Easing Into Father's Day

I miss my dad all of the time.  Days like today merely amplify the feeling.

I know that he is looking over my shoulder.  I know that he knows precisely what is going on in my life.  I know that he is goes to all of my doctor appointments and is nodding in approval at the direction my path for wellness has taken.  Each time I meet someone and learn something new, or read something that turns me onto eating better, living better, putting my body into balance, I know my dad is there.  He may have even orchestrated it somehow.

As an aside: have you ever noticed that when you get on a path of learning about something that more and more information continues to come to you on this topic?  I would say that God understands that you are finally in a place to receive, so it comes at you from every which way.  It is a wondrous thing when it happens.  It is the reason we must never give up and always continue to search for a better way or an answer.  If you continue to search, you will eventually land in that place where you will receive!  Maybe you just have to do a lot of living and try a lot of Wrong Things so that the information you get will make sense.  For some of us, that may take longer than for others of us....

My friend JJ The Disconnected Writer has talked about balance and being in balance for the Longest Time.  I think my dad understood that, though he never spoke in those terms.  My dad was way ahead of his time in terms of understanding that the body became ill due to deficits.  If a person wasn't getting enough of a vitamin, or necessary mineral, than the body couldn't sustain itself and became ill.  A good diet was the foundation.  However, some people were so lacking from poor nutrition that a good diet needed the help of supplements to get back on track.  My dad read and read and read about this sort of thing for the last forty years.  And he talked about what he read.  I know that he felt like he spoke mostly to brick walls.  People don't want to eat healthy, won't believe that eating organic is better, and don't want to quit the Junk Food in favor of the healthy stuff.  And they don't believe that their ailments can be cured by anything other than a Rx.  Plus, they won't take anything unless their medical doctor prescribes it.  Period. 

My dad was a Big Believer in taking care of your own health.  No one will care more about your health than You.  Your doctor certainly isn't going to care about it more than you will.   My current doctor might not care about my health more than I do, BUT she believes in a natural path to getting better just like my dad.  She believes that once your body is restored to its natural state of balance everything will function as it should.  I think that is what my friend JJ has been trying to say for a long time, too.  I have simply been so far out of balance that the concept has been difficult to grasp.  However, I feel myself becoming more aligned all of the time.  What once seemed impossible, now seems possible.

All of the books on natural medicine say that the body wants to restore itself to it's natural state of wellness.  Being in a state of dis-ease is simply not natural.  The body's natural state is one of ease.

From a purely selfish point of view, I wish you were here dad when I reached that state of ease again.  However, I know that you will know, and be celebrating where you are.  Maybe we can meet up in my dreams and have a nice chat about it.

W IS FOR WRONG SONG

Yeah, you really have to watch the video.  I know it might not be your cuppa tea in terms of music style.  However, I also know you can suck it up for a few minutes.  If you don't watch it, the rest of this blog won't make sense.  This one is about Life Lessons.  Actually one of the Most Important things I have written in this entire challenge.  This is not a fluff piece on euchre, umbrellas, movies, a TV show, or even a great book I  read.  So, did you watch it?

Anyone who has ever been in an abusive relationship will actually look back and see a pattern of abuse.  That last abusive relationship is probably just the WORST relationship.  Or maybe just the most recent.  This song will ring like a Battle Cry for every person who has ever survived an abusive relationship.  Until the next time.

Did you get the part about patterns? 

Until you figure out the pattern, you have NO HOPE of stopping the pattern.  Until you understand that you are attracted to abusive personalities, you have no hope of stopping the pattern.  Until you understand what it is about that abusive personality that you are attracted to, you have no hope of changing anything.  You will stick with that person until you scream, "No more."  Then, there will be some Down Time until another Abusive Person steps into your life and the entire Scene rolls again. 

You will never change the Abusive Person.  Obviously.  The person who needs changing here is YOU.  If you are attracted to Abusive People, YOU need to figure out what is going on so that you can break this pattern. 

I knew that after several abusive relationships that I was in a Pattern.  I knew that I had to figure it out.  It wasn't a coincidence that every long-term relationship I'd ever had was Not Good.  There was some sort of emotional or verbal abuse in all of them.  The last boyfriend introduced the" joys" of being with a liar, cheater, and someone who would steal from you (on top of all of the other qualities I had already experienced).  I was already laden with a chronic migraine, so I knew that the stress of that relationship Was Not Helping.  It still took me YEARS to untangle myself from that Nightmare. 

I dated a Pretty Nice Guy after him.  There was zero chemistry there.  It is only now, with my current therapist, that I understand that he was not messed up enough for me.  Had he been a Hot Mess (and I don't mean this in a good way), I would have jumped back in.  He had potential.  He was rather aloof and emotionally not a "sharer."  However, that was not enough to hook me.  I needed someone who needed major rescuing or was constantly in and out.  Meaning he really loved me one day, but was then not into me at all.  You know... someone who could really wreck me emotionally.   This guy was simply pleasant.  My mom liked him a lot.

Now I understand that the dynamics in my family were not good. ::understatement::   My grandfather was a verbal and emotional abuser.  My dad tended to withhold affection from my mom, but never from my brother or I.  My dad's extended family were big believers in divorce and didn't take any junk from anyone.  All of the women just divorced their  husbands if they were liars, cheaters, abusers, or unpleasant people.  My great-grandmother divorced 5 times.  My grandmother divorced 5 times.  My aunt divorced 3 times.  Then she started living with men and kicking them to the curb.  Now, let's swing over to my mom's side of the family where it is a totally different story.  My mom's side of the family was filled with tales of abuse all the way around.  Every woman on my grandma's side was being verbally or physically abused by their husbands, and possibly their grown sons. However, No One Left.  It was a major dichotomy that I couldn't wrap my brain around. 

This is important; my parents each married someone just as screwed up as they were.   (In other words, both of my parents were the products of an abusive/dysfunctional household.)  However, they picked someone from the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of the "crazy."  My dad vehemently didn't believe in divorce and remarriage (after watching his side of the family), but this also caused him to be emotionally withdrawn.  My mother simply didn't want to marry a verbal abuser like her father.  She went to the other end and got someone so far out that he couldn't give her anything.   With these role models,  I involved myself with men like my grandfather, trying to resolve that relationship, or withholders of love, like my dad to mom, every single time.  Or possibly a combo of the two. 

People who are in abusive relationships are almost always trying to fix another relationship with a family member that is Unfixable.  The relationship with my Grandfather: Unfixable.  He passed away a long time ago, but even if he were still living, I could not make him suddenly become not emotionally or verbally abusive.  He was that way his entire life.  The relationship between my mom and dad: Unfixable.  I could not make my father become more emotionally available to my mother.   So, my pattern has been to get involved with people just like my grandfather, and father, to heal things that can never be healed.  It is the hamster on the wheel scenario.  The healthy person figures this out and decides to get off.  The unhealthy person never figures this out and relives this pattern the entirety of their life.

I am now on a quest to get me right.  I will know when I am there.  I will actually be attracted to the Right Guy from the start.  The one with all of the issues will no longer be the one who draws me like a Magnet.  So, I won't have to sing Wrong Song like a Battle Cry every few years into my relationship.  I will start choosing better because I will have taken the time to fix ME.

Rating: Life Lesson(s)

Have you ever been in an abusive relationship?  More than one?  Have you ever stopped to reflect on the pattern?  Has this post made you think about changing you so that you change the kind of person to whom you are attracted?  If you have never been in an abusive relationship, do you know anyone who has, and does this information help you understand abuse at all?