Brave Little Gerda Knows More Now

[Gerda]

I have not had the right time or frame of mind to respond to all these messages, apologies. But that day of the DnJ hug was very well timed, as were the added hugs by Sage and Eagle -- thank you! And SJohn-am, really loved your post and the empathy and care and friendship, very needed that day and the days following! I just have to steal a moment soon to reply properly.

I did think a lot about my reaction to some of the posts. I noticed I felt really driven to explain myself, or to justify what I think or do or to remind those I know here of who I am or what I did in the past or what I meant, etc. It was exactly how I was around H. There is something in all of us LBS's, I think, where we think we need to make something clear to the MLCer so that s/he will finally understand -- and I guess, finally see The Truth and therefore see we were right -- or love us again -- or feel remorse....

I had that same feeling in wanting to reply here, and I even succumbed to it on one of my posts above. Each time I tried to reply, I saw that I was just going to do that again, and that I was preparing a path for myself to feel hurt/alone if someone here didn't understood me or thought something of me that wasn't what I know of myself or my kids or what I did to get us to this point.

That longing to justify oneself, to explain, to make the other person "finally realize" is such a powerful force, and I think it drives most of what we do in the early days, and is what trips us up later too, even when we think we have grown past it. It's the very force I am always counseling folks here to push aside, to ignore, to exorcise.

Even now I am battling with myself to list all the therapy we have done or are doing, or to talk about my son actually going to a therapeutic high school, paid for by the city, because I was able to advocate for that. And I erased that a few times, to see how I would feel if I didn't explain that. It was really uncomfortable for me! I think that right there is THE wound, the big one, that one that drives us not to let the MLCer go, or to lose our confidence or our clarity.

I watched this little film on YT yesterday about gaslighting, a fiction film but I WAS that girl in that film, and I kept thinking they did not need to give her a black eye, many of these people do not hit. At the end of the film she writes on her mirror, YOU ARE UGLY, and then she rubs it out and writes, HE IS UGLY. But that takes YEARS to get there, to be able to even consider that the other one is the ugly spirit, whether it's MLC or was always there, that doesn't happen over a few weeks, to be able to see clearly.

Look at me now, eight years in, having done something or other to cause quite a few of you to care about me (thank you!) or to think I have grown or am wise or kind or whatever else you might think in the positive realm. And yet I am still that too, that girl writing, YOU ARE UGLY on her mirror, or on a post here, and still taking a month or two to think about it and even try to believe that I could be one of those -- the truly ugly one or the one who believes it of herself or the one who finally realizes that maybe it isn't true.

Something to consider, if you are reading this and are new on your journey -- or later on your journey, and battling that same demon. That need to justify yourself, it's part of your battle! The only thing we really seem to need on this journey is something to love us unconditionally and to give us a hug and say they understand. We aren't going to get that EVER from the MLCer and it may not even happen that you can get it from people around you. I get it, sometimes, through my faith, but most of my daily life does not include that, I have only one friend who loves me like that, and my family loves me more like the MLCer does. So I think as we are figuring out how to heal, we have to know that we need that, we have to face that we may not get that but that we don't need to explain to the MLCer, it doesn't work, it's a wound we have to heal on our own, to stop explaining! All we can do is give that love to others and accept that love when it comes our way....