This morning I woke up with a pang of regret for being so honest on my blog; and being such a "downer" instead of offering "help" or something "encouraging" to you or sharing something "funny" or whatever I have done in the past to try to receive love from friends/audiences, but this pang of regret is in itself is a sign of the work I need to do. And that is to continue NOT REPRESSING or HIDING MYSELF. This work is no longer about how other people feel; it is about how I feel, for the first time. And this is my blog, so of course it only makes sense I would write about myself, right?
This blog is an exercise in authentic self expression and if you notice, it is like 2020 was me "trying to save the outside world" and now I am "saving myself"
As a child, I learned to see my worth as what I could do for other people and always put everyone's needs before my own.
I realize now for the first time that my desire to help other people with their health - and save our planet - was deeply a desire for someone to actually SAVE ME.
I had the "healing fantasy" (a topic discussed in this amazing book) that if I were famous enough and rich enough that my parents would finally give me the emotional protection I needed, and equally, if I saved the planet, then finally I would feel "safe" and treated like a "hero" and finally loved by others.
All of these ideas started around age 4, just like the ideas I shared yesterday about my perceptions on 'emotional incest' and how I felt guilty at "emotionally cheating" on my parents.
Keep in mind, these beliefs all came from a child's brain so I have to have compassion with myself for seeing the world in such a irrational way, which at the time, felt extremely logical.
From age 7 to 18, I came home from school and watched television from about 3:30pm until 9:30pm. I am not exaggerating when I say that. We did not have a clean dining room table - the only table in the house was covered with unopened mail and other papers at all times, unless we had company come over, which happened about 2x a year - so I ate on the couch while I watched television, fantasizing about one day moving to Beverly Hills and being a millionaire so I could finally be happy like the people on television.
How perfectly ironic is it that I am now living in Beverly Hills, in my child mind's idea of "success" and I am finally getting to the root of all the misbeliefs I have carried this entire time, seeing that no zipcode would make me feel safe.
Safety starts from within. But as a child, we deserved to be protected by our parents. Not all of us had that feeling, and this pandemic is amplifying that. I am grateful that I am finally going inward to heal this, instead of trying to "run away" whether to a cabin or the internet.
One of the biggest awarenesses I am having is that I have always tried to "play small"/be unenthusiastic/unsexual/un-showy/basically NOT FEEL PLEASURE, as a way to get approval from my parents.
Even me showing cleavage in the photo above (taken with my pet rabbit in 2016 by one of my best friends, Laura) gives me a pang of "guilt" as if I am being a "bad girl" in the eyes of my mother/anyone seeing this to show my body. I also have this weird repulsion at the thought of someone enjoying my body as if that made us both "dirty" .... But I am 37 years old and I am allowed to show my body without feeling guilty any longer. I do not have to hide my body anymore for fear that someone will be attracted to me. I am not responsible for owing anyone anything anymore, and it is not a sin if people are attracted to me, despite all the horrible fear-mongering my father did to try to make me afraid of men and their "dog-like" sex drives (his words).
Sex is a part of life and it is the main reason for life and it is actually a beautiful healthy thing and our bodies - especially women's breasts - are supposed to be looked at, since they are the first source of nourishment, for everyone.
There should be no shame in looking at nipples. Or into eyes (nipples are kind of like eyes)
But there is shame with eye contact and nipple contact.
It makes people uncomfortable.
And that shame apparently has even started in myself, so in a small way, me posting this photo is part of my exercise in NOT REPRESSING MYSELF (or my beautiful body).
Thank God I am figuring out all this and I was spared from fame! I would have crumbled had I not dealt with all these underyling issues or feelings that I "could not be seen" without hurting someone else's feelings.
I did not want to outshine my parents since they were both artists, or make them feel abandoned by my "success". The way I bonded with my parents was if I had a problem that they could help me with - but other than that, I don't feel like we could talk about anything about my emotional experience of life, and that is something I am finally coming to terms with. My mom has always tried to be supportive of my work which is very nice, but deep down, it honestly wasn't enough because I never felt any enthusiasm from either of my parents, which I now see was their own stunted development and their own fears of big emotions, which I was shamed for having.
It's so fascinating that all of this healing is happening now, after 2 weeks of discovering CPTSD and everything finally making sense to me.
I made my roles "helper" and "entertainer" so my parents (and friends) would love me. I tried to save my parents health as a way to finally feel appreciated and seen by them - but now I realize that is not my job.
I am not here on this Earth to entertain anyone or save anyone at my own expense and neither are you.
I deserved to be loved just for who I am, not for what I can do for another person (which is antithetical to our economic system - ie. the concept of "net worth" is so disgusting, which I have mentioned before)
Yesterday I had a phone call with my friend Cindy in Taiwan and she was with an energy healer and for 30 minutes, he did a remote chakra balancing on my entire body where he cleared each of my chakras while playing wonderful music.
As I sat there and felt the energy swirling in my body (which is pretty fantastic and magical), I imagined my father looking down on me, like a floating ghost above my head, saying "Man, you're something else" as if to imply I am stupid and gullible to try such a "woo woo" technique. I almost wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, feeling such shame at partaking in such a weird thing, but I realize that I have saved myself by trying weird things, and meanwhile, he didn't - so I applied the new mantra
"Don't take criticism from anyone you wouldn't take advice from"
I felt ashamed in the moment however, and it was fascinating because Cindy interrupted my mental chatter and said that the energy healer was "about to work on my heart chakra" and then all of a sudden, the phone disconnected.
I had perfect phone service and even with that, the phone still disconnected.
To me, this was a sign that there was so much healing that I needed to do on my heart that the phone could not handle the energy.
The reason I came to this "wacky" conclusion (dad's inner critic voice rares up again) was that this was the explanation given to me in 2017 when I took a web class on psychic protection with the Portland Psychic School and the same thing happened while I was clearing energy chords/disconnecting from my childhood best friend, who was very similar to my dad in a lot of ways, and the phone disconnected.
The teacher explains that when there is a lot of energy moving, though it is all unseen, the phone sometimes cannot handle it all and disconnects.
I quickly called Cindy back and resumed the healing.
Today when I woke up, I felt amazing and it was so strange because the moment I woke up, I remembered a very quick montage of all the weird (and repressed) sexual dreams I have had about my parent - dreams I have had since I am a child and barely understood sex.
In each of these dream montages, I was trying to make them lose control and have orgasms so they would feel better and show some kind of emotion to me.
I realize now that this dream montage was symbolic of the emotional incest I felt, where I felt it was my sole responsiblity to make my parents feel better and my feeling of 'inadequacy' that they both always seemed so depressed and anxious, no matter how selfless and a good listener I tried to be.
In these dreams (which is obviously a taboo thing to admit) it felt exciting to imagine that if I could give my parent an orgasm, they would finally lose control and show emotion and love to me, and not be able to "fight it." since their body would take over.
This is obviously very strange to admit on a blog but I know deep down that strange sexual dreams about parents and family members are something that happens to many people and they feel too ashamed to bring it up.
The irony of living in such a sex-crazed society yet many of us live with such weird shame deep down.
To me, this is why S+M is so widely accepted in mainstream movies, like the film "50 Shades of Grey" (which I have never seen) - Everyone deep down feels like they should be "punished" for their desire for pleasure, and because of this widespread shame (due to religious dogma and parental conditioning), people use S+M as a way to "allow themselves to both feel pleasure and the "appropriate punishment" at the same time.
I met a girl who was a film producer but secretly made money as an S&M dungeon master (whatever that is) and she told me most of her clients were Hasidic Jewish men. How obviously perfect that the men with the most shame over sex would be the one to seek out "punishment"
Anyway, back to my original point I realize now is that my whole life, I have been trying to make my parents feel good - and pretty much everyone I have ever met.
In all of my sexual relationships (before I essentially became almost entirely celibate in 2017, give or take a few fleeting moments), I have tried my best to make the other person feel good and not even once thinking about myself.
Even if someone did want to "pleasure me" , I almost always pretended to enjoy it more than I really did, so as to make them feel good, since I did not really care about my own pleasure.
I felt ashamed of my own pleasure and enthusiasm in all areas of my life, not just sexually - since it was all too vulnerable for me to handle the thought of letting myself go and potentially feeling harmed or feeling rejection or shaming for focusing on "myself" instead of "others"
Because of the taboo nature of my recent posts, there is a self-protective part of me that wants to make this blog private but at the same time, I know that other people have similar strange experiences and I am finally independent now so I really don't need anyone's approval, not even my mothers or dead fathers or friends. I am not charging anyone to read this blog so I do not owe anyone "quality content" or to be a certain way.
Unfortunatrly, most people are beholden to acting a certain way, but in the end, I actually realize it's best to burn all your bridges and start over again, especially in these times.
I have tried to "trick people into thinking I am normal" for basically my entire life - and even with all that tricking, it's not like people have been especially generous to me or offered me some kind of golden ticket of fame or fortune for being a certain way (thank God) so now I realize I have nothing to lose.
If I were some kind of public figure expected to behave a certain way, it would make sense to hide the type of material I have recently been sharing, but I realize that I don't owe you anything and you don't owe me anything! It's actually beautiful!
I am writing all this for the sake of myself, and if you enjoy it that is a bonus! That is how all art and creation should be! We should create from a deep desire with the hopes that our authenticity will excite others - instead of creating with the goal to "pleasure others" first.
As someone who was repulsed by anything remotely sexual or "high maintenance and emotional" , I am sure I would be repulsed by this blog 2 years ago or imagine the type of person writing all this was "too dramatic" or "annoying" or "looking for pity" or "priviledged and ungrateful" or some other thing to try to help me avoid feeling my own feelings of deep-seated frustration I felt too ashamed of feeling.
I am allowed to take up space now and make other people uncomfortable now. I am allowed to share my horrible Uncle's video on my blog, even if it makes me a "downer" (my own words, nobody else's).
By me sharing my experience, I know I must be helping someone.... perhaps that is you - but at the least, that person is myself. And that is enough. And it always has been enough, I just didn't learn this until now.
I highly recommend reading "Children of Emotionally Immature Parents"by Lindsay C Gibson.
and this little girl
