Therapist

Deepest Darkest Secrets

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

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We all have them. We guard them, we make light of them, analyze them and minimize them. They are our deepest darkest secrets.

I’ve always been pretty much of an open book. A what you see is what you get kind of girl. No pretenses. No airs. I often spoke without thinking in the name of being honest and open.  Unfortunately, it took me a while to learn that everyone didn’t have to know my business and that being honest doesn’t matter to those who do not know you intimately.

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When I met B, within three dates I told him my deepest darkest secret. In looking back I am not sure if it was because I felt I had to be “honest” in all aspects of my life or if I felt he was safe enough to share the burden, maybe even lighten the load. Whatever the reason, I never heard about it again until this weekend when he told me he felt that he needed to discuss it with our new therapist.

My first thought was anger….how dare he!!!!

My second thought was that he was trying to obtain some sort of psychological advantage with the therapist.

My third thought was that maybe, just maybe, he had to work this out for himself. That my deepest secret had effected him too. Exposed rawness in places that a boy off the farm was unfamiliar with and he hadn’t known how to deal with it 30 years ago and was angry at himself now because he had not handled it in a way that was helpful to him.

Secrets are a funny thing. They eat at you. They can paralyze you.  Or they can be used to motivate and do good in this world. But whenever you have one; you become vulnerable if you let it be known.  You give someone power over you and I can honestly say I always felt save with B knowing it. Until now.

But the fact is also that I no longer care. My secret is no longer relevant to me or this life I lead. I have overcome it and so much more. I have used it to do good things and I gave up its power over me so long ago. So if B has to discuss it, discuss it I will. For I am no longer that young girl without a voice and I can roar now if I have to.

 

 

 

Therapist

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 5 Comments

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So this is about HIS therapist. The one we went to for marriage counseling who uses the Gottmann method and the one I stopped going to with B because:

  1. I thought he needed to see a therapist by himself’
  2. I didn’t think that she was getting into our problems just helping us talk sweet to one another.

So let me also say this. I have never written about B’s past on this blog mostly out of showing respect for those things that are his. Mostly because I do not know how I would feel if the tables were reversed and because this blog is about those parts of me I want to share. I was never completely sure how much I had a right to share about B and I still have not resolved the issue.

That said, I will admit I am horrendously confused. Those of you who have read my story for the past two years have a rough idea of my life based on those things I have chosen to share. You have given me good advice and given me pause for thought making me really look at myself in ways that have at times made me uncomfortable. But it has been worth it because I am finding myself thanks to hard work on my part and some help by you. So I am coming to you for help.

One of the things that I have always felt has impacted my relationship with B has been his family of origin dynamics. His mother especially.  For the past two years I was under the impression that B was talking to his therapist about his abusive mother but this week I have found out it is not so.  In fact, when I told B I thought this relationship needed to be examined he talked to his therapist who told him not everyone has to look back at their past. Frankly, I was floored especially when the therapist knows some of the dynamics because we talked about them when we were going to counseling together. His mother and sibs impacted our relationship tremendously early on and I fought all the fights and said the words that should have been said by B who didn’t know how to stand up for himself and wanted to preserve peace at all costs.

B told me he wouldn’t know what to say to his therapist about his original family.

So here are just a few of the things that I question, that I wonder if they are affecting our relationship because he has not worked on them. What do you think?

  1. His mother was mentally ill. When B was a child his mother was removed from the house by the police and taken to the state mental hospital where she stayed quite a while and underwent shock therapy in 1970 which is not like it is now. She was supposed to be on meds all her life and refused to take them. She went into rages, had a grandiose ideas of herself and also was depressed.
  2. There was a bitter divorce in which she poisoned the kids against their father, until the father no longer came around. B loved his father deeply.
  3. When B was in 4th grade one morning he stood up for his dad and when he came home from school his clothes were packed and his mother dropped him off at his father’s while the rest of the 5 kids lived with her. He lived with his Dad for about a year until he couldn’t stand being away from his sibs.
  4. His mother had an affair while married to his dad.
  5. All the adult children handed over their paychecks to their mother and mother decided what careers they would choose in college. They would live at home while going to college
  6. There were indoor chickens and the house was a mess.
  7. One of his sibs was in a terrible work-related fire and his mother would say to B “It is your fault. It should of been you.It was your selfishness that made your sib change dinner hour with you and it should have been you.”
  8. B put the fire out on his burning sib
  9. B’s mother wouldn’t let sib stay in hospital long enough because she didn’t like the outside influence
  10. No one could date as adults. If they tried she would comment “You sure are walking funny” after they returned home and it never seemed worth the effort
  11. When B and I were first together we took some risqué pictures and she had his sibs snoop around his grandmother’s house where these pics were found. His mother forced his sisters to look at this “big dick” in the pictures.
  12. She would send me letters talking about her great beauty and giving me her measurements, talking about B’s high school sweetheart,  how he was using me, how she knew “all about girls like you”, etc.
  13. She tried to get B to come home to her when I was pregnant after years of us going through fertility treatments and we were happily married.
  14. After we had our baby we flew back and she refused to meet her month old grandchild. She also refused to attend B’s siblings wedding.
  15. She was cruel in her words to him and always tried to make him feel stupid and weak. He could barely make a decision on his own when I first met him.

And I could go on.  But won’t  and for the most part I have truly let this stuff go because it was poisoning me. The only reason I am writing it here is to ask:

  1. Are these the types of things people can just let go and forget about while not having them effect aspects in their adult relationship? Can you really do this? Is his therapist correct? Can you survive unscathed a traumatic childhood that then goes on to create chaos in your relationship with your wife and those around you?
  2. B says he realized early on that his mother had issues and just accepted it while knowing he could not change it. He says it made him stronger and credits all his early chaos for making him the driven, hard-working man he is today.
  3. So what do YOU think?

Negative Chatter

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment

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My inner spirit has yet to be rekindled. I may have written about the importance of it a couple of weeks ago but for some reason I have yet to feel the spark. I have not been taking the time for me and as a result negative chatter is filling the air around me and is so thick I could cut it with a knife.

THOUGHT #1

“Why keep trying? He will never love you like he did again.”

THOUGHT #2

“Yes, I could have bet on the fact that I would be unable to reach B while he was at dinner with FRED and by golly I was right. Why is this? What is going on here?”

THOUGHT #3

“Can I ever trust again?”

Yep, my brain is suddenly like a chipmunk after a peanut…darting here, there, everywhere…but no place healthy or good for my soul.

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My headmaster just keeps churning out negative thoughts day in, day out. But why?

Is it because I am still so unsure of myself?

Is it because I am so unsure of my relationship?

Is it because I feel I am not being true to myself?

Is it because increasingly I feel like abandoning ship because I feel like nothing I do is ever right?

Or is it because I am just plain tired of the constant pushback that two boys with autism seem to relish every chance they get?

Whatever it is I know that I need to work hard to get rid of it. Because all this negativity is like wallowing in a shit-filled cow barn. If the methane doesn’t kill you the stink certainly will, coupled with the fact that there is so much of it piled around that I am afraid that I will get sucked down into it …never to return.

So, I am trying to implement past strategies that have worked.

I am shouting in my head “CANCEL, CANCEL,CANCEL” when a negative image or thought appears. I then look around and make a running commentary of what I see:

“Wow the sky is blue today. Look at that big fluffy cloud overt here. It looks so clean and white”….and so on.

Today I meditated and practiced visualization. I am trying to exercise more.

Yet, nothing is removing that chipmunk, whose cheeks are filled so full of negativity, from my brain. It’s kind of like having Alvin singing “Christmas Time Is Here” in your head 24/7 meaning that the A on Alvin’s shirt doesn’t just stand for his name.

 

I read this piece to my therapist. She says the rekindling has not begun because I am not using the proper things to build the fire with. The first being self love which has diminished so much since the “I might want a divorce.” Somehow that love of self has wafted away like the smoke that comes from lighting a fire. It no longer feels like I need a bit of kindling. Instead, it feels like I need to burn down an entire forest to revive my inner spirit.

My therapist also says that living with no air conditioner in 110 degree heat 43 C also fries your brain. She says she suspects this is what I am actually suffering from today. But all I know is the part for the air conditioner won’t come until Monday and someone better hide the matches because something is about to go up in smoke!