I have been in hiding most of my life owing to not want to be anxious in coping up with my body as I had absorbed this wrong belief that the power lay in my mother's hands as she assumed I was an extension to her. And hence I too for having being told/criticized by my mother for so long repeatedly through every regular migraine attack that I am too sensitive and that I am like my father gave in to this belief that enabled my mother to want to be overshadowing me and I just let that happen as if no control over my life.
My mind had gotten weakened as I could not muster courage or resilience to stand up for my feelings and speak for them. I was supposed to be grateful to her for all that she did and all this make believe love for my parents (my uncles, aunts, grandparents included), fake loyalty, idealistic role playing of an obedient daughter placing her mother's emotional tantrums as priority and stifling my feelings in my chest and numbing them led to my mind weakening. This loop was all that I had as a routine and there was no escaping this except tolerating others temper tantrums (specially the oldies), their ego centric dysfunctional behaviours, the underlying cold wars between one uncle and another, the stretched silence between uncles as if it was how they were supposed to be, the unresolved anger in my aunts for getting treated like slaves by their husbands and their frustrations spilled over randomly was all a lot to take every day.
I just didn't know what I was truly like outside of all this as my personal space was heavily compromised due to living with so many others as mentioned above. People pleasing was the best way to cope up with the obvious imbalance in the family where love for love's sake was just a superficial layer of idealism and a hideout space so that people's true feelings and intentions can lay buried underneath the superficial projection of a big family where people come together as one unit - one big broken unit where people stayed together for calculative reasons and this unity of purpose is the only thing that brought my family together.
We offspring born in such a dysfunctional unit had each other as cousins, as friends, as family, and each went our ways owing to studies, jobs, and marriages.
I have gotten this far in life owing to my self support despite my mental condition and have gotten exhausted many a time and have felt aimless and foggy on how to move forward with my life. Feeling stuck in such a family environment was what I had deeply repressed and this kept making me feel sick, fatigued, in pain and discomfort in one part of the body or another.
I feel that my natural love and respect for my body has been so deeply bruised and hurt by my mother's constant and insensitive comments on my innately sensitive body and mind that at some point it broke my spirit as well. As if my life energy had gotten so contaminated and overshadowed by her trauma bonding with me and I in return had no choice but had to be in such toxic attachment just to want to justify my role as her daughter.
I don't know what hurts more - the fact that I have gotten so stuck in her hypercritical criticisms from way back or the fact that breaking me up in mind, body, and spirit was all the control that she needed so that I can remain under as an extension to her personality.
All I too have is this one life and all the perseverance that I innerly feel proud about got spent in putting up with her control attitudes and tantrums and all that I am left of this extending myself mindlessly, aimlessly, and with a broken spirit to want to be attached to her even if insecurely to her overshadowing me aspect is just avoiding my life and living in a blur with no clear consciousness. Analyzing why she was the way she was is not worth it but reclaiming my life and restoring it with peace and love is all I can do to feel my way back into taking control of my life.
All is not lost until you give up on yourself. It felt like I had seemingly lost all - lost my joy, my freedom, my feeling secure in my body and mind, my ability to make choices for my higher good, my resilience, my self trust and a lot more, but I have still kept going because I have been assured, blessed, loved and guided by God in some way or another that I cannot miss the signs and the intuitions. And it's for my sake that I need to live life in acceptance of all that has happened and find the strength, the grace to let go which is work in progress, and keep centering my energies on what I truly feel, what are my silences whispering, what are my bodily pains indicating at times, and why is being present with my body while letting go toxic shame, sadness, anger, guilt, confusion and so on so vital for self growth.
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