Walking a Fine Line

Over a year ago, my counselor moved and I was introduced to NewCounselor by KavinCoach.  When I was asked which kind of abuse did I experience, I joked that I had clean sweep, experienced them all.  New experiences terrify me because I don't know what might set off my triggers long buried; my own personal mine field.  I tread the same paths as I learn to avoid certain things.  Kind of like having your own narrow diet and saying you are not allergic to anything because you avoid eating everything you are allergic to.  Troubling my mind is the ever echoing, "Raise up a child in a way they should go and they will not depart from it when they are old."  The news articles explaining that this vicious criminals did terrible things because he had a terrible childhood.  I sometimes feel haunted by my violent past.

Many actions tread a fine line between living and abusing.  One of the comments on physical abuse was about tickling.  Tickling can be a mutually fun activity.  I love it when my grandson tickles my knee.  He loves to be tickled back, gently.  Teasing can be fun and enjoyable to both parties but when does it cross the line to bullying and cruelty?  Pet names and nick names can be terms of endearment but when does name calling and taunting become destructive force of verbal abuse?  I was raised in violence and abuse.  I have an absolutely awesome temper.  I thought KavinCoach was out of his mind when he explained that he was purposely trying to piss me off.  I keep a tight control on that part of myself because I am aware of being able to rage out of control.  Part of that regime is extreme sleep deprivation.  KavinCoach pointed out that over tired most people are cranky.  I suggested he tried going way beyond cranky.  Miss enough sleep and you are too exhausted to do anything, kind of like just being this side of comatose.  Why am I afraid of my own temper?  I have first hand experience of its destructive power.  For years, I compared my temper to other family members and smugly felt that I was very mellow.  However, I was disillusioned when my brother brought home a dog when I was a teenager without telling our parents.  The dog started whimpering in the night.  In a very short time, I was ready to kill the dog and my brother in no particular order.  I shut myself in my room and shook from the shear power of rage that almost overwhelmed me.  I encountered the same rage when I was a new mother.  My children all know that I loved them when they were born and like them when they were a year old.  Watching my grandchildren I chuckle with relief over some of their antics.  Not appreciated by my children.  I try to explain that it is such a relief that many things they did to me were not about me.  I wish I had realized that when my kids were small; they would have had a happier childhood.  Teenage years is a time in your life that people experiment with "how far is too far to go."  Now, I am over 50.  I didn't have time to do that type of experimenting as a teenager.  Behaving like a teenager in your 50s is not...OK.  I joke that if I didn't have a first childhood...Is it all right to go for a second one?

I was devastated when KavinCoach pointed out to me that some of my behaviors were abusive.  It was like being swallowed by the darkness of my past....how do I escape repeating it?  Mild to me may still be way over the line of acceptable.  I better understood my strange position when I had a boss that tried to get me fired.  What he did to me felt like the bites of a mosquito.  Annoying but not enough to push me out of my job.  I talked with one of my coworkers and listened to her rage about how abusive he was.  I knew he was annoying but abusive?  He hadn't done anything that came close to being illegal.  KavinCoach pointed out that there wasn't a thing he could do to me that I hadn't experienced already with a lot more viciousness than he seemed willing to do.  With a lot of coaching from KavinCoach, I actually started putting into practice things I needed to learn to function in today's world.  Kind of like desensitizing me to rudeness.  Another way of looking at it would be that KavinCoach presented my nasty boss as an over rambunctious puppy, after being mauled by a grizzly in my childhood the puppy was fairly harmless.  I started to learn how to react without curling up in a ball in the fetal position.  I am learning.  Unfortunately, I am still haunted by my past.  It does not define me, but it does serve as a horrifying reminder that crossing the line into abuse is sometimes easier than you think.