I Can't Get You Outta My Head

If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present. -Lao Tzu

Everyone hears voices in their head. You know the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. I saw a reel recently on Instagram that I have to share (https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnUjNsLBWEe/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=). This silly little reel made me think of not only how we hoard things, but also how we hoard our hurts in life. The little and big slights that are thrown at us throughout our lives that we just hang onto that turn us into victims, instead of victors.

If you’ve read my other blog, roadwork2021.com you know that my dad is an a**hole. I haven’t even shared what all happened to us as children, but suffice it to say that an a**hole just doesn’t make a good father. My dad’s voice is the strongest one in my head. He compared me to his new wife with whom I share zero genes. I reached my full height and adult weight at 16, 5’5’’ and 125 pounds. She is a woman of 5’1’’ and considerably less that 125 pounds. He would say to me that I was fat and that I shouldn’t be larger than my mother. He meant the woman he married, not my actual mother. Intellectually, I know that he is full of shite, but emotionally all I hear is “you’re fat.” My father is a religious man, not a righteous man, but a do as I say and not as I do religious man. He told me once that I was a slut, because I wanted to hold Aldo Gianini’s hand. I was nine years old.

When my mother was sick and in and out of the hospital for several years, my father would leave us alone to fend for ourselves. Our grandmother, her mother would come and take care of us when she could (she didn’t drive), or sometimes we were left with her for weeks at a time. I would never blame my father or my mother for these times of separation. Families do what they have to do in times of hardships and illness. But, I think my father became accustomed to leaving us. When my mother died, he would leave us for many weeks at a time. When he was dating and later married my stepmother, he left us alone or with strangers while he wined, dined, and traveled the world with his new wife. We weren’t worthy of being taken care of. We were left for so long at one point that we literally ran out of food. This left me with feelings of abandonment and worthlessness.

When I was 11 years old I was molested by a teacher while on an overnight camp out with a group of students from his class. I was asleep in my tent, when I was awakened by someone with their hands in my pants. I really liked this teacher. In class he was fun, entertaining, and relatable. So, as a vulnerable, awkward preteen with low self-esteem (thank you, Dad) I was ripe for the picking. I didn’t like what he was doing to me, but I somehow felt special, like he chose me. I know that sounds sick, but I think that that is how molesters make you feel like what they are doing to you is okay.

I went on from there to putting myself in positions where boys and then men could take advantage of me sexually and I was twisted enough to think that they thought I was special, when really I was just insecure and vulnerable. So I hear their voices in my head telling me that in order to be special, I have to succumb to what others need or want from me in order to be accepted. This voice says “if you want to be special to someone, you must do what they want you to do, no matter how it makes you feel.”

When I was in fourth grade, I was bullied. There was a boy who was much larger than me, who teased me incessantly. Everyday he would tell me how ugly I was and that I should not be allowed to live “if I was going to be so ugly.” One day, I came to school after having had a small surgery on my foot. While in line to go to lunch, this boy stomped on my injured foot. We were both sent to the principal’s office. The principal, a man, said that the boy “probably just likes me and that’s how boys show it.” He then made me stomp on the boy’s foot to “get him back.” I don’t know what this was supposed to accomplish, but what it did was make me associate disrespect with flirting. While the boy continued to bully me, I thought that he must like me. This voice says, “people mean the opposite of what they say.”

When I was a freshman in high school, we moved across the country from Michigan to Southern California. I was a very quiet person. I didn’t make friends easily, most friends that I collected, made friends with me. There was a neighbor girl who befriended me (and I use that term loosely). Her name was Gina and she had a boyfriend who was on the football team. When we were in algebra class one day, she said that she needed to cheat off my test. Apparently making out with her boyfriend took precedence over studying for the math test. I told her that I didn’t want to do that. She was very angry with me and showed her displeasure by ignoring me. The next day we got our tests back and I had earned a “D” on that test. I showed it to her and said, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t cheat off me?” I thought I was being funny. She in turn got her boyfriend and a couple of his friends to beat me up after school. They knocked my teeth loose and I’m pretty sure I had a concussion. What I learned from this is to go along to get along. I began to morph myself to be like others around me in order to be accepted. I had no sense of self. This voice says,”others know better how to navigate through life, just do what they do and you’ll be accepted.”

I got married when I was seventeen years old. I know, how stupid can one be, but I needed to escape my family and I needed to be loved and accepted by someone and Ben gave me the attention that I thought I needed and deserved. There were so many red flags, but at seventeen, I didn’t see them, or I just ignored them…same difference. He was an alcoholic at 22. He treated me poorly when he was drinking and he was drinking most every night. He drank through two pregnancies. He lost job after job, due to the drinking. He used to tell me that liquor was his truth serum. He manipulated me - making me do things I was not comfortable with because I wanted to please him and I thought that if I did what he wanted, he would love me more. He never hit me and when he wasn’t drinking he was very sweet and appropriately affectionate. When I told my father and stepmother that I was leaving him because of the drinking, my father said, “You can’t leave him, it’s against the church. You’ve made your bed, now you better lie in it.”

When my first two sons were 5 and 2 Ben and I moved back to California to live with his mother. He had lost another job and told me that if I moved back, he would stop drinking. I was lead to believe that living with his mother was a temporary arrangement. Ninfa immediately inserted herself into the middle of our marriage. I couldn’t do anything right. She demanded my respect, but didn’t give me any respect. She told me that I needed to respect my elders because they were my elders, for no other reason. By this point in my life, I had been abused by my elders and totally disrespected mentally and physically by my elders and I was getting beat down by it all. She made me feel like it was my place to not only take care of Ben and my kids, but also her. I wanted to leave that house so badly, but Ben would not hear of it. I lived in the Milford house for 35 years. So, I learned that what I wanted and needed was secondary to everyone else.

At sixty-two, I look back and see all the hurts I have collected and hoarded. The devil on my shoulder has told me for a long time that I deserve to be a victim. Hell, I WAS a victim. I deserve to hold onto all these hurts and let them clutter my mind. They’re some how comforting when I want to cry, I have good reason. When I want to feel sorry for myself, I have good reason.

Those hurts have fed something in me. Something that compelled me to be a super strong, independent, self-reliant person. In so doing, I have also collected those compelling traits that people have told me that they admire. Through lots of therapy and self-reflection, I have made the decision (yes, it is a decision consciously made) to box up those hurts, knock the devil off my shoulder and replace those voices with my own voice. This decision is something I have to do everyday, not just once and done. Whenever I feel slighted or I look in the mirror - whenever I feel vulnerable, weak, or insecure I have to practice replacing those ghost voices with my own independent, self-reliant voice and allow myself to hear the voices of the people who truly love and support me. It’s a battle, but I am strong. All those voices have actually made me who I am. I owe them one thing, the strength to say goodbye, so that I can live in the peaceful present.

https://youtu.be/6KIbmVyQXAA Check out this video from Madeline Edwards! So fun and words to live by! :0)