Battles of Home, Partnership, Culture & Identity

Not only is it hard enough to find your place in society, it seems even more difficult to find your place in partnership & homestead. If you have been fortunate enough to have found that, well, I congratulate you all on such a vital achievement. 

When there is so much conflict between cultures in society, the last thing you want is that same battle in your home & with your partner. I guess it's just a continuous struggle of trying to find "your person" with whom you can go through life with, if that even exists, without feeling that you are at constant war with each other. There is enough conflict out there in the world, why stand to have that in your home too?

So, the solution? Keep searching, I suppose. Until you can find someone with whom you can be at peace with, especially if you've exhausted all efforts to find peace with your current partner. It's already tiresome enough to make it in the world around you, there's no need to bring it into your home and relationships too. We deserve better than that. 

The Loyalist & The Gaslighter

    We often come by these relationship dynamics: the one who is too loyal, and the other who... isn't. There can be downfalls to both. The loyalist could become too controlling because the other isn't as loyal as he, which in turn can turn the other into a Gaslighter. Both are unhealthy, and is a recipe for disaster. 

    The Loyalist: these people are zoned in on the one, the relationship, and ways it can grow and improve. They cut off any possibility of progression with any other person, because they know if they divide their attention, it will just weaken their bond with their one. This could be problematic because they are just focused on the one, and it could be more suffocating rather than freeing and loving to the other. However they still remain loyal, it may be the source of their own demise with those who don't do the same.  

    The Gaslighter: this person tends to be the lesser of the loyal partners, they like to keep their options open and explore other connections and relationships, leaving their partner to only being one of many. This causes problems for The Loyalist because they pick up on this outside diversion and attention, and may feel cheated or betrayed. Because the Gaslighter doesn't want to feel any guilt or shame in this, so just they tell The Loyalist that they are crazy and everything is all in their head, which is what Gaslighting is. It is not acknowledging a truth in fear of losing that partner, because they want to have both. But both doesn't work for The Loyalist, just the one will do. And this is why so many relationships fail. 

    

The Savior Complex

As I grow older, I have seen more and more people who feed off of this 'savior complex' (I just googled this term, and it's an actual psychological term). That they constantly put themselves in this position to "save" others who in fact just need temporary help, only see them in this permanent position of lack. Therefore, the "savior" can feel a sense of purpose within themselves by feeding off this persons' supposed sense of "need." And this is a false sense of self and worth, only creating a type of jail cell for the one they think they are "helping." It is in fact, the self-proclaimed "savior" who is in need of help. 

So.... if you all could.... Just. Stop. 

The way I see it, these self-proclaimed "saviors" have a lack of self and identity. They feel worthless if they are not putting themselves in this false sense of superiority. It is not natural for humans to constantly need help by another, except for perhaps in the first stages of life, as any child needs, or perhaps someone with a disability. But even with that, independence and self-reliance is obtainable. There are times, yes, but it is not a consistent need that one person can provide. These "saviors" are constantly looking to save others not to actually help someone to their feet and to independence, but to continue this false sense of "needing" and dependence from the other, for the "saviors" own sense of self-worthiness. So what does this say about these people's sense of self? 

I have learned that this "savior complex" comes from people who are just as lost, and feel that if they are helping a "helpless" person, they will always be seeing themselves in this sense of superiority, which is truly false. It is a kind of reverse psychology that, the one who thinks they are "saving" is actually the one needing to be saved.  

Dad

Dear Dad, 

I've been thinking about you a lot lately. Well, obviously, I think about you every day. It will be 9 months in 11 days since you've passed. I still think about that day, and how I could have saved you. Maybe if I had just showed up that afternoon, with my typical excuse of doing my laundry, you would still be alive. But I could play that day over and over in my head, wondering if I could have made a difference or not. Or was it just fate? Do you believe in fate, Dad? Do you think it was your time to go? 

Then I think of the pandemic that ensued shortly after, that we are still in, and how you are probably glad to have dodged that one, and that lightens my heart a bit and makes me laugh about it, I know you would've made jokes about it. This past year has just been a mess. One loss after another. Wolf-- I miss him so much everyday, then the abortion (which I never told you about, but it happened only two weeks before you), and then You. Was it because I had the abortion? I was going to have the baby, I was going to name him James after you, but I just wasn't with the right mate, and I didn't want single motherhood if I could help it. I didn't want to go through what you and Mom went through. And this mate was not healthy for me. Then the pandemic, my failed relationship that I thought would have been worth it all. It makes me feel you'd died in vain because I still haven't found that love. You would have thought, I would have found that love and that I would be protected and taken care of in your absence. Well I was wrong. I'm not protected, and not cared for and loved. I only feel constant neglect and loneliness. 

Which brings me back to our time when I was young. There are memories with you, there are pictures to prove it, but something went wrong. Or maybe something was always wrong. I'm still trying to work out that snag in myself, in my past. Because I tend to be re-attracting that dark and lonely feeling and situation all over again. Why do you think I am doing that, Dad? Why would I put myself back into a situation that caused me so much pain and suffering? 

I wish you were here so I could talk to you. I'm alone in this house of too much space. I am so grateful we had those few years just to live to together, to have that time just to BE. A time when you were ALWAYS THERE. It meant the world to me. I keep saying that time together was making up for lost time in the past, but now you are gone and I wish you were still here, because you started to always be there, and that's what I needed all along. I want to find a good man, a trustworthy man, a noble man, a secure and stable man. I hope you can help me find him. I need your help finding him. I need that constant in my life. 

Now, I am just repeating the same mistakes and attracting the same harmful people who just re-enact my trauma. So I need your help in breaking that cycle. Because for me it started with you, and it ends with you, and we need to complete the work we started. 

I love you, and I miss you.

Love, 

Jessica Joy 

Overcoming Trauma

At this point in my life, I've found myself reliving a time when I was 16 years old, a time that I did not realize was traumatic until recently into my adult life. 

I was living in a home meant for a family, but alone. What was once a family of six, family members had drifted away one at a time, until there was no one left but me, and our sweet dog, Bandit. I remember burrowing into my bedroom, because the rest of the house was too large and empty to feel at home. So my bedroom became my only little sanctuary with life. It was a time I remember of loneliness, abandonment, and neglect. When I look at it in hindsight, it was one of my most traumatic memories of my adolescent childhood. 

Yet, here I am again, 18 years later, living in a house meant for a family, alone. How did I let this happen again? Why did I attract this dark time back into my life?

I wish I had the answer. 

All I know is this-- what we experience and learn in childhood, we grow up thinking it's what we deserve for the rest of our lives in adulthood, even if it's unhealthy-- which simply is not true. 

We are meant to grow through life to UNLEARN these traumatic and damaging habits we learned as children. We do deserve better, and we will attract better. We just have to believe we can. 

At the end of the day...

You are just alone. So get used to it.

Family Lost

I lost my family in one winter.

Wolf, Dec. 2, 2019
My Father, Jan. 29, 2020

I am lost.
I am broken.
I am alone.

I love and miss you both so much. You were my everything. You are my Valentines forever.