Angry Lesbian Heart
“I’m trying to love you! I’m trying to see you but every pain I’ve ever had before you runs through me like shattered glass. All I can see are the ones that came before you that hurt me. I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want to take it out on you, this pain that I have within me. I think constantly your going to hurt me too, so I avoid my love for you… And all I know how to do is allow my angry heart to push you further away!”
Can pain ever really subside and disappear or do we just learn to live around it? It appears that for most of us when it comes to hurting, avoidance is the key or having the same kind of unhappy companionship the answer. Some women find a relationship that is safe and when it becomes comfortable or maybe even happiness is felt, we throw it all away. Some of us will return to familiar grounds, old relationships that have ended multiple times before but are known to us and easier to predict. Others will find someone new, someone different (at first it seems that way) but we start the push and pull game all over again, and reinforce our old beliefs that no relationship is permanent and that our soul mate is still lurking outside somewhere.
What peculiar creatures we are, always looking for short cuts but always ending up with a painfully distant journey. We use the blame game, the could-be’s, would-be’s, and should-be’s hypothesis, and of course good old faithful fear to direct us and manipulate us into further dysfunctional relationships and thinking. I don’t believe that there has ever been a time in history for Lesbians as there has been for heterosexuals to learn courtship and developing rules of partnership. We really don’t have any role models throughout history except a couple of celebrities (and I’m pretty sure they are no better off then us mere mortal lessies!).
What determines how we pick our lover? How are we to understand a model of a healthy relationship if there is no past substantial blueprint to help us? All we have are our parents and for most of us, we just ended up mimicking their mistakes and unrealistic expectations. We ended up saying the same messages after every relationship has come to an end “It was all my fault” (or it was all her fault). “Relationships aren’t meant to last”, “I really thought it was going to be different this time” (my personal favorite), “I’m better off by myself, I don’t need anyone”, “I’m just going to sleep with her, that’s it!”, these are all common thoughts for many women when it comes to relationship new or old!
Are these messages so embedded within you that they have grown roots? Have they been there since before you can remember, slowly taking hold as you have been growing up? Do you feel that there is only one path and that your destiny is to get repeatedly hurt or be alone?
To change the way you live and experience a relationship you HAVE to change the way you THINK. You have to change what you have learned that doesn’t work and replace it with something new. In recovery I explain how as a kid you are taught coping skills and defense mechanisms. Some of these skills were good, like when you got mad you would take a time out. Other skills weren’t so good but at the time felt like they worked and kept you safe in your family system. For example, if your dad was physically abusive to your mother, you would hide and keep it a secret how you felt and what was happening to you, repressing your feelings was something you learnt and it kept you “safe.” Now, this message has become your tool which you carry with you in life and use to deal with in the world. Unfortunately, defense mechanisms aren’t that effective and end up really biting you in the ass later in life. One reason for this is you meet someone healthier and that crap just doesn’t work on them so conflict arises. That’s when you have two choices fight and leave or change and get a new tool (that works this time!) I suggest you read the book Struggle for… Intimacy by Janet Woititz (saved my life and is a gift I share with all my friends). http://www.borders.com/online/store/SearchResults?type=1&contrib=Janet+G.+Woititz
In order to change you need to be aware of your defenses, what has been working for you and what hasn’t! The good thing is if your still reading this then something could change today for you and if you know someone who needs to read this then share this with them, because like one of my favorite professor’s once told me “You can not attend to what you do not know!” So learn, explore, and make a choice to metamorphoses into the beautiful butterfly that is inside of you.
In the next week we will look at several dysfunctional messages and see how we can change the old tape that is stuck on repeat into a magnificent symphony of your creation! Most importantly, if your saying “it’s too late this is who I am!”… I have one thing to say to you : “STOP! Stop that thought right now. You have one life to live. ONE. You make what you want of it and at any point in time you have the opportunity to change and start over!”
Are You ready?
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