Words, Actions, and What Lies Between

November is a month of contradictions. We in the Western Hemisphere enter it in a glorious blaze of autumn gold and we leave it grey and dreary. Somewhere between Indian Summer and Pre-Winter, the trees release their last pretense of modesty and stand, starkly naked and shivering, to face the cold. The world turns toward the death that must come before renewal. But, being human, we don't long tolerate the bleakness of impending winter and dying autumn. We dress November in trappings of Thanksgiving and Christmas-to-come. We engage in a frenzied whirl of activity. We celebrate with friends, co-workers, and family and we make the gaiety last as long as we can because behind the carnival masks, we recognize the skeletal trees and grey skies for what they are: heralds of winter's little death.

A few years ago, I lived through a November bereft of celebrations and joy. Cold terror and desperation threaded through the days which seemed to drag on endlessly. There were days that should have been wonderful - my daughter's thirteenth birthday, Thanksgiving with my family. All the good those times should have brought was sacrificed on the altar of surviving an abusive relationship. Daily assurances of his love were punctuated with nights of threats, physical violence, and sexual coercion. I believed in his love for a short while, but the words of adoration became meaningless lies in the face of his actions, which spoke nothing but hatred. What lay between those two extremes was a decimated battlefield that was my life.

People ask why victims of violent relationships stay, why we don't escape. I answer that chains aren't always visible. Violence creates fear and fear exerts a powerful amount of control. When someone shows you by his actions that there is nothing he won't do, no line he won't cross, there is no reason to hope that you will somehow escape unscathed, or even alive. Finally there comes a time of understanding that you don't really have a choice anymore. You could die if you stay. You could die if you leave. Do you risk your life for freedom or for continued bondage?

I chose to be free. A difficult year followed; there was stalking, damage to my property, and constant fear of reprisal. I began to rebuild myself and my life, but I did not understand how deep the devastation had gone, how damaged I really was. It has only been the in the past few months that I have learned how desolate my inner landscape had become. Without knowing how it came to be, I found myself again in the ruin that exists between the two extremes of words of love, and actions of disrespect, indifference, and careless self-gratification. This time, I didn't need to escape; I needed to purge. I needed to learn a lesson about my own self-worth and how to claim my life and my heart for myself instead of giving them away. I needed to heal.

Learning who I was became the goal. I had to learn how to value myself before I could allow myself to be valued by others. Always before I felt that any praise or happiness in my life was a cheat; I felt unworthy and was always afraid that others would see and exploit my flaws. In acknowledging the way I had given up my personal power and the poor choices I made, I regained my ability to discern what is good and right for me, and to believe that I deserve happiness, kindness, and respect. Slowly but surely, I let truth replace the lies, and I began to reclaim myself.

I stand now on the edge of what used to be a wasteland. It is November - the trees are bare and the wind is cold. Drifts of fading leaves litter the ground. But there is beauty in the barren trees and brittle, frosted grass. There is the promise of life in the naked limbs. Standing stones may be battered by the wind but they welcome and radiate the sun's warmth. The shards and ruins have been cleared away and this place - my life - has been reclaimed. It is mine. I may choose to share it at some point in the future, but I will never again give it away or fragment it for someone who cannot be trusted to speak the truth, and act upon it. I did not risk my life to stay in bondage - I risked it to be free.

Love and Compulsion

Love and compulsion cannot peacefully coexist. Compulsion leaves no space for love; compulsive behavior crowds out loving behavior. The object of our compulsion becomes the object of our affection. The people and things we love or value fall away and we are left with this compulsion upon which we depend. We deny that the compulsion is harmful, wrong, or damaging. We convince ourselves we have control because admitting that the compulsion controls us means we must change our behavior and abandon what has given our lives meaning or brought us comfort. In the face of our need we make poor decisions that impact not only us but those around us. Sometimes the impact is negligible; sometimes it is profound. We end up alienated from the people we love. This has the effect of forcing us deeper into our compulsive behavior and feeding our dependency. In our twisted thinking, we have been abandoned by our loved ones. We do not see that we have pushed them away. We do not acknowledge that we chose the compulsion over the people we love. So we lose our friends and our family, but the compulsion is still there bringing us comfort. We wonder why anyone would ask us to give up this thing on which we rely. It is our only constant! Why would we want to give it up?

Drug and alcohol use, disordered eating, gambling, overspending, hobbies, hoarding, and sex can all become compulsions. There are others but these are probably the most recognizable. Until we can see the detrimental effects our compulsions have on us and others, we will be unable to make healthy choices for ourselves. We will continue to put compulsions between us and the people we love – we build a wall with our behaviors to protect us from the vulnerability inherent in giving and receiving love. Slowing or stopping the compulsive behaviors is not enough. The root of the impulse must be exposed and explored; otherwise, the compulsion surfaces whenever the pain is triggered, and those of us who suffer from compulsive behaviors know how easily that can happen in the course of living.

I have suffered with compulsive eating for much of my life. Though it has been a long time since I actually binged, the compulsion is still there. I often struggle with the desire to binge. There are times when I feel that my consumption of food is out of control, even when it is reasonable. My thinking around this compulsion is so warped that it is difficult for me to know what is appropriate. In the same way that a person with anorexia can look in the mirror and see a bloated, distorted body, I can look at my food consumption for the day and distort a normal amount of food into a binge, which makes me feel guilty, ashamed, and out of control. I have labored for so long under the belief that I can’t make good choices about food that I don’t trust my body to tell me when it is hungry, or to know what kind of nourishment it wants. I have been working for the last month to relearn my body’s cues related to hunger with help from my therapist and several books by Geneen Roth. This mindful approach to living inside my own skin is working well; Ms. Roth’s guidelines are reasonable: eat what you like, eat only when you are actually hungry, and stop eating when you are no longer hungry. Pay attention to your food and don’t eat while distracted. Note how hungry you are before you eat and after you eat. There are some other directives, but these are the core.

Now that I take time to think about the emotions behind the compulsion before I engage in it, I find that sometimes I am not hungry when I think I am. Instead, I’m angry or lonely, sad or anxious. Sometimes I'm simply tired. There are better ways of dealing with emotions than burying them in food. I am learning that my emotions won’t kill me. The pain behind most of these feelings is pain that has already happened. I can acknowledge it for a few moments and then move forward without engaging in compulsive behavior as a way to cope.

As my compulsion fades, I find more room for love. My particular brand of compulsive behavior came between me and loving myself rather than me and other people in my life, so the love that is increasing is self-love. I trashed my own body with my compulsion. I made myself unhealthy. Perhaps I was trying to make myself as unlovable as I felt. My body was like a hoarder’s house – cluttered with the detritus of my compulsion. It has been three years since I lost over 130 pounds – I have kept almost all that weight off, but without addressing the root of my compulsive eating, that won’t remain true. In the same way an alcoholic can stop drinking for a while, I can stop bingeing for long periods of time. But the urge is there – the unhealthy attitude is there – the desire is there. The causes of my behavior are deeply rooted in the past. The pain is valid. The fault is not mine. But the responsibility to find help and to heal does belong to me. It is in understanding and remaking the beliefs that drive the compulsions that I will find healing.

Miles and Years

Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
Blow over me--I am so tired, so tired...
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

This morning, the tallest tree in my back yard stretched its naked branches skyward and swayed in the wind. The last amber fragments of leaves spun free and swirled over the still-green grass before coming to rest in a drift of red-gold-brown piled against the fence. The dance of the leaves was beautiful, but now they just look weary and faded like the rest of the foliage that has fallen over the past few days. Today I feel about as substantial as those leaves - dry and wispy, as if a stiff breeze could carry me away.

It is October 31st, Halloween and also the end of domestic violence awareness month. I had intended to post at least five articles about intimate partner violence this month, but personal issues have intruded and I am left struggling to stay level. The difficulties I've been facing have forced me to take a long look at how far I've come in the past two years. I am not displeased at the progress I have made, but I still find myself at risk of sacrificing too much for other people. Love often demands sacrifice, and I am not adverse to reaching compromises, but all too often I find myself laying my desire for consistency and stability down on the altar of another's needs and wants. It is constant struggle to find some semblance of peace between the tension of the lives of others and my own. I don't think relationships should be this difficult, but it is all I have ever known; how do I find my footing on sinking sand?

If I had distance and perspective it would be easier. I could look at this situation from the outside like a stranger peeking in through a window, seeing life in snapshots and glimpses and making decisions with the comfortable surety that they could not really affect me. From the outside the choice is simple - I determine what I can and cannot live with and I act accordingly. But on the inside, I agonize over what those choices will do to people - real flesh-and-blood people whom I love.

Still...how many times have I said that in order to love others we must love ourselves? It is finally time for me to think first about what my own unwillingness or inability to choose will do to me. I cannot afford to let my core be destroyed on someone else's altar. We are adjured to love others, to put others first - those of us who have been abused have not only been told to do so, we have been forced to, in the most painful of ways and because of this, acting in my own self-interest is well-nigh impossible for me. I have been preconditioned to feel selfish and evil when I even consider it. I have been taught to deny myself, to sacrifice all that I am so that others can have what they want in the moment, whatever that might be. The question is no longer "should I put myself first?" but has become "how can I reconcile a lifetime of learned behavior with this voice crying from my own inner wilderness that a straighter, better path must be made?"

Oh, but I am tired. My mind swirls like the early morning mist. My heart is withered and wasted with the struggle to find balance between myself and another. I know the journey is worthwhile but I am so tired; there may be miles and years ahead, but I can't bring myself to care. Like the leaves, I want to let go and just be carried away, to drift, and float, and fall...

Choices

I’ve never believed I had a lot of choices in my life. As a child with three older siblings, I ended up with a lot of hand-me-downs. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it is difficult to develop a strong sense of your own likes and dislikes when most of what you own has been chosen by someone else. My first car was a Ford Maverick that had been wrecked by both my older sisters. I was really glad to get that car but it wouldn’t have been my first choice. My second car was chosen by my father – a Mercury Marquis that resembled nothing so much as a battleship – it was even the right color. When I was thirteen, I was invited to join a college-level math-and-science class that met on weekends, but my parents decided not to let me attend. I wasn't allowed to participate in sports or to join clubs that met outside school hours. And of course, sexual assault takes all your choices away. Some of these things may seem small, but as I aged without being allowed to form opinions or make decisions of my own, the ability to even know my own needs and wants gradually faded away.

I left home and got married when I was nineteen years old, and I transferred the decision-making power from my parents to my husband without so much as the blink of an eye. He didn’t always like it, but we both took it for granted that our marriage would be that way. I had never seen any other behavior modeled in any relationship. His approval was so important to me that I negated my own sense of self in order to become what he wanted, at least at first. Later on things changed between us and I became more autonomous, but neither of us really knew how to exist with each other once I was no longer agreeable to everything he did and wanted. It made for some deeply stressful times. Ultimately our marriage dissolved.

When we divorced, I promised myself that I would never again give away the power of decision. I would have the power to make my own choices. Sure, I would always give due consideration to what was best for my kids and the other important people in my life, but my own needs would also be a huge part of the equation. After all, only I can live my life. I was going to be kind and fair, but firm; I was going to make sure that my needs and ideas were an equal part of any relationship I entered. 

I went into the first relationship after my marriage with a very healthy set of boundaries only to have them torn down and destroyed by my abusive partner. Because I had always lived my life without choices, I had no defense against his controlling behavior. I believed him when he told me that it was selfish of me to want to know where we stood, to want him to talk to me before changing our plans, to want to know that he was going to be faithful. I had no clue about how to get my needs met, or even that it was okay to have needs. He trampled my rights and left my self-esteem shattered. The first time he hit me, I was so concerned about what would happen to him if I reported his abuse that I decided not to tell anyone. I was so numb and so convinced that I deserved the treatment he had given me that for months after that relationship ended, I had no boundaries or limits at all. I could ask for nothing. I could pursue no rights of my own; I had no concept of what that would even look like.

So here I am, more than a year later, and I am in a relationship that is mostly positive. The man I’m currently with is a good man; kind, loving, and intelligent. There are a lot of good things in the relationship, but - as with any coupling - there are also some negatives. For the past fifteen months, I’ve sold out my needs and behaviors to match what I felt he wanted. I’ve laid aside any notion of who I am so I can be the person he wants me to be. He has never asked for this – I did it so unobtrusively that neither of us had any idea what was going on. A recent incident opened my eyes to how completely I had subverted myself to him, and when he failed to reciprocate in even a small way by placing me first when I really needed him to, I realized that I had allowed and even encouraged him to ignore my needs and boundaries and to discount my feelings. I don't know how to start over in this relationship and be the person I am, instead of the one he wants me to be.

So, how do I stop doing this? How do I throw away a lifetime of training and behavior? How do I become the strong person I am determined to be? I am sick at the thought that I’ve done it again – why don’t I just get “WELCOME” tattooed on my forehead and be done with it? I’ve made myself into the most accommodating of doormats; go ahead, wipe your feet, I don’t mind. Maybe I stop by just stopping. Maybe it really is just a choice – one I’ve never been allowed to make before. Christians are encouraged to meet the needs of others before meeting their own, and women are often forced to do so. But I don’t believe that God wants me to be miserable, worried, and hurt. I don't believe that God intends for me to put myself dead last and to treat myself as if I don't matter. After all, it was God who told us "love your neighbor as you love yourself" - this assumes, of course, that you love yourself. I have never really loved myself or treated myself with compassion. Maybe it really is as easy as saying, “This time, I choose me.”

Passionate Intensity

The voice of wisdom speaks in different ways to different people. When I am awake, it speaks to me through an uneasy nausea in the pit of my stomach and an unsynchronized fluttering in my heart. When I’m asleep, it takes on the form of someone for whom I hold deep respect. In the past, it has been my father, my late mother-in-law, my late grandmother, a former pastor, and my former boss, Steve Hodges. Lately, it has been taking on the persona of Jay Reese, a man with whom I attend church and whom I consider to be a friend and mentor. A few days ago during a vivid dream, I sat on my mother’s front porch with Jay, drinking Starbucks coffee and talking about the choices that stand before me. You see, recently I’ve been turning over the idea of purchasing a home, going to graduate school, and pursuing some form of ministry. I have also been examining a deepening relationship with someone I’ve been involved with for the past year. These factors have blended into an uncertainty about the direction of my life, what is best for me, what boundaries I need to have, and how in the world I can make good decisions when I’ve never felt able – or allowed – to make choices.

I may be doing Jay a grave disservice when I say that during my dream, he quoted to me some lines from a poem as a way of helping with my various dilemmas. He said:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand.

I have no idea whether Jay likes poetry, though I suspect he does; particularly, I have no idea whether he likes apocalyptic utterances such as the above, written by William Butler Yeats, an Irish poet whose meaning for the words was undoubtedly much different than what I have taken them to mean for me.

During my discussion with Dream Jay, he asked me why I would even think about going into a valley I’d already walked through with poor results. He said, “If you are going to choose to suffer, then suffer for something that’s worthwhile. Is there anything that you're willing to bleed for?” I woke up with our conversation still fresh in my mind and the words “surely some revelation is at hand” echoing in my head.

His words speak to me in two different ways. First, on a wholly personal level as I contemplate a deeper romantic commitment, I am forced to consider whether I am ready to suffer with and for the person I love. Whether I am ready to bleed for him – not necessarily literally, of course, but when you tie your life to someone else’s, then their pain becomes your pain, their hurt becomes yours – you suffer what they suffer. Am I ready for that? In some ways, yes; in others, no – and that is something to consider. His words also resonate spiritually.

Passionate intensity. Has there ever been anything I’ve been passionately intense about? Anything that is central to who I am? Anything that defines me and to which I could dedicate my energy and my intelligence without feeling like I had been untrue to myself? Yes…and I’m doing it right now. Writing. But it isn’t just about crafting words and stringing them together with solid grammar and good syntax. It isn’t even about story-telling, though I do love that part. No, the writing is also about righting – putting things right. It is about exposing violence, lies, and suffering, so that others can see a better way. It is about telling the truth when it needs to be told. It is about communicating my hope to those who have no hope. And my hope lies in following Christ; the world's redeemer who, with his short life, taught us all how to be better people. It all comes back to that central point – that calling to be something more than I feel I am. To be what it is that God made me to be. To live with passionate intensity.

God - help me to be who you believe I am.

***
Yeats, WB. The Second Coming.