I've always had a deep-seated fear of becoming a "bag lady," i.e., homeless. This is not an uncommon fear amongst women, so I've heard. I'm sure it's not rare for the menfolk, either. What I've come to realize, however, is that I already was one, just in a different fashion.
I've used the expression "emotional punching bag" in relation to my unBPDm for many years, if only to myself. Recently, thanks to this and other online support groups, I added "emotional barf bag" to my lexicon. What's the common denominator here? Well, besides emotional, it's the word bag.
I realize that I am, or was, a receptacle in the eyes of my mother, there to receive or bear the brunt of her feelings, thoughts, and projections. I was a catchment and a regulating mechanism. It makes me ill to see it in this way, but it's helpful also. When I first entered therapy, I often told my therapist that I felt like a toxic waste dump that was hopelessly contaminated and destined to be condemned. At other times I felt empty, flat, like a ghost. I worked hard to be a nonentity when around others. I had been trained well and unconsciously believed that there was no room for my "self" in the world, that to occupy my little bit of space would cramp others beyond all bearing. I was like a human accordian, expanding and shrinking according to what I thought the demands of the situation were.
I tried to be what I thought others wanted me to be. I was most likely very wrong much of the time, and I'm sure I managed to victimize others with my own projections. I couldn't see other people really, or be present. I spent large amounts of time in an elaborate fantasy world, Walter Mitty style, where I could do, think, and feel all the things that I didn't believe were "allowed" for me in the outer world. Letting go of fantasy has been a huge part of my inner work, and I'm far from done with it. Like so many other things, it will be a life's work. I am trying to believe that I can be who I am (whoever the hell that is,
!) in the "real" world. That's my job, to be myself.
None of this is revelatory in any way. It's not new to any of you, I'm sure, and has been said in any number of ways by any number of people over the years. But it feels new to me, at least on this level. And that's good. It helps me to know what and where my boundaries need to be. It tells me I am supposed to be "full of myself." Not full of my mom, or anyone else. It's ok to have all kinds of thoughts and feelings because everyone does, and they're mine. I SHOULD be having my own feelings. We all have to do our own heavy lifting emotionwise, right?
I am fighting it, but I feel a good cry coming on. I have a right to be sad. I have a right to my own feelings. I have a right to exist. If I keep telling myself, I'm hoping I'll come to believe it.
-ITN-
