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Within the 70s psycho model of The Alcoholic Family, I was "The Saviour." I was expected to solve every problem and fill every need. I had no needs of my own. I lived to help others with my unending supply of strength and hope. Pollyanna to the rescue. Need I say it was the subject of much psychotherapy?
I find myself reviewing that therapy as I continue setting up my graphics studio and flashing back to the engineering graphics home office I closed down in 1992.
One of the "Super Woman" workshops I attended in the 80s had us tie bed linens around our necks which we wore throughout the workshop as an illustration of how and when our super capes can get in the way of our best efforts. We even did an exercise where we snapped our super capes theatrically with some hilarious injuries in the process.
I am not sure how any of this applies here. Maybe just reminding myself to keep the expectations real?
I find myself reviewing that therapy as I continue setting up my graphics studio and flashing back to the engineering graphics home office I closed down in 1992.
One of the "Super Woman" workshops I attended in the 80s had us tie bed linens around our necks which we wore throughout the workshop as an illustration of how and when our super capes can get in the way of our best efforts. We even did an exercise where we snapped our super capes theatrically with some hilarious injuries in the process.
I am not sure how any of this applies here. Maybe just reminding myself to keep the expectations real?
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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First, I hope everyone is doing well, and continuing to fight that good fight! Keep up the great work on yourselves; I'm rooting for all of you!So, I started doing therapy at the beginning of the year, when I was in my most depressed state, but with my therapist, I made big changes and steps in the right direction. But, over a month ago, she couldn't take my insurance anymore, and I had to stop...
My experience is that try as I may I can't be all the things I want to be just for myself, much less can I meet all the expectations others have of me. It is lovely to be altruistic, creative etc., but we are mere mortals.
You say 'superwoman' and that just triggered something. Being a woman at all in my family was 'bad', and so to make it alright I could'n't be one of those little weak ones like my mother or sister. Couldn't be just human. However, I failed. When I failed then I was put in the 'scapegoat' role,,, everything was my fault because I failed.
Thanks for sharing.
I think we may cut the cord, but it still pulses.
Sorry, my brothers in healing.
Gender in my particular family absolved females from being the Super Child and it fell to males like myself, in the particular family system in which I was raised. God knows why.
I was the second generation in which the Super Child role befell the eldest son of the family with really abusive results for that boy in both generations. In that family system, the female children were privileged with no physical abuse, money, cars, etc. Not just in my immediate family, but in my extended family with male cousins abused and female cousins doted on, etc.
Anybody else ever see this kind of gender role assignment abusing males and privileging females in a dysfunctional family system? My family is from the Southern USA, culturally.
In my family of origin females were at the bottom of the totem pole.
I'm guessing that my brother was probably beaten less than I was, as I was the black sheep of the family. Being female made my lot worse. The paranoid delusions my mother and father had about my sexuality (convinced I was going to have a "bastard" child or an entire litter of them) made my parents behave like utter savages towards me. It was totally perverse, surreal. I never even had a single boyfriend, as that would have not been possible while living under their roof). Such a thing was just unthinkable.
When I was born all my father had to say was "ugh, its only a girl".
I think any time we seek to break out of our boxes society has put in place, we don our Super Capes. I like that metaphor. I don't think I need the bedsheet, but I'll keep the imagery.
BTW- I never told you all that Super Grover is one of my faves! That and Wonder Woman.
The metaphorical cape... Not so much... The constant need to "fix" other people delivers the clear message that, "You are defective, I am perfect." It distracts one from tending their own problems and quite a few other sets of etceteras.
By no means is it a gender specific phenom.
It has had me looking at my other graphics as a "failure" (the flashbacks) because I had to close it down. Maybe I should be looking at the 8 years I was able to support my kids and be there for them, too.