The Chinks in My Armor

If you came here for laughs or random hand job talk, click away, because I'm dishing out more introspection. It's not for everyone, but it's important to me to document my new outlook and how I'm getting there. If you want to be happier in life, stick around, you might find a nugget that applies to you.

So I've been seeing a Life Coach. Particularly Carly Cooper, who writes for me on SweetMama. I wonder if this is a weird conflict of interest, but I needed help and Carly was approachable, a woman and a mom so I thought it would be worth the risk. It absolutely has been. I have learned more about myself in the past month or so, than I have in 5 years of blogging my deepest thoughts. And now I even know why!

Tonight I did an exercise that required going through a list of fears, identifying which ones apply to me and then writing down when that fear started, what negative/self-sabotaging behaviour does it cause, and what would be the worst thing that could happen should that fear come true.

I got through a quarter of the list.

A huge part of this involves examining the past to find the reasons I do things the way I do. By far the biggest revelation has been the perfectionist/procrastinator/self-sabotager one. If I can't do it perfect, why bother? Are you like that too?

The other one is the Fear of Humiliation. When I first read that I thought, nah, not me. Why I humiliate myself for laughs regularly on the interweb! But then as I thought about it, I realized that I humiliate myself to beat others to the punch. Get them laughing with me instead of at me.

My best friend has the same fear, but the opposite tactic. She wants no one to notice her. In her house, getting noticed meant getting the beats from her dad. In my house, getting someone to laugh might have saved you a beating.

Instead of noticing I'm being noticed by surprise, I want to control that element. By saying, "Look at me! I'm a goof!" I feel like I'm somewhat in charge of the outcome. Holy motherfucking cuppa crazy!

Actually, my mom's right. I should stop referring to myself as crazy. I'm not crazy. I'm human. I am a puzzle put together by events in my life, events I'm trying to understand now so that they no longer make up who I am. There's more to me than abuse, bullying, separation and eating disorders.

Going through this process has made me more confident as a mom. Oh, I am going to fuck those little shits up regardless -- and they will have phases where they will hate me regardless -- but at least I feel like I'm fucking them up slightly less. It's not a competition or anything, but if you were beaten as a child and you DON'T beat your own kids, I feel that's a heck of an improvement.

Just a note here that it is not my intention to malign my parents in any way, though it may seem like that. I know they'd both get defensive if they read this. I know they did the best they knew how and I've forgiven them for a lot of their mis-steps. I love them dearly and am grateful for their help in raising my kids. They've also grown a lot as people over the past 35 years.

I am no longer expecting them to accept responsibility for their wrong-doings. I'm not waiting for some crazy confession of guilt. I'm over it. But I want to process the past so I can live in the present. I need to be done with it all, but first I must learn to undo what's ingrained in my brain that's holding me back.

Here's to that.

Oh for those who were still hoping for a giggle, we went camping last weekend. Funny photolog to come....