Loving Parent
My Loving Parent, Guides my daily actionShapes my choices and decisionsTo my utter satisfaction. The voices withinWhich one do I hear?The self-critical blaming voice,Or the loving one that is near.Reacting with fear and self-doubt The adult child...
Get Over It?
(Authors Note: A short poem about a dismissive phrase I've heard a few times, sometimes from well-meaning people.)Get over it: three of the ugliest words I have heard, spoken only by those who cannot hear the heart. I first heard it from a preacher. I forget the...
Flying Spaghetti Monster
(Author’s Note: This short poem refers to a couple of similar childhood events and my thoughts at the time. It is about daddy-Monster's temper and the effect it had on one of my brothers and the rest of us.) I am eight or nine years old;my reckless brother is one year...
Red Flags
I see them. I saw them even as a child, but I don’t have to not see them anymore. That was then, that was the times – that’s what everyone did. Then. But I am now, in a future you could not/would not go to. As I step through yet another portal in my mind, again a...
Déchiffrer les palimpsestes familiaux
Autrefois, il fut un temps où les livres étaient écrits sur des parchemins, matériau parfois cher et rare. Face à cette rareté, il arrivait que les copistes effacent le premier texte pour récupérer le parchemin et écrire un nouveau texte par-dessus. De nos jours, des...
Overture
I think you meant it, but I couldn’t trust you enough to believe you. For sure you were seeking some sort of closeness, but it was too late. There were too many years of silence, unspoken sentences and rejection. Too many looks of disgust that just brought home that...
Post- Traumatic HeartSpace
Simple human mistake. Traffic ticket in the mail. Or I buy the wrong item at a hardware store. Or I’m reminded of a painful memory. Or a coworker cusses someone out. Or there’s no discernable trigger at all. Suddenly, daddy-Monster explodes – in my face – once again...
Materializing Boundaries
Until I stepped out of denial about abuses, I ignored absolutely what was a boundary, and of what utility it could be… and that I had the right to establish and enforce mine! I am still learning! And it is clearer and clearer when there is a material support...
On and On
ACA members would belong to On-and-On Anonymous were such a fellowship to exist. From my dear friend David! Miriam C
Fighting Back
Yes, I know it is 40 years later, but a task came along that made me think of you. I guess your deliberate and calculated cruelty did lead me back to treatment and, thanks to a gifted therapist, I became aware of my illness (courtesy of my childhood) and I was most...