Learned Helplessness

I'd forgotten about learned helplessness until it hit me smack in the face this week. I've been watching this person for months struggle with whatever comes to her. It finally dawned on me, the struggle is how she gets others to do for her instead of having to do for herself.

I'd wondered how such a bright child could be so awkward with direction. Yet my realization suddenly makes everything clear. The sad fact is she's caught in just another manipulative trap. Whether this game was put on her by controlling parents or created by the child herself doesn't really matter. What's important is it's a crippling game.

Women who practice this behavior find themselves in unhealthy situations more often than not. Not having the skills to care for oneself can be a death sentence. There's nothing that attracts predators more quickly than this type of behavior. They feed on it. They need it. It's what makes them feel in control.

So sadly I watch this child cling to her helplessness knowing that it'll be a hard road to follow. It's difficult to see someone so young trapped. Yet unwilling to see anything but what works for her. It doesn't take a crystal ball to know where this road leads.

Do you see learned helplessness around you? If so, how do you deal with it? You can bet I'll be spending sometime figuring out how I'm going to deal with this.

Checking In

I apologize for my silence. I so appreciate the support system that I have here, I don't want to put anyone off by the distance between my posts. Yet, I am struggling to get through the each day. Posting has become the last thing on my mind........although those I care about here are always in the forefront. I wonder how everyone is doing and imagine conversations I would have with each as I go through some of the mindless parts of dealing with the horses. Being able to let my mind wander to those connections actually helps to keep me on track as the urge to bale on this dream and give up on myself grabs at me.

I am beyond tired........both physically and mentally. It seems that each day is a struggle to put one foot in front of the other. Keeping myself moving through the physicality of this work I do is draining in itself. Once I got behind on my sleep (which I did quite badly at the Region 4 Championships) the prospect of catching up seems impossible. My age seems to weigh heavily around my neck as I try to catch up on my much needed rest while still keeping my life in forward movement.

That chapter (Region 4) in my plan is past and it's time to move onto the next, searching for some way to make this all work. I must say that as I draw nearer to realizing my dream, the climb seems to get all the more difficult. I never imagined a struggle such as this. One one hand things are beginning to fall into place. On the other the financial burden still hangs like dead weight. Which one will win still in question.

I try not to look at the big picture of the one hand while focusing on it on the other hand. One is filled with hope and promise while the other leads to the blackness of the abyss. For now I continue to walk this tight rope hoping that the pieces will fall into place and the puzzle will finally be whole.

Believing in myself has become easy.........despite how this post sounds. It is believing that "life" will reward my effort that seems impossible. Trusting that something will actually go "right" for me.........now that is the real test.

In the meantime I rely on the thoughts and prayers of support I have found here to get me through. Blind faith, alone, can get pretty thin sometimes. It's nice to have this support system to fall back on.........a constant reminder I am not alone........even though sometimes it feels like I am.

Somtimes It's Confusing.........

One of those confusing things about being a multiple comes with having different parts on opposing sides of the spectrum when it comes to their emotions. With as much "blending" as has been accomplished in my system, I still have parts that are totally seperate. I know it's confusing for me when I stumble across these inconsistencies. I would guess it is even more confusing for those who are around me.

Currently I'm caught in one of those times. I have a part who is exstatic about her life and another part who is deeply depressed. For the most part I haven't really been all that aware of either of these parts lately. I've been so busy just trying to get through each day that I guess I wasn't paying attention.

Today, that all changed. When those thoughts "If I only had a gun, I'd blow my head off!" resounded through my brain as I was pulling weeds a silence fell over my entire system. We don't take those kind of thoughts lightly anymore. But obviously we haven't been listening to someone, somewhere if my over grown gardens could trigger such desperate thoughts.

Even if it has been many years since anyone was THAT serious about ending it all, as a system we are still very much on guard about such thoughts. So much so that we just don't seem to get to such an extreme, we can get things back on track before anything gets so scary so the intensity of this thought today really caught us off guard.

Not that life hasn't been full of lots of ups and probably many more downs lately. With my husband being out of work, money is tight and our relationship is more strained than usual. He has his own depression to deal with at the moment which I am sure is affecting mine.

I can't say I don't understand what this depression is about. It is obvious to me. My life long dream is in dire jeopardy due to our current financial situation. The fact that I am just on the brink of really "making a name for myself" makes it all the more upsetting. I don't know if my dream is going to survive or not, I'm trying to take it one day at a time.

I knew I was under a lot of stress but I was shocked to hear those words in my head. I don't know how I'm going to handle them for sure but it's obvious I'm going to have to do something different than I have been. I can't afford to be making any costly mistakes.

Checking In............

This is a hectic time of year for me under normal circumstances but with my dream on the line things around here are really stepped up a notch. With Dave still out of work and the horse market in a huge slump along with the rest of our sagging economy, it is definitely a do or die situation here.

With horses that are actually trained enough to show that need the push is on to get that done so people can see these horses really are as amazing as I have always claimed. Trying to do that and balance my sad budget is stressful enough without throwing in things like foaling and breeding season all rolled into one.

So for those of you that are wondering if I am OK, the picture above should explain where my attentions have been as a pretty intense foal watch has finally wrapped up. If you like a peak at the new bundle of joy the live webcam is on 24/7. Sometimes during the day, the mare and foal may be outside to stretch their legs but most of the time they are there in the stall.

Tomorrow my truck goes into the shop. My husband had a small accident here on the farm. He is fine but my truck is an ugly mess. It'll be getting bodywork for an entire week.

Tuesday I leave for a Morgan horse show to the northern part of my state. I've been hired as the show manager and while it's a very stressful job, I couldn't turn it down. The pay will feed my herd from most of a month. But I'll be offline for at least a week.

The following week I will be gone to a horse show in Salem, Oregon. It will be an exciting time because it's a milestone for us. We will finally be showing one of my Legs' babies in an under saddle class. Others have shown but not under our farm banner. Cross your fingers it helps get this horse sold.

I know I haven't been visiting blogs, no blogs, horse blogs, nothing since the foal watch started. But my blogging buddies are forever in my thoughts and my prayers each and every day. That will not change even if I can't get to a computer. I'll be back and catching up as soon as life settles down a bit. In the meantime, just know it may be nuts but I'm having the ride of my life..........something I so wish for each and every one of you.

The Discovery

The night Getting Together...........Old Ties my old therapist and cohorts from group met I told them about the state I was in when that stuff around my therapy all happened. It was with new perspective I began to realize how B's (I'm going to refer to the director as B) actions were consistent with those of other therapists who abused survivors, something I hadn't seen before now.

Up to this time I had seen just her decision to remove me from my support group as the problem in my relationship there. Now I see even more sinister things she did, all pushing me farther and farther over the edge. I remember my frustrations with her "form" of therapy at the time. However, I was already in such turmoil from that first decision I neglected to see what she was doing was wrong.

I guess that speaks to why I never did sue this woman or the agency. I didn't see what she was doing as wrong. All I saw was it from her perspective. She told me she had the right to do it all, remove me from group, take my therapist away, change my therapy all of it and I BELIEVED her.

The fact that it had nearly killed me didn't seem to matter. That's what she told me, it was an agency decision, and I bought it hook, line and sinker. The agency being the expert and me, just a victim, it was OK with society what they did. And that's pretty much what I've always believed.

I always thought it was a bad decision from someone who was supposed to care about people. But it never occurred to me that society might see it as decision they shouldn't have made, dereliction of their duty. I just didn't see it wasn't just an issue of caring. It was an issue of them not doing their job properly.

I've been angry all these years and thought they shouldn't have done it, like my mother shouldn't have abandoned and disinherited me or turned my siblings against me. But just like doing those things was my mother's prerogative and I had no recourse, I believed the same about B and the agency. It didn't dawn on me until now that others, including the professional community, would see what she did as wrong. That agencies and the professionals they hire are responsible for making appropriate decisions in the treatment of their patients. If they don't, they are breaking their professional code of ethics and maybe even the law.

Sure I believe I've stated here in a post after that Lunch and a Movie Lunch and a Movie incident when I learned the agency had been sued, that I SHOULD have done that. But the fact is I really didn't believe that I had anything to sue over. I didn't believe they had done anything "wrong" in any one's opinion but mine. It was more anger talking than believing B really DIDN'T have the right to treat me that way.That she wasn't doing her job properly. I didn't believe it mattered what B did to me. She had power and I didn't. That's just how it was.

Sure it mattered to me. But no one else seemed to care. My husband was in his usual "la-la" state. My friends from group seemed to push me away and didn't seem to see that anything was wrong other than the anger they saw from me. I'd been abandoned by a pretty darn good therapist, or so I thought. The message of all of this was that it really didn't matter to anyone but ME. It must have been OK what they did. The problem was MY reaction. And who in the heck am I, after all? Those same old messages and yet I've been still harboring them for nearly twenty years.

Now I find out my friends from group feelings for me didn't change at all. My former therapist didn't ask to stop seeing me because I was angry over being removed from group. None of them knew I was in real jeopardy because all my self destruct programming had become engaged. No one got the peril I was in.................no one but me. And no one knew anything inappropriate was happening, not even me and I was the one it was happening to.

People have been harming me all of my life. It's what I know. I'm used to it. It was always the way it should be, it was something I deserved. So I've taken it! Yupe, I've just sat back and taken it believing that's how it is.

Even after I completed therapy I have "taken" things in a way. I've learned if things hurt me, I can protect myself. But even that has been more about putting a wall up and removing myself, the only form of protection to "just not be there."

Kenny Rodgers song The Gambler comes to mind for me. Ya gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away and when to run. I've been pretty darn good at doing all of these things except the "hold em" part. I've given up and protected myself but never stood my ground or fought back.

I haven't really fought for me. I may have figured out I didn't have to "take it" anymore but I've never really figured out that it was OK for me to fight back. That I deserve better and it's OK to stand up for myself when life knocks me down. That sniggling little message that it's OK that bad stuff happen to me was still hiding away in there eating away at me. I just didn't realize it was there. The question now is, What am I going to do about it?

Getting Together...........Old Ties

A while back I posted Lunch and a Movie telling about my uncomfortableness at being invited to meet with my old therapist and two woman from the group she ran. I also described some of the issues that sit like a huge wall between these women and me.

With that posting came my understanding of what had been the reason behind the lack of support I felt from the other survivors after that fateful day I was removed from group. It wasn't because we talked about any of the issues. It was a conclusion I reached on my own.


Since that time I've gone out with these "old friends" a couple of times. While it's been nice to visit with them after all this time, our conversations have stayed pretty superficial, at least in my estimation anyway. No one has taken the initiative to bring up the past.

It's been visits to "catch up" if that's what you want to call it. Seems to me a sorry state of affairs to go from relationships so intimate we know each others worst secrets and most horrible nightmares to casual conversation. But that's what it's been..........and me, well, I'm still playing by the rules. That is until last week when we met on "my turf."

I'm not going to say that meeting closer to my home instead of theirs was the reason that things changed. I'm not sure it had anything to do with it. But the fact is that things changed.

It may have been the atmosphere. We were in a very back table in the restaurant. Everyone around our table had left and the conversation managed to find its way to past issues via an update about a lawsuit. With that came something the old director of the counseling agency had tried to do to one of the other women there.

From there it wasn't long and I was telling them what happened to me. How my removal from group had triggered programming that had catapulted me into a downward spiral to intended self destruction. How the director of the agency had taken my therapist away from me and picked up my case. And the things she did to me during therapy.

It was comforting to know that my former therapist had no idea I was told I could no longer see her. She thought that was my decision. Being a good therapist she didn't question me.

All this time I thought that she had dropped me. I had definitely gotten the impression from the director it was MY fault that I couldn't see her anymore. Now I find myself beginning to realize even more of what that woman did to me in the name of "she had the power" and I was so "special." You can bet there are going to be more posts on this subject.

Thoughts on Easter

Looking at some of my poetry and some recently posted by JIP's, one just can't help but wonder what those people were thinking when they did those terrible things. It's hard sometimes to understand why stuff like this happens in the first place but even harder to fathom what was really behind it.

Disconnecting from "it happened to me," instead thinking like someone observing satanism, I can "see" the things "they" do. All are really about ridiculing God..........a "neener, neener, neener" in the face saying evil exists and God can do nothing about it..................unless, of course, He does away with free will and no longer allows us humans to make our own choices.........an attempt to make God, Himself, feel powerless.

Every ritual, every victim intended to wound God himself. The more excruciating the pain, the more innocent the victim the more the heart of God breaks. That's what the intent of Satanism really is. All of it is to make God pay for rejecting the evil archangels, throwing them from heaven into the abyss.

Sure the convoluted way the satanists twist holy rituals into their own form of evil holds innocent children in their trap but the real focus of their perversions is an assault on good. Because they can never attain it..........they are driven to defile it.

Yet they are so caught up in their own evil, they can't even see, as they have trapped their victims, they have trapped themselves. They made their choice long ago and now they are stuck living with all it entails. Like bad little boys jeering at their superiors, they strike out seeking to defile everything sacred in their attempts to get even. All they do, however, is drive themselves deeper into the blackness.

Each soul they steal, an attempt to fill the void that comes from the absence of godliness. Yet the void is always empty because that's all a void can ever be. They exist enraged by their own very existence, because despite their best efforts, they can never win. The only way to fill that void is with good..............and good..... they can never be.


Their victims, on the other hand, still have the chance to find their way free. Their experience with true darkness enough to convince they seek the total opposite. And those who touch the lives of these survivors equally compelled. Instead of destroying the army of God, the satanists are actually building a league of warriors driven to goodliness.

Just as God's son arose from death on this day, each survivor, who finds her/his way past the oppression of evil, is resurrected into the light and is welcomed triumphantly by the Father.