Speaking from experience, an inexperienced idealist doesn't change into a realist, over night. Why not? Because reflection suggests that the achievement of that lasting change must move from one stage of development through the next before the profound nature of metamorphosis (from cock-eyed optimism through grief-struck disillusionment toward peaceable realism is complete.
Speaking personally, I'd mistakenly seen myself as morphing from a caterpillar into a butterfly, flying freely through the clear blue sky, when, in truth, a butterfly's life is fleeting, and if you ask if each brief stage of a butterfly's existence proves as stormy and serene as human life proves to be, I'd shrug my shoulders, admitting to having no clue. My reference to butterflies is solely based in the fact that Mother Nature saw fit to offer caterpillars the benefit of weaving cocoons in which to undergo each stage of metamorphosis, whereas humans have need to move through each stage of transition toward maturation on center stage before an audience, armed with tomatoes, ready to be thrown.
Over these past two decades, my strong willed spirit has seen my attitude, concerning life and love, transitioning away from seeing myself as a high flying aerialist, whose head had need to remain stuck in a cloud of denial ever since the age of three when tragedy shattered my personal sense of safety into heart piercing shards. During these past twenty years, I've been working, as would a private investigator, to recreate the bigger picture of my identity by piecing those shards, together.
The earlier in life that trauma scatters a child's sense of security to the winds, the more difficult the recovery from PTSD. Why? Because at the age of three, the undeveloped nature of a fledgling thought processor can't hope to begin to process depths of emotional pain suffered within the self, much less anguish suffered by anyone else. And thus, over years, do layers of denial pile up, saving a small child, who has experienced emotional devastation, over long, from losing his or her hold on sanity, suggestive of the fact that during childhood, denial acts as a sanity saver. On the other hand, denial denies injured portions of a child's self image to literally petrify in place, stalling each next stage of the child's natural development from advancing in such a healthy, well grounded manner as to subconsciously experience failure to thrive in the same way as proves true of infants, whose physical needs are cared for while their emotional needs are ignored.
Ever since the age of three, each traumatized, deeply wounded, petrified, paralyzed aspect of my deeply repressed, negatively focused, self demeaning self image had need of a jumpstart to catalyze the delayed stage of my emotional development. In other words, each eruptive episode of PTSD, today, alerts the conscious portion of my thought processor of another opportunity to identify and re-adjust yet another self demeaning attitude by causing me to re-experience a frightening segment of my childhood in the healthy manner, which, having swallowed my self assertive voice, I'd originally been denied by—fate. In short, each episode of PTSD is Mother Nature's way of saying: Annie, make good use of your adult think tank, today, to consciously reprocess and voice aloud the depths of anguish, which had utterly confounded the immature think tank of the good, little girl, you had been.
In truth, over these past six years, you and I have played witness to a cock-eyed optimist penning post after post while laboring to give birth to the realist, whose gestation (conceived twenty-two years ago at which time my marriage came jarringly undone) has been processing (morphing) stage by stage, within the womb of my brain. (Whew!) And thus have we observed my thought processor working, over time, 24/7, in hopes of my consciously absorbing the strength of spirit necessary to labor through painfully giving birth to the fledgling, rubber legged realist, who has had to face up to this harsh fact of life, multiple times, before today's vision of clarity was mine: My high flying level of optimism had need to be impregnated, repeatedly by depths of disillusionment before my many-layered wall of denial could muster the courage necessary to unveil The Wizard of Oz staring back at me from my mirror, which currently reflects the chagrined state of my vulnerable human self, at long last.
On the other hand, rather than gnashing my teeth and berating myself, I, having, long ago, morphed past childish, closed minded humiliated reactions in favor of having embraced an emotionally matured, open-minded sense of humility, am, finally, holding my vulnerability aloft for all to see, just as The Statue of Liberty (whom Hillary suggests that The Donald judges to be 'a four' and thus not worthy of his fiddling with) holds high the torch of freedom, which embraces the equality of every human being, throughout the world, because, after all, ansestry.com offers scientific data of the fact that your DNA and mine, which makes up every atom of the unique individuals, whom we each prove to be, has been passed to us from our ancestors, whose DNA, over eons of time, has been woven together from numerous nationalities, skin colors as well as social, political and religious ideologies, all funneling into the make up of the person who stares back from your mirror and mine, thus, challenging our small minded attitudes to work toward embracing, first, oneself as the sum of our parts of our whole before we can hope to embrace others as people, who arise, each day, hoping to clarify whatever disillusionment had served to disrupt their sleep during the dark of night, causing them to awaken, feeling dazed with a sense of befuddlement, similar to mine—holy, moly, seen in this light—is there any wonder as to why the minds of mankind, the world over, are riddled with conditioned hypocrisy in need of trains of intuitive thought, trained on seeking strings of insight, which shine spotlights crystal clear clarity on negatively focused attitudes, in need of identifying and straightening out before deeper truth is ours?
If this idealist-morphing-through-yet-another-stage-of-disillusionment keeps an open mind, you're sure to witness my think tank chugging out trains of thought, which continue to close the gap between my subconscious unrest and my ever-evolving goal of deepening my personal sense of serenity as I continue to develop and truly embrace the realist, whom I've mistakenly seen myself to be, over these past several years. Thank goodness I've grown well-practiced at honeying the words I must swallow with dollops of humility rather than stewing hotly in humiliation while eating crow after crow—I mean, who wants to eat crow?
Next time Peter Pan taps at my windowpane, who will run, freely, to greet him and welcome him into my embrace? A more gracefully matured Wendy, by far. I hope.
As idealists age, our strong willed spirits either stumble into a sudden, mind blowing tumble down a dark, dank, bottomless shaft where Jack and Jill's self professed prophecy of each one's personal description of hell waits to swallow our deeply repressed, self demeaning attitudes whole, OR our attitudes of cock-eyed optimism slowly slip into a series of zombie-like states of disillusionment to which denial blinds us until intuition is miraculously stimulated to empower our thought processors with insights, concerning new, unexpected experiences, which shine spotlights upon sound reason for each of us to continue to work toward piecing together our own puzzling bigger pictures in hopes of developing a rebalanced, well rounded sense of self. And as the picture I've just painted colors in the series of on-going events, which continue to serve to reshape the fledgling, rubber legged, re-grounded realist, whom I was born to grow up to be, I invite you to continue to witness my conscious awareness acknowledging and accepting (before peaceably embracing) my next step into the great unknown, which I'll freely choose to take—given time ...
In SCRIBBLE SCRIBBLE, Nora Ephron wrote about Theodore H. White (THE MAKING OF A PRESIDENT (1964, 1968, 1972). "He was 60 and tired ... We must understand how this man grew to have a respect and awe for the institutions of American government that was so overwhelming as to blind him to the weaknesses of the men who ran them.”
Let's change that to:
I am 72 and tired. We must understand how I grew to have a respect and awe for the institution of 'Family First' that was so overwhelming as to blind me to the weaknesses of the men and women who ran them." Uh wait ... let's change that to ...
We must understand my inability, until recently, to do more than accept this fact of life, which must be truly absorbed and embraced before serenity can last more than a day or two: I may be able to influence change for the better to develop within myself by identifying and reconsidering negatively focused attitudes of my own, which had been repressed, over long; however, I cannot strengthen anyone else's subconscious weaknesses other than than my own. I mean, let's consider this: As long as denial blinds each of us to many of our own personal strengths and self demeaning weaknesses, creating lasting change for the better within oneself will prove to be a many staged, lifetime challenge. So, here's the silver lining: Time and again, my strength of spirit's quest for wisdom combines with knowledgable tools, absorbed by my think tank, providing my disillusioned state of confusion with trains of thought, which spotlight strings of insight that brighten my self image to view myself as having the ability to champion the soulful nature of whatever mind-bending, energy-exhausting challenge fate has cast in my path at each stage of my adult life—beginning decades before I had a clue of my brain's need to (and innate potential to) seek professional guidance in order to heal itself of PTSD.
As to recent posts, written and left in drafts or published only to be withdrawn
I'm feeling too confused, right now, (though less every day) to know
Where I'm heading next. Why? Because my brain is still actively progressing
Through processing through all of the jumping beans that I've recently
Experienced, but not posted, because three experiences dizzied my adult to
The point that my sense of reality spun my brain into an episode of PTSD
Where I could not function at a higher level of thinking than had been true when
I was three, on the other hand, here's the upside of my current state of confusion:
Confusion, identified and acknowledged, is the first stage of change in the making
And if there's one surety, concerning the on-going development
Of my strength of mind, spirit and heart, concerning reshaping my identity, it is this:
Along my life's path, I've taken two steps forward, one back as I continue to identify
More often than not with refocusing my smarts and heart toward this fact—
Over my lifetime, I've worked to create changes for the better, such as these:
One day, I, seeing myself as the bright and sunny center of my family's universe, was
Bewitched into confounded, terrified child, scratching to get out of my skin by night
As years passed, this child, who was (subconsciously) confounded and fearful at
Home, became a deeply observant, empathetic, popular leader at her first school
Though my confounded, fearful (repressed) attitude rocked no boats at home
I remained an observant, empathetic, popular, self assertive leader with peers
Then, with no clue of having become more than chubby, I moved to a new school
Found myself bullied and began to feel just as confounded and fearful as at home
By high school, a child, who'd been a deeply observant, empathetic, popular leader
With peers had morphed into an insecure teen, whose smile served as my umbrella
In truth, I, who'd no clue of veiling introversion behind an extrovert's persona
Morphed from a self confident, social leader into a confounded, insecure teen
My saving grace: The heartfelt nature of my empathetic smile was so sincere as to
Have won many friendships, and having worked to slim down, my dance card filled
Though having accepted countless dates, I'd kept a dark secret from myself, which
Offered me reason to fear pleasing boys as much as I'd feared displeasing girlfriends
As this secret kept every boy I'd dated at an arm's length away, none turned into
Boyfriends until I met a guy, who, respecting my boundaries, made me feel safe
Though I was a good student in high school, good was not good enough for me in
College, because my boyfriend and his friends were pre-med over—achievers
Over time, I rose to the occasion, and before graduation, I, who'd once felt
Happy to earn a line up of B's, found myself staring at straight A's
My college years proved my happiest since I'd switched schools in fifth grade
At which time my social standing took such a sudden dive as to addle my mind
As a young, enthusiastic, fifth grade teacher, whose empathetic love of children
Made me a natural, guess who'd no clue as to how to discipline, effectively?
When the boy with whom I'd felt safe chose me as his loving bride, guess who'd
Followed the dictates of being raised in the fifties, thinking all would be well?
This doting wife, whose love of children was renown, grew to be a loving mother
Whose open minded, good fortune introduced me to Dr. Rudolph Dreikur's opus
Dr. Rudolph Dreikur's opus, CHILDREN THE CHALLENGE was the first of
Many tomes, which had guided this fun-loving woman along motherhood's path
Over time, I'd eagerly absorbed one man's opus after another, and thankfully
This wife, mother and teacher (now of parents) experienced success, repeatedly
As a natural storyteller, the stories I told in class after class, concerning family life
Served as examples of making good use of the creative portion of my noodle
As it turns out, once I'd read opus after opus
My failure-to-discipline-with-effectiveness began to turn around
Over time, my power of intuition had produced five original tools with which
I'd disciplined three boisterous boys effectively, lovingly, creatively and humorously
And each time I'd offer up another sure-fire, logical consequence that had
Work like a charm, class participants implored me to pen an opus of my own
Having facilitated seminars at professional conferences and published
Articles in parenting magazines ...
The spirit of this certified instructor of family communication felt shattered each
Time disillusionment smacked my noggin into a wall—which wall?
My wall of denial, and if repeating the same pattern while expecting
A different result is the definition of insanity, then ...
In order for my fearful introversion and heartfelt extraversion were clearly able
To cleave together, my wall of denial had to come down, layer by layer
As Joshua and his horn was no where to be found, luckily
Socrates, whose empathetic heart was winging past my house befriended me
And as that, in a nutshell, describes stages of metamorphosis leading up to my
Present stage of personal growth, which sees my mind progressing through
This current process of shedding my chrysalis, you might think to ask:
Well, Annie, where do you go from here? To which, I'd reply:
In my present state of mental contemplation, concerning
The interconnectedness between mental strain and emotional pain leading
Toward each next stage of personal growth (while a lifetime of confusion
Morphs toward clarity) this truth comes to mind: During each person's life
Times exist when our cups feel half full, half empty, overflowing or
Utterly drained only to find that (once we come to identify, accept and
Embrace life on life's terms) everyone's life is pretty much like
Any other, concerning ups and downs, with this caveat:
As long as a child is not abused to the point of shattering strength of spirit
Life proves to be pretty much whatever we choose to make of it
So if you ask what I plan to do with my life next, I'd reply:
Other than continuing to focus on my chosen path (which includes
Seeking insight while penning my blog rather than helplessly
Wringing my hands when my heart feels pained, my mind strained and
My spirit drained) I have no more clue as to what's up, next, than do you
So I guess tis best to rest my tired mind until intuition guides me to pen
Whatever my sense of readiness releases, next, from
File #1, 2 or 3 of my memory bank, suggesting that
All I can say at this point for certain is this: When it comes to life
I've learned to go with it—(go with what?)—with with confusion, until
Insight by insight, a peaceful sense of clarity is, for a time, mine, and
With patience intact, the day is sure to dawn when
I'll feel free to write whatever my heart truly feels, moment by moment, suggesting
That while some things need to change, some things do not, soooo ...
If we focus on the positive side of my history, it seems safe to say that
Before too long, whatever trains of intuitive thought show up on
My screen and yours will surely carry my present state of
Wearied disillusionment, concerning life, toward
The next optimistic, more realistic rest stop, which
I'd thought was already mine, suggesting denial to be a powerful drug ...
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