Trauma

As the second oldest of eleven children following directly behind an older sister who had disabilities that left her unable to care for even herself, much less our younger siblings, I necessarily got left alone with the kids quite a lot, starting around the age of seven.
Side note: lest you think my parents were neglectful or uncaring, I want to set things right here and now: I love and admire my parents.  My mother dealt with poverty, an addictive husband, and massive amounts of chaos and children, and somehow managed to raise us in absolute love and support through all of these incredible trials.  And my dad, while an addict, was still my hero growing up, and even learning about his addiction to pornography as an adult didn't change anything about the fact that he is still my hero.
So, back to the story.
Because I was often left in charge of my siblings in chaotic and stressful situations, I learned quickly how to deal with stress and chaos---tough it out and just deal with it.  I was a responsible child who wanted to do the best she could, and so when I was left alone to deal with these situations, I usually just tried to make the best of them.
So that's what I did.  I babysat with minimal complaining, I always had the hardest chores because I was the one who could be trusted to do them right, and I was the one who was painfully aware of the poverty our family was going through while the little kids still begged for treats at the grocery store checkout line.
Treats I knew we could never afford to get.
Fast forward to Jr. High.  Seventh grade was the time in my life when all of my previous best friends decided that I wasn't quite cool enough to hang out with any more.  This was the darkest time of my life (due to poverty, a dangerously low self-esteem, and high levels of stress put on my 12-year-old shoulders by a severely depressed mother and an addict father), and even typing up some of the specific experiences still brings tears to my eyes.  During this time, I once again learned that when hard things came up, I needed to just suck it up and deal with it, and I did.  This was also the time where my budding testimony started to buoy me up, but for the most part, I felt abandoned to deal with hard things on my own.
But it was okay.
I was capable.  I was mature, I was "older than my years," I was the strong one while my brother attempted suicide and my older sister was off in her own world, trapped behind a disability no one could seem to get past....and besides, doesn't everyone have a hard Junior High experience?  I mean, really?
Fast forward once again to my mission. I was serving in Taiwan, and had been on the island for about 5 months when I was sexually assaulted one day while out riding my bike.  A man came up next to me on his scooter and grabbed my left breast and started massaging it.  It took a moment for my mind to process what was happening, but as soon as I did, I stopped my bike, shouted at him, and he rode off.  I rode over to my companion and immediately burst into tears--needless to say, this was an incredibly traumatic event for a virgin who had dedicated her life to purity and chastity for her Heavenly Father for the next 18 months.
We called my mission president, who, due to some other emergencies among other missionaries, didn't have much time to help me--we did a bit of a therapy session sitting in the back of the van while two other missionaries drove us to a different appointment, but by the end of it, when he asked me if I would be okay, I shakily said I would be fine, and then he dropped us off back at the mission home and left me to deal with the trauma of being sexually harassed with the help of another 21-year-old girl and my Heavenly Father.
Once again, it was okay.
I had a testimony, I knew how the Atonement worked, and although I woke up for the next couple of weeks with nightmares every night, I eventually worked through the trauma and once again found joy and completion in my calling as a missionary.
I always shied away from the word "trauma" when dealing with my husband and my issues.  Yes, he was acting like an addict, and yes, he was avoiding being home, but he wasn't cheating on me, he wasn't betraying me, he wasn't even addicted to anything that was really all that dangerous--after all, who doesn't have a problem checking Facebook or their texts too often?  Isn't it normal behavior?
But today, when I was working on my 4th step and seeing these patterns of abandonment through my life, I realized--my husband abandoned me.  He might not have actually left me permanently alone, he might not have even realized what he was doing as he stalled after classes or spent too much time playing with his electronic devices or detached in the middle of conversations with me, but he was avoiding and abandoning me to deal with our children, the stress of maintaining our household, and my own issues on my own.
And I have been traumatized by that.

Not Enough

The Husband came home yesterday from school and sat with me for a good 45 minutes, talking about his day and listening to me talk about mine.
He read with the kids for at least half an hour before helping me do scriptures, prayer, and drinks before putting them all to bed--a typical nighttime routine that I'm oh-too-used to doing on my own.
He asked me how I was doing, he grabbed my hand and squeezed it as I was bustling about the kitchen, and when I went and grabbed some groceries, he came out to the car without me asking and helped me put everything away--all things that I've literally begged him to do before with little to no response.
He even asked me how I was doing on a scale of 1-10 (we rate our feelings on a scale of 1-10, 1 being hiding in the corner in the fetal position, crying and sucking one's thumb, and 10 being twirling on a mountain top, Julie Andrews style--it's a pretty effective way to check in).
I lied and told him I had been about a 6, even though I'd spent most of the day hovering around a 4 for no good reason, and he acted like he even cared.
Maybe he did.
I don't know.
And yet, when I asked him to make a salad for dinner and he declined, saying that he wanted to work on his school paper that was due the next day, I ended up hiding in the bathroom, crying on the phone to my sponsor.
I have spent a majority of my life feeling unwanted by the people around me.  I even spent a good 5 years of my marriage feeling unwanted by my spouse, and now that things are changing and I'm starting to figure out some of the myriad of issues I have to work through, I'm beginning to realize that I am addicted to attention, to compliments, to physical touch, to loving gestures.
I am a NEEDY wife.
And as I talked through my emotions last night, first to my sponsor and then to my husband, I realized something--just as I will never be enough to save or fix my husband, I can't depend on him to be enough to make me feel loved.
He will never be able to hold my hand enough, listen to me enough, spend enough time with me to make up for the past years of me crying in bed next to him while he slept, completely oblivious to my pain.
He will never be able to undo the trauma I have been going through for the past few years as he ignored or avoided me, so stuck in his own depression and self-loathing.
He will never be able to heal or fix or save or rescue me from the pain I am experiencing.
Because he's not supposed to.
Only HE--the Savior--can do those things for me.  Through a life of situations in which I have been abandoned, there is One Person who has never--and will never--abandon me.
And it is in Him I have to trust.

Beauty and the Beast from a Codependent's Point of View

A few months ago, my friend (who is wonderfully intelligent, educated, and also quite the bra-burning feminist) posted this status update on Facebook: “I am watching ‘Beauty and the Beast’ with my young daughter and I can’t believe Disney would produce such a blatant example of a relationship with an abuser!  Belle falls in love with her captor and puts up with emotional abuse (and the threat of physical abuse) in hopes of changing him—what an unhealthy message to send!  Yadda, yadda, yadda…”

I replace the rest with “yadda, yadda, yadda,” mainly because I can’t remember her other arguments to support her point.  This status irked me for some reason that I couldn’t put my finger on, but I didn’t comment, mainly because it had been a couple of years since I myself had seen said movie, and although I was a staunch and loyal fan of this movie (I have been since my bookworm 9-year-old self first thrilled to the idea of a beautiful Disney princess who loved books as much as I did), I wasn’t entirely positive I wanted to start an Internet war over something I felt in my gut was wrong but that I had no proof of.  Besides, it was a Disney movie.  No big deal.

Fast forward a couple of months.  A few weeks ago, due to a few awakening realizations, I got out my old 12-steps pamphlet again and realized a few things about myself—I am a codependent who has an absolute desire to change, fix, and rescue my husband (not necessarily from pornography, although that has been an issue in the past, but from other destructive thoughts, behaviors, and addictions that only he—and the Savior—can change).  The only desire greater than my desire to rescue is my desire to do the “right” thing.  I’ve been taking steps the past couple of months to try to get in touch with my Heavenly Father and find out His plan for our marriage and family; and more than anything, I’ve been trying to find the courage to give up control of my marriage and my relationship to my Heavenly Father. 

It’s not an easy thing.  I could talk about my very first “honest” discussion with my husband, and how I finally discussed my resentment of his severe depression and its effects on our relationship as well as our spirituality as a family, and how the entire time I felt as though I had just kicked a puppy by looking at the expression on his face and the fear of abandonment I knew he was experiencing.  I could talk about that and the guilt I’m still trying to get over, but at this point, I don’t want to talk about that just yet.

I want to mention how as my children were watching “Beauty and the Beast” yesterday afternoon, I found myself resonating with Belle, wanting to be more like her.

Belle is ANYTHING but a passively abused woman, in my eyes.  She entered what she knew was going to be an imperfect relationship, determined not to have anything to do with her captor in the beginning, but as an intelligent, strong, educated, but soft-hearted woman, she looked for the best in her situation.

She never once allowed the Beast to cross boundaries with her; when he demanded she eat dinner with him even when it made her feel unsafe, she refused to open her door to him.  When they got in a shouting match after she broke his rules and went into the West Wing, she even left.  Afterwards, when he saved her from wolves and she chose to come home with him again, there were no apologies, no submissive avoidance of the topics at hand; she let him know that “you need to control your temper,” but then thanked him for the good he had done—“Thank you for saving my life.”

I was in awe watching/listening to this amazing movie as I went about my day, but it didn’t really hit me until the very end of the movie, when the Beast has been stabbed by Gaston and, to all appearances, died.

Belle, sobbing, hugs him and says softly, “I love you.”

She didn’t know about the spell.  She had no idea that underneath all the fur and fangs was a handsome prince—she just loved, unconditionally, the good in the beast she had come to know over the past months. 

Unlike what my friend claimed, Belle did NOT go into this relationship with the intent to change.  She went in to save her father, but because she kept her mind and heart open, she found the good in the person she had committed to stay with, and without manipulating, without her even trying to change or control the Beast, he freely chose to change under her influence. 

She didn’t learn to love him for who she hoped he could be eventually—she had no idea of his royal heritage or who he might have been before (although the painting in the West Wing might have given her the smallest glimpse of who he really was).  Instead, she loved him as he WAS. 

I can’t begin to tell you what an awakening this was for me.  For so long, I’ve been looking forward with hope to when things would be better, when he would be better, when he would be my equal in things spiritual and emotional.  I’ve loved him for who he was while we were dating (in the past) or for who I hoped he could be (in the future), but not for who he is right now as my husband at this moment, and by doing that, I realize now that I was manipulating him—trying to encourage him, shame him, or somehow motivate him to become something other than what he is right now. 

THAT IS NOT MY JOB.  I am not his Savior.  I’m not even my own Savior. 

Over and over again, as I have taken my husband’s problems to the scriptures, to prayer on my knees, to the temple, the answer I have gotten (for years now) has been “It is not your job to fix him, only to love him.”

I thought I understood that before; and I’m now beginning to realize that I had no clue what that answer truly meant.  I thought I could offer my love with strings attached: “If I tell him I love him enough, he’ll finally learn to love himself.”  “If I give him this gift (his strongest love language is gift-giving), he’ll finally be happy.”  “If I give him enough physical affection, he’ll engage in our relationship.” 

It doesn’t work that way.  That is not how the Savior’s love for us works, nor is it how our Heavenly Father loves us.  He never tells us “I love you, so now you have to do __________,” or “I gave you that awesome tender mercy, so now you have to be more ________.”

President Thomas S. Monson, in a recent Relief Society Meeting, told me personally (he may have been speaking in a worldwide meeting, but I know he was telling this to me and only me): “Your Heavenly Father loves you—each of you. That love never changes. It is not influenced by your appearance, by your possessions, or by the amount of money you have in your bank account. It is not changed by your talents and abilities. It is simply there. It is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. God’s love is there for you whether or not you deserve love. It is simply always there.”

We have been told numerous times in the scriptures that we are to have Christlike charity for our fellow men.  And this entire time I thought I was loving my husband, I was merely attempting to manipulate, to guilt him, to be “enough” for him.  I was completely unaware of it, but that’s what was happening.

This thought for me is both extremely depressing and extremely liberating at the same time. 

I don’t have to operate under the pressure that I can fix my husband.  I can have faith that it will happen—on the Lord’s timeline and without any pressure or help from me—but IT IS NOT MY JOB.

Like Belle, I can set my boundaries and remain safe, but learn to love—healthy, non-manipulative love—unconditionally.  Like Belle, I can love without hoping that my beast will somehow magically transform under the power of my love, but for who and what he is, today, and then step back and leave the rest up to my Heavenly Father.