……..Coming home to a gorgeous box of skin care, lotions and cleaners from my best Welsh friend. Lots and lots of messages of love fly at me once again through my phone. I’m humbled by the fact that so many people I care about and who care about me have taken a few moments out of their day to let me know they are there. People who have passed through my life, new, old and those in between. Just there – shadows behind me, but their presence is heavy. Just what I need after today. I may not have had decent parents, or grandparents, aunties, uncles or cousins who know me/bother with me or care or love me like you’d expect your family to do. It’s been a very lonely existence without the scaffold of support from a functional family. Massive holes in my development and spaces where birthday and Christmas cards should have been. If your Mum and Dad or close family are going through this with you – give them a hug from me.
I used to struggle hearing others chirp on about their relationships with their Mum’s. It really evoked a ‘bitter envy’ in me. I have spent many a well earned pound on therapy, self-help books, and Sauvignon Blanc making my peace with it.
I have been married before, to a born again Christian who was well disguised as an abusive, manipulative and unkind man. I will devote no more than that line to him. He deserves no more. But as a regular church goer myself circa 1998-2001 (marriage lasted 17 months – I asked him to leave 14/02/01)….. I can recall this verse from James 3:14 – English Standard Version –
"But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don't cover up the truth with boasting and lying....."
If ‘envy’ is desire for what another has, then ‘bitter envy’ must mean a person wants something so much they become angry and hateful over it. In my personal and professional experience bitterness is the child of anger and resentment. Some choices I made, some relationships I have developed, my dysfunctional family life, and the way people have treated me have burdened me with these harmful emotions. It took me a long time to see I was capable (albeit internally rather than externally) to reduce the stature of others so I could stand taller. These pointed and sharp feelings had to be dissolved and dispersed.
I’m grateful for the thirst for self-awareness I possess, my therapist(s), my Supervisor, a handful of very close friends and my husband who together gave me the clarity I needed to alter my thinking constructs. Not for the faint hearted – but well worth the effort. Don’t get me wrong – they do still emerge – these dark and unhealthy feelings. They may never truly leave me. I expect them to be triggered by my current situation – but I do now have the power of personal responsibility – to trace back to the trigger or the ‘lack’ and ‘unthink’ this process to bring it to a more rational and authentic version of the truth NOW.
I’m feeling not only riddled with poison but I am on my period today so I’m an hormonal, ornery middle aged bitch. Hence the self-reflection…..