What State Do You Live In?

My writing used to be characterized by perfect first sentences. Dennis would marvel at the way I’d struggle until a deadline to write something, then, at the last minute, craft the perfect opening line and have all the other words fall into place like snow. Neither he nor I realized at the time that my ability was not a gift; it was a trauma response.

Whether I was working on college essays, newspaper articles, freelance assignments, or blog posts, most of my pre-writing struggle was spent in my head: trying out and discarding sentences, holding each one up and subjecting it to all the criticism I was sure it would attract. What I didn’t know I was doing was living on high alert, ever ready for danger around every corner, every raised eyebrow, and every tone of voice that held at least the suggestion of judgment. Why wouldn’t I live that way? I had been trained to do it: first by my parents, then by my siblings, teachers, professors, bosses, friends, husband, and in-laws. And they had all been trained to do it by their parents.

So what did I do with my own kids? I reenacted the trauma by training them, too, to live on high alert, to make jokes about their trust issues while silently lamenting the fact that they can never have an honest, authentic relationship with anyone, having to always hide their emotions because emotions are dangerous. I, too, created an environment in which best efforts were never good enough and where every mistake and accident was a big deal and probably an indication that whoever caused it was somehow flawed, less than, not good enough. I had turned my own home into a place of emotional danger for my kids, where love and a sense of worth felt like they had to be earned, and I had no idea I was doing it. But how could I not have done it? This home was a place of emotional danger for me, too, just as my childhood home, church, schools, college, workplaces, and friend and family environments were.

That’s a shitty way to live, and I could not have started to turn it around without an Amazon review left by who-knows-who on The Body Keeps the Score that advised potential buyers to move along and instead spend their money on Alice Miller’s The Body Never Lies.

It’s been nearly two years since I discovered that book and it hasn’t been easy, but the work I’ve put in to create a home in which the danger of judgment, humiliation, and censorship DO NOT reign supreme—in fact, are not even welcome—is more than worth the effort, and I am very grateful that I don’t have to do it alone. The work will probably continue for the rest of my life, but that’s perfectly fine. The important thing is that I’ve already thrown a monkey wrench into the works and given my husband, my children, my daughter-in-law, my grandchild, and anyone else to be welcomed into our lives the chance to live in a state of emotional freedom.

Here’s to a state of love, expressed feelings, and endless possibility!*

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*Yes, that’s an exclamation point you see in my writing. If F. Scott Fitzgerald were alive, I’d tell him to shove his opinion on that punctuation mark up his ass—then I’d ask him to sit down and tell me whatever it was he could never say to those closest to him, whatever it was that he tried to wash away in all that alcohol. I don’t know that he’d open up to me, but I’d assure him that I wouldn’t judge, that I wouldn’t tell him he was wrong for feeling whatever emotions he was expressing, that I’d just listen, that I’d cheer him on, that I’d let him cry or shout or just fall apart as long as he needed to. I’m sure it’s what he needed, because we all need it.