Truth be Told
Posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 11:44 pmDavid: Truth be told…I’m scared. I thought about this post all day long…actually I first thought about all the other posts I should write…about all the comments I’ve yet to post…about all the truth to be told…then I thought of this post. The pre-post…the post that comes before the others. I’m scared that I don’t know how to be in a healthy relationship with you…the “equality cycle” relationship…on a blog or otherwise. I’m afraid I won’t be able to change my reactions…change my interactions…that’s also a reason I wanted to talk with Mary Jane Natishyn. I need some help, too. You write so freely…I hold back…I still don’t want to upset things…and I don’t want to get in an argument with you on a blog site…a tit for tat….I don’t want to provoke…so, I stay neutral. But, I do want to be honest and I do need and want a safe place to give my opinion, share my fears, question, discuss, agree and disagree. So I’m going to do it…on the blog…rigorous honesty and see what happens. I chaired the meeting tonight at the Al-Anon group…Step 8…lots of new-comers…I honed in on one sentence from the reading and that was: I learned to take responsibility for my part in situations. Up until tonight I always added an extra word in that sentence/thought…a word that isn’t there: I learned to take responsibility for my wrong part in situations (what I had to apologize for). Tonight I realized that for me responsibility means all my actions in a situation…if wrong, then yes, certainly apologize…if right (not rightous) but right in conviction or opinion about something within my self, then I have a responsibility to myself to be steadfast…this may be coming out a little harsh or headstrong when the actual realization was softer…more about awakening…about knowing who I am and being happy with who I am…about having opinions…about being less fearful.Well, it’s late and I’m tired. Will post/comment (give my opinion!) again tomorrow night. JT
Most Eternal Goddess of Fictions: Changes. Hmmm. Nope. You won’t be doing that. Not much. Al-Anon says I don’t need a change in you, my qualifier, my alcoholic. BIP says the (abusive) woman changes as quickly as the man who abused her. MJ says eventually we return to our core values. I say behaviors can change, and my behavior can change, or I’ve no hope, and what that changes in you, and what it doesn’t, I either accept or not. How’s that for ambivalence? Yeah, good luck with that change thing. But I think you’re right about the honesty thing. I think you’re really angry with me. I think you’ve been angry for a long time. I think you either haven’t really told me, or I wasn’t listening. And I think the anger popped out of you, covered, of course, with sweetness, in public and in front of my folks. And as inappropriate as I believe it was I should have made a different decision, changed that behavior, asked for a time-out, and walked home. Those type changes I think I can make. BUT that is not intimacy; it’s recovery maintenance. So saith your Most Fictional God of Eternities
Jen: Mary Jane Natishyn says, “Of course she doesn’t tell you the truth – you’re a screamer, you rage, you throw things, and you hit her.”
My reaction to the word – truth – in your title was strong. I immediately turned and left the room. I had to before any of the other words in your post jumped off the screen to have their way with me. I went to the kitchen to start coffee and wondered if my reaction qualified as abuse and, if so, could I use it for my next BIP check-in.
“My name is David and I’m checking in with Imagination Abuse. My partner posted the word Truth on our blog and I immediately thought ‘Liar’.”
That, of course, I knew wouldn’t work. So, I turned my mind to Mary Jane’s deep-belly-through-the-nose-breathing. Four seconds in. Four seconds hold. Four seconds out.
Mary Jane says often angry outbursts are preceded by either holding the breath, shallow breathing, or rapid breathing. She has also pointed out that I often sigh, and blow, both negative expressive gestures. So, with or without meditation, she asks I practice, until routine, the corrective pattern of breathing.
Fortunately, when I returned to the unread words they did not attack me. You did not say you had a new boyfriend. You did not say you’d slept with Elizabeth. You did not say that Ellen had a nose ring. You did not say you were filing for divorce. You did not talk the mumbo-jumbo, or dance the hokey-pokey. You were pretty straight. You told me AGAIN, “Let’s wait a while”
And you really have to stop saying that because, honestly, my head may be screwed on backwards, but there IS some erotic promise clothed in that sentiment let’s-wait-a-while.
The equality I knew I would find in you was spiritual. You have always been full of worship for the divine and for the sublime. Each of us had our false starts. Both wanted a light like Ellen in our lives.
You’ve outgrown most, and surpassed many, of the inequities of education, experience, and success that may have once seperated us. But that hasn’t stopped me from getting angry, and anger, per BIP, always begins with a less-than thought or statement.
I’ve lost ground. I have no career history, nothing to put on a resume that is an easy sell. I gave my life to you, to Ellen, the birds, the house. And I didn’t do too well with any of that. And I never canoed with you down the Rainbow River, which according to a fellow that spoke to the FWC yesterday, is a crystal clear five-mile run with more species of turtle than any river in Florida.
Anyway, I could probably sit here all day yakking, imagining that I was yakking with you, when really I’m not, when really I’m just sitting alone typing to a computer.
Before intimacy comes recovery. In the twelve step model, I believe intimacy is going to be in the last three steps – greater reliance on God (than on self or another person), and moving out into the world in service, in worship.
Mary Jane may not agree with that interpretation of the twelve. She has said AA and Al-Anon are strictly about recovery, not the development of intimacy.
On the other hand, there’s the book Compelled to Control. I got it from the library because the title popped up on a subject search for intimacy. I thought it would have some trust and intimacy games, or some kind of activities, I don’t know. Instead, it turned out to be a twelve step book … not “conference approved”, of course, but one man’s view of how the twelve steps work psychologically and spiritually, and how, in his opinion, they heal the injury to intimacy that comes from the compulsion to control, the compulsion to protect the tender spots of our spirit. There are several copies in the library downtown.
Thanks for your careful approach to the truth.
David