Making and Keeping an Aim

[webglider]

Perhaps the disorder in your own house is also a "reaction" against your mother's behaviour, yet at the same time you feel conflicted about it. One of your little "I"s insists on living in disorder because it doesn't want to be like your mother. But another little "I" is constantly feeling anxious about it, worrying about the consequences, and struggles against the other little "I" to bring order to the chaos. They are at an impasse, working at cross purposes. And your "real I" needs to take charge, make CONSCIOUS CHOICES about what you want your home life to be like, based on what works best for YOU and your FAMILY -- not just let the unconscious/mechanical little "I"s constantly battle it out at cross purposes

This is close, and it's helping me. When I was six, I was in a Home for asthmatic children. I lived with twelve other girls, and we all had chores. As a result, when I came back to my mother's house two years later, I was very used to taking care of myself. I could dust, sweep, make my bed with hospital corners, set and clear a table for twelve, take myself to and from school, pick out my own clothes, fold laundry, (one of the chores at the Home was taking evryone's dirty clothes to the laundry building - a much coveted and easy chore - and another was the former's complement - going to the laundry building to pick up the clothes, take them back, separate them into piles according to the name tags of each girl, fold them and deliver them to each girl's narrow cubby-like room.

I brought all those skills to my mother's house, but once there, it was though those two years had never existed. My mother did not let me do anything. This was very frustrating for me, but if I tried, my mother was displeased with the results, so I finally capitulated and became passive which didn't please her either.

Actually, now that I think about it, my mom would often tell me about other girls who did all the things that I could do, but she wouldn't let me do, in a way that confused me. She seemed to really admire their initiative and competence, but if I tried to emulate them, what I did was not good enough.

In my mother's mind, she was trying to protect me from the horrors of her own childhood where she had to everything for her invalid mother in a totally disorganized house which she shared with her five older siblings and father who was often at work.

I think I was quite dissociated through most of my childhood: even though many images are vivid, I don't really connect feelings to them. I'm there, but it's as though I'm looking through a window at someone else.

I've read almost all the required psychology books, so I do have a sense of what I'm dealing with. My helplessness made my mom feel strong; maybe I took the place of her mother in her emotional life.

Oh, it gets so complicated. On a simpler level, I'd like to report that I returned the keys and the leash again this morning to their proper places.

 

[PepperFritz]

Wow, so your inner "Mother" voice is constantly putting you into a "double bind": Badgering you to be more organized, tidy, and orderly, like her; and at the same time reminding you that you're not even capable of it, so don't even try. No wonder you dissociate. The thought of it brings tears to my eyes. What a heavy load for you to have carried all these years.

Time to distance yourself from that voice, and realize that it is not YOU. Time to remind yourself that it is up to YOU to decide the balance of order/disorder that would be best for your home (NOT your mother); and that you are perfectly capable of implementing and maintaining that balance. There is no longer any need to maintain an image of yourself as helplessly incompetent in order to meet your mother's twisted emotional needs. Recognize it for what it is -- an artificial persona that you were forced to adopt as a child in order to survive in a highly dysfunctional household. Reconnect with that very competent and self-sufficient girl that you were when you lived apart from your mother's influence. Imagine who she might have grown up to be if she had never returned to live with her mother. Then be that person. Because you are now free to be her -- or anyone else you want to be....

:)

 

[webglider]

Wow, so your inner "Mother" voice is constantly putting you into a "double bind": Badgering you to be more organized, tidy, and orderly, like her; and at the same time reminding you that you're not even capable of it, so don't even try. No wonder you dissociate.

Wow, this is really freeing. I never realized that I was in a double-bind even though I've always felt as though I were tied up in knots. Yes, now that you've named the situation for what it really is, I feel like I can actually become consious enough to figure out more strategies to free myself from it.

Thanks for having continued to explore this situation with me.

Unfortunately, a few minutes ago, when returning from walking the dog, I forgot about my aim and have no idea where the keys and leash are.

But I think I know why; I'm blundering through another Aim, am determined to get it right, keep getting it wrong, so I carried that experience with me outside, and was mentally somewhere else when I walked through the door. I think now that I'll make a note to break the leash/key aim into three parts: beginning, middle, and end. Maybe that will help me focus more. Also, I'll try to keep the two aims separate so one doesn't sabotage the other.

 

[PepperFritz]

I'm blundering through another Aim, am determined to get it right, keep getting it wrong....

But you're not "getting it wrong", you are very much "getting it right". Setting an "aim" is not about the aim itself, it's about what the process of trying to achieve that aim causes to float upwards to your conscious mind. It's just a "technique" for exposing your mechanical behaviour, triggers, programs, etc, so that you can begin to see through the fog and make real, conscious, awake "choices", instead of mechanical ones. The point is to disavow yourself of the notion that you are in charge of yourself, that you are in the habit of making conscious choices on a daily basis, to show you how even the smallest behaviours are mechanical in nature and therefore outside of your control; and how they must be slowly and gradually taken apart, layer by layer, before you can uncover your true self, and that self's true "will".

So the technique is "working", wouldn't you say? I think it's important that you acknowledge the courage and persistence you have applied thus far and the results you are achieving. Step by step, layer by layer, you are getting there.

Once last point: It's not about "will power". Because at this point you have no real "will", only a false sense that you are capable of "doing". If you try to rush the process and achieve the aim by sheer determined EFFORT, your mechanical behaviour and battling little "I"s will just pop up again the minute you slightly loosen your grip. For that reason you have to maintain a sense of humour about it. When you find yourself dissociating "yet again", don't say "I failed again"; say "Ooops, still not there, a few more layers to go..." Also remember that the most important part of the exercise is not the correct placement of the keys/leash, but staying conscious and "awake" while you are on your way home. Because that is where the dissociation is triggered, and that's where you'll find your "gold"....


:)