise beyond her years. Take her advice! |
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catspine
USA
239 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2010 : 12:36:24
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| Well said Marsha. |
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Something that I am rageful about
