2014.03.09 Women Who Love Too Much?

Upskirting? Really! What the bejesus is this? Don’t they think we wear underwear? What do they expect to see? Or sell? Luckily, I hardly ever wear a skirt any more. But fear not, if you get arrested and jailed for upskirting I will come visit you in my skinny, no-peep jeans. I will not post bail, however.

Upskirting refers to the practice of taking secret photos under a woman’s skirt with a cell phone on the T (public transport). How the @$%? do you do that?  It’s a feat for a contortionist. 

Inspired by public outrage, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts criminalized such sexual surveillance, drafting their bill in just over 24 hours—a record. (Boston Globe, 3.7.14) 

Such action proves how fast the legislature can act if it is motivated. It also proves how much it dallies unless we cry out, and how much praise it gets from the media for alacrity. I’m not impressed.  Cartoonist Dan Wasserman says it with humor.Who are "they" really?

 

It got me thinking once again about the plight of women. Will we ever be free from whatever it is that makes people, mostly men, think that we women are objects to be exploited, mere skirts to be peeped under? Women shouldn’t be blamed, but if we want justice and equality we must be part of the solution. But no uptrousering!  I suggest a ban on skirts. 

A woman once wrote a book called Women Who Love Too Much about the pathological way in which women stay—and stay— in relationships that aren’t good for them. Such behavior was labeled co-dependency.

I’m not referring to obvious physical or emotional abuse, though many women hang in with that out of fear, but perhaps domestic neglect or some subtle demeaning that corrodes the soul over time. 

I once went to a workshop to “fix” myself. I felt neglected and helpless in a marriage troubled by a combination of workaholism and functional alcoholism, the hardest to confront. I drank to cope. It worked; I didn’t notice how I felt.

The workshop presenter ticked off a litany of self-defeating characteristics of co-dependent behavior. I had every single one. I felt lower than an inch worm. The lady with the answers that would “save” me made my inadequacy worse. Something wrong with me—or was it the book? 

Women who “loved too much” didn’t know how to love both the other and the self. That was a good point and helpful but something was still not right. How can you love too much? I was out of balance but I DID love.  Deep down I was moved by love.

I thought of Debbie, one of those “love-too-much” women who called herself a “dumb, stupid codependent” all the time.  As a child, she’d forced herself to stay awake until her father returned from his bar, light up a cigarette and then pass out in a chair. Then Debbie went to work, cleaning up and making sure his cigarette, teetering on the edge of the ashtray, was snuffed out so no fire could start. She lost sleep and her grades suffered but her love was real. One day I got so sick of her talk I blasted her: “Hey, stop with the stupid-me stuff, love-too-much crap, and listen up! You did what you did out of love, didn’t you? Well, didn’t you?”  Debbie grinned.  

I still think loving too much from a true heart is a spiritual motivation that sets us free. Just make sure you’re on your own love list though, and don’t label your ways of loving “sick.”  Will love stop upskirting and its ilk?  That will take several villages of women empowered and spiritually free. In the meantime, wear pants and let yourself off the self-blame hook.

Debbie calls me every Christmas. She is caring for her aging parents. Too damn much love again.



 

20112.03.14 Roles to Real

Years ago I worked as a chaplain/counselor in an alcohol/drug rehabilitation center where I learned life lessons that allow me to be myself without judgment—well, most days.

I’m writing about this because, well, you keep writing about what matters.

I discovered that in very stressed families people took on roles to cope — and I was a “hero.” I wasn’t a hero for real, but by role. It was a relief to know that, because heroism was exhausting. It kept me striving at top speed, compulsively amassing achievement after achievement, all of them grand and applause worthy, but they never got me what I wanted: serenity and love.

Addictive systems are not about who drinks or drugs and who doesn’t, who sinned and who didn’t, though everyone will seek a culprit just as they did in Eden starting with Eve and ending up with the poor little snake. Lying, hiding and blaming behaviors arise from anxiety and keep everyone feeling just plain bad (guilty, afraid, anxious, angry, sad, and stupid) inside.

Addictive systems(family, community, religious congregation, culture) are ones that feel uncomfortable to everyone and no one knows quite why. It’s no one’s fault. Relationships just don’t work well. Emotional connections are absent or negative. Individuals feel emotionally glued together even when they also feel estranged. Most everyone pretends all is well.The system got dysfunctional over time and by habit.

Healing is possible and it begins with confessing true feelings. Something like HELP! How biblical.

I was at a workshop on family systems once in which the presenter said, “Any critical parent will do.” She meant: will do to make a whole family feel helpless. That sounded like passing the blame to me.

I’d say, any seriously chronic stress will do. Chronic.

That’s where roles come in. People in a misfunctioning system wonder: How can I help this group feel better? What can I do to make everyone truly happy?

So they fall into roles and after a while they forget who they are.

A natural leader, I took up the hero role to please and create proud feelings—attractive alternatives to shame and anger. I wanted my role to rub off so everyone would feel proud, not of me but of themselves.

A friend, by personality and temperament, took up the role of scapegoat. He tried to call attention away from the stress and uncertainty by being loud and boisterous, distracting others away from their bad feelings. It worked until the stress of the role got too much and he turned to destructive behavior—and in time got into trouble with the law.

One of the cutest roles people turn to is the comic. This person has a natural gift of humor and uses it to make others laugh and forget their troubles. In time the comic risks forgetting that there is anything sad or serious at all anymore.

Naturally caring people lie awake nights worrying about how to make things right; caring turns into caretaking for control.

And there’s always someone or ones who gets lost in the role confusion and can’t decide what’s real at all—if anything. They are quiet, obedient, intent on not making trouble, so intent that they get left out. Lonely.

It takes a long time and help from outside to move from role back to real, the way God created us. I needed everything: therapy, twelve step programs, prayer, friends and family, and Jesus. Healing was painful and involved grief. It made more trouble for me before it made less.

A young man I knew years back demeaned himself endlessly for being such a “stupid jerk” as a kid. He’d lost sleep waiting for his mother to fall asleep so he could make sure her cigarette didn’t fall from the ashtray and set the house on fire. Was that stupid or loving?

But just like the biblical folks you don’t heal without a whole helluva of a lot of commotion. It’s a process not a miracle. Hang in. There’s nothing more worthwhile.

Spiritual tips: 1) God loves you whether you’re playing a role or not; and 2) The motivation behind role-playing is spiritual. Look deep. You did it for love.

Simply so.