Is your life unmanageable, miserable, or just frustrating? My life became a search for answers, because of my traumatic past. I read countless biographical books looking for an explanation and a way out. I listened to the experts in medicine, church, school, and any place I thought would help. I found the answer and life is not a mystery, anymore. Follow me on my discovery of what works in my life.
I felt powerless and I looked for ways to achieve some kind of influence for a better outcome of circumstances. Earlier, I was trying to control my life to be safe. Some people call it putting your ducks in a row. I did all the right things, I thought. Somehow, my ducks in a row fell apart and I was not happy with the results. I worked at this for many years. I finally had to admit that I was powerless over my life and I was not a happy person.
I tried to please my parents. I was obedient. I tried to achieve good grades in school and my parents still did not acknowledge me. When I graduated as Valedictorian, they did not celebrate all my hard work or congratulate me. I always sat first chair flute in the orchestra and bands, but I was still not acknowledged at home. I thought when I soloed with the symphony; finally, my parents would applaud my efforts, recognize my ability, and me. However, my achievements did not bring happiness or support. The harder I tried to line things up the more it came apart.
Finally, I realized that trying to change others to be what I wanted them to be was not the answer. In fact, my life was becoming more miserable the more I tried to make it go right.
I masked my despair and stuffed my feelings successfully. My superficial façade was not detected. However, my miserable inner life was dejected and painful. I thought if I teach, marry, and have a family, then I could create a happy family. I spent thirty years playing this game.
I had not recognized what a victim I really was. I always reacted to the threatening experiences around me. My traumatic life started as a child. I reacted to events and circumstances trying to protect myself from my mentally ill mother, alcoholic father, and caustic stepfather. Later in my search for answers I realized that I had married a man just like my family. Those traits were familiar to me and I fooled myself, thinking he could change.
I looked good to others. We appeared to be a happy family in our community. My husband ran our printing business and I was a teacher. I took my children to church, we were involved with community affairs, and I had a clean and organized home. The yard around our home was always mowed with lots of flowers to enjoy and weed free. We took lovely trips, even out of the country to exotic places. I pretended everything was fine, while in reality my home life was a mess.
On the surface, everything looked like I had the perfect life. Why was I then so miserable? Why was my marriage a battleground? Why did our children have problems at school? Why didn’t I have friends? I wanted to be happy and enjoy my life, but these were only fleeting moments in a stressful life. This was such a mystery to me.
Was I really creating more chaos and turmoil when I was only trying to bring cheerfulness to my family? I was the passive director of the show, but no one stayed in his designated role. I looked pleasant, kind, and caring. I thought my family members were the ones who seemed to be the problem. No one was enjoying life, while we went through our routines. Why could I not have a happy family? Why was I was powerless over my family? If they just did what I wanted, our family would be wonderful.
My getting honest with myself was a major change in my attitude. Actually, I had come to believe in a life that was terrible, horrible, and awful from my dysfunctional and abusive childhood. I was reenacting out my childhood with my own family. I was compensating for my loss of not being nurtured while growing up. I had a glimmer, that possibly I was not supposed to be in charge of others. Maybe, they had their own lives to live.
Unconsciously, I was reacting to everyone trying to keep myself safe. I thought I was a loving mother, however, I found that my fearful growing up prevented me from opening my heart to send real love to my household. They were looking for the same love I wanted from my parents. I was playing the same role as my parents in my current family. I did not love myself and realized that meant I could not love others.
I needed hope. Was it possible to overcome past conditioning of my cruel youth and domestic violent marriage? I learned from my church to stay in my domestic violent marriage, my psychiatrist gave me prescriptions for my anxiety, and my seven years of college never taught life skills. If I continued to listen to them, I would stay in my marriage of tragedy and fatality. I had to find new answers to help me. My only hope was to change my approach from reacting from my past terrifying experiences to finding a safe place where I could open my heart for feeling real love.
I had been living in fantasy and an illusion. This is called a form of insanity. Without honesty, there is no sanity. I had to admit that my life was not sagacious. It brought me to try suicide and my husband tried to kill me several times.
I wanted out of my prison of fear. Moving into a life of reality was my only hope. I needed to find a higher power of love to replace my fearful mind. I had to change from being a fear-based person into a love-based person. I needed a design for living.
I vowed to be as honest as I could be so I would not be insane like my mother, who was paranoid schizophrenic. Realizing that changing others did not improve my life, I accepted the responsibility to change myself. Launching into unknown waters, I began my search for truth.
For more about me check out my website Angelica’s Gifts, Amazon.com Youtube, and my blog, marilynredmondbooks.blogspot.com
