I've written a book about being a Narcissistic Enabler, called Holding the Mirror.
As for my current situation, I am currently going back to school to become an Art Therapist.
As I have struggled to make myself into a better person,
I have stumbled across some very important truths.
First: "Whatever emotional pains you do not heal, you pass on."
I have found this stated in one form or another in several books, and after much personal experience, I find that it is very true and insidious. Even now, I am still amazed at how emotional pain can affect someone's actions and decisions. It’s like the scenario of a man who is yelled at by his boss at work. He comes home and his wife is late fixing dinner. He berates his wife for not keeping things under control and his wife scolds the children severely for being difficult and causing her to be late with dinner. The kids then blame each other for the disturbance. The youngest kid kicks the dog.
Now, there will be days when dinner is late and berating someone won’t change that. There will be times when children are unruly and a scolding is necessary, but the severity is not. Your children learn from your example. If you deal with your hurts by hurting someone else, don’t be surprise to see them do the same thing.
We have all been guilty of this, in one form or another. As my sacrilegious brother once said, “Show me someone who’s perfect and I’ll nail him to a cross.” Now, I find my brother’s disrespect for deity offensive, but the heretic does has one valid point here (though it may or may not be the one he meant)-we are all mortal and this means that we are not perfect. If we were perfect, we would be gods. As Carlyle said in his work, Heroes and Hero-Worship, “The greatest fault of them all, I should say, is to be conscious of none.” I would add that the second greatest fault is to ignore the ones you are conscious of.
Second: "You have to feel it to heal it."I actually got that quote from a children's program dealing with grief and it pretty much sums up everything I've learned in therapy, both professional and self. It also explains why blanket forgiveness doesn't work. Every so often, I have someone email me that I should forgive and forget and then everything will be all right. I appreciate their concern, however, I spent over a quarter of a century doing just that and ended up destroying myself. Finally, I realized my problem--I was denying the damage those acts did to me. You cannot forgive someone while you are lying to yourself. You cannot heal a stab wound by pretending it didn't happen. When I have acknowledged the truth of my pain and grief, I can heal it, and once it is healed I find that forgiveness for the act often comes on its own and I am more compassionate towards the offender. Some of you will probably still not agree with me-that is fine. We all learn the lessons of life at our own pace.
It is easier to hide from pain than it is to deal with it, but you feel so much better after it’s gone-and it does get easier after awhile.
Third: "Doing therapy work is like watering parched house plants."
Ever watered a house plant whose soil was bone dry? You can’t just give it all the water it needs right then and there. Dry soil can only hold so much water and the rest will just run off. It is only after the soil has been moistened, that it can hold more water. Try it with a dry and a wet sponge. A wet sponge will pick up more water at a faster rate. If you want an explanation, watch Bill Nye the Science Guy’s show on wetlands.
Therapy is the same way. You can only handle so much enlightenment at one time. You need to apply your new knowledge in your life and let it open your mind up more. Then you will become aware of all other sorts of things you need to deal with. It is a continuous cycle-learning, practicing, examing, refining. The goal is to become self-aware enough to enact these changes efficiently on your own and to know when you need someone else’s help.
Obviously, I have learned a lot more than just what I stated here. Feel free to explore my site to see what life has taught me. As Benjamin Franklin once said, "Experience keeps a dear school, but a fool will learn in no other."
