Christmas Joy and Pain- I
December 26, 2006 
As you can see from my posts, I didn’t spring from a well of emotional stability and health. Not surprisingly, I married another creature who also sprang from a similar source of dysfunction and despair. I have since spent the last two decades trying to create a well of emotional stability and health for my offspring.
Two years ago, my husband and I packed up and moved almost 1500 miles away from our families of origin. For us, it was the best thing we ever did. For our families of origin, it’s the worst thing we ever did.
This Christmas and last, the gifts come as they always do, explosive with subtext. Obviously, I really pissed both my mother and my husband’s mother off this year from the gifts they sent.
First, my parents sent me nothing for Christmas. They didn’t send anything for either my husband nor I for Christmas. They sent my two older children each a video game and my youngest a building toy.
In order to put the lack of gifts in context, you have to understand that my parents have considerable financial wealth. Wealth as in they purchased my former brother in law a life size bust of Spiderman which cost $500 for Christmas kind of wealth. Wealth as in when said brother in law filed for divorce, my parents went out and bought my sister a house kind of resources.
Also it should be noted that my husband got fired from his six figure job at the beginning of November, an announcement that I shared with them. Their response was, “We’re tapped out! We can’t give you any money.”
I wasn’t asking for money. I was really seeking emotional support which is unrealistic, I know.
I don’t even really want lavish presents. It’s just hard. Hard to hear them call and talk about all the toys they’re buying for my sister and her best friend’s kids…. hard to have them buy her a house and then claim they’re broke…. hard to open a box from them with less than $100 in gifts.
Today’s actions
Today’s actions are laying the foundation for tomorrow.
This is really huge for me. The things I’m doing today will have an effect on who I am, where I am and what I am tomorrow.
If I skip my morning and evening walk and then empty the Christmas Cookie jar during those times, my body will bear the effects of those actions. Unfortunately, the fat doesn’t just appear over a 15 minute period…. which would be nice. I need a strong cause/effect relationship for maximum impact.
Yeah, I need maximum impact. See, I was walking the dogs every morning a year ago. Then, I tripped over a clothes basket in the middle of the night and seriously sprained my ankle. The walking stopped and surprise, surprise… my clothes started getting tight. Oh, it was a gradual thing so it really crept up on me. Six months later, I wasn’t walking and was getting fatter by the day.
Then, I started walking my dogs again. Every morning for a mile. It’s not hard, I don’t sweat and it doesn’t seem to count as exercise…. but after six months, my clothes are getting looser and I feel better.
I don’t usually have that kind of stamina. I’ve stopped walking programs before with ease. But this time, I took my dog and now he is positively ADDICTED to walking. He will bark incessantly until I put his leash on and take him for a walk.
Yeah, that’s the kind of motivation I need! Incessant and relentless. Sigh
It’s all about expectations
See, in life, if you’re hurting it’s usually a result of your unrealistic expectations.
Emotional pain comes from reality crashing into unrealistic expectations.
For example, in my life, I expect my husband to care about me and what’s going on in my life. He plays along by telling me with his words, “I love you, respect you and care deeply about you.” I, like an idiot, believe these declarations to be true as I define them.
If you knew my husband for more than 15 seconds, you would see that this is a sure fire recipe for hurt and frustration.
See, my husband doesn’t care about ANYONE but himself. Yet, I keep living in this fantasy world where I apply my definition of “love” and “respect.”
In my world, love is an action word. It means caring about the other person more than you care about yourself. You put their needs, their best interest, before yours.
“Respect” is defined in my dictionary as “consideration for and deference to another’s privileges or knowledge.”
Now, after 22 years of marriage, I can tell you that my husband’s definition of love and respect differ greatly from mine.
In his book, love means he gets sexually aroused when he thinks about having sexual relations with me. In his book, respect is what is due him from every other being on the planet. His definition of respect is, “being regarded with admiration, esteem, and honor.” In my husband’s book, respect means his word is law, no matter how self serving or destructive his actions may be to others.
As a result, I spend a lot of time in a state of unhappiness and hurt. After all, he SAYS that he loves me, but he doesn’t act like it.
Sure he does. He’s just not acting out MY definition.
Never love something that can’t love you back.
No truer words were ever spoken.
However, it took me a LONG long time not only to learn that lesson, but to learn the lesson that LOVE is an action word.
My parents told me over and over again how MUCH they loved me. Why, couldn’t I see how much they loved me? My father spent 18 hours a day “working” because he loved me so much. Ok, so quite a few of those hours were while he was “working” at a bar, but it was still work!
And my mother, oh her love for me knew NO boundaries. When my little sister drew a picture of our family, she drew a picture with four distinct panes, divided by a heavy black line. Yes, we all lived in our own world. My father, of course, was pictured “at work” although in her 9 year old niavete, she thought he was at his office in the car dealership he owned. I was pictured riding my horse and she was pictured smiling and happy. My mother, well my mother was lying asleep on the couch. Oh, the fury that picture engendered in my mother. HOW DARE SHE DRAW SUCH A PICTURE!
The fact was, it was true. My mother immersed herself in Bible Study. She went to Bible Study Fellowship meetings in the morning and spent her afternoons finishing the arduous assingments. Without fail, she would drift off to sleep, I’m certain while she was deep in “prayer.”
Instead of admitting her folly though, my mother ripped into my sister. How dare she expose the family to such shame! It was ridiculous, but in my family of origin, such disclosures are labeled an act of treason.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)
My father is a tried and true narcissist. I was 39 years old before I realized that. See, before that time, I thought it I was the one who is “difficult.” Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING was always my fault. I’ve been told all my life that my family had to “walk on eggshells” to keep from upsetting me. I was a powder keg, a time bomb ready to go off at any moment. I was impossible to please. Now, in retrospect, I can see that all of those labels belonged to them, not me.
According to my parents, I was way too demanding. They could never give me “enough” time, “enough” love, “enough” affection.” Four decades later, I realize that a little of any of those would have been more than enough.
From a great website on NPD
“The material on Narcissistic Personality Disorder that is published for lay readers is not very informative, even though most people have had to cope with a narcissist at one time or another. If you were raised by a narcissistic parent, then you’ve been taught that the narcissist is always right and you’re the one who’s wrong. A lifetime of such mistreatment typically instills lack of confidence in your own judgment, along with habitual shame at never getting it right or being good enough to deserve the air that you breathe. The children of narcissists may not have realized that the quirks and oddities of their impossible-to-please parents are not in any way unique or special but are in fact the symptoms of a personality disorder. “
You rock Johanna.
I’m calling it Harvesting Joy
I’m calling this blog “Harvesting Joy” because that is my goal in life right now.
I’ve created this very public airing of my dirty laundry because…..
I need to vent.
I am the Adult Child of an Alcoholic.
Gee, that’s not enough. Alcoholic doesn’t BEGIN to encompass the the depth and breadth of character flaws and narcissistic tendencies of my paternal parental unit.
I am writing this as a testimony. I have survived. I have even THRIVED, but only after moving 1300 miles away. Only distance has given me the ability to catch my balance and begin living life to it’s fullest.
