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Thanks for visiting my diary. I've been journaling since 1984 and have chosen to share some of my entries online. They are not all positive thoughts, but I hope that reading them might be a blessing to someone who needs encouragement.
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Well, if I can't sleep from now on, I have homework to do that should work as a real good sleep aid. I've just sat down to work on some of this stuff for one of the classes I'm taking this summer. It's an on-line class, so we have weekly assignments, have to post on a bulletin board, etc. Oh, the class is on the emotions. They don't waste any time in digging right in, and of course, it hits me right where it counts. The reading is difficult but doable, and that's enough to really get me into feeling drained. But it's also appropriate to my healing process, and that's enough to finish the drain. Oh boy, this could be a long but potentially healing summer.
This morning I'm doing Aristotle's writings on anger. Like I said, the reading itself is very difficult and draining. Most of those old philosophers are. Somehow, strangely, I'm supposed to have the capacity to read and understand this stuff. I know some people can read it with no problem at all. Some people can do science with no problem at all. I guess those are the people who are good at psychology. I'm not in either of those categories. I struggle just to make enough sense of this stuff to ask a question or spout back the desired answers on the assignments. We won't even talk tests at this point.
I want to understand it all, but the only thing I am really good at is feeling what I feel and putting it in words, and that's no good for academics or employment unless I manage to write a best-seller. I don't have quite that much confidence in myself.
I love people and will go to the extreme for them. I'm the kind of person who would let a stranger live with me while she got her life together or adopt a kid just because the kid needs a home. I'm the kind of person who would spend my time working with the slowest child in the classroom because I know eventually she will catch on. And here I am muddling my way through psych classes!
I chose psychology for several reasons, but the final reason that I chose it instead of some of the other options available to me at the time was that I was interested in understanding the human spirit and how I could help in the healing process. I thought that one day I might go on to be a therapist. I still think that, but I'm also a bit disgusted with some of this mess. I don't really know where I'm trying to go with this. Well, I do, but I can't get there yet. There's a chasm in my brain and the rest of my thoughts are on the other side, and I haven't found a bridge yet.
This first passage I've been reading is some of Aristotle's writings on anger. It's very difficult reading, and I have to admit that at times it feels I'm a bit in over my head! Am I really intelligent enough to read this??? I suppose I must be if I've made it this far.
The passage talks about anger being directed at people who slight the person feeling the anger or his friends and then goes on to define three forms of slighting: contempt, or regarding something as unimportant; spite, or preventing a person from getting something he wants or needs just because; and insolence, or robbing a person of honor or respect. There were a lot of things in the passage that caused me to think about my relationship with my mother and to wonder if I feel anger toward her. I never thought I did, but maybe I do.
I've struggled for a long time with the idea that much of her neglect of my needs was not intentional. At least according to the passage, you don't get angry with people who hurt you unintentionally or who are remorseful. I walked past my 4-year-old niece earlier, didn't see her little toes sticking out from where she was sitting, and accidentally stepped on her foot. I apologized, and she said, "It didn't hurt when you stepped on my foot." After that the subject was dropped.
Over the weekend I tried to talk to Mom about our relationship. She thinks I don't let go of pain from the past. Well, reading this passage, I started to think that there must have come a point in time when I started to feel that Mom's failure to meet my emotional needs was intentional and no longer a product of meer forgetfulness or lack of strength. She failed to show remorse and instead became aggravated with me for reminding her that I still had a need or, worse, that I had a new need to pile on top of the old ones. Now, as an adult, I am torn between the anger and an intense need for her approval and respect for me as an adult and, yes, dependency on her because of the visual impairment. I need her, and therefore I cannot afford to break free completely or to come into conflict with her.
My processing dilemma now is to figure out when the strain in the mother/daughter relationship began. When and why did I begin to perceive her actions or lack thereof as slighting?
She thinks I dwell on negative events too much. Sitting here thinking about it, I realize that much of this tendency comes from both of my parents, although I think neither of them would like to admit they played any part in it. I learned to compete with my parents for attention as much as I learned to compete with my sister for attention. That is a tough one to admit, but it is true. I wonder if I would have felt less of a need to compete if more of my emotional needs had been met. If I had not had to endure quite so much peer isolation, would I have tolerated general sibling rivalry better? If I had been given freedom to roam the church while my parents chatted after Sunday morning services as other children were doing, would I have tolerated the long waits till going home any better? Would I have tolerated times when amusing myself was necessary while in the company of several adults instead of becoming upset because I was not included? Would I have found some middle ground betweenpreferring aloneness at every opportunity I could get it and preferring the company of others constantly?
This is a whole lot of stuff to process. And to think it's all brought about by homework! Hmmmm... Makes homework a bittersweet kind of experience.
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