Fear and control

One of my greatest day-to-day challenges is the pervasive feeling that 'things aren't quite right'. More specifically, that my approach to the daily events in my life isn't quite right, and nowhere is this felt more strongly than when I am with my children.

But what I do is try to reassure myself (or worse still, listen to the reassurance of others) that I am being good and kind, helpful and undemanding, and, too frequently, that my desires are not actually that important, especially when these conflict with those of my children. In this I suspect I have much in common with many mothers.

And I am coming to see that for much of my life my response when I don't feel so good inside is to run away, mostly by becoming absorbed in my thoughts but increasingly as my children are growing older and it is more feasible, by leaving the physical environment where the 'heat is greatest'.

Yesterday I returned home after three weeks away. The house and offspring were unwelcoming and I was met with queries regarding tasks I had undertaken to do while away and requests for further, and immediate, assistance.

Did I feel good about being needed? Have I ever really felt good about being needed? I was very tired, and I am starting to notice that when I am tired, even when I can attribute it to a poor night's sleep or heavy physical exertion, my tiredness can generally also be related to my 'holding in' a lot of emotional responses, to 'putting the lid on' my deeper feelings in order to maintain what often does feel like a facade of being a good friend and mother. Why otherwise does one not feel tired when one is excited and happy, or having a genuinely good time?

I had a restless night despite my tiredness, feeling mainly that 'brick wall' feeling that whatever I'm doing about my nonspecific unease, it doesn't feel like I'm getting anywhere. And, as often happens to me in the night, it occurred to me what I suspect others have been trying to tell me for years, that I am being controlled. Or at least, that's how I feel.

But I'm no longer a child. If I'm feeling controlled it is actually because I'm choosing to do what is asked of me, even when I don't want to, for fear of being rejected or of feeling disapproval. Fear of that awful childhood feeling that I am not loved unless I behave in a certain kind of way. It's a subtle feeling at this stage, because I have spent so many years telling myself that it is a good thing to be kind and helpful, forgetting completely that it is quite a bad thing to be unkind to myself in the process.

So my brick wall dissolved just a little, as I realised that what I'm doing as I go along my way is living in a state of fear. Fear of feeling disapproved of, of feeling like a bad person. I know by now that the way through this is to 'do the fear thing', just give in to the feeling. For me it is also a big aspect of how I currently see God, with my being loved only on condition that I follow the guidelines. But the one lifebuoy I hold on to is that continuing to pray to God even when I'm surrendering to my fear, even while I feel God is least available to me, will get me through all this. In this process of surrendering (at which I'm still very much an amateur) I feel I have no control at all, that I'm stupid even to believe that God would listen, but that's how I find it is for me. If I take the step of allowing myself to feel like a small child quivering in fear that if I'm not good I will be rejected, if I go through the blackness of this actual feeling, afterwards God is more palpably there for me.

Some time ago I was inspired to write this, and the imagery helps me when I don't want to feel my fear.

Fear is like a big black cloud

Impenetrable from the distance

But go right up, there's nothing there

Walk right through; you may not see

More than a foot or two ahead

But still the ground is firm

And mostly all you get

Is sparkle-droplets sticking to your hair

Or even less, perhaps a gentle breeze

Will dissipate it, then the view is clear.

Issues with sex

Perhaps I have an exaggerated sense of responsibility; among other feelings after Emiel died was this definite sense that I was now no longer responsible for the happiness of one person in my life – and I felt that little bit less weighed down.  And, since I’ve started talking about the ‘unspeakable' there was also a sense of relief that I no longer had to have sex – ever again. 

Back then I believed something vaguely like ‘do the best you can with this life and what happens after you die will sort itself out’.  I knew there was life after death but I liked to believe that when I died I would leave my current life issues behind.

So in 2007 when I started hearing what AJ was teaching, it was not exactly good news!  If I accepted what I heard, I had to admit that all my past feelings regarding sex would not just go away of their own accord. I knew this was big and hoped very much that any relationship or soulmate connection would be a long way away, about the last thing I needed to deal with once all else was well sorted out.

But as ever, God does not seem to want to follow my plans, or perhaps more honestly, something within me is fighting my own rules for a comfortable existence.  Although I am currently in a relationship, for months I’ve been running away from sexual contact, aware that where I once used to ‘switch off’, I now have feelings – and they are often not pleasant.

And yesterday there was soreness and a little bleeding from the left side of my vagina and while I quickly told myself it was probably just postmenopausal dryness, I also knew that I was being nudged further towards looking at my resistance to my sexuality.

And this is so big, and there seem to be so many parts to it. Maybe I’ll make a list:

There are times when kissing is really unpleasant.  I feel like a child and I’m being swallowed up against my will, but there is also this childhood feeling that I must submit for fear of making the man angry and that the best possible outcome for me is to do anything that will minimise his anger.  

When certain parts of my body are touched by my partner, sometimes it feels good but at other times it feels disgusting and sleazy.  I judge both the man and myself.

Similarly, when I touch my partner, sometimes he feels good and at other times he feels horrible and repulsive.  Reflecting on it now, I think I feel good about it as long as I feel like a mother stroking a baby but as soon as I fear that something sexual will develop, I feel dramatically different, at least in the last little while.  I guess God is answering my prayer to start to feel again, ho hum.

And touching myself is similar. OK I suppose to ‘baby’ myself (though I’d rather read a good book!) but definitely not enjoyable to approach myself sexually.

I’m reminded of a good movie (Song for a Raggy Boy) where, among other abuse perpetrated, a boy is made to have sex with a priest.  It hurts so much and he wants to scream but his mouth is being covered.  And he feels like he is so bad, that he is the one who committed the sin.  And it makes me cry.

I’ve heard often enough that the only way to heal issues with sex is through sex, but only ‘knowing’ this as a dry fact hasn’t helped me practically.  Similarly, while I can look at my parents’ attitudes towards sexual expression and how this has affected my own thoughts and feelings, it has all been an intellectual exercise so far.  My resistance to actually feeling my own sexual discomfort is very great.

But this morning I received a nudge in what I think will be a very hopeful direction.  As I was enjoying physical closeness with my partner I recognised some resistance starting to grow in me again.  Once I would have ‘numbed out’ and continued – because that is after all part of a loving relationship – isn’t it??  More recently I have been getting up and praying to more fully feel whatever it is that is troubling me. But today it dawned on me that I didn’t need to get up at all.  Rather, just to notice how my body was telling me the story.  I could feel the stiffness and resistance in my muscles and joints before I could actually feel the resistance in my mind – and I could just allow myself to feel it.  To notice how stiff I was and allow myself to feel the fear of my barriers being breached.  Along with this I felt an emotional truth: that while there may have been a time or times in my distant past, unremembered by me but still resulting in this fear of being sexually exploited, right now I was perfectly safe.  My partner’s motives were entirely loving and I had no need at all to feel afraid or angry or to lock myself away emotionally.

And knowing that made me cry a little.  How, as humans, we all long to be held safe and warm and without fear.  How we all carry our own variety of baggage that gets in the way of this we so long for.

As it happened, we did not travel far down the sexual intimacy road this morning and I can’t tell you whether it would all have become too challenging for me had we done so.  But I count myself very lucky as having a man who wants as much as I do that I take the time I need to shed those sexual hang-ups I have.  And I feel I have the key to success. 

I’m reminded of AJ’s image of a bottle with a stopper at each end.  His image is of God being unable to fill our bottle with love if we don’t allow our emotions to flow; we need to un-stopper both ends of the bottle.  Similarly I need to unstopper my bottle to allow my past sexual fear to flow out if I now want sexual desire to flow through me.

And with a bit of luck, perhaps it won’t quite be the last emotional issue on my plate to be dealt with after all!