Quit touching that

On being addicted to stories

When I’m able to get perspective on it, I see how crazy it is to always be going back. What am I doing, checking to see if it’s still there? I call it re-traumatizing myself. I return to the wound over and over. It is deep in my heart and only I can access it. Sometimes I feel like I’m Gollum with his precious. Why do I treat my traumatic experiences like treasures that live on shelves of the museum in my favorite haunted house?

Is it because visiting them makes me feel that old familiar feeling of home?

Is it because I feel like they have been under-acknowledged?

We all know the stories that define our lives. I know mine ad nauseam, and I think my soul has finally gotten bored with reliving them. I’ve thought about them, talked about them, written about them, sung about them, read about them, and thought about them some more. I wrote that line in Blood about giving up hope for a better past, but I don’t think I’ve ever understood how to do that — the things we give up on, we have to honestly put behind us, right? Truth is, despite all of the rock turning and attempts to gain perspective, that behavior was often the exact thing that kept all of it under-acknowledged. I intellectualized. I editorialized. What I didn’t ever do until recently was internalize.

I had to FEEL.

I had to let it all surface and finally just allow myself to be wrecked.

I had to put aside the survival strategies I’d been using for so long and really learn to pay attention to the primary emotions. I think in some ways, making art had become a way to avoid that for me — it was a way to process as quickly as possible so I could do something with the feelings, but in no way had I learned enough about what that really is for my art making process to allow me to let any of it go. Making that art just gave me a way to return to the wound more efficiently every time I had to perform. Touch it, touch it, touch it, and keep touching it! Lord have mercy, that’s deep when I think about the baggage I have around performing as well.

Something I’m working on now is learning how to listen to my internal voice for an appropriate amount of time instead of seeing how quickly I can get the information/trauma/experience back out of myself. I’ve been stewing on writing about this for almost a week, for instance.

I think this is what is referred to as sitting with it.

And the way I see it, that’s different from being addicted to it. An addiction gives you a hit.

Think about it like this: I’m triggered. I have that upset feeling. I may or may not know why. But in any case, I’m going to engage in a survival behavior that I created when I was a child and had no power. It is probably not going to do anything to improve my situation, but at least I feel at home and comforted in my discomfort and I am in control because I know these insane behaviors like I know the back of my hand.

Experts say that’s why we get addicted to substances — to control our feelings, to have some predictability. It looks out of control from the outside and indeed it usually is, but inside, the addict feels the opposite way. Even if something is guaranteed to go badly, at least they know that it will and they don’t have to endure the craziness of un-medicated emotions. Ha. You know what else is predictable? Jail.

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If I keep returning to my old stories, I don’t have to figure out who I am today, do I? I’ve got it all sorted out already.

I have lived my life looking backwards so I wouldn’t have to be present to what’s happening now. The present has been too scary and unpredictable because I was taught the present is scary and unpredictable. It can actually be anything I want it to be. And now that I’m not living with unchecked crazy, I can let go of the past and be present, by knowing I have the proper personal boundaries to protect myself if something scary and unpredictable should occur.

To refer to one of my recent posts, If someone throws a lamp through the window, I don’t have to act like I like it and I don’t have to get up, put a smile on my face, and go to Mobile tomorrow. I can say no to all of that and I have the power to do so.

I want to finally be ready to give up those old stories and live my life without being defined by a system that has long been defunct. My childhood was crazy. But what’s crazier is letting it rule my adulthood.

This will come up again and again, I know.

Some recommended reading on that very thing, the adaptive child:

Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship by Terrence Real. This is a book geared toward couples, and it’s great for that, but I got a lot out his ideas about survival strategies we carry from childhood and how they make us dysfunctional in adulthood.

I’m usually against making nouns into verbs, but I sort of like making dysfunction into one to use in

this context. Maybe. When I fall into childhood patterns, I dysfunction. If function is a verb, then why not? She dysfunctioned. Hmmm. I’ll see how it ages.

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I can sometimes feel like my habits are impossible to break, but I really want this. I want to live more freely. I want to live more happily, more joyfully. I want to be more available and not lost in behavior that’s based on ancient history. I want to see my family as fellow beings, not higher powers. I think a lot about really seeing my son, John Henry, as separate from me, as someone who has to be allowed to have his earthly experience and walk his path despite his challenges. He deserves that. Everyone single one of us does. I want to release my parents from the responsibility of my life. They did the best they could with what they had to do it — let me never forget that they got messed up too.

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. — Dr. Maya Angelou

What I know better now is that I have to let it lie and quit touching it so much or it will never heal. I have to let it be over so I can move on. I have to stop trying to figure it all out so it will make sense and not hurt me anymore. It doesn’t make sense, it hurt me and it always will, and that’s how life is sometimes — I am here to live the highest highs and the lowest lows and to prevent myself from doing so is selling myself short and telling myself that I am undeserving of the full experience, isn’t it? It’s complicated stuff, learning how to keep the good and leave the bad, keep the love and leave the abuse, keep myself and leave them.

I continue anyway.

Lots of peace and love to y’all today.

Allison

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I had a great time at The Capitol in Bowling Green the other night. Thanks to Lisa Rice and The Warren County Library for having me. I was relaxed and it felt right.

but there was an incident with my guitar. Poor baby. She’ll get repaired, but it did make me hurt all over for about 24 hours.

And finally, rest in peace Burt Bacharach. Thank you for helping us understand ourselves through those singular songs.

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