Fight-or-Flight-or-Submit

The word powerlessness is treated differently in different cultures; not just between countries, but within American society.

For a long time, I treated powerlessness as something to avoid; a goal that had no business being attainable.

But I have had many things happen recently that involved me having no control at all. I don't think that what I feel is terror, but more of a numbness, a confusion as to what is going on or what should go on.

And as I was laying in bed yesterday morning, too exhausted to get up and go to Church, in the space between consciousness and ??? (unconscious doesn't quite explain it), I was standing in a classroom watching, Ms. Erlene, my 1st grade teacher scream, yell, slap and squeeze my younger self's arm because I could not seem to get the difference between writing a 9 and a p. I stood there and watched the tears run down my red face as this woman spit flecks of the apple she was eating on the paper in front of me that had been erased and written on a thousand times....

And as I laid there, too tired to push the thoughts away, too surprised at having remembered something buried...down...so....deep... I finally wrote what I was suppose to and was dismissed to spend the rest of the lunch period outside.

"SEE NOW! ...ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS DO IT RIGHT!!!,

the scene went to another memory of my sister and I Trick or Treating and discovering that Ms. Erlene lived several houses up from our house and how as I gave her a weak smile, my stomach lurched in fear. She seemed nice then....

and again, years later hearing about her crossing over due to cancer and how, while I was young enough not to understand cancer, was a mix of sadness at a human being dying but was quietly glad because "the mean person would not be able yell at me ," ....but she did not seem like a mean person giving out candy. She was pleasant to my mother. All of the teachers had permission to discipline us if needed. I didn't think to question. I was to go to school to learn and behave...In my young brain that registered so many things as so very strange....

There were so many alien things back then. Much more than I even realize now.

So as I stand there, in that room almost 30 years later with clearer eyes; I open my mouth in this life and say,

"I forgive you, Ms. Erlene."

"You didn't understand that I didn't understand."

"I forgive you."

I'm not wild about how I had to figure out the visual difference between a 9 and a p, but it did allow me to see detail many people do not.

Fight-or-Flight-or-Submit

But I have seen what it has created.

It's created the need to do the right thing right and to do it right now. It's odd because I thought that steamed from something else, but I see that it began with Ms. Erlene.

I thought it came from my mother having to depend on me when she had to work 2 jobs (which was actually useful), but I see that that was a cover to hide what I experienced that day in the classroom...

Wow....

So now that I get that I officially and for real do not have to get everything single thing right the 1st time, I feel a bit disoriented (part of the healing reaction is feeling incredibly dizzy on top of being exhausted).

Now I'm having a what-do-I-do? moment.

I'm at a crossroads shrouded in a cold, dense fog and I have no idea how many paths there are let alone the path that will bring the most good for all concerned.

But as the hours pass, and I embrace the uncertainty a little more, I feel I am reaching a balance of some sort.

The fog will clear soon.

All the best to you.

Kristie