Mid-Life Crisis: Abuse and Transformation

As a younger adult, whenever I heard the term "Mid-Life Crisis," I conjured up stereotypical images of middle aged men foolishly trying to reclaim their youth with fast cars and young, gorgeous women.

However, according to Wikipedia there are many causes of - and reactions to - Mid-Life Turmoil:

A midlife crisis could be caused by aging itself, or aging in combination with changes, problems, or regrets over:

• work or career
• spousal relationships
• maturation of children
• aging or death of parents
• physical changes associated with aging

Midlife crises seem to affect men and women differently. Researchers^[6] have proposed that the triggers for mid-life crisis differ between men and women, with male mid-life crisis more likely to be caused by work issues.

I'd add to the Wikipedia list - Abuse Recovery.

According to Wikipedia, one of the characteristics of a Mid-Life Crisis, is "a deep sense of remorse for goals not accomplished."

The "computer girl" part of me has been diligent about achieving goals, especially goals associated with business. But, there is one goal that often eludes abuse survivors - "the pursuit of happiness" or should I say emotional freedom.

Currently, I'm having what I would call a "Mid-Life Experience." Although at times it does feel like a "crisis," it also has qualities that feel like a hopeful "transformation."

Many of my recent posts have touched on this transformation: Have To vs Want To, Survival Tactics - Peeling Away the Layers, Letting Go and the Passages of our Lives.

Much of my adulthood I struggled with my abuse recovery. When I finally reached the point that my abuse no longer felt present, I rejoiced. I am grateful that I no longer have nightmares, suffer from dissociation, PTSD, or feel "triggered," by old memories.

Now that I am free from the pain of childhood "events," I am experiencing the disappointment of mourning the residual effects of recovery: Recovery has many layers. Just as I finished mourning the loss of my childhood, I find that I'm doing major grief work over the loss of much of my adulthood.

I'm mourning all of the time lost performing necessary recovery work. I'm mourning:

• That I started out ill equipped to navigate as an adult
• That I was dealing with recovery while so many of my peers were enjoying life
  
• All of the years I was trying to figure out what constitutes a healthy relationship
• All of the years I spent trying to learn boundaries, self-parenting, how to respond to betrayal, etc.
• All of the years I hadn't yet healed enough to safe-guard my own well-being
  
• That I modeled poor relationship skills to my children
• That I wasn't able to provide my children an "intact" family
• All of the years that I let "computer girl" rule my life and overachieve

Mourning doesn't mean that I'm beating myself up. On the contrary, I take pride in the staggering amount of work I have performed. But rather, I'm grieving for the necessary losses I've incurred.

For me, major grief work has always signaled a new era. For example, I'm mourning all of the time I "overachieved," because I now feel "enlightened" by no longer overachieving. I'm grieving all of the years I lost by working too much. If I was still willing to "overachieve" my psyche wouldn't be ready to mourn. Likewise, if I still had boundary issues, I'd still be spending my time trying to learn to exercise clear, respectful boundaries. Now that I do exercise boundaries, I'm mourning all of the years I allowed myself to get hurt by not safe-guarding my own well-being, etc. All of these changes felt very empowering at first, but now I'm mourning all of the time I lost before I learned the skills I have now.

Past experience tells me that honoring the depth of my pain opens the door to new possibilities.

Hence - "Mid-Life Transformation" - mourning the old and moving on to the new.

Remembering to Mourn

I've always had difficulty with mourning.

Often, when I find myself entering a new phase of healing, such as with my current life transition, I take note of the healing foundation I've already developed. I use my old ground work as a blueprint to guide me and a base on which to build from there.

It has taken a great deal of hard work to re-wire my brain, heart, and psyche in order to rid myself of my PTSD, dissociation and to change the old unhealthy internal messages, feelings and responses with new healthy internal messages feelings and responses. Although I am relieved that my abuse no longer feels present, I know that some of the effects of my abuse will linger for the rest of my life. I am after all, the culmination of all my experiences both good and bad, healed and unhealed.

In times of stress, it sometimes feels natural to go on "auto-pilot" and to fall back on old wiring and survival instincts, rather than remembering to "stay awake at the wheel" and to use my new tools. Of all the healing lessons I've learned - such as validating my pain, exercising self-care, expressing my feelings, and releasing my anger - mourning has always been the most difficult for me. Being able to mourn entails "remembering" to do what is unnatural for me; to remain "present" with my feelings (see What? I Can Feel This?).

After spending a few weeks carrying around unresolved sadness, I've been searching my healing toolbox to help me mourn the losses I'm currently feeling.

I've heard a number of times over the years about a technique that entails giving ourselves 5 minutes each day to mourn, and then to "drop it" and go about our day. I always thought that was a ridiculous notion. How can we mourn huge losses in just five minutes during a day?

For many years, I looked at this exercise as a "limiting," "get over it" sort of suggestion. That is - until I tried it and it worked! The difference is that when I tried it, I approached this exercise from a another perspective. I didn't look at it as only allowing myself 5 minutes a day, and then "dropping it," but rather committing myself to at least five minutes a day of "dedicated" mourning.

In other words, rather than carrying un-mourned sadness around with me all day, I sat down, and dedicated myself to mourning. I was amazed at how much this dedicated mourning helped to release my sadness and then I didn't carry it around all day.

Since I have difficulty mourning, I need rituals to help me mourn. The most helpful exercise for me is to tell myself, "It's time to mourn." I go into a quite room and choose music that lends itself to "touching" my sadness. Then I hold out my hand - palm up, close my eyes, and picture my heart gently cradling my loss in the palm of my hand (person, place, thing). I let the music and my feelings guide me as I cry, mourn, and honor this loss.......

Reading My 1992 Journal

At the end of March, I thought it would be interesting to write some posts from the “that was then, this is now” perspective. I decided that when I posted a topic from my current viewpoint, I would choose a passage from my 1992 journals that represented my state of mind on the same topic then.

I only made it through one “that was then, this is now” post before I realized how much I dreaded picking up my old journals.

After that, prior to reading my journals, I had to ask myself, “Right now, do I have the emotional energy necessary to read these?”

I have found that reading the details of raw, soul-crushing events - as they happened - evokes in me a consuming sense of self-compassion.

The journals detail all sorts of harrowing events that had been partially purged through written word. My range of feelings at that point in my life was very limited. When I was injured, my emotions swung like a pendulum – either all the way to the right and numb - or all the way to the left with unmanageable anxiety and agitation. Other emotions – such as sadness were beyond my scope of experience.

Over the years, I have learned to stay present with a wide array of emotions. Today, I fully feel the sadness when I read those journals and grieve deeply for that old part of me and what she endured.

Each time I scan my words looking for passages pertinent to a current post, I find myself absorbed in old stories that I’d forgotten about. Sometimes, I read in disbelief.

Nonetheless, it isn’t the stories that are important here; it’s the process that is significant.

During the time I wrote the journals my therapist told me that I needed to get angry and mourn. I couldn’t. I had no frame of reference. Instructing me to feel powerful emotions was not enough.

I didn’t learn to process my feelings as a child. When a child is terrified, their pain can easily spin out of control. A caring parent teaches the child to modulate their pain by comforting them with love and assurance. In the safety of loving arms, a child learns to reign in their emotions. Through example, this mechanism becomes internalized in the child and they eventually learn to soothe themselves. Emotional self-soothing is a quality I lacked as a child and needed to learn to internalize for myself.

Years later, another therapist understood that I literally needed to be taught the same way a child is taught. She explained how to seek out people to receive empathic responses until I could internalize them for myself.

At first, self-compassion was forced and awkward; something I had to create space for in order to honor my feelings.

Today, self-compassion is an automatic response. I don’t experience the old feelings of anxiety and fear. Nor do I feel re-injured as I have in the past. For so long, recalling stories of past abuse continued to abuse me. The experience still felt present. Yet, the gift of authentically grieving is that my memory of the abuse no longer abuses me. Instead, I simply feel a great deal of self-compassion for the me of long ago.

I need to respect my energy level enough to ask myself, “At this moment, do I have the reserves to mourn?” If I don’t, I should save my journals for another day, but when I do, as I peel away each layer of pain, I become increasingly stronger.

1992 – Entry Three - Still a Damaged Child

From my 1992 journal:

…….I am questioning myself. I’m afraid that people will believe Mom and think that I am crazy. It is hard without the love, support, and understanding of a mother. She isn’t behind me to help me. She is the one I need protection from. I long for the love, safety, comfort and support of a mother. Why doesn’t she love me?

I talked to Thomas today about my frustration that every once and a while, Mom does something nice for me. Whenever she has done something nice, I’ve let myself get sucked back in. I get my hopes up that we can have a relationship and then – Wham! She slices me to ribbons.

Thomas said, “So, you can grieve the loss of the mother she could have been.”

I fought back tears…….. “Yes.”

Mourning

Many years ago, my therapist told me that it was important to mourn my losses. I didn’t even know what that meant!

It is significant to note my complete inability to identify how I felt when I was wounded. Before I could mourn, I needed to become present with my feelings. Grieving came after the long process of protecting myself, having my experiences validated, and expressing my anger. First, I had to heal enough to “hold” my own feelings.

Without bringing our injuries into the light, acknowledging them and feeling them, we are unable to mourn and move on to the life we deserve.

For me, this was no easy feat. When our feelings are denied as children, we develop an emotional disconnect. I became detached from my sense of self and self-compassion. In order to banish that which was too painful to endure, I dissociated.

Like many other victims of childhood abuse, I learned that my survival depended on being tough enough to handle anything. Although I was acutely aware of – and compassionate to – the pain of other people, I was blind to my own suffering. Long into adulthood, I “powered” through every situation just to survive. I never learned how to process my own pain. Undoing a lifelong mechanism is a very difficult undertaking. In order to grieve – I needed to “unlearn” the way I learned to ignore my agony. Then I needed to re-learn a healthy method of expressing my sadness. It was very important for me to learn to cry for myself and to share those tears with others.

Each time I thought I had finished mourning, another wave of heartbreaking losses emerged. However, as I peeled away each layer of pain, I grew increasingly stronger.