Mad/Sad

An article came across my social media today that got me to thinking... a lot of things get me to thinking, but here is this particular train of thought...

The article was in regards to traumatic shaking. It referred to dogs after a dog fight, how they shake. I wouldn't know anything about a dog fight, but I do know about traumatic shaking. I shook uncontrollably after labor and delivery for each of my children. Perhaps it happened each time, perhaps it was just most of them, I just remember it happening several times, a lot is foggy about all that.

So, the article states that the shaking is the body's way of releasing the memory of pain that would otherwise be stored in the physical body, as opposed to the emotions. The idea of our physical body having its own memory is a fascinating concept, one that also leads to generational memory and PTSD across the ages. It would be nice to also include some positivity in all that, and I am sure it is there... somewhere... I mean, definitely it is for the labor and delivery... my children are totally worth it.

What feels less worth the trauma and shaking was a single instance of extreme stress after an encounter regarding my mother. I can't even remember the details of it, but I remember shaking so uncontrollably and thinking that the only other times I shook like this were after the harrowing hours of birth. It all made so little sense at the time, but as I muse on it now I realize something. One of my primary thoughts during labor and delivery was a religious indoctrination. The one that says that the pain of childbirth was a result of an ancestral woman eating a piece of fruit, and that some hateful, hateful god decided that all women should experience extreme and sometimes deadly painful birthing consequences as a result of this "failure in judgment." I felt so hated by this god. Something deep inside me has completely rebelled since then. I refuse to buy that hatred hook, line and sinker like so many have before me, like so many still do.

My mother and my husband's mother were also raised under this ideology.... the one that says that women deserve their pain, that women are inherently cursed to suffer, and that there is absolutely no redemption for it. Maybe, if we are good enough, our souls can manage to get into eternal heaven, maybe... but we are women after all, so don't count on it. I know that my mother and my husband's mother also have a deep sense of self-loathing in the core of their being, but it doesn't help one iota when they project that self-loathing onto me and/or my daughters. When they favor their sons, their husbands, their fathers, the whole patriarchal regime over a little girl.... it can make me shake uncontrollably.

I feel bad for them. I feel bad for the ideology and brainwashing that they endured and still endure. I appreciate that they rebelled even as much as they did, but they haven't been healed, not completely. Maybe they have moved forward on their path of healing, but they still perpetuate the madness. The only way for me to move forward, to heal this body, these genetic memories, to clear the slate for my children, all my children, is to reject the madness, to stand firm in the belief that there is a sacred feminine that is beautiful. That the deep feminine aspects of our beings are not in competition with men, we don't have to be equal to or better than or less than... they are them and we are us. They represent a sacred masculine and we represent a sacred feminine... two similar, but very different representations.

It isn't just women that suffer due to this grotesque mindset, it is also men, males, boys too. Women are the nurturers. Women are the life-bearers. Women are the sensitive beings that physically respond to the cry of an infant, quite literally! Breastfeeding mothers are likely to begin the letting down of milk when they hear an infant crying, sometimes it doesn't even need to be their own infant, a crying baby=a leaking breast! The inner child in all of us needs the wholeness of representation of the divine feminine. We need to know that our cries cause a deep nurturing reaction. We need to know the love of a father and a mother to be whole. I want to insert the word divine before father and mother, that we need a divine father and a divine mother, but that takes so many back to a religious concept... this concept of a divine father that heartlessly stands by and watches all women suffer violently while giving birth, many of these women being completely unwilling to have been impregnated in the first place.... many others giving their lives for love of child they have never seen. That is not the kind of divine father I am talking about, may he rot in the hell of all the pain of all the labors of all the women of all the ages.... this god "they" call merciful... are "they" insane?

My mother has asked me, "What have I done? What have I done that has caused you to stop loving me?" My response... "You taught me how to love conditionally. I am sorry. I am trying to learn another way, a better way, but first I have to heal the memories, the ones deep in my psyche and my DNA, the ones your mother taught you, and her mother taught her. The ones you haven't been able to heal yet. I need to do this for myself, and my daughters. There is rumor that healing can even go back in time. Let us hope so."

They also say that when you have sex the women quite often will absorb the man's DNA. She literally becomes a piece of him. So, although some of my in-laws have officially decided to not recognize me as family... a recent obituary proved that... the truth is... I am blood family, even without acknowledgment. I carry the memories of both sides of the family in me, especially since mothers also carry the DNA of their children after birth, a bit of it stays, keeping them always connected, which I suppose is how I can send healing both ways... if I can figure it out without self-destructing first.

Previous generations, if you yell at me, if you take me for granted, if you disrespect me in any way, even by playing the victim....  I must step away. I must shake it off... even if I sound like a pop song..... *chuckle.* I know you don't know any better, but I do know better, I just have a lot more to learn about it, and I can't have you continually triggering fresh shakes.... I am trying to grow a new paradigm, a loved generation. My door is not completely closed to the previous generations who have disappointed, but after each hurtful episode the obstacles in the path grow higher and your love will have to be bigger to surmount them. Next generations, I make no promises, I claim no accolades, but I am trying to know what it means to be love and I hope that counts for something.

I have struggled with the realization that I give much more of myself to my children than I give to my parents. I give more patience, more time, more money, more energy, more hope, more everything. I have been given guilt trips for that from the older generation, "Don't you know you are supposed to honor your mother and your father?" The best advice I was given regarding the guilt trip is that parents bring children into the world, those children don't ask to be brought into the world, so the parents have a responsibility toward the children, more so than the children have to the parents. Many parents have used the argument that their children "owe" them... I don't feel that way about my children. I should hope that if I ever have need of a hand to steady me as I age, that their love for me will cause them to consider it an honor, but if I have not earned that honor and respect, then it would be horrible of me to demand it. I don't think I would turn away an elderly person that asked for my help, if I truly thought they needed it, but I will not be manipulated or guilted into sacrificing for my parents what is rightfully due my children, at least rightfully due by the rules of my heart, and mind, and soul.

My enemies may gloat. My mother may garner sympathy from all her friends. My father doesn't give a damn about me... My in-laws might not have a clue what to think of me, they certainly don't favor me, fascinated?... maybe... love? not sure... would be nice.... maybe someday I'll know.

Fortunately, the steps forward that have been made, hard won perhaps, are blooming and growing and  deep and healing between the masculine manifestation I call my husband and the feminine manifestation I call myself. We are growing together. Time has refined our love, strengthened our trust, deepened our insight and sweetened our tears. Praise the gods! Whoever they are... the benevolent ones that react with nurturing when we cry....





P.S. Life is a potluck, everyone brings a dish, eat at your own risk... It might have botulism, or it might be the best thing ever, in which case you need to track down that recipe.