Earth as mother

Caring about my ‘family’ has destroyed my life and made it such a disturbing mess that even the nightmares I had last night don’t scratch the surface of how terrible things actually are in terms of the motivations and yes the idea was pointed out to me yesterday the absolute sadism of various members of that ‘family’. I had never thought about it in those terms before despite how really true it is turning out to be; I think when you are not healed and have so much stored trauma inside it is so hard to think if the most obvious words for what is happening to you. You realise things emotionally but don’t let yourself rationally recognise them or you realise things rationally and subconsciously but do not let them register in a deeper way.

I have been so, so hurt and confused by trying to tell my ‘nuclear family’ about abuse I have experienced from others and then to experience zero caring whatsoever at all but only coldness and freakishly messed up dynamics (and a ‘responsiveness’ to my needs that, though I could not recognise it at the time, ultimately exhibited hatred towards me) of course my inner child could not understand and being trapped there lashed out with impulsiveness and now, though I was a bit uncomfortable with how casually the conversation came up because I was so not ready to talk about these things, it has been suggested that my ‘parents’ likely knew about these abuses and did not try to protect me from them, and of course I know that this is the truth.

It was suggested that we come up with terrible or insulting nicknames for at least one person in the family who hurt me and I don’t know if I’m up to doing it myself but I may have help with that ‘creative project’; I know the only way I am going to even begin to heal if healing is possible at all is to keep writing through the infinite pain and confusion and heartbreak. I am so disappointed in myself that I fought a futile battle for justice within a family that, it turns out, had no capacity to care for my emotional well-being at all: if I ever thought there was more ill-regard and hated there for me than love, well, I might not have bern able to handle it, just like I don’t think I can handle it now, but I feel like at least in the past I had social resources to perhaps start separating myself from the horror if only I had realised what it was and how to be discerning and very careful about who to trust. But I let my inner child scream and rage and blame and distrust others out of my own powerless and shame and now I am like the boy who cried wolf and who ever is going to believe that my infinite hurtand my narrative about my own is so valid and worthy of compassion even if and even though I was totally powerless to handle my situation with any kind of elegance and grace whatsoever? I blame myself more than I can say and I need to be held and to hear it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, because deep down I know that it is not, and I hate the ways I let my woundedness get the best of me and let my ‘family’ get the best of me with their desire to pile on guilt upon guilt that I cannot ever escape, and to make me feel like a useless human being who is powerless to ever escape their narratives about me, particularly knowing I am hated and their motivation is only to get the best if me, turns my healthy shame into something incredibly unhealthy, and I am tormented knowing that these disturbing dreams do not scratch the surface of the brutal reality of their hatred of me and their intention to manipulate me for their own gain and desire to position themselves at the expense of me.

I have been a threat to them, I suppose, in speaking the truth about secrets that were never told and that they are cunning enough to make sure never, ever see the light of day. I did not ever want to condemn any of them ultimately but to show everyone how much better everything could be and I failed; there was never a way to succeed, I realised, you can’t change people and I did not know what they were, but I failed. I yearned for them to respond compasssionately to the incredible pain I am in; and all I am going to get is hateful sarcasm and derision and reinforcement of my suspicions, now knowing, that I was the hated scapegoat and up against a family that is not only unloving but seeks to remind me again and again that I am worthless beyond hope.

My ‘mother’ wants me to know deep down that of course her love for me that isn’t real and that I am a joke in her eyes while still luring me in with a single text saying she loves me unconditionally which I guess I am supposed to realise is a complete lie but I cannot call out anything, anythibg hurtful that has happened to me, ever; I am just led to feel horrible about having my perceptions, and of course if she were in any way a reasonable person with any seed of God in ger that I could see, there are so many things I have dobe and ways I would make amends to her because I have felt horrible but I know now she always intended me to feel horrible and that it will only be a one way street with me confessing terrible guilt about my treatment of her while she can claim to not remember anything that she has done to hurt me ever (because simply admitting these things and that it hurts her to have hurt me would have been a balm to my heart and she just couldn’t have that)… and I don’t know how I am going to make it, because there is not only emptiness but cruelty where I thought love used to be, and those dreams, oh those dreams, I do not know if I can live with what is, and fight now the trust I need to have is in my higher power to hold me and tell me it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, you are still loved and this pIn is not your fault. I just don’t know if my higher power whatever that is can protect me any more than I can protect my inner child. I just know that any time I interact with my ‘family’ in any way I lose and I am terrified because there is a concerted effort to bring me down and I did mot think I was up against that kind of callousness and cruelty so I strategised the game plan of my life in absolutely awful ways and how am I ever again going to learn who and how I might trust? I have so many skills but I am full of so much trauma I can’t think straight and I am dissociating and my energy feels locked up in a terrible cage.

I got help to get out of that shelter; and though I am finally in a place where I can meditate more and let my terribly traumatised nervous system rest, as much in my life precariously uncertain, and I know there is no certain ground for any of us, but I hope to grow in trust and faith, which is so hard when you look around and see the world going to hell around you too. I am impatient for the world to change nut I do not see much in the state of the world to be optimistic about; my family wants to destroy my optimism, to erode my faith in myself, and I am pretty sure my ‘mother’ lied to me and voted for Trump which even so would be the least if the ways I feel I gave been deceived.

My ‘family’ has made me feel so doubtful that I can ever make a difference; I’m afraid to care, to put effort into what matters to me, for fear everything I do from my heart will only be counterproductive and taken away. I have been thinking about the idea that all moments are present in this one: all that has happened and all that will happen is right here and right now. That is a lot to hold. I can’t tell right now if it gives me a sense if greater peace or greater fear to feel the universe in its entirety all present right here; I want to breathe and find God in the presence. I want to let it be and trust that whatever was mine will come back to me, and maybe I am powerless over other’s narratives of me in this lifetime and that is a fate I can’t begin to comprehend and resolve in my heart, but what is real will find its way to me, if not in this lifetime, many lifetimes hence, and I would indeed wait forever for something real.

If all goes well and I continue to have a place to stand at least in trembling prayer for deeper daith I am hoping to go to a climate action demonstration this weekend, the day after doing one of these smaller local demonstrations. I think it will be good to feel involved though it may be obverwhelming to work through my heartbreak: and this is also a heartbreak that will probably never end, but I cannot lose myself, I cannot stop caring. Caring for the earth may bring up all my issues and/or it may begin to resolve my heart. I just don’t know how much more my nervous sysyem can gandle until I absolutely crumble. At least, for the time being, I have a place to stay, unless I mess it up, and I have been given a generous time limit: hopefully I will be out if here in six months though they are not going to put a time limit on that. That is both so generous and terrifying because I am impatient and yearn to be back on my feet well before six months are up but I onow what I am up against, too, and I still do know if my heart will find the safety that gives it faith and trust in life. I am scared of didappointing the world with my weakness. I am scared of disappointing people and hurting more and being even more alone. The vulnerability it takes to accept this generosity from folks who do not inow me and who I do not know (though sharing a lot of values) is trying to my nervous system and hopefully I can find ways to commit to the deepest self-care.

I want to have an Ignatian approach to spiritual life, sensing where God shows up every day; I feel called now to transfer the love and caring that seems lately to have nowhere to go into the deep love and care of my actual mother, the earth that brought me forth and loves me and is indeed in so much pain; Gaia the mother, the goddess beneath my feet, and perhaps only eco-spirituality can heal me now. My heartbreak need not have no place to land; I can transfer my care to the love of the earth, though I am so scared, too, as I know more than ever now having spent time in this shelter how economic insecurity and the systems that create economic security are so enmeshed with the systems that wreak destruction on the earth, so at odds with our collective ability to care for her; I must feel my way into a feminist ecospirituality. At least if all my heartbreak and grief about the way things are ends up killing me I will never lose the love of a mother who loves and cares for all her children in life and death. I cried when I was called a child of God; thank you, it is so important to remember. that I am still a child of someone, and I am a child if Gaia, too…