False Hope

 I did not ever plan on blogging again at the end of 2019.  I spent the last 2 years and 3 months in a fog of sadness.  I am still wandering in that fog.  But I cannot remove myself from all this, because of the damage that would create in the lives of my children and grandchildren.  Frustratingly, the pain is too much to silently carry.  I have nowhere else to place it.  So I find myself back here, doing what has been my only real relief throughout my life.  I am writing.  

Over the past year, I had to find out what it is that some of my paternal family have said about my childhood experiences.  Once again, I thought some healing was finally being gifted to me, when once again I reconnected with family members I had not seen in years.  The experience brought brief feelings of acceptance and validation.  One would think I would know better by now.  One would definitely think I would never fall for such hopes ever again.  I realize now I will most likely always be susceptible to these kinds of hopes.  As I child, I wanted so much to be able to speak the truth.  I wanted to be seen as I was, not as others defined me.  I guess these needs are so deeply embedded, I will never be able to shake them.  I am not cynical or tough enough to shut myself down when these opportunities arise with paternal family members.  No matter how tough or invulnerable I try to make myself, I cannot be that tough.

Whenever others choose to mis-define me, there are a couple of things that seem to happen.  These mis-definers must know, consciously or unconsciously, that what they are defining is not really true, because they never come to me with their definitions, to confirm or debunk them.  These definitions are almost always based on things I have never said or done.  Communicating with me openly could probably clear things up.  But no one comes to me about these definitions, which makes me feel that they know what they are saying is not reality, and they do not want to have to see, or admit, the truth.  Talking to me might shed light on their mis-definitions, so they have to avoid telling me what they are saying.  In the case of small-town gossipy definitions, I think a lot of people just like to hear outrageous things about people who are not a part of the good-old-boy system, are not a real part of the community, so no one bothers to go straight to the person and find out the truth.  When it comes to family members, I feel like it is simply a need to escape the pain of accepting the truth.  I am guessing it is easier to think of me as delusional, than to see the truth.

I was finally told what a number of my paternal family members think about my childhood.  At first I was told it was too bad I had been so mistreated by psychiatrists.  I was shocked to hear a paternal family member say this.  There had been family knowledge about my experience with the Adventist principal, but none of them ever said to me that what he did was wrong.  I had sort of accepted that they, like many in my church, saw his abuse of me as my fault.  No one but my father ever said as much, it was just something I internalized.  I thought it was nice to finally hear from family that I had experienced some mistreatment by those in the mental health field.  But I was told no, it was something else.  There is a belief in my family that mental health workers have planted false memories in my head.

I do not at all know what has ever happened in my experiences with the mental health field that would give anyone such an idea.  Mental health workers tended to land in two camps for me.  Most wouldn't believe my mom was a nurse and my father was an engineer.  These are some of the first answers required from clients seeking help.  "What do your parents do for a living?"  My answers were easily provable, but I was simply disbelieved from the get go, so I'd give up right away with that camp.  The other camp would listen, so I would maybe open up a very little bit about my past.  Almost without exception, this camp realized I am a messed up human that no one believes, so they know they can con and misuse me, and they will get away with it.  They misuse me.  These have been my experiences.

Nowhere in any of these mental healthcare interactions did anyone ever tell me that anything must have happened to me.  They did make me feel like I was supposed to tell them a false narrative about what my parents did for a living.  And that was a reaction by them that was guaranteed to shut me down.  I know what my parents did for a living.  No one can make me falsify the truth.  The mental health field has failed in helping me, but not once by planting false memories.  I have no idea where anything I have ever said, or written, or experienced, could be twisted into such an idea.  I am still somewhat in a state of shock that this is the way I am being defined by some family members. I know what happened with my father and Pam.  No one can make me falsify the truth.  Not even a lifelong desire to belong will ever make me betray the child I once was by denying the truth.

The interactions between countries, the political discourse within this country, the atrocities that are daily happening, all confirm for me that my own family experiences are simply a small example of regular human behavior on a global scale.  Nothing should shock me.  Children are bombed.  Children are daily misused.  This is the truth.  Why do these things happen?  Because they can.

I have no idea if I will blog again.

I have discovered some music that gives me comfort, in the midst of everything.  It expresses the pain I feel.  This song is probably the song I love more than any other song I have ever heard in my life: