From: sasnla@shadow.unx.sas.com (Nancy Agnew)
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: Re: This group. (long babbling reply)
Date: 27 Aug 92 19:13:30 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Originator: sasnla@shadow.unx.sas.com


In article <gy!n5jf.boserj@netcom.com>, boserj@netcom.com (Jeffrey Boser) writes:
>
>... People gain because there is pain, and they want to get away from
>it.  In fact, most major changes in life come when someone just cant
>take it anymore.  When its change or death...  And thats a pretty
>undirected process.  More like 'oops, gonna crash, hit the brakes and turn'.
>To direct it, we slow it down..  but that hardly ever works.  Just look
>at diets.  We only change when we *need* to.  And going that extra 20
>steps may be the only thing that can save your mind..  by biting the
>bullet and getting the job done.

Jeff, I think this is a generalization that doesn't apply to everybody.
There are indeed cases in which crisis isn't necessary to foster growth,
or maybe, once it has provided the initial impetus for change, it is
no longer necessary, and the rate of change can be more measured.

Yes, pain can be the thing that balances the reluctance to change, but
it is not the only thing.  And forcing myself to stay in a very painful
place does *not* help me make progress, whereas staying in a sort of
painful, fairly uncomfortable place does.  I think people are different
in what they think of as "pain" and "uncomfortable".  I know that you
don't know what my limits are and cannot say whether one step or twenty
are what I need.  I see that you use a "hardly ever" qualifier when
you say that slowing processes down doesn't work -- I think "hardly
ever" implies too few cases of it working, based on what I can see
in the way of progress and growth in the people I know.

When I read what you write, I get the impression that you think you
know what I need.  Well, for years and years I was told what I needed
by the people who abused me or neglected me -- perhaps you can understand
why some of us, or at least I, don't like to be told what we need to
do to process our experience.  The way you write your opinions sounds
very much a "we/they" sort of thing, or an "I know the answers and 
the truth and if you would only see it my way, you will know them too".
Perhaps you don't mean to be making such sweeping pronouncements.  I
hear them that way.

The main reason I'm bothering to write this, folks, is that it has
taken me ten or eleven months of fairly constant work to figure out
what happens to me when I read someone's emphatic, sweeping opinion or
generalization.  I have found a) that I feel uncomfortable 
b) I feel uncomfortable because I think I'm being told what I *should*
do c) I recognize that this is similar to what happened in my family, so
it brings up feelings related to the abuse d) I don't have to believe
these pronouncements if they don't appear to have anything to do with my
life (but I have to pay attention to the discomfort to see if maybe they
do have something to do with my life) and e) I don't have to feel
uncomfortable anymore.  Jeff's phrasing is an example of the style I'm
talking about, but we see it often here -- ASAR's where I get 90% of my
practice in dealing with this!  Now, if some of you out there are saying
"but that's obvious, *of course* you don't have to take someone else's
words as gospel" from a place of having known that most of your life,
then you probably can't understand what my life has been like well
enough to understand what I do and do not need to do in order to process
the harm done to me early on.  That's all well and good, you and I were
damaged in different ways.  The thing is, I'm not the one telling you
what you need to be doing, why do you think you are in a position to
tell me?

I don't know, maybe other people have trouble with this too.  It appears
so when I read some of the responses to the posts that make this
sort of generalization -- I feel judged by some of these posts.  It
is my problem to deal with feeling judged.  I know this, and I am 
learning how to deal with it, but there are going to be times when
I don't know how to dismiss someone else's judgement of me, and I
will believe it (even if no judgement was intended on the part of the
poster).  Them's the breaks on ASAR.  If all of us who post were 
careful to offer help or offer support or offer an opinion (instead
of forcing these things on the reader by the tone of the writing),
then I wouldn't have anywhere near as many opportunities to practice
this stuff as I do!  

>... I have never been
>comfortable with the 'healing' paradigm.  It doesnt apply well to
>emotional problems.  You dont have a wound, it gets all better, and
>you go on...  it doesnt work like that.  You are gonna face your problems
>*every* *single* *minute* for rest of your life.  There aint no
>touchdown dance here.  And no finally 'getting on with your life'..
>What I want to show here, is that when you got a problem, you ride
>out the storm, throw yourself back in to correct course if you have
>to, then do it again and again and again...  There is no 'solution'.
>You are never, ever, 'healed'.  Its a part of you.  And that 'wound'
>is gonna bleed forever.  Depressing, right?  Nope.  Its pretty simple.
>You just stop treating your life as something that needs to be fixed.
>You figure out who you are, and use a rudder and steer a bit.  You
>grow until you can ride out the rough spots.

Seems you and I have a different understanding of the paradigm.  I
think it was Teresa who responded and said that she agreed that the
experience of abuse is always with us, but the way that it affects us
changes as we grow, so that we *don't* face it every day of our lives
because it is no longer the big, overriding concern that it is right
now (hope I'm not paraphrasing too badly, Teresa).  The paradigm you
quote is not the one I operate under, so you cannot judge what I
mean when I say "heal".  

>And thats what I like..  growth.  And it comes in spurts..  it
>never comes slow and steady.  It comes when you have the need and
>means.  And if you arent spurting, you are stagnating.  

There is a difference between growth and pursuit of growth.  The
spurts in my growth have come about because of a slow and steady
and constant pursuit of it.  What it may look like during the
time between spurts is stagnation - to you, to me, to anyone who
sees from the outside, but those periods on the plateau are the basis
for further growth -- life is a constant puzzle, joy, challenge,
journey.  It is time on the plateau, mostly, not jumping from peak
to peak to peak.

>And I
>see alot of that [stagnation] here. ...

I guess one man's ceiling is another man's floor.  I was in
stagnation *before* I started this process, when I was busy all
the time, competent, able to function at a high level, and didn't
know a damn thing about myself.  Had to live my entire life by
an elaborate set of rules because I didn't understand how any of
it fit together (still doing this at the moment, unfortunately).  Yeah,
I looked great and successful, like the last person in the world to have
an emotional problem -- easy enough to do when you don't feel much of
anything -- or if when you begin to feel something you close it down
fast and take up another new activity to keep from paying any attention.
I sure didn't look like I was stagnating -- all those new things I was
learning, new books I was reading, new people I made friends with....

All of it done by a hollow shell.  I incorporate those skills and
interests into the new person I am growing into out of the rubble
of my past....So now maybe it looks like stagnation from the outside,
but it's growth that comes out of a constant steady effort.  The effort
that acknowledges that some days it is a supremely difficult task to
get up and take a shower, while on others doing a boatload of errands,
making several business phone calls, and interacting with people at
a party can all be taken in stride.  If anyone out there is in one
of those "the last thing I wanted to do today was get up and take a 
shower" kinds of places, and you *did* get up and take a shower, then
BRAVO to you -- maybe it'll be simpler tomorrow, but today you rose
to the challenge.

If you can't identify with what I'm saying, Jeff (or others), then
please realize you don't know enough about my experience to judge
what is stagnation and what is growth for me.

>Its called growing.  Becoming more yourself because there is more
>of yourself to be.  Being able to get through those storms is the
>first tool we need, the second is an awareness of the storms,
>of the sea and how it lies, the third is the ability to steer
>a bit.

I don't think anyone disagrees that this process is about growth
and change, and being able to weather storms.  How one pursues the
growth seems to be where opinions vary widely.

>If you are still reading, im surprised.  I have not written
>to be supporting, and have managed to insult the healing process
>and objectives of almost everybody.  But if you are still
>reading this...  think about this:
>
>If you stop reading asar, stop sharing the pain, the pain has won,
>and you might as well surrender.
>.....jeff

If one does what one needs to do, and learns from it, one hasn't
surrendered.  If what some need to do is practice setting boundaries,
and not read ASAR (or certain posts) until they can read it and
maintain a healthy sense of self, than that is not surrender.

The question is whether, when you wrote "I have not written to
be supporting, and have managed to insult the healing process
and objectives of almost everybody", you had some positive goal
in mind.  Since you don't appear to understand my objectives and my
healing process, I don't think you have insulted them -- or rather,
since *they* can't *feel* insulted, you haven't insulted me.  But if you
thought to persuade me of anything, well, you haven't done that, either.
You did, however, provide me with more practice on something that is
still hard for me, so thanks for that!

have fun, all.
Nancy

-- 
Nancy Agnew                         sasnla@unx.sas.com
SAS Institute Inc,  SAS Campus Dr,  Cary NC 27513-2414
My company's opinions are not likely mine, and vice versa.