Just recently I wrote about the loss of Robin Williams. It was the first time that I had blogged in over 6 months. I felt excited to blog again, yet I feel hesitant to continue. It’s not because I don’t have a lot to say, anyone who knows me probably knows that I have a lot to say about many things, it’s because I have felt blocked when it comes to writing. So much of what I write is about my childhood experiences and what I have learned on this journey of healing and growth. That means that I include inferences to my past. Yet, lately, I haven’t wanted to talk about it. In large part because I feel like I am dishonoring my family even though I know that’s not true. It’s amazing how big a hold those old beliefs can have on me. Today I’m doing something different.
At the end of last year I reconnected with my mom. I love many things about my mom. She is funny and cares deeply for people. I had missed her and our relationship coming back together in the incredible way that it did felt good. Not long after our reconciliation I started writing less and less. Then it dropped off all together. Somewhere buried deep inside was this old voice saying that if I were to continue writing on the Internet and putting myself out there than I would lose the relationship with my mom once again. It wasn’t something that I thought about all the time, yet when I would think about writing that old twinge would hit me and I would divert my attention to something else. It was this childlike part of me that was afraid that just like my upbringing, if I were truthful about the things that happened that were not good, then there would go that relationship and I would be abandoned once again.
I have met so many people who experienced this kind of family dynamic in one way or another. The beliefs (though perhaps not verbalized, just known) are formed that looking good and protecting family image are more important than truth. To those of us that grew up in an abusive environment this is a devastating dynamic because it keeps everything in the dark. When things are kept in the dark then mental and emotional illness prevail. Oftentimes the adult child of that environment will continue the beliefs and live out the protection of the family even though they themselves suffer for it daily. You can not heal from what you do not admit to be true.
I realized that in spite of all the work and forgiveness and healing, I went back to trying not to say anything so that my mom wouldn’t leave me again. Yet, that is in direct conflict with the pull of my heart to speak to large groups, write a book and just plain be me. As much as I love my family I cannot go back to darkness just to try and hold things together. It puts me in a place of suppression and since I have so much to say that isn’t a helpful place to be.
I would like to add also that no one in my family has said that to me recently. No one has called me to say that if I continue writing or go on to write a book or speak to large groups that they will never talk to me. The truth is I really don’t know how they will respond and I hope that they respond well. However, either way, I am going to continue on the path that my heart feels drawn to because that is just who I am. The identity of silence that I’ve taken of recent (well silent for me anyway) isn’t really me at all. It’s what I learned to do a long time ago in order to gain some piece of the love that I was so desperately seeking.
What have you learned about love? What have you learned that you must do in order to be seen, heard, accepted or loved? Oftentimes, the answers to those questions will lead us right to the identity or identities that we have taken on in order to get a dire need that we had as a child. Yet, as an adult these identities are merely coping skills and are really no identity at all. They are false selves that we must shed in order to be who we were truly created to be.
