"Do the best you can (for yourself)
Until you know better. When you know better, do better."
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
― Maya Angelou
I love this quote from Maya Angelou. Frequently when I meet with other survivors I hear a lot of self blame for what happened to them. Please remember: it's not your fault. YOU DID NOT PROVOKE THE ABUSE.
Awareness, education, and probably therapy you can learn that it was never your fault. You can also learn strategies and techniques to help diminish the odds of it happening again. In the mean time, remember May Angelou’s words. I'm adding a couple of words "for yourself" So with a slight April interjection it reads:
“Do the best you can (for yourself), until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better."
In case you haven't read Paperdolls & Cowboy Boots1, I include a rather detailed description of when I realized my parents were alcoholics. I was trying to do my best. For myself. For my family and especially for my parents. But I didn't know.
When I found out that my parents were alcoholics, I was stunned. Actually, I was stunned to find out they even drank alcohol. It wasn't until after I called my eldest sibling, set an appointment at the office and she informed me that my parents were drinking and were functional alcoholics all of my life.2
Again, until that moment in my sister's office, I didn't know that my parent's drank. I wasn't in denial about it. It was unthinkable that they ever even took a sip of alcohol. Everyone in my family played along. I'm much younger that my closest sibling, and somewhere along the line, they all decided that it would be better for me to not know.
Hence, when my parents were drunk locked in their bedroom for days on end:
"Sick."
"Had a rough week a work."
"My mother's diabetes was acting up and she was dropping.""
"Diabetics— when they are dropping— slur their words like they are drinking."
" The mini bottles on the floor of their car?
"Oh, they were leaving the office and someone had littered! They picked them up and forgot to throw them out when they got home...."
My parents didn't tell me those stories. My older siblings did. All my life.
Finally when I was 22 years old, my eldest sibling told me the truth. Everything instantly fell into place. It felt similar to the movie The Imitation Game3, when Alan Turin breaks the Nazi's sophisticated communication code .
When everything fell into place—when I received confirmation that my parents not only drank but were alcoholics, it was similar to scene from The Imitation Game. I was deceived by everyone in my life, about a critical piece of my existence. At the moment, when my eldest sibling finally told me the truth: Everything made sense.
When my friends came over and were giggling because my father was so drunk he couldn't stand up straight and he was slurring his words: he was indeed drunk.
Everything clicked for me, in a very similar fashion that the movie The Imitation Game 4portrays what it was like when Alan Turin finally broke the code.
Once I knew better, I did better.
That knowledge freed me. Everything changed. And, within a short period of time, I was able to crack the code of my own psyche, and how I stuffed and repressed the memories of my own abuse.
What is a moment that everything changed for you? If it isn't as poignant and as pivotal as when I finally learned of my parents's disease, please feel free to share an event or time that you were able to re-frame to gain greater understanding and become free. Or move towards freedom, and not imprisoned by misconceptions, deceit, and lies. Even lies you tell yourself.
I’m online right now. Please join in and let’s chat!
Subscribers can get special discounted pricing here: https://paperdollscowboyboots.com/
or you can find it here: https://a.co/d/dxyNPRU
It's starting to get placed in local libraries and brick and mortar stores again.
For those non LDS readers, drinking alcohol is very taboo. The Mormon Church effectively banned drinking alcohol in the 1930s. It is often referred to as the "Word of Wisdom." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/89.5-9?lang=eng#p5
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-heber-j-grant/chapter-21?lang=eng
Apparently, before 1933, many in the main stream church viewed the “Word of Wisdom” as a suggestion or a guideline. I have seen copies of the orders of alcohol that Brigham Young made from the ZCMI store in Salt Lake City, Utah. https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv94705#overview
By the time I landed on the planet, drinking was shunned. If anyone drank any alcohol at all, they were severely judged as a heathen. Utah still has rather unique laws about the consumption of alcohol
https://www.abc4.com/news/liquor-laws-a-history-of-utahs-ever-changing-rules/
The Imitation Game is a movie based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.
Even the title The Imitation Game felt like much of my life. In Paperdolls & Cowboy Boots I use the example of feeling like a lladro. Beautiful on the outside but utterly hallow inside. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lladr%C3%B3