It sounded like the dumbest assignment I had ever heard in my life. "I want you to make a chart or a list of every woman you have ever been involved with, and list what propelled (attracted) you to them, and then what repelled you away from them." What a ridiculous assignment. I had different reasons for liking and leaving every one of them. It would be a complete waste of my time to go ahead and list all of them like that. However, I thought the same thing when she told me I had commitment issues, and I am paying for this advice, I might as well try it.
After I was about three quarters of the way through the list, I became disturbed. There were a lot more things all of these women had in common at the end of the day than I had ever noticed. Every one of these women had commitment issues at least equal to my own. Many of them only seemed to ever have long distance boyfriends. Many had troubled relationships with their fathers. All of them seemed to have trouble expressing and showing love, and opening up to me. I was getting into relationships that were doomed to fail; still playing the unloved victim role I had learned so well from my childhood. I couldn't help feeling slightly defeated. How far had I really come on this journey of my life, and how much further did I have to go?
"We need to explore your childhood, and the pain and emotions that you experienced in it. Not just the broad strokes, but individual occurrences." I was blank. My childhood? Yeah, I had one of those ... I think. Are we supposed to be able to remember all of that? I remembered everything from high-school (just about the time I stopped seeing my father) onward rather vividly. However, I just remembered vague things about my childhood - the yelling, the beatings, the alcohol, the drugs, and all the madness that was sure to ensue. However, I remembered much of it in the abstract. Reading Augusten's description of his childhood has sounded all too familiar in certain areas.
Slowly, almost like carrying out an excavation, memories have surfaced, and have been carefully brushed off, only to reveal more memories. Scattered and fragmented is my childhood. A sea of memories and emotions that I thought were but a series of unfortunate events best left in the past, have been wreaking havoc on my present. Attracting me to other fundamentally flawed individuals, perhaps out of a subconscious recognition of their similarities to my parents.
After I was about three quarters of the way through the list, I became disturbed. There were a lot more things all of these women had in common at the end of the day than I had ever noticed. Every one of these women had commitment issues at least equal to my own. Many of them only seemed to ever have long distance boyfriends. Many had troubled relationships with their fathers. All of them seemed to have trouble expressing and showing love, and opening up to me. I was getting into relationships that were doomed to fail; still playing the unloved victim role I had learned so well from my childhood. I couldn't help feeling slightly defeated. How far had I really come on this journey of my life, and how much further did I have to go?
"We need to explore your childhood, and the pain and emotions that you experienced in it. Not just the broad strokes, but individual occurrences." I was blank. My childhood? Yeah, I had one of those ... I think. Are we supposed to be able to remember all of that? I remembered everything from high-school (just about the time I stopped seeing my father) onward rather vividly. However, I just remembered vague things about my childhood - the yelling, the beatings, the alcohol, the drugs, and all the madness that was sure to ensue. However, I remembered much of it in the abstract. Reading Augusten's description of his childhood has sounded all too familiar in certain areas.
Slowly, almost like carrying out an excavation, memories have surfaced, and have been carefully brushed off, only to reveal more memories. Scattered and fragmented is my childhood. A sea of memories and emotions that I thought were but a series of unfortunate events best left in the past, have been wreaking havoc on my present. Attracting me to other fundamentally flawed individuals, perhaps out of a subconscious recognition of their similarities to my parents.
It's amazing the corrilations that individual experiences and impressions from childhood can leave on your adult life and the way you live it.
ReplyDeleteKnowing that is why you are going for these girls will help you to figure out what you really do need though. Right?
I think it's through the exploration of my childhood and my feelings from then will assist me in identifying what I am doing and what I am attracted to and should allow me to make meaningful changes in who I do and who I do not decide to date.
ReplyDeleteOh, and you never sent me that email.
Your head mechanic doesn't give you assignments that are meaningless. It's good that you recognize that. I'm glad you're getting somewhere with it, too, and that it is useful to you in changing yourself into who you wish to be.
ReplyDeleteI've already suggested another resource to you; I recommend it again. I wholeheartedly recommend plugging into as many resources as there are available when you're transforming yourself; they all help. Like having a pry bar, pickaxe, and a shovel instead of just one. Good luck with your excavation efforts - I don't know of a power shovel to assist you, only of hand tools, but I know that you can and will succeed in this.
Well I am bad with email if you haven't figured that out yet. Basically I forget the main theme of the dream, but we were walking around a sub-division looking for someone. I also think some sort of amusement park was involved--which coincidentally is some sort of recurring theme in dreams lately!
ReplyDeleteI looked at the Augusten book at the store the other day... I wasn't familiar with him before. He wasn't what I expected.
ReplyDeleteI have missing years out of my childhood memory. It's weird.
Good for you for working with a "head mechanic" :o)