The Shadow Scar

Emotional Healing" ©Beth Budesheim
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Some years ago, because I'm naturally graceful that way, I burned myself cooking.

I was baking cookies (despite the distress of my OCPD ex for messing up his kitchen by doing so) and as I removed a cookie sheet from the bottom rack of the oven, I brushed the top of my arm against the edge of the top rack for a few seconds.

It stung, and it left a red mark, about three inches long, a quarter inch or so wide.  It wasn't a bad burn, per se.  It was red, and it hurt a lot at the time, but it didn't even raise a blister, so it didn't cross the line from first to second-degree burn.  I've had burns on my hands from cooking that raised blisters.  As a child and teenager, had sunburns that blistered and peeled.  This particular burn seemed like no big deal.

Yet for whatever reason, this burn damaged the skin in such a way that I still have the shadow of it on my arm, noticeably darker than the surrounding skin, some six-seven years later.

It's a perfect metaphor to me for how emotional scars work, too.  It's not always the biggest wound that leaves the most lasting mark.  Sometimes a small burn, a cutting remark, some tiny soul-injury  that seemed like no big deal at the time, leaves a mark that lasts for years.  Perhaps forever.

We can tell ourselves there is no logical reason it should linger so, try to reason it away.  We can attempt to cover it up, or ignore it.  But maybe what we should do is simply acknowledge it's there, for whatever reason, and show love to ourselves about it.

Do you, too, have scars and wounds you tell yourself you "shouldn't" feel?

How well is that working out for you?

Please share some thoughts in the comments, below.

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 5 - Demand-Sensitivity & Demand-Resistance

This post continues with Demand-Sensitivity and Demand-Resistance from Chapter Five.

This series will look at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

 Demand-Sensitivity & Demand-Resistance

This section opens with three anecdotal stories - the first about a woman who postpones going to bed or making love with her husband - although she always enjoys their lovemaking, and is afraid if their sex life continues to deteriorate, her husband will become interested in other women.  The second is about a man who stays up late watching TV, even though he's physically exhausted and not interested in the programs, leaving him too tired to focus on his work and to do any household projects.

<snip> "I've learned not to come out and say it when I want Gordon to do something.  If I don't ask, he'll do it, but if I say something, I never know when I'll see some action.  I recently made the mistake of asking him to fill out his part of a credit application.  He said he would, and I know he wants the charge card, but that was three weeks ago.  He still says he's going to get to it, but somehow the right moment never seems to arise."

What's going on here?  What's preventing these people from doing things that each of them seemingly wants to do?

Many different factors could explain their behavior.  But in these particular cases, the two powerful factors were a special sensitivity to perceived demands of expectations, and a negative inner response to these demands.

 I call these two conditions "demand-sensitivity" and "demand-resistance."  Although they don't always occur simultaneously, they are related, and both frequently affect the obsessive person.

***

Sometimes, we "let" things get in the way of what we really don't want to do.  (Like filing, my nemesis.)  If you're reading this, on your computer, then you know as well as I do there are eight billion ways to waste time on the computer alone.  And then, whoops, oh how terrible, outta time!

But true demand-sensitivity and demand-resistance are about rebelling against things we truly do want to do.  Like making love.  Like the guy who wants the credit card but won't fill out his part of the application.  There's no good reason for his foot-dragging.  Is it the most fun you could ever have with a pen?  Probably not, but it's fifteen minutes and done, on to something else.

I've heard so many stories about OCPD parents who wouldn't read and sign kids' permission slips or homework acknowledgments, creating tremendous stress with their partners who get caught into a lose-lose scenario.  If they by-pass the demand-resistant parent for signatures, they are "cutting them out of the children's lives."  If they give them the papers to sign, and the other parents drag their feet, then they feel tremendous stress and pressure to get the thing done.

[Answer: offer the paperwork, with a deadline.  "Jimmy is taking this to school on Thursday morning.  I'm putting it right here, so you can review or sign it by Wednesday night, or it's going without your signature, your choice."  Then no "bugging, no reminders or pleas to get it done.]

Every person I know who's dealt with OCPD has some stories to tell about demand-sensitivity or demand-resistance, and there will be much more from Too Perfect on this subject in weeks to come. Speaking as a non, this was one of the things that drove me nuts about my ex - if I didn't broach something just right (whatever that is), he would refuse to do it, just because I'd asked him to.

It should not be treated as a cause for resentment if we ask each other to do things from time to time.  It's also okay to say no.  I recently heard from a FaceBook "friend" (from whom I hadn't heard in over a year) who "invited" me to help with her yard sale last weekend.  I thought, oh, hell no! but what I said was simply No.

Where the mental illness comes in is resisting/saying no to everything as a knee-jerk reaction.

Do you have knee-jerk reactions of demand-sensitivity or demand-resistance?
How are you overcoming that?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chapt 4 - Making Romantic Commitments & Your Choice

This post continues with Making Romantic Commitments & Your Choice  from Chapter Four.

This series will look at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

 Making Romantic Commitmenta

Next time you're torn by an ultimatum, either to make a commitment or end an important relationship, clarify the thoughts that are causing your anxiety.  You'll probably find two sets of concerns locked in battled within you.

If I don't commit:

• I will will guilty about dashing X's hopes after all this time.
• I might discover late that I want him or her back
• I might never again meeting someone who could love me as much.
• His/her leaving will make me unbearably sad.

But if I do make the commitment:

• I might wind up regretting that I chose X and be trapped by my conscience in a bad relationship.
• I'll be accepting the intolerable certainty of never falling in love again.
• Someone with whom I could have a better relationship might come along, and I would be tied up.
• I'll be giving up my freedom, and just thinking about that feels horrible, almost like dying.

Now consider these more reasonable beliefs:

• Although it's sad and painful to end a love relationship, you would recover from such a loss (as would your loved one).  The pain would be neither intolerable nor endless, even though it might seem that way for a while. <snip>
• On the other hand, if you did make the commitment, it wouldn't be irreversible.  No commitment to a relationship ever is.  Though you shouldn't ever enter a relationship with the idea of bailing out when it gets difficult, if it becomes clear that it won't work, even after every effort to resolve the problems, you can end it.  It would be difficult, but you could if you had to.
• If you're so close to committing to X, how unsuitable a choice could he or she be?  X might well have some flaws, like most human beings, and it's true that a better choice for you might someday appear, but don't use these arguments to disguise an exaggerated fear of commitment.  If the main obstacle is your terror of closing options, the same problem is bound to come up in future relationships, no matter who your partner is.
• Finally, it's true that giving up the fantasy of ever having a new love is a painful loss, but it's not unbearable unless you decide it is.  If you insist on telling yourself you can't stand the thought of giving that up, fine.  Have it your way.  But you don't have to think that.  <snip>

Your Choice

I'm not making a blanket recommendation that you commit to your current romance, job, or anything else; I don't have to live with the results.  You alone must decide how much of your reluctance is legitimate and how much is your fear of commitment.

If it's only reasonable caution, you'll resolve your doubts as new data come in.  But if the main obstacle is a fear of decisions and commitments, data won't help.  In fact, you'll just use this additional information to justify your paralysis.  You'll waver, anguished, until external matter decide for your or until you can't stand vacillating anymore and jumo in or out on impulse.

<snip> You can choose to see commitment as an unbearable risk, and the end of your freedom.  Or you can choose to see it as the only way to stop this chronic feeling of painful isolation and lost time.

***

Madonna did Justify My Love, maybe we can ask Lady Gaga to do a song called Justify My Paralysis.

When I look back over my life, my regrets have to do with the men I haven't kissed (granted, I've kissed quite a few), the chances I didn't take re: dating, careers, new activities.  I regret staying in bad love and job relationships because of fear - fear of being alone, or never finding someone else, or finding another job.  And from what I hear, everyone else is the same - they regret the dreams they didn't risk.

My biggest risk - taking 6 months off from work/looking for work after a lay-off, and pursuing writing a book.  Did it sell?  No.  Do I regret that time - absolutely NOT.

Second biggest - moving in with OCPD ex, although I had some misgivings.  I did everything that was in me to make that relationship work.  I'm sorry it didn't work; I'm not sorry I tried.  Even though it didn't, even though in many ways it was an emotionally damaging relationship, in many other ways I am emotionally richer and deeper because of it.  So, no regrets.

Life really and truly does work out - if you decide you're going to make it work out.

What's the biggest risk you decided not to take?
Do you regret "the one that got away" - a relationship that ended 
because you wouldn't commit?
Thoughts, feelings, comments?