Feeding My Child

When I realized that I was treating my eldest as the scapegoat in our family, treating her as a bit of an outsider and displacing my negative feelings on her, the ways in which I was doing it were there, staring me in the face.  I didn’t have to sit and think hard about the “how” of it all.  I had always been conscious of what I was doing, but always had excuses that allowed me to get by with it.  Now I have no excuses.  I see the excuses as the bunk that they are.    

One of the things that I routinely did with my eldest was I prepared food for the younger kids and didn’t prepare anything for her.  Why?  Well, my excuse was that she knew what she wanted and would get it herself.  Why not?  First, I can tell you that it was most certainly neglect,

When the Scapegoated Becomes the Scapegoater

Eight week ago, I lay on my basement floor sobbing and crying out to God, “I can’t do this anymore!  Why is this happening?  Where are you?”

I have had a devilish year with my family.  I can’t believe how many brewhahas there have been and how many of those brewhahas have left me bloody.  I have wondered if I could possibly pick myself up and keep going.   Here I was again, in the middle of another mess, and I was filled with the shame—deep, paralyzing shame.

                                                                                

I have never felt driven to look for a purpose for why bad things that happen to us.  I’ve been okay with the idea that bad things happen at times and there is no reason and not a blessed good thing comes from it.  But I do tend to look back to see if something miserable has borne a blessing.  It was about a month following this last family mess that I found an incredible blessing, maybe even an actual purpose, in the past two years of misery. 

A Kind, Gentle Perspective on Forgiveness to Soothe the Weary

I recently came across this blog post on forgiveness written by Abi Sutherland at Making Light.  This entry was posted on September 21 in recognition of the day Making Light has deemed "Dysfunctional Families Day."  (Go here to read the full post and enjoy the incredible comments section:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/015459.html).  

"So often, the social expectation is that someone who suffers harm will forgive the perpetrator. One is supposed to work toward forgiveness, choose to forgive, be forgiving. If the sufferer doesn’t forgive fast enough, this lack can become a stick to beat them with. Holding grudges. Unforgiving. Hard. Bitter. Angry, with a subtext of unjustifiably. Indeed, sometimes the topic becomes a way to blame the sufferer and make the perpetrator the victim: why haven’t you forgiven them? How can you do that to them?

Forgiveness can be prescribed like a medicine. If you forgive, you’ll be able to heal. Then a failure to heal becomes the fault of a sufferer who is “refusing to forgive”. (That feels like a Catch:22 to me, because pressuring someone to forgive too quickly shuts down the necessary process of figuring out what actually happened.)

As a society, we have a pretty muddy view of how to actually forgive someone. Some people expect the emotional transformation of forgiveness to just happen, perhaps after the sufferer says, “I forgive you” or lets some time pass. Others have a vending-machine model, where the perpetrator puts their apology in and forgiveness pops out.*‡ Some people expect that forgiveness comes hand in hand with forgetfulness, and suggest that the sufferer should, rather than learning from their experiences, pretend that they did not happen.

Those models really don’t match my reality.

From what I have seen and experienced, forgiveness is a product and symptom of the healing process. It’s one (but, note, not the only) possible outcome of moving beyond the hurt: a way to close the accounts**. It may involve trusting or interacting with the person again, or it may be a separate peace. In either case, it’s a recognition that the incident is now (primarily) in the past, notwithstanding any ongoing repercussions.

Given that, it seems to me that asking whether someone has forgiven yet is like asking them if their bleeding wound has scabbed over yet. Telling them to forgive is as effective as urging them to grow a scab."

This piece has become like a sweet, loving friend to me.  It gives words to the pain I have felt as I have tried and failed to heal fast enough to satisfy my dysfunctional family of origins.  Thank you to Abi Sutherland! 

Celebrating Being a Truth Teller

Last week, I broke loose and celebrated the qualities that contributed to being cast as the scapegoat.  Today, I met up with my sister.  The meet-up lasted only about ten minutes, and during that time we were simply walking around a small grocery store.  But by the end, I was almost in tears.  Nothing was said, nothing was done . . . it is just that I feel about an inch tall in her presence. 

The Good News About Being a Scapegoat!

Good news?  Everyone is saying so . . . But, really?  Actually, it looks like it is true.  There is great news that scapegoats must celebrate!  And the great news is that we possess some incredibly wonderful and powerful qualities.   The very qualities that landed us in the position of scapegoat are actually really amazing!  And here they are:

Drumroll, please!

If you are a scapegoat, you are most likely a . . .

TRUTH TELLER

Loud applause!  Hurray!  A truth teller?  That is what I have always wanted to be!  And I am!  I am a truth seeker and a truth teller, and I am that with myself . . . which is a big win for my husband and children!  Confetti, please! Yay for us, the truth tellers!

What this blog is about . . .

I am hopeful this blog will be a safe place to think about, reflect on, contemplate, and wrestle in the open with broken relationships.  The world of relationships seems to be a super messy mess, and sometimes it seems as if there is no safe place even to assess the mess.  The pressure to be happy, find peace within, move on, forgive and forget, let go, get over it, act like Jesus for God's sake!--feels pretty intense and that pressure becomes yet another source of pain, giving rise to more feelings of failure.