On being able to make more love
FEILD NOTES ON CHRISTMAS:: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON DECEMBER 25th 2022
Welp… we’ve done it. We have survived Christmas. *ALMOST*
I have made some side dishes.
Here we have scallop potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, mushroom gravy and green bean casserole.
And also some pancakes.
I put chocolate chips and berries in this stack and then had heart palps. xx
I have sat and watched Love Actually with my mum and cried at the exact same part I always cry and laugh at - when the Prime Minister goes to find Natalie. And the whole play scene.
I have been mostly really sad, snowed in, and sad that my mom is sad too, and Uzma gave me a good pep talk.
And I have been thinking a lot about how people who have “bad boundaries” aka, those of us, who tend to have a history of abuse, sometimes don’t get one part of that identity, of our makeup, validated.
I once briefly dated a man named Caleb after my long term partnership ended after my partner had cheated on me. I sat in front of him at a diner having breakfast one morning, and I said to him that I felt so stupid for not knowing, or for choosing someone like that.
And you know what Caleb told me? He said, “Why are you blaming yourself for the actions of your ex?”
“People who consider others think others will consider them as well. It’s not in your makeup to be on edge about that because you wouldn’t do it to someone else, so it wasn’t on your radar, and I’d be sad if you lost that to be frank with you, Emily.”
Caleb, someone I had known mostly my whole life, who was a short term lover, felt like a gift to me. For many things, but especially for that. I had truly been so used to people blaming me for tolerating abuse, or loving people who hurt me, instead of just being kind and compassionate towards me when someone hurt me or abused me.
It is the daddy issues trope right? Instead of being like wow fathers should be kind and supportive and loyal and NOT harm their daughters mentally, emotionally, physically, etc… we blame the daughter for letting it happen to her and we shame her for being affected by how she was treated and how it shows up in her body, in her choices and in her view of herself.
As daughters of alcoholics and as daughters of abusers, we usually tend to develop super human empathy to survive. My gift of loving so profoundly and putting myself completely aside to understand another human being is a survival adaptation that serves me and also harms me.
It serves me in a lot of positive ways - like in my work with my clients. In my ability to fully appreciate nature and connect very deeply with myself. My capacity to understand others comes from being able to be with myself in all my emotions at the very first step. So I can hold nuances and different feelings and thoughts about others too and I can be with you in yours too.
It also hurts me in other ways - I can feel like I am not good enough, or I am not compassionate enough, if I leave a toxic situation for me because I understand why someone hurts and does what they do (to me included), which can put me at risk for harm that I don’t deserve or is misdirected at me.
And still… even if I don’t have an active relationship, friendship, family bond with everyone I have had to protect myself from…
I love people who have harmed me greatly. I see why they have harmed me, I understand them so completely, and fully, and I forgive them for it constantly.
It feels so much better in my body to wish someone truly well. Not a pseudo - fake band aid oh I wish you well, bitch, sort of thing. No like a genuine, I am better when I hope you also don’t suffer.
I don’t think anyone else suffering more than me, or in equal amounts as me, even though they made me suffer actually changes anything.
No one changes or treats themselves or others differently by suffering more. People who hurt people are the ones with the least amount of love inside them. So I actually do wish my abusers well. Some of them I never want to talk to again and I never will. Some of them, I hope they get so incredibly well, one day, we can repair what broke between us.
Sometimes I can’t have an active relationship with someone who has hurt me. Sometimes, like in the case of someone who is dangerous as an addict, I have to have pretty hard core boundaries, but I will still always explain them kindly.
And I am long over shaming myself for being a ‘door mat’ or stupid or naive for all the times I have given freely and haven’t received anything back. I do not wish to shame myself for all the times I put myself last so someone else could feel seen or heard or loved or taken care of. Even if they couldn’t do it back for me.
I wish to validate my generosity and yours this Christmas.
I don’t regret being kind and sending a nice text back to someone even when they surely didn’t deserve it, or taking the time to explain a boundary that I knew would hurt someone else instead of letting them figure out why something changed for me all on their own.
I think it is beautiful I have given my love to people who may have never gotten any, from others or from themselves. And yeah, maybe they didn’t return it, and maybe they couldn’t. And does that mean then I shouldn’t have given mine?
That makes me sad. That makes love a scarcity thing. We hoard it so preciously and for what? I have so much love. Whenever I give it away, it comes back. I make more love all the time.