Chapter one is called ‘The Compulsion for Completion’ and basically speaks to the need we all have to form relationships. Part of being able to form healthy relationships is understanding parts of your past that may cause difficulties in your present (my words, not theirs. They shouldn't have to take credit for my poor writing skills). Exercise two of the workbook is entitled ‘Healing your primal pain’ (it even sounds like a psychologist came up with it ;))
1. Reflect on your personal history and make note of any memories you have of feeling abandoned or neglected (even if they seem fairly insignificant).
- When I was fairly young (I don’t remember how young exactly) my mother, grandmother, brother and I were at a mall in one of the larger cities in the area. This mall held a particular interest for us as kids because there were several fountains in the middle of the building (and who doesn't like fountains when they are little?). My mother had gone in to a store while my Grandmother, brother, and I played around the fountains. I soon realized that I had become separated from Grandma and J_____ and made my way around the maze of fountains in an attempt to find them. When I could not I went to the front of the store my mother had went in to and sat on a bench to wait for her, knowing that she would see me when she came out. I do not remember really feeling scared, abandoned, or neglected but there must be some reason that memory has stuck with me so vividly.
A good handful of memories like this involve my dad. They are as follows (though not necessarily in chronological order). - The time I couldn't’t find my church shoes (sounds silly, right?). It sounds insignificant and heaven knows it was not the only time it happened. I was around 11 at the time (I can remember the dress I was wearing and the shoes I could not find...helps me locate the incident in time). I remember being in tears as I frantically dug through the mess at the bottom of my tiny closet. I remember that after dad slapped me one of my parents (I do not remember which) getting ice for my face. I do not remember why the ice was needed or why we didn’t go to church just because he had slapped me (I always thought maybe it was because I’d gotten so worked up and my face was flushed. I thought it was a weird reason not to go because if I just calmed down it would be gone by the time we got to the church. As it turns out (I recently asked my mom) the reason was not my flushed face but the hand print my dad had left on the side of my face (no real surprise there... I’ve always likened being bit by my dad to being hit in the face with a baseball). I suppose the ice was to stop any swelling that might occur and not going to church was because of the possibility that e may have left a longer lasting mark.
- Dad smacking heads with me when I wouldn’t stop talking. I don’t remember if I just wouldn’t shut up or if we had been arguing. I do remember that I was relatively young... and that we were on summer vacation in a swimming pool.
- Dad slapping all three of us kids one Easter morning. Poor J_____ didn’t even do anything; he was just the closest to dad. My sister and I had been arguing over Easter eggs. D_____ thought we should trade those we had found so she could have the ones she had dyed (which were a very vivid color because she had left them in the dye for so long). I did not want to trade because I thought hers were pretty.
- Dad chasing me around the B_____ street house (the first house I lived in). You could run in a circle through the kitchen (where it started, apparently with something mean I had said to J____), the living room, the dining room, and back to the kitchen. I don’t now how many circuits we made before he managed to grab the hood of my sweatshirt and pull me to the floor. Then he straddled me (I think my stomach but to be honest, as with other times he did this my memory is vague beyond what I describe here) and began to hit me, mostly in the face -I think- and maybe the upper body (like I said, vague). All the time he was right in my face, yelling.
- The first time he beat me at the house on W__________ road. I don’t remember what I had done but once again he caught me (I don’t think there was much chasing involved this time). He straddled me, hit me, and screamed in my face for some time (all the while my mother stood in the background quietly saying his name over and over). When he finished I crawled over to where the dog was and hugged him so hard he couldn’t breath (I didn’t realize how hard I was holding him until he coughed). I wore glasses at the time and at some point while he was hitting me they bent. When my sister and I walked to the eye doctor to have them fixed and the gal out front asked me how they had become bent D_____ and I looked at each other and then back at this woman who we had known for years. I lied. I don’t remember what I said, but I lied.
- The second time at the W_________ house. I can’t remember what we were arguing about. I think my sister had just graduate university. I know we were unloading her things from a U-haul. I remember I made it through the mud room, into the dining room and almost to the library before he caught me and put me to the floor again (this time on the tile between the dining room and the library). He followed the same MO, straddling me, hitting me about the face and upper body (I think anyway... I know my face was involved) and screamed in my face.
- The ‘Good Friday Incident’ (strange, I just noticed a pattern here... Easter. Hmm). I believe it was the spring before I turned 16. I had not been asked to play my ‘usual’ part in the Easter sunrise service and was hurt and upset. I was complaining on our way home from the Good Friday service and dad told me to stop (I do not remember what he said only that it just hurt even more). I told him to shut up (smart kid, huh?). He jerked the van over to the side of the road and came into the back seat. He sat on my lap and yelled in my face as he hit me. He wanted me to say something specific (I do not remember what). He kept yelling at me to say it. When I finally said it he stopped hitting me and returned to the drivers seat. He looked back at me and said ‘See, that wasn’t so hard was it?’. I glared at him through the tears streaming from my eyes and said ‘I lied!’. Needless to say that got me some more ‘road side beating’. After we got home that night my mom got busy preparing things to dye Easter eggs and the three of us kids went about our own business. I went to the computer to play solitaire. Dad approached me there and tried to apologize with ‘I’m sorry, but...’. I interrupted him there and told him that, no, there is no ‘but’. It does not matter what someone says or does you do not do that to people. Surprisingly enough he left it at that (I was a little amazed that he didn’t start in on me again but I was never one for thinking before I spoke, especially when I knew it was right).
lol it just hit me... this feels like something my last therapist was trying to get out of me for some time during our 'work' together. Poor guy, it didn't work too well then. But I was in a much worse place than I am now and I think that has made a difference.
More to come (and you thought it was long already ;))... I just ran out of time typing it up this morning.
Questions are taken directly out of the book 'Relationships' by Drs. Les & Leslie Parrott
Parrott, Les & Leslie (1998). Relationships. Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530: Zondervan Publishing House.
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