I really am quite mulit-faceted in many ways.  I’m not one to just settle on one thing.  Some take comfort in a mundane routine in their life.  That would make me crazy.  Take food for instance.  For 23 years of marriage I cooked.  I mastered cooking before internet and cooking channels.  I dug in with a few books and learned on my own.  I was never content to have a menu resemble…Monday, meatloaf, Tuesday, Spaghetti, Wednesday, Tuna Casserole and so forth  or a rotating two week, three week, or monthly schedule.  The thought of using those methods for turning out meals would have driven me to refusing to eat.  Nay, instead I functioned from a list of recipes and choose, or create on the fly with whats on the shelves and cooling in the fridge.  Then there’s my reading and movie genres.  I’ve mentioned in the past that I love Stephen King/horror, most recent: Nightmare on Elm Street, and then I adored the Shopaholic book series, which were better then the movie, Harry Potter, Knights and Castle time periods: the newest “Robin Hood”-loved it, and certainly J.R. Tolkien, “Lord of the Rings”, a splash of romance, like “Dear John” I watched with Grace today, at her request, and a heavy emphasis of comedy, most recent view: “Birdcage” laughed till my stomach ached, drama,viewed last night with Cal and Grace: “Extraordinary Measures”, and more…  Those type of genres I find appealing in both the world of books and film.  And my work?  Well the nature of it keeps me going from one family to another.  Some I see twice in a week others once a month.  But regardless I am on the move.  Full of a variety of kids.  And my hair.  I go through periods of vast change mixed with the same thing for a couple of years.  The last six months the cuts have been about change.

I LOVE new.  I LOVE different.  I LOVE cutting edge.  Thank god I was too young to really submerge into the rebellion of the 60′s! I did enough on the outer burning off fringe of that era.

My friend once told me I was great at sensing what was going to be a new rage in room design.   She surprised me the day she said that, but then when I allowed myself the moment of stepping outside my insecurities I saw…yeah, that is or was true.  I say was because since the divorce money for such privileges sort of evaporated, so logically along with it went my “being in touch” with decorating shall we say.

To give you more of a glimpse into my tastes and variety in music I’m going to share…
When I was young, which honestly feels like yesterday, I played the violin for nearly four full years.  I was very good at the time.  Took first chair violinist from the minute I walked into the schools orchestra.  Which caused a great problem from the older girl who had to shift to the second chair.  At the time I had no idea what it meant to be 1st chair violinist, my teacher didn’t tell me.  She was a coach of the truest form.  Criticize constantly.  Praise.  Well, none.

I wanted to learn viola and cello and go on possibly to Julliard one day and would have except I had to stop learning when we moved to a school district that didn’t offer string instruments as a part of their curricula.  Since the years spun by and the separation from the instrument became a fact of life.  But I won’t say that I haven’t yearned to return to the stings and bow.  That I haven’t grown to longingly regret the day I turned my violin into my teacher.  But life took over.  Husband, children and with it time and money evaporated like smoke in the wind and that has left violin long behind.  And with it I have changed and wonder if I really have the drive to start again.  Or was that simply a part of my life.  Then.

So why the violin background info and how does it tie into my tastes in music?  Well here is where I share a couple bits that have been playing on my Youtube tonight…

Now I love most of the classical musics for stringed instruments however what these guys do is incredible.  See???  Multi-faceted.  That’s just me.  And that can make me a hard person to peg.  Figure out.  Follow.  And.  Well.  I like that about me.

Love ya, night,
Theresa Jane
-last post “Invisible Mikey” commented that that post allowed him to see me clearly.  I was startled.  But glad he told me.  Then I polled my friend Cathy and she agreed with more humph.  “Well,” I muttered to myself then let’s keep at this.  Keep trying to clear away the haze that blocks me from you.  And frankly me from… me.  And today was about that…

I have to say that I’m looking forward to this moment with unusual anticipation.  To file my first ever envelope, with what I tracked all month, makes me feel very proud of myself.  I started at this goal of getting it together with my financial life the end of last month and thus far I have stuck with it.  This is truly a first for me in this area.  Typically I would say I’m going to take diligent action in this area of my life only to not have the slightest thing change.  Well, except for this…I can say that I’ve saved receipts on and off for the years since my divorce.  Saved them till my wallet bulged and was unable to be properly snapped shut.  Then when the bulge became annoyingly unbearable I would carefully remove the pile and insert them into a security envelope, mark the approximate dates on the front and deposit the envelope into a drawer.  Anticipating the day when I would take proper care of those small slips of paper full of numbers and totals.  I think I have about 7 of those envelopes all total.  All safe and sound in my drawer.

Oddly enough as much as I have avoided paperwork, tracking expenses…all things accounting/tracking/bills/expenses I have always loved how paperwork looks when it’s all nice and tidy.  All in a nice organized fashion.  Like when I got my taxes back from my tax lady.  Two piles of precision.  Paper clipped and organized.  I took one look at them and thought, that must be why she’s an accountant, she’s in love with the finished product.  In love with the order that she just created.

However that has had no pull on me to improve in this area over the years.  None whatsoever.  Nor has countless overdraft charges, or the approaching April 15th date that draws ever nearer with every day that passes and I go nearly mad gathering all the necessary information together worried stiff that I might miss something.  It has taken the monumentalness of having to stay on top of our businesses that has riveted me to the determination to press on to overcoming this troubled, confused area in my life…and I’m thankful because with each day I’m feeling more confident and less scattered.  I’m feeling more…hummm…more responsible and together and more worthy of the goodness of life in the area of business and money.

I encourage everyone with the same scattered way of dealing with this area to finally take this bull by its horns and get it together.  You’ll be so glad you did.

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-whose thankful for the time I had at lunch with my daughter Blessing, for the broad smile from Grace when I intercepted her from getting on her bus after school and took her with me instead, the time I had at the park with Cal, Dan, Grace, and Blessing, for the sun that shone and made everything appear all crystal clear and fresh, the slight breeze that acts to dry the soil from the sogginess of winter, the report that my mother is doing very well today and things are improving, IV’s are coming out and her heart rate has stabilized and she’s moving out of the ICU into a progressive unit and should be home soon, for my health, for my life, for the day off, for the brisk walk and conversation I shared with my friend, for silly giggles from my children, for their hugs of love, for improved health with Zac, and for my truck that took me all over today, and for you and all your support, I thank you…

BIG physical change.  But then her entire life went through a big change.

Hair and clothes seem to go hand in hand with a women getting divorced.  I know it did with me.  I think it’s needed.  Psychologically.  The shift is huge and with it much needs to change to keep up with what happened to our lives.  What was hotly pursued yesterday is history today.  Change can be painful.  Change is good.  Change produces newness…

As with Kate, divorce brought about a change in my clothes and hair but change didn’t and couldn’t stop there.  I continue to be in change even today.  I married at 18.  Was married for 23 years.  Didn’t go to college.  Was a housewife/mom.  I never stepped out and found me.  So now old is new.  Then there’s just all new.  But what is new?  There is nothing new under the sun is there?  Just a recycle.  But to me it’s new.  Learning to embrace the me of I involves change.  Becoming…  Enlarging…  Moving toward and moving away.  But one thing remains the same, I’m a mom.  I love and care for my kids.  I miss being a stay at home mom.  Since I can’t be that anymore I want to become a successful business woman.  Which, in my mind makes sense.  I got me a bunch of kids.  I want them to have things.  I want to provide it for them.  Having my own successful business can bring about those things far faster than working a 9 to 5 could ever think of doing.

When I listened to the questions that the woman on The View peppered Kate with I rolled my eyes.  She was supposed to be there to some degree to be talking about being on Dancing with the Stars and they wanted to know about the particulars of how her divorce is working.  Is her husband, yeah a slip of the tongue, which she corrected pointing out that he was an “ex”-husband, helping by watching the kids.  Is he paying alimony????  She graciously answered the first letting them know that he watched the children for a week while she was at the show, but beyond that she trailed off some on that answer.  I mean is that a surprise?  The woman is divorced.  Is she supposed to know the where abouts of her ex?  She didn’t respond to the alimony question.  I applauded her for how she dealt with them on that one.

I also saw some commercial clip from a comedian making some crack about how it was good that Kate would be on Dancing with the Stars so her kids could see her once a week… Now let’s simply ignore that she is at HOME practicing in her basement.

Kate G. was for the most part admired as a stay at home mom but questioned as she transfers beyond that, as if she doesn’t need to provide for her kids, and this is something I know about…Ergo this post…

Here’s the thing that I have to state to America.  I want to lay it out in blazing colors:  Divorced mother’s that work and pursue their own career/business still love and care for their kids.

In all the years that I was married, I was a stay at home mom with a husband who worked at least 12 hour days and traveled for several years.  When home he barely assisted me around the house…he had worked all day.  And what had I done?…  BUT in all the years I never heard him get peppered with questions about his fathering.  Or how much money he did or didn’t give me…  He was admired for his work.  For the hours he put in and now since he has the children with him his praise factor has risen through the roof and me?  Well…  Me divorced?  I don’t get a lot of praise.  I get loads of intrusive questions that can imply that I don’t love my children.  They started with my own mother and to this day I can hear the grating tone in her questions as she grills me to report on how much I see them.   Questions from other come in a lot of the same form that I tend to hear Kate G. get and she’s the primary caretaker of her children.  And they come with the same cocked eyebrow, whether visible or not, that the world gives.

What do people always want to know of me?
If I’m working my chose way to earn money: caring for other people’s children the questions will be:
1)  Where are my kids now?
2) Who is caring for them?
Thoughts that bounce through my head: Oh I locked them alone in the house, left milk in the fridge and bread on the shelf and told them I’d be home in a few hours.

–Here’s another.  People hesitate to hire me because, and I get this a LOT, they don’t want to bother me or take me away from caring for my kids. Lots of times when I arrive at a job they’ll ask if it’s really ok for me to be there to care for their kids?  Then follows point 1 and 2 from above.  (Let me add that I have many families that hire me without  these questions.  They’re lovely and supportive of me.)

Hum, I need to work.  I have bills.  I’m divorced.  Not a stay at home mom. Money doesn’t just appears so I can pay bills?  How is my chosen way to generate income till my business takes off, caring for children, any different then say working at Target??  I’ll tell you the difference.  It would involve my personal happiness and pay.  I wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much, if at all, and frankly it would likely pay less.  I want to ask someone, “Is it wrong to pick child care as a means to generate income?  If I could be paid just to care for my kids, believe me I would.  In a heart beat.  But there’s no more pay or retirement there then there was when I was married.

What I do I do to create a future for me and my kids.  Just as my “ex” does for himself and the kids.  He works for others to build his 401K.  I build my business to build my financial future.  Is it wrong to want a secure future?  To want to have my own business?  To do what I enjoy? Because I have a bunch of kids?

My marriage ended.  Regardless of the number of children I have to move forward.  I can’t just stay in my apartment and raise my kids.  Nor can Kate G.  As she clearly stated, “I’m thankful for these opportunities I have to provide for my children.”  And so am I.

Why does the world have such a time accepting the change that woman, such as us, were thrust into accepting?

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane

Yesterday:
1) My lap top is dying a slow, painful death.  This I discovered yesterday.  When it wouldn’t turn on.  Nothing worked  
2) Then yesterday my mouse for my Mac up and squeeked it’s last squeek.  So getting on the internet or anything for that mattter wasn’t happening. 

SOOOOOO, last night I went to bed.  Early.  At 10:o0.  I just plum gave up.  I was sleepy anyway, I had worked allllll day, while I did I apartment hunted with Blessing, my oldest daughter, with the little boy I was watching, and had only gotten home around 8:30, however it bugged me that I didn’t get to blog.

TODAY:
Worked 9-4.  Appointment for myself and Zach with my Naturopathic Spiritiual Intuitive/Life Couch.  Then back to my kids home to hang out with them for awhile.  Then home to try to work.

1)  The laptop started up tonight.  But won’t allow me to get on the internet, even though it shows a wireless signal.  Not only that, a seriously important folder is missing.  God only knew where it went.  Till I searched around for, ohhhh, an hour plus.  I have no idea why but it’s in the shared area.  I think it was the shared area.  Not sure anymore.  Well, anyway.  I didn’t need the folder because it was backed up on a flash drive, but I did want the six page document I’ve been writing and rewriting for the last week.  I was able to print it off thankfully and save it back to the laptop’s hard drive, but not onto the flash drive.  But I have it at least!

2) I have another desk top but here’s the thing, it has been left in the barren waste land for months as it needs me to add the software protection thingy I bought from Microsoft.  I put it on my lap top first in August.  Went to put it on my desk top and hit a snag.  Have you ever tied to get help from Microsoft?  If you have you’ll realize that it is typically a lengthy process just to find the number.  If you find it.  So since all this snagging occurred right when I got my new Mac, I left it.  And  it hasn’t been turned on in months. 
Till today. 
Today I needed it. 
Today I sighed heavily and dove into getting the Live One Care onto it… 
Two hours later, reading through eyes that were begging for sleep, and much reading and clicking, and trying to find a product key and on and on and on I discover that they won’t let me do add my computer.  BUT they now offer a free virus protection product.  A free one!  I paid fifty bucks six months ago.  So as we speak it’s loading in the back ground.  I just checked and it’s doing it’s first scan.  Wonder what it’ll find??  Since I was on the internet for two hours unprotected…

TRIUMPH:
Tonight, I found “the missing disk”.  “The disk “I searched high and low for last week.  I do believe I mentioned this back then.  The day I created CD imprints and went to print them and even though the system showed that the entire software package is loaded, it didn’t recognize the printer.  After much fiddling with it I decided to uninstall and reinstall.  Wellllll, that’s when the search began.  A search I thought would take all of a minute, because I have a box specific to my computer software things.  However it wasn’t in there.  I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that reached to the sky I put it in there.  But nopt, not there.  So I searched and I searched and then I just quit.  Tonight, it occured to me.  It was in the CD drawer of my old, unused desktop–the one that needs the virus softward–I popped open the drawer and viola!  There it was.  So all the tedidum of trying to get the software on to it paid off.

Night, Love ya,
Theresa Jane
- who is seriously looking forward to the day I can afford to hire a tech guy and let him/her work on all this “stuff” for me

I’m not making my step-father innocent mind you, by no means he played his part.  He was awful.  But he has asked for forgiveness and admitted his wrong and by now time and again.  AND he has CHANGED.  For the most part he’s doing things completely differently.  No one that has been that broken and is changing deserves to be beaten on.  No one deserves to be harangued and demoralized when you’re the other person that played as equal a role in the mess.  But this is what she has done to him in a very demoralizing manner all these years.  

Let me give a couple recent examples:

Example 1: Remember when I had gone home a few years back, to try to achieve some form of establishing a basis for us to move forward from, in a healthy manner rather than just enduring the periodic forced phone calls she had pushed on me for the few years prior? (click here for post) Well, during this very meeting she said, “I regret ever marrying him.  He ruined my life and my children’s.  He was the reason for all the problems…”  Then, through tears, she went on to ask, “How could you just forgive him after he destroyed our family and lives.”  

I was so so shocked I said, “I can’t believe you.  He’s sitting right here.  How can you do that?  Not to mention this is the man you have been married to for over 40 years.  You played your role or have you forgotten?  My God you’re awful.”  
Her response was tearless with a small care-less shrug she said, “Yeah, well.”

Example 2: She had told my brother the week before that I had “called” (the !BLAM!) and, “Theresa was extremely rude and mean to me.  Here your father had caused all the problems and ruined everything and she treated him like royalty and me like shit.”

So, it’s pretty simple to put two and two together even if you don’t know a lot of history.  She’s been bullying him to carry all the blame for years…and it’s obviously worked.  Look at his reaction to me.

Well, anyways, there was no way I was getting cornered like this.  I had compassion for him but I’m sorry this wasn’t happening.  My mother needed to stand on her own two feet.  Be an adult.  Own her stuff.  I wasn’t getting bullied anymore.  That call/!BLAM! I had made was serious to me.  To my life.  To my growth.  To my experiencing real healing.  And no one was going to take this from me.  I had already been through the issue of her backing me into a corner a few days earlier (click here to read that post),  I wasn’t going back.  No sir.  And frankly all I could think was, what on earth has that woman done to you???  I felt his pain.  I felt the shame she had foisted on him.  I felt more love and compassion.  AND I KNEW how he felt.  My mother had done the very same thing to me for my entire life.

This call gave me exactly what I had cried out for for the days I was stuck in that corner…
Strength to stand up for myself and never go into my corner again.
Giving me even more resolved to not back down.
To stop the sadistic cycle my mother had created:
The fear,
the control,
the intimidation,
the psychological torquing she had done to my brain,
to stop concerning myself with what she might do to me or herself if she were pushed in any way.  (since I was young she’s threatened, “I wish I were dead.”)

Monday morning I began to be equipped to take my life back in a new way.
To beat that iron mask of worthlessness into a new shape…
Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-more tomorrow

I didn’t know if he was going to make it.
And I didn’t know what he thought since we hadn’t talked, to say we talked, since I !BLAM!ed them.
The !BLAM! wasn’t to slam them and drive their faces into the mud and cut my life off from them.  It was to get their attention.  It was for my healing.  It was for their healing.  It was to gain unity among us on some level at the very least.
But, unbelievably in the middle of everything I’m trying to do, these surgeries take place.
Any follow up call we needed to have got back burnered.
I have thought how they could have called me before the first surgery.  They had plenty of time.  They should have seen how important and necessary it was to call.
But they chose not to.
They did the same with the second surgery that was bumped earlier.
They could have sought to have “the follow up” call themselves.
To shoulder some responsibility instead of leaving me with “it” (the past) as always.

But they didn’t.

And there we were, in that extreme situation, unsure of what on earth was going to happen.
There was no way I was going to allow him to possibly go to his grave with some misconception about how I felt toward him.  That would be cruel.  Inhumane.  I wanted him to know that I sincerely had forgiven him at my aunts house, back when I had come home that 2 plus years ago. (click here for that post) That that had never changed just because of the phone call (the !BLAM!).  I let him know I loved him and I wanted everything to turn out fine.  I urged him to call an ambulance.  That it wasn’t a good idea for him to be walking to the car.  But he hates ambulances…
Then I moved to “hang up words.”
He needed to rest.
To conserve strength… since there wasn’t to be an ambulance.

But to my astonishment he began sobbing and pleading with me, “Let me call your mother so you can speak gently and caringly to her.  Everything in the past was my fault.  I ruined everything.  She only did what I told her to.”
To say the least I was stunned.  Completely taken aback.  What was this?  I didn’t want this conversation.  The timing was nothing less than terrible, he didn’t need this.   And this wasn’t how to handle any of it.  For the fist time I squared my shoulders and took charge, I wasn’t going to allow this to happen this way, to be forced into a situation where I was made to be wrong, where I had “done something that I needed to fix with my mother.”
As if it was all about her.
That it wasn’t about me.  What I needed.  What I was seeking.
I was “against” her… again.  “Hurting” her again.
For God’s sake NO.
I had done nothing wrong.  Frankly I was the only one trying to fix things.
Had always been the only one doing anything trying to fix things.
For the last several years I was the one trying to braid together what shreds there even were to go on, to create something…

“Dad, you never made mom do a thing.  She chose to do what she did.
“Yes, I did,” he gasped.
“Dad lis…”
“It’s all my fault.”
“Dad.  Listen to…
“She just did what I told…” he’s gasping for air…
“Dad listen…
“her to do, she did…”
“Dad.  Dad.  Stop.  Listen…You need to focus on yourself.  Don’t worry about any situation with mom.  I’ll take care of this in it’s time.  But this is not the time…”
“No Theresa, let me call her, get her on the phone.  Talk to her nicely…this is killing her…”

“Dad, you’re sick and in awful pain.  We’ll deal with all of this when you’re on your feet again.”
Like a man grasping at life he begged, “Promise me you’ll call her.  Promise me.  Call her tonight.  Make things right with your mother.”
“Now Dad,  just let me worry about that.  I don’t hate mom.  But certain things need to be addressed  And she certainly needs to own what is hers.”
“Oh good,” he said overly relieved, “I don’t want you to hate your mother.  It was all my…”  shallow gasping breaths…
“Dad, it wasn’t all your fault.  Mom did what she did.  On her own.”
“No she didn’t.”
“Yes, Dad, she did.  You couldn’t make her do a thing.  Especially when you were at work.  You didn’t call and make her beat me and scream at me for hours.”
With pressing urgency he said, “Yes I did.”
As gently as I could I said, “Oh dad, no you didn’t.  Don’t take responsibility for what she did.  You took responsibility for what was yours back at my aunts house.  I forgave you then.  Let her be responsible for her stuff…Look, let this go for now.  Really.  You need to rest.  Please.  Let’s stop this conversation so you can rest.”
“Okay.  Okay,” he gasps trying to sooth himself and as if delirium takes over, “the pain in my leg is terrible, I’ve got to go back to the doctors.  He’s going to figure out what the problem is…”
“Okay, Dad.  Now, listen you take it slow.  And be sure you let the doctors know everything that’s going on.  If you’re in pain insist they give you pain medicine.  I love you.  Goodbye.
We hung up.

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-I think you’ve figure out already that this will take a few more posts… 
-!BLAM!ming births a journey… to true freedom . . .

For years I’ve pretty much been doing the same thing over and over again with my parents and expecting different results.  !BLAM!ming them was doing something different.

By not ever dealing honestly, openly, and calmly with the past and being straight up with them I swept everything under the carpet.  The result was I continued to get walked on and held responsible for their guilt and pain.   This allowed them, but honestly mostly my mother to continue with a lot of her/their hurtful ways.   The most recent examples: the card and phone call to the hospital mentioned in the prior posts.

She’s been bullying me my whole life in similar and much, much harsher ways.  She’s made me responsible (and her husband and son) for her wrongs and guilt.  I finally came to a point where I felt no guilt for what she had done in her life, or to me, or what she ever would do.  I decided that I was giving the guilt and pain back.  I had been bullied long enough…So the !BLAM!

Once I did this I set myself free.
Since I’ve been experiencing freedom, more self-confidence, much more clarity.
Some of the clarity has come in the form of being able to see myself clearer.  Remember my posts on “Peering Down the Rabbit Hole” and I talked about feeling worthless most of my life?  And how now that I see it I can 1) heal it and 2) must to be on the look out for slipping that mask back on?  Well after the hospital phone call I discovered that when it comes to my mother I tend to put that mask on right away.

She hung up on me and I felt worthless.  Unvalidated.  Wrong. Wrong for telling her she hurt me.  That it was wrong what she/they had done to me…  Typically in the past I would have gotten angry and spewed it out.  This time however, when I felt these feelings rise up I stopped.  I began to observe…calmly.  And that’s when I got in touch with “something different…”  I saw the little girl inside me.  She had backed into a corner, drew her knees up to her chest, put her face between her legs, and hid. 

I continued to watch.  She didn’t know how to come out.
I’m 45 for heaven’s sake and I’m reacting as if I’m a child.  Good God who knew?
…Later, the little girl was still in charge and was nervous on the phone with the man in her life that’s showing her love, kindness, and acceptance and hasn’t a problem in the world with her, yet she felt he did and she began to say things that questioned this.  But this time I/the adult saw what I/the little girl was doing.  I/the little girl was creating a situation where he would get upset with her/me, thereby proving to her/myself that I was indeed worthless.  Worthy of the worthless mask.

Once I saw it I countered it by being honest and admitting exactly what was going on, that I was going to do all I could to overcome this illusion, and I needed help.  And I received it    I received love.

Since I have wobbled around coming out of the corner.  But I’ve been observing. Learning things about myself.  Healing and growing and creating new realities.  Happily I haven’t created a mess with him, my children, or my ex as I would have in the past and wondered how it happened.  Instead I have dealt lovingly with myself and strove to not let the past effect my present.  I’m an adult, my mother can’t hurt me this way anymore.  I have value.  I have worth…

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-whose finally leaving the past behind and beginning to really live in the present    because I did something different… I !BLAM!med…

CONTINUED from yesterday, I said there was more that has opened for me…
The day before when I was writing about my thoughts on “The !BLAM!ming” (click here for the post) and stated that I was like a war vet suffering post war trauma, the strangest thing happened.  There were visions in my mind, like the Ghost of Christmas Past had taken me to when I was a child… I was watching scenes of myself in my parents home.  I was able to observe “this little girl”.  Bad things were happening and she was frightened.  Many scenes flashed as we moved through the years.

As I observed something came vividly clear…

I was able to see the connection between me and the war vet. People go to war healthy mentally and can come home very different.  They can’t help it.  They lived through horror.  They can’t stop the psychological traumas: The flash backs.  The fears.  Living on edge.  Waiting to protect/defend.  Watchful.  Suspicious.  And everyone including themselves know why they changed from the great person they were before they left… the effects of war.

This experience broke open an understanding why “the little girl” in the visions became the way “she” had.

How much worse for “her” then the vet?

She was 2 1/2 when her mother married “her” step-father. “She” was just a baby. Never even had a chance to develop healthy mentally. Her brain was forming. Her experiences with life were taking shape. The networking being laid was hard wired with traumas: fear, jumpy, hide, go outside…run, protect, shut down, defend, stop listening, be suspicious, be watchful, lie, keep to herself, no one loves her, no where is safe, stop feeling, don’t express “herself”, shut up, go away, do as “she’s” told, don’t question, “she’s” worthless, who would want to love “her”, look for others to hurt “her”, be: depressed, suicidal, pull away, ice over, protect, feel worthless, shut down, survive, defend, argue…

“She” suffered the effects of “war”/horror/violence inside “her” home. It’s all “she” knew. “She” couldn’t help it.  “Her” brain’s beliefs and patterns took over and “she” was stuck there.  In that past.  Hopeless… unless someone helped “her”.  Everyone, including me, should have known…

But I didn’t know.  I didn’t cut myself an inch of slack. All through my life I have been destructively self-judgmental and just plain self-destructive.  I curse myself. Put myself down. Call myself names. I’ve had no patience with myself. Couldn’t receive compliments.  No acceptance of myself unless I was perfect and my bar was so high I rarely, if ever, reached it.  And certainly never accepted my failures.

The !BLAM!ming freed up a ton of bottled up energy that I used elsewhere…

The other day was the first time I connected with the small child inside. The one that was hurt and scarred.  For the first time in my life I was able to understand “her“.  Except “her” faults.  Feel compassion. I wanted to pick her up, sway side to side, stroke her hair, and tell her, “It’s okay, I’m here now.  I’m protecting you.  I understand.  I’m going to keep you safe.  I’m taking you out of here to live with me.  You don’t have to stay.  You can leave with me.”  And walk off with her in my arms and not stop till we were in my apartment.

You know what?  That’s exactly what I’m going to do right now.  Spend time with the “little girl”.  Let her know she’s safe…

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-Tomorrow… what the response from my parents has been so far.

Christmas bells are ringing, for me!

It’s been a week and two days since I called my parents and !BLAM!ed them. (click here for video) I took control of my life.  Stood up, as an adult and said, “Wait just a minute here…” and the results are continuing to be astounding.  Since I hung up it’s been a new experience.  My healing has taken off at warp speed.  Even John1 mentioned it today…

It’s all been soooo dramatic I must tell you, from the beginning:

After ending the call I cried.  I sat down on John1′s couch and became a blob of human flesh, exhausted and staring at his TV as characters danced around in the “White Christmas” movie.  Pain pierced at my temples and in the middle of my forehead.  I felt drugged.  Almost listless.  My brain creeped just like during “the drug days” when creepy crawlers moved along the surface of my brain.  Except this didn’t end and it covered my entire brain.  I felt the entire networked surface of my brain.  Front to back, side to side.

About an hour later I staggered off the couch.  Went to John’s office where he was working on rendering the video of me !BLAM!ming into the computer, told him I needed to go.  Slid into my coat and drove home.  As I drove paranoia crashed over me.  When I was young I had became paranoid a lot.  So this made sense.  I had stood up to my parents and the old brain patterns took over and old fears struck out at me…

In my apartment I was stir crazy, fighting paranoia, almost afraid to be alone.  I kept telling myself my childhood mantra: “Everything’s okay.  I ‘m going to be alright.”  I couldn’t even watch TV anymore.  John1 called to check on me.  He helped me through it till I was finally able to woo my body to relax and sleep.  Then I slept.  Like a rock.  Till 12 pm the next day.

Woke feeling like I had cried the whole night through.  Honestly?  I think I had.  In another state of consciousness.  In another plane of reality I spent the night griving and releasing.  Finally totally facing the fact that I never had a childhood.  I never had a family life.  It was like someone had sat me down the night before and said to the small child inside me, “Theresa your parents were killed in a car wreck.  They’re never coming home.”  And that little girl cried and cried till she was dry of tears and when she awoke she was ready to face life with the reality that she was parentless and needed to move on.

I awoke a bit fuzzy headed.  Eyes, head, and body heavy from the all night cry.  But inspired.   Excited.  Too excited to sit at the computer and work.  I wanted to spend time with my daughter Grace.  So I went to her school, intercepted her before she boarded the bus for home, swept her off to see “The Christmas Carol”,  then went C. shopping.  Great fun.  Great mom daughter time.  Our best ever.

Came home wrote my blog and was feeling nostalgic so that’s what I wrote,  a good childhood Christmas memory mixed with the day’s events. (click here for this post)

From that day to this I have noticed a very different me.  Freer.  Happier.  Stronger.  I walk straighter.  Feel confidence growing.  I’m looking people in the eye more.  I am speaking my mind.  Laughing freely.  Being playful.  Oh it goes on and on.  It’s been the melting of the Ice Queen, me, to an unrecognizable puddle.  Thank God.
Who could ask for more?  Well…there is more.  A lot and it’s wonderful.  And that’s tomorrow.

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-who catches herself smiling for no reason    that’s the greatest present of all…

Thoughts since the !BLAM!…

A great metaphor for the forgotten child.

!BLAM!ming my parents was one of the best things I’ve ever done.  I feel so different inside.  I’m experiencing transformation daily.  I let my parents know that I was a forgotten child in all their violence, drama, and destruction.  And I did it calmly.  No screaming, no yelling, no my parents yelling back…  I let them know in a controlled, clear adult manner that what they did effected me.  That I’ve never stood up and said.  I had always basically summarized: “You and dad were terrible.  You were out of control…”  This time I let them know what they did hurt.  How I felt.  How I was effected.  That I remember what they did to each other and me.  It was REAL.  It happened.  It destroyed me.  I’m tired of it not being acknowledge and them expecting me to just go on as if, to quote my mother, “We were just a family who had problems”.   Good God, it was more than that.

I grew up in that mess.  I was a child.  I had to find a way to survive.  Through my private sessions with my couch/therapist… I discovered that I never came out of survivor mode.  Possibly the best way to describe it would be to say, I functioned like a vet who suffers with post war trama: flashbacks/jumpy/edgy/suspicious/on alert/ready to protect and defend…

Not me. Just a great pic for here

I have lived on “survive mode” since I was a child.  It has only been until the last 7-8 months that I can say I am finally, really, really coming out of that state.  Out of the “training” I went through at home, when I grew up and my brain was forming.  The way I processed life, my psychological state of being, formed and letting that go and even seeing some of it was a very difficult thing to do.  A very tough row to hoe.  Those ways of being were what allowed me to survive what I lived through.

Letting go took two things: A committed couch who wouldn’t give me any way out and my unwavering commitment… leaving appointments with swollen red eyes or swearing a sailors stream of cus when it came to the session I just left, “what did that son of a bitch know about anything…”

Since leaving home I have searched for my healing.  Tried many things.  So I could live normally.  Feel normally.  Like other people.  It wasn’t until 6 years ago this January 2nd that I really found the source of my healing.  That’s when I found my life couch and he had a system (birthed from the book he had been writing: Red Book and Cotton) and through it I found the way out.  However it’s taken a lot of work and it wasn’t until the last 7-8 months that I can I say I have had the earth shattering break throughs that could allow me to say, “Now I’m really starting to live my own life.  I feel it.  I see it.  The lingering effects are falling off in chunks… finally.”

That’s not to say that through the years I haven’t seen major changes in my life, emotions, reactions, how I deal with life around me.  It’s just to say that all that work finally added up to the “Wow” I see and feel in me today.  And the !BLAM! rocketed me.

I know I’m not done.  I have more work to do.  And I will, “Sell all I have in search of the pearl of great value”…that being my wholeness.  I have to be whole.  I have to feel like a confident adult who has value and worth.  I have to be happy from the inside and not from what happens on the outside to “make” me happy…  So I’m not stopping…

Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-if you are clueless about what I’m talking about when it comes to what I did when I !BLAM!med…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3dcbzTwu7Y&hl=en_US&fs=1&]