My greatest disappointment as an adult is to arrive at middle age and to find so many grown folk who do not want to be adults. It saddens me to see on a daily basis how many people who do not want to behave age appropriate, do not want to take responsibility for the choices they make and those who literally just come out and say, "I don't want to grow up."
People want to buy everything they think they want on credit, but when it comes time to pay for it, they don't want someone else to foot the bill.
Now that I know for sure my husband and I will not be reconciling, I have actually talked to some men who I thought should be mature adults. Two in particular are over 60 and are two of the most childish, immature men I have ever met. The are selfish and self-centered and have no compassion. It is scary.
I really don't know what to think. I have done all the settling I'm gonna do in my marriage. I will not spend anytime with anyone who does not respond adult like. No more drama and definitely no childish bullshit coming from men half a century old or more.
I am so disappointed.
Showing posts with label adults. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adults. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Saturday, November 19, 2011
When You Grow Up
I have grown so much until it frightens me sometimes. The fear is based on the fact that I could have ever not believed in myself. I fear it could happen again. How could I have spent so many years caring about what other people think? How could I give so thought to killing myself, overeating, being the victim?
I could do those things because I was immature. I was a child. After living for half a century, so many things have come full circle. I remember crying when my hair fell out when I was 12. I took to wearing wigs. My family started calling me bald headed. Now, I shave my head almost completely and love it. Back then I cried almost everyday.
When I was in college, a magazine came out called BBW (Big, Beautiful Woman). On the cover of the first issue was a girl laying down with a sweater on and leggins. I remember thinking how fat I was and how I would never wear leggings. Back then, I was solid muscle, didn't have no fat hanging nowhere. Now, I have fat hanging and will put on a pair of leggins in a minute.
When you grow up, you are freed from so many of the ridiculous thoughts and fears you once harbored closely. When you grow up, you recognize fear is just another way to keep yourself from living your life. When you grow up, you open your mind to possibilities, you allow yourself to make mistakes.
It is fun to be an adult. I love being a grown up. I am good at it.
I could do those things because I was immature. I was a child. After living for half a century, so many things have come full circle. I remember crying when my hair fell out when I was 12. I took to wearing wigs. My family started calling me bald headed. Now, I shave my head almost completely and love it. Back then I cried almost everyday.
When I was in college, a magazine came out called BBW (Big, Beautiful Woman). On the cover of the first issue was a girl laying down with a sweater on and leggins. I remember thinking how fat I was and how I would never wear leggings. Back then, I was solid muscle, didn't have no fat hanging nowhere. Now, I have fat hanging and will put on a pair of leggins in a minute.
When you grow up, you are freed from so many of the ridiculous thoughts and fears you once harbored closely. When you grow up, you recognize fear is just another way to keep yourself from living your life. When you grow up, you open your mind to possibilities, you allow yourself to make mistakes.
It is fun to be an adult. I love being a grown up. I am good at it.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
I Know How He Feels
Even though I was very sleepy, I watched Tyler Perry's interview yesterday. I had to. I needed to know why he chose the projects he has chosen and they all are parallel to what he experienced as a child.
I am the female version of him. One of many. My mother was the abuser in our home. She belittled me and like his father, felt you were only working if you were using your hands. When I was 15, she asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I told her I wanted to be a writer and she went crazy yelling, "That's sitting down. That ain't work." I was devastated and for many of my dead years, (from birth to 26) I experienced a lot of writers block, although for some reason I was able to keep writing about my daily experiences. I have kept a journal since I was 15.
This saved my life. The other day I went to a training that was talking about kids who do not receive the proper care from their main caregivers. As the psychiatrist was talking about the subject, I had an true "Ah Hah" moment. I completely realized the extent of the neglect I experienced and was completely aware of. Being hypersensitive, I somehow always felt I didn't get the nurturing I needed past infancy. And if what I am told is true, she let me cry a lot. She didn't believe in holding children. What a throwback attitude from slavery. They separated us and it was hard for some of us to let go of the old slave survival ways.
I was neglected. I finally understood completely why I would always say to them, "Thanks for growing me up," because that is literally all they did. I no where near got the attention I deserved and most definitely no respect for who I was, or who I could be. Seeing him, and having the experience I had the day before has opened me up even more if that is possible.
Whereas he waited until his mother died before purging himself, I waited until my brother grew up enough to get from under my mother's apron. When he was in his 30's, he called me one day and told me they had fallen out. Almost immediately I began putting my autobiography together. It was published in 2003. Telling the Truth and Shaming the Devil is the name of the book. I had to write it. I had to take care of the little girl who was almost destroyed.
Girls just got it going on. The entire way we're made makes us so capable and I am no different. The psychiatrist said to me, "You were lucky. Your brain found a way to process what happened to you." And she is right. I have always been blessed with the ability to self-soothe. So, unlike most people who do not get the proper nurturing and seek everything but what they need, I knew I needed to be intimate. I knew I needed to learn to love and be loved.
Even with all the suffering I have endured, I am very proud of the woman I have become. I have had 18 months of professional therapy, but for the most part, I have healed myself. My eyes don't cry no more. I used to not be able to even think about the past abuse, or my parents without crying. Those tears have long dried up and I truly have forgiven them. I don't have much contact with my mother. She threatened to sue me when she read the book and literally cut my kids off. They are in shock because they no longer have the wonderful grandmother she portrayed herself to be, but as I have always known, as soon as something does not go her way, its on the highway and my kids are no different. Yet, she claims when I said in the book how distant and self-centered she was I am lying. She claims the cruelty she still displays is a lie. What she has successfully done is proven me right by her actions.
I can deal with the alienation. I know I can if the little girl I was could. She took beatings, floggings, pinching, verbal abuse, and neglect. She was strong and like Tyler Perry, I owe it to her to be successful and I have been. I have successfully stopped the cycle of abuse in my family. My children won't neglect theirs because they were loved with every inch of my being and they know it and proudly boast about it.
Tyler Perry needed to let that stuff out, otherwise he stood a great chance of losing all he has accomplished because like Oprah said and knows so well, all the money in the world can't fix you. It can't soothe the pain and it doesn't get you from one day to the next. He did exactly what he should. The striking similarity is when I approached my mother about the abuse, she laughed at and mocked me just a his father did him. Those type of people live to try to make their wrongs right. My theory is it is most the over opinionated and undereducated who have the most to say about what they don't know.
I am proud of Tyler.
I am the female version of him. One of many. My mother was the abuser in our home. She belittled me and like his father, felt you were only working if you were using your hands. When I was 15, she asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I told her I wanted to be a writer and she went crazy yelling, "That's sitting down. That ain't work." I was devastated and for many of my dead years, (from birth to 26) I experienced a lot of writers block, although for some reason I was able to keep writing about my daily experiences. I have kept a journal since I was 15.
This saved my life. The other day I went to a training that was talking about kids who do not receive the proper care from their main caregivers. As the psychiatrist was talking about the subject, I had an true "Ah Hah" moment. I completely realized the extent of the neglect I experienced and was completely aware of. Being hypersensitive, I somehow always felt I didn't get the nurturing I needed past infancy. And if what I am told is true, she let me cry a lot. She didn't believe in holding children. What a throwback attitude from slavery. They separated us and it was hard for some of us to let go of the old slave survival ways.
I was neglected. I finally understood completely why I would always say to them, "Thanks for growing me up," because that is literally all they did. I no where near got the attention I deserved and most definitely no respect for who I was, or who I could be. Seeing him, and having the experience I had the day before has opened me up even more if that is possible.
Whereas he waited until his mother died before purging himself, I waited until my brother grew up enough to get from under my mother's apron. When he was in his 30's, he called me one day and told me they had fallen out. Almost immediately I began putting my autobiography together. It was published in 2003. Telling the Truth and Shaming the Devil is the name of the book. I had to write it. I had to take care of the little girl who was almost destroyed.
Girls just got it going on. The entire way we're made makes us so capable and I am no different. The psychiatrist said to me, "You were lucky. Your brain found a way to process what happened to you." And she is right. I have always been blessed with the ability to self-soothe. So, unlike most people who do not get the proper nurturing and seek everything but what they need, I knew I needed to be intimate. I knew I needed to learn to love and be loved.
Even with all the suffering I have endured, I am very proud of the woman I have become. I have had 18 months of professional therapy, but for the most part, I have healed myself. My eyes don't cry no more. I used to not be able to even think about the past abuse, or my parents without crying. Those tears have long dried up and I truly have forgiven them. I don't have much contact with my mother. She threatened to sue me when she read the book and literally cut my kids off. They are in shock because they no longer have the wonderful grandmother she portrayed herself to be, but as I have always known, as soon as something does not go her way, its on the highway and my kids are no different. Yet, she claims when I said in the book how distant and self-centered she was I am lying. She claims the cruelty she still displays is a lie. What she has successfully done is proven me right by her actions.
I can deal with the alienation. I know I can if the little girl I was could. She took beatings, floggings, pinching, verbal abuse, and neglect. She was strong and like Tyler Perry, I owe it to her to be successful and I have been. I have successfully stopped the cycle of abuse in my family. My children won't neglect theirs because they were loved with every inch of my being and they know it and proudly boast about it.
Tyler Perry needed to let that stuff out, otherwise he stood a great chance of losing all he has accomplished because like Oprah said and knows so well, all the money in the world can't fix you. It can't soothe the pain and it doesn't get you from one day to the next. He did exactly what he should. The striking similarity is when I approached my mother about the abuse, she laughed at and mocked me just a his father did him. Those type of people live to try to make their wrongs right. My theory is it is most the over opinionated and undereducated who have the most to say about what they don't know.
I am proud of Tyler.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Marriage Is Not for Children
Marriage is not for children. Marriage is for adults who are willing to enter into an agreement that will cultivate as much of a win/win outcome for both spouses.
Marriage is for those who are mature, or willing to mature. Marriage is not for children, yet over and over childish individuals enter into the adult world of marriage and find they are not equip to handle the responsibility. Just because you pay bills, drive a car, have your own apartment, etc. does mean you are an adult. Our minds often does not catch up with our age.
Many people are under the assumption they are marrying someone ready for marriage. It doesn't take them long to find out they married a fully grown infant just wanting their way and expecting everyone else to cater to them. Or they find they have married someone incapable of experiencing their feelings and emotions, other than anger, need for sex, and food. Then there are those of us who marry only to find we didn't know what we thought we knew, now we have to try to fake it, knowing all the time we will soon be found out.
Think before you leap. Marriage is not for children.
Marriage is for those who are mature, or willing to mature. Marriage is not for children, yet over and over childish individuals enter into the adult world of marriage and find they are not equip to handle the responsibility. Just because you pay bills, drive a car, have your own apartment, etc. does mean you are an adult. Our minds often does not catch up with our age.
Many people are under the assumption they are marrying someone ready for marriage. It doesn't take them long to find out they married a fully grown infant just wanting their way and expecting everyone else to cater to them. Or they find they have married someone incapable of experiencing their feelings and emotions, other than anger, need for sex, and food. Then there are those of us who marry only to find we didn't know what we thought we knew, now we have to try to fake it, knowing all the time we will soon be found out.
Think before you leap. Marriage is not for children.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Personal Responsibility
The biggest disappointment of my adult life has been to get here and find so many "supposed to be adult" people are unwilling to take responsibility for their actions.
Wake up! Hold yourself accountable that way no one else will have to.
Wake up! Hold yourself accountable that way no one else will have to.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Born to Win
Gestalt therapy and transactional analysis is designed to help individuals discover, acknowledge, accept and intergrate the fragmented parts of their personalities.
Gestalt is a German word that means "an organzied whole- a whole that works together. Dr. Perls believed the personalities of many people suffer from not being whole and are fragmented.
"The aim of Gestalt therapy is to help people become whole, to help them become aware of, admit to, reclaim and intergrate the fragmented parts of their personality."
I see it all the time. Parts of people's personalities splinter off to deal with things they are afraid to or cannot deal with as a whole. The whole purpose of Gestalt therapy is to help people go from dependency to self-sufficiency.
Gestalt therapy talks about "ego states." I was having a conversation with a friend about my husband. She questioned whether he could be a good father, when in fact he was fairing poorly as a husband and even a man. I explained to her that just because he has problems with being those to things doesn't mean he can't parent.
In Gestalt, each person has three ego states, Parent, Adult and Child. These states individual and have certain patterns of behavior. When you act like your parent's behaved, you are in your parent ego state, when you are dealing with current reality, handling business, assessing or gathering facts, you are in your adult ego state.
According to Gestalt therapy the Parent ego state -"contains the attitudes and behavior a person learns from external sources, primarily parents. Outwardly, the Parent is expressed toward others in prejudicial, critical and nurturing behavior. Inwardly, it is experienced as old Parental messages which continue to influence the inner Child."
The Adult ego state-"is not related to a person's age. It is tuned in to current reality. The Adult is organized, adaptable, intelligent and functions by thinking clearly and objectively."
The Child ego state-"contains all the impulses that come naturally to an infant. It also contains the memories of the child's early experiences and responses."
It is believed that people can act from all ego states, or they may predominately choose one or two they feel comfortable with portraying most of the time.
My husband, since I've known him has mostly operated through his Child and Parent ego states. He is rarely in reality and seldom wants to deal with NOW!
So when I say I feel he is a pretty good parent, he is. His parenting skills are better than mine in many ways. But as we all know, most adults do not want to be parented, thus he runs into a lot of problems with people because he usually is in his Parent ego state. He is constantly trying to tell other people what they should and should not do, but has no clue when it comes to his own life.
I can literally say I've never felt like we have had an adult conversation. We have plenty parent conversations, but I draw the line when he is in his Child ego state. This is why we rarely talk.
We make a mistake when we look at people in an "all or nothing manner." People are amazing in amazing ways. They have so many layers. There are few people who are completely worthless. It is easy to write people off when they don't MEASURE up to our standards, but who are we to hold others to certain standards? That is not love. Not the love I know God wants us to have for our fellow man.
I value what my husband brings to our family as a parent. We have well mannered, intelligent, self-confident children. Their father has been extremely nurturing with them all their lives. Just the other day my son came to me and said, "Mom, even though I'm really mad at Dad, I have to admit he has always shown me love."
Maybe that shouldn't be enough for me, but it is. I went my entire childhood feeling unloved by parents who provided love through lip service, while simultaneously doing everything they could to rob me of my soul. At the end of the day, knowing you are loved is the best sleeping pill.
Gestalt is a German word that means "an organzied whole- a whole that works together. Dr. Perls believed the personalities of many people suffer from not being whole and are fragmented.
"The aim of Gestalt therapy is to help people become whole, to help them become aware of, admit to, reclaim and intergrate the fragmented parts of their personality."
I see it all the time. Parts of people's personalities splinter off to deal with things they are afraid to or cannot deal with as a whole. The whole purpose of Gestalt therapy is to help people go from dependency to self-sufficiency.
Gestalt therapy talks about "ego states." I was having a conversation with a friend about my husband. She questioned whether he could be a good father, when in fact he was fairing poorly as a husband and even a man. I explained to her that just because he has problems with being those to things doesn't mean he can't parent.
In Gestalt, each person has three ego states, Parent, Adult and Child. These states individual and have certain patterns of behavior. When you act like your parent's behaved, you are in your parent ego state, when you are dealing with current reality, handling business, assessing or gathering facts, you are in your adult ego state.
According to Gestalt therapy the Parent ego state -"contains the attitudes and behavior a person learns from external sources, primarily parents. Outwardly, the Parent is expressed toward others in prejudicial, critical and nurturing behavior. Inwardly, it is experienced as old Parental messages which continue to influence the inner Child."
The Adult ego state-"is not related to a person's age. It is tuned in to current reality. The Adult is organized, adaptable, intelligent and functions by thinking clearly and objectively."
The Child ego state-"contains all the impulses that come naturally to an infant. It also contains the memories of the child's early experiences and responses."
It is believed that people can act from all ego states, or they may predominately choose one or two they feel comfortable with portraying most of the time.
My husband, since I've known him has mostly operated through his Child and Parent ego states. He is rarely in reality and seldom wants to deal with NOW!
So when I say I feel he is a pretty good parent, he is. His parenting skills are better than mine in many ways. But as we all know, most adults do not want to be parented, thus he runs into a lot of problems with people because he usually is in his Parent ego state. He is constantly trying to tell other people what they should and should not do, but has no clue when it comes to his own life.
I can literally say I've never felt like we have had an adult conversation. We have plenty parent conversations, but I draw the line when he is in his Child ego state. This is why we rarely talk.
We make a mistake when we look at people in an "all or nothing manner." People are amazing in amazing ways. They have so many layers. There are few people who are completely worthless. It is easy to write people off when they don't MEASURE up to our standards, but who are we to hold others to certain standards? That is not love. Not the love I know God wants us to have for our fellow man.
I value what my husband brings to our family as a parent. We have well mannered, intelligent, self-confident children. Their father has been extremely nurturing with them all their lives. Just the other day my son came to me and said, "Mom, even though I'm really mad at Dad, I have to admit he has always shown me love."
Maybe that shouldn't be enough for me, but it is. I went my entire childhood feeling unloved by parents who provided love through lip service, while simultaneously doing everything they could to rob me of my soul. At the end of the day, knowing you are loved is the best sleeping pill.
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