“If truth is what you seek, then the examined life will only take you on a long ride to the limits of solitude and leave you by the side of the road with your truth and nothing else.” – Thomas Liggoti
“A philosopher is a lover of wisdom. It takes tremendous discipline, it takes tremendous courage to think for yourself, to examine yourself. The Socratic imperative of examining yourself requires courage. You know, William Butler Yeats used to say “it takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield.” Courage to think critically” – Cornel West
“I can tell you, an examined life is definitely no picnic, however, I don’t know how one gets through life without close inspection” – Louise Fowler
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During the many months that I have read my fellow bloggers posts I “listened”. Under these circumstances maybe “observed”, “read”, “understood” would be better words I don’t know. But “listen” seems to work for me. During this time I chose not to leave my imprint. I preferred to stay still and learn from you, my fellow bloggers.
I am not the kind of person who needs to be the centre of attention all the time, in fact being the “observer” is more to my liking. Through observation the healing started.
Thank you.
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In some ways my mind is spinning. All my life I thought what happened to me was “all my fault”. Every decision and choice was made on a lie.
I started this blog 1 1/2 years ago, sometimes disappearing for a long time and rarely posting. Those of you who have been my followers have probably thought, I was not reading your posts, nothing could be further from the truth. I just thought it was better for me to hide. I have rarely posted a comment or a like because I felt ashamed of myself. But, I have read my fellow bloggers and how brave they are for speaking their hearts about the abuse they had endured. I have been learning.
I felt everyone was thinking I was making things up vis-à-vis the HOUSTON v. HOUSTON case. I new I wasn’t but it sounds ludicrous to me. I also just didn’t understand myself why the HOUSTON CLAN (my mother’s step children) had attacked me the way they did. I didn’t understand why they saw me the way they did. They didn’t know me. In the over 34+ years of our parents marriage we had barely and rarely spoken.
As the case of HOUSTON v. HOUSTON unfolded, in real time, I was in shock. They are saying they have to destroy my mother and me, why? I didn’t get it then and I really don’t get it now, on some level.
I have evolved to conclude, in part anyway, that I reentered my mother’s life in 2005 and without my knowledge I battered the beehive. Her step-children, the HOUSTON CLAN, had already established an agenda for my mother’s money. My stepping onto the scene scared them and they immediately went on the attack.
What I evolved to understand from 2005 until my mother killed herself in 2013 was that during my absence from her life for off and on 20 years she had fabricated a defense for herself because she could not cope with her closing her eyes and not protecting me; along with her deserting me. She admitted this right at the end, just before she died.
I have felt all my life that she deserted me, I was molested and abuse,d left home to protect myself and landing in a dangerous and cruel world must therefore be my fault.
Reading so many other peoples posts on abuse, trauma, and the people who do these things has awakened me to a shocking realization – NO IT WAS NOT ALL MY FAULT.
It makes it sound simple. Of course it’s not – it’s not my fault. Oh!, what do I do with that? You mean to say now I am so f….stupid that I have taken all that on…….everyone went on with their lives and I was paralyzed………oh……..how did that happen?
I understand now. Is it better to now be awake? The truth is always better.
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“Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom.
But the personality formed in the environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative. She approaches the task of early adulthood――establishing independence and intimacy――burdened by major impairments in self-care, in cognition and in memory, in identity, and in the capacity to form stable relationships.
She is still a prisoner of her childhood; attempting to create a new life, she reencounters the trauma.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
