From My Book "Halfway To Heaven"

WE MUST NEVER GIVE UP! THERE IS ALWAYS HELP AVAILABLE

I knew that it was time to explore 'loneliness' something that has plagued and tortured me for a huge part of my life and still does sometimes. Perhaps that is part of the karmic burden I chose for this lifetime. Perhaps it keeps me humble and makes me more compassionate and sympathetic to others who are also plagued and tortured from loneliness.

When I find myself feeling sorry for myself I think of how blessed and fortunate I am to have had so many wonderful visits from spirit and various beings and for all the writings that have come to me. So at least in that regard I know that I could always be worse off. Nonetheless, a feeling of not belonging here and a profound loneliness I feel at times is a burden I simply deal with. It is part of the cross that I have chosen to bear for this lifetime. Part of the loneliness stems from knowing I am a star child whose true origins and home is far beyond this earth. And part of it stems from having experienced a very difficult emotionally abusive childhood and then being constantly tossed about from one foster home to the next as a young teen. So although my higher self, soul and adult self understands, my inner child does not quite get it at times and he has not healed completely from the neglect and abandonment I experienced in my childhood.

Some of us with abandonment issues never seem to get over them. This has been a sensitive area to me most of my life. I sometimes wonder if we ever fully get over our fears and complexes. Perhaps not. Perhaps yes. Perhaps some as one of my friend says. "The 'writing' “Alone” is one of my favorites although it is a sad piece. I recall the day I wrote it as though it were yesterday, and it was seventeen years ago. I still dream of recording it on a CD since it later became a song.

This haunting little piece expresses what I was feeling at the time; despair, and hopelessness. I was not even immune to feeling some madness and insanity at that particular difficult trying time of my life. I had learned years ago in college to write when I started freaking out and losing it. Just the mere physical act of taking pen and paper and writing my thoughts down saved me many a time when I was close to falling into the abyss. Any such act can offer instant help. It is important for us to have some quick “life savers” we can imbibe when there is the need.

I have one friend who gets in her car and goes for a drive when she feels she is starting to lose it. “I feel so free when I drive,” she says. “Seeing the clouds and the big blue sky and feeling the sunshine against my skin, looking at trees and flowers and people watching while managing to stay on the road does wonders for me when I’m down.”

A buddy of mine once said that he had to sweat when he was starting to lose it. He would go to the gym and pump weights or shoot the hoop for a couple of hours to make him feel better. Another lady told me that she went through catalogs and planned a shopping spree. For me, just sitting down and making the effort to write usually does the trick, though there have been times it was a real chore to get myself up and to the computer. I realize these “life savers” as I call them may be temporary solutions, but they can and do help. Obviously, they are not to replace talking to someone and getting some help if our blahs become chronic.

I think of Elizabeth, my therapist friend, who used to say “Is the elevator going up or down today?” Well, the day I wrote “Alone”, the elevator was definitely going down, and it felt like it was heading right to the pits of Hades. Yet, getting my soul anguish out via 'the writing' had been so helpful to me. I liked the honesty of 'the writing' and in its poetic fashion it seemed to state what I was feeling at the time. Elizabeth once said that to heal and move on we have to look our despair, fear and hopelessness in the face. We have to name it and claim it. That is the only way we can ever count on and hope to get rid of it. To deny and try to repress these inner demons never works she said. I must have felt that on some level, because “Alone” certainly did not mince or sugar coat words.

I am not surprised that my muse would choose to have me include this writing in Halfway to Heaven. The idea crossed my mind a few times and I finally entered the title in the table of contents. But I ignored it for several weeks. It seemed too somber, too depressing. “I don’t want to depress and upset readers,” I would tell my muse. “I want to uplift and inspire them.”

'"The 'writing' belongs in the book,” I heard.

Back to my abandonment issues. I had stopped working on the book over the Christmas holidays. I did print up half of the book and took it to my friend Janette’s, who I visited for a week. I spent a lot of hours editing, and trying to tighten up, and refine what I had written so far. That was fine. I am aware of the need for editing. Honing, polishing, and editing come with "The 'writing' package. After I got home I spent the first week simply entering into my computer the pencil changes I had made to the print out in Indiana. That offered its own satisfaction.

However I soon began to feel that urge and desire to write some new original stuff. I missed my muse and wanted her to help me do another introduction to a different writing. I had begun the introduction to another 'writing' a week or so before Christmas and thought I might go back to that. But no, my muse had other plans. Well, at least she had plans! Due to my usual abandonment issues, I feared nothing would come through at all this time. I have been through this a half million times it seems, and still I fear that my muse will abandon me. I will get all excited, prepare myself to write, and then boom, the big nada, nothing will appear. I will go blank and just stare into space like some automaton. I believe in my heart of hearts that my muse will never abandon me, but my inner child still has some fears and issues. So we must be compassionate to this part of ourselves and help him or her through the fearful times.

We have to learn to cradle our own selves from our very own fears. After all, if we can’t learn to comfort and love ourselves, Lord knows we will never be able to love or comfort anyone else during their vulnerable, fearful times. Sometime the mere act of listening to ourselves provides the comfort we need. We all spend time listening to our friends when they are struggling, why not listen to our own inner child when s/he is down. It is not difficult. When we are feeling down, we simply say, “Little John, Cindy, Sue, or whoever, talk to me now. Tell me what is bothering you. Why are you depressed and sad?” It can feel silly at first, since we are talking to a part of ourselves, but it gets easier in time. Too often we are insensitive to ourselves when the blues hit. Just as we need to be there for others, we need to be there for ourselves. It is also nice sometimes to ask our inner child what we can do to make him/her feel better.

One day when I was really down and asked my inner child what could I do to make him feel better, the thought came to me, You can go buy that pair of snazzy sunglasses I have been wanting. Another day he simply wanted to talk to women so I picked up the phone and called my mother, grandmother, social worker and sister. One day I reread parts of the book Born to Win. That reminded me of progress I had made and made me feel better. A few times my inner child wanted to go sock my father in the jaw. Well, obviously, I could not indulge that request, but I did engage in a fantasy exercise of active imagination where he beat up my father for being so mean to my mom. That made him feel a little better. And yes, sometimes, we need to reach out for help! That can be very difficult I know, but I also know from experience that sometimes we just have to take a deep breath, swallow our pride and make ourselves pick up the phone or go get some help.

One thing I like about writing and creative endeavors is the “Christmas sense of expectation” it can bring. We all need to create scenarios and situations to allow this sense of magic and wonder to be experienced any time of the year. It took me back to “the timeless zone” as I like to call that space when I lose myself in the creative embrace of my muse.

Building a relationship can be one of the most rewarding, yet challenging endeavors we ever take up. Although some people get frustrated from disappointing and painful relationships and give up the prospect altogether of building a life and home with someone, a much higher percent of the population don’t give up so easily. If one relationship goes sour and dies, they move on to the next one. Perhaps this is because most people do have the desire to nest and build a home with someone, and many wish to build a family as well. I suppose it’s natural to want to be with our own kind and perhaps we are not destined to spend our lives feeling alone. If our parents did not provide a safe and reasonably healthy functional home for us as children, it can be much more of a challenge to provide this for ourselves when we become adults. Yet even those of us who are deeply scarred from childhood emotional wounds and abuse are not exempt from this need to share our lives with someone.

To them I say “Woe be unto you if you have not gotten help and healed from those childhood wounds.” And to others I say “Woe be unto you if you have not gotten lots of help.” I definitely fit in that category. Even with years of therapy and working on myself, I still have had an extremely difficult time learning how to have good relationships. We all vary according to our individual personalities, strengths and coping and adapting skills from person to person in dealing with stressful and negative environments. Some people seem to be very resilient and tough as steel and can hold up under tremendous amounts of pressure and strain. Others seem to bend and reach the breaking point at less stressful levels. Some children are more emotional and sensitive than others. What can be devastating for one child might not affect another one so strongly.

But one thing seems to remain constant and true and statistics back it up. Most children tend to repeat the scenarios of their upbringings. Since parents are role models, they are our first teachers. Most of us learn our homemaking, relationship, and getting along skills, or the lack thereof, from our childhood role models.

A few adults may be lucky enough to leave a lot of their childhood baggage behind them without ever having to pay their homage to what I call “the therapy chair.” I salute and congratulate them and wish them much happiness. My sister seems to have been able to do that with some success and has managed to build a halfway decent life and home for herself and her family. Yet she has not been exempt from our horrible childhood and it took its toll on her marriage, causing it to nearly end a few times.

Other people leave their unhappy home lives and hope to build a new and happy life of their own only to find out that those demons and skeletons in the closet go right with them and follow them wherever they go. Many spend their entire lives never facing them and dealing with their unresolved complexes and problems that stem from childhood. My father was one of these unfortunate souls. Being forced to care for several siblings at age sixteen when his mother divorced his abusive father, my father felt some relief when he was able to leave home at age twenty-one and start a new life with my mother. Mom tells me the first few years of their marriage were good before dad started becoming a monster as she puts it. Dad has carried lots of rage inside which is directed at both his mother and father. He never had an outlet for it. I realize that in his day therapists weren’t readily available as they are now. Yet, in my father’s case, that would not have made any difference. He is full of pride and arrogance and always felt that it was beneath him to stoop down to a therapist and ask for help. The result was disastrous. His inner demons and skeletons gathered more and more energy as he refused to accept and face his rage.

He managed to hold it down for a few years then the dam broke lose and the volcanoes of rage inside erupted with outrageous violence and ferocity. My mother became the person to bear the brunt of his anger and resentment of his parents. The least thing would set him off. We kids would avoid him as much as possible, fearing that he’d go off and Lord only knows what havoc he’d wreak. I learned at a young age the price for not getting help, and I’m convinced that my father was one of the unfortunate souls who also needed a lot of help. It’s truly a miracle that he did not kill my mother. So many times he became a stark mad raving maniac and would beat her. Tears can still come to my eyes when I recall the time mom told me that dad once made her lie on the bed and he took off my belt and beat her, saying that she needed to be punished.

What is so sad is that people like my father hope and yearn to get away from the hellish life they had at home, and then so many wind up repeating the same abusive scenarios. Far too often they turn on the very people they claim to love. It’s like they become two sided with a Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde side. One minute they can be as nice, then boom, something sets them off and they become monsters. I recall one day a neighbor lady ran to our house and begged for refuge from her husband who had beat her. My father told her to come inside where she would be safe. He dared her husband to step foot on our property. Then he called the police for her. Wow, a real hero, you’d think, and yes, that particular time my father was a hero to a damsel in distress as the saying goes. Another time a neighbor man threatened us kids and dad was like Conan, ready to protect his own. Yet, days later he’d become the monster again and attack my mother. Weird science is what one of my friends calls such displays of behavior.

There is good in every mean person and every mean person has good in them I have heard and believe. I have learned from experience that in spite of our greatest intentions and vows to never repeat the mistakes of our parents, if we don’t get help and work through our childhood dilemmas, we are more than likely bound and doomed to repeat the mistakes of those who abused us. Yes, there are exceptions, but far too few.

When there is enough abuse and the child seeks or finds no one to support and be there for them, they can become so possessed with their own frustrations, conflicts, and anger that they shut off the basic human instincts of compassion, empathy and even love. It is easier for such tortured people to become society’s sociopaths and psychopaths.

Many of us have felt ourselves sinking into the pit of madness when life’s pressures have reached intolerable levels. If something doesn’t give and we don’t get some relief, we could all break and go over the edge. Most people don’t let the pressure get that intense. They either back away from the situation or person/s, or do something else to prevent themselves from performing acts of aggression they will later regret and pay for. Not all prisoners are repeated offenders although there are a fair amount of them. Some prisoners are ordinary working people like most of society except that one day life’s pressures became so strong that they went over the edge. It can happen to most anybody. Yes, it is true that if you do the crime, you need to do the time, but we need to teach our children and offer adults effective methods to deal with life’s pressures so they don’t explode and go over the edge. There are programs such as anger management that attempt this very thing. Most social services and counselors can put clients in touch with such agencies.

Another thing we need to teach our children and adults is that the monsters don’t go away. There is the saying “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” I agree with that axiom wholeheartedly, but I also know that sometimes the going gets so rough that the tough, if they are smart, get help. We need to inform people that there is help out there for everyone suffering from rage, depression, suicide wishes and thoughts, etc. Churches, social groups, schools and many agencies are valid contacts which offer classes, workshops and counseling.

By choosing to enter therapy at the age of fourteen, I began making progress at an early age. But there were many delays and setbacks. In time I was able to end the violent thoughts and the desire to do myself in which so haunted me. In time the horrible nightmares of my father cursing and trying to kill me ended. In time I was able to heal some and to build some self esteem and confidence in myself. Yet, even all that therapy and inner work was not enough to prepare me for a stable, fulfilling relationship.

One may ask well what do you do? Do you just stay in therapy for years until you are cured or ready to get on with life? No, this is not the answer. Part of our healing and growth comes from getting on with life. It is through our human interactions and relationships that we learn about ourselves, grow and heal. I do believe that some people need to make therapy a part of their lives until they heal enough to have healthy non-abusive relationships.

I was one such person. I see now, many years later, that one of my problems was that my therapy was too inconsistent. I would find a therapist and dive in hook, line and sinker. Progress was made and healing occurred. Yet, many of my wounds were so old and deep that what I really needed was ongoing therapy, help and support. After a few weeks in therapy I’d get all excited with the progress I had made and then I’d quit, feeling ready to take on the world. I remember terminating therapy with Mrs. Smith back in 1982 after two months. She had felt I might not be ready but I was convinced I was all better so I quit.

I was fine for awhile, just as my father had been fine for a few years after he married mom. I dated, worked, had a social life, read and led a normal life. I was actually doing pretty well until Mary and I decided to move in together. It was all happy and blissful at first. I loved picking out the new place, sorting things out, figuring out whose things went in the master bedroom and the other rooms and so forth. How I enjoyed sharing things, bills, thoughts at the end of day, doing fun things together. Yes, we were having a real relationship! Wunderbar as the Germans say.

My happiness lasted about four months then things went downhill. Old fears began haunting me. Doubts crept in my mind. My old emotional insecurities returned. Memories of childhood came back to torture me again. Anger at my parents came back and loads of other baggage that I thought had long exited my life. Looking back, I see that I was still too new at relationships to get serious so quickly. I was good at dating and courting. That part was fun. But there comes a time when the soul needs and wants more out of life than a Friday and Saturday night date. I was in my mid twenties, and part of me did want to settle down.

Another lesson here is that age has nothing to do with emotional or mental maturity. There are many adults in their thirties, forties or even fifties who are as emotionally immature as adolescents. These people simply have not learned how to be responsible, sensitive, loving folks. They have not learned that when the going gets tough, they need to get going, and by this, get going with working on the relationship, not running away from it. Oh, that one stung, because for years when the going got tough, I simply ran away and moved on. It was easier to just say goodbye and leave rather than face the problems and try to work them out together. Hopefully, as we get older we get better at this type of thing. But we don’t get better if we don’t get any practice at it.

Looking back, I see that one of the things I should have done was to keep and maintain an emotional support system. Whether this came by working with a therapist, minister, social worker or even friends was not the crucial point. What went wrong was that I deluded myself into thinking I was strong enough to fix the problems when in reality I was still very fragile in many ways. I remember telling a psychiatrist in college how I hated my life. I was neurotic, paranoid, depressed, obsessive compulsive, lonely and suffered from constant anxiety and nervousness. He looked at me and smiled. “Well, you diagnosed yourself pretty well,” he said. “To put it simply, Michael, you are a mess.” Then he said, “but hey, if I had gone through what you did as a child I’d be in the very same boat.” The fact that my therapist admitted that I was not sick or abnormal meant the world to me. He said that I had some neurotic behavior patterns and attitudes, but under the circumstances they were completely normal for me.

He went on to praise me for having the courage and determination to admit that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life being miserable. He gave me his little talk about healing being a choice, and reassured me that I was totally capable of full recovery and could lead a successful happy life. I just had to work a little harder for awhile. That psychiatrist changed my life and I never forgot him. Now I say the same things to anyone in similar circumstances. I wonder how my father would have responded if someone had told him such things back when he was stuck with caring for his siblings and resenting and hating his mother who he always called a deserter.

I wonder how alone he felt and what were his reasons for not getting help. He never admitted to needing help from a counselor, but his life proves that he needed help. I tell my clients and friends that if we are miserable most of the time, then something is awry and we need some help. To me that is just good ole common horse sense as the old saying goes.

If I had it to do over again, I’d have gotten more support and therapy when I moved in with Mary. But live and learn as the saying goes. Fortunately, when I met Elizabeth in 1990, in spite of my resistance and the difficulties I encountered while working with her, I chose to stick to therapy this time on a long term basis. Better late than never as the saying goes. It’s better to get ourselves fixed and healed enough so we can have a few good years than to spend our entire lives miserable and unhappy. I try to imagine people in their twenties and thirties reading this book, and I wonder how many might laugh it off and ignore my advice and how many might take some of the words to heart and heed some of the advice. Obviously, I have faith and hope that my stories will reach somebody, or I would not be writing the book.

As one lady told me one time about a book she self-published. Well, I feel pretty good about my book sales. I am making progress."

“Wow,” I had said, “how many copies have you sold.

“Well, currently, I have sold twenty,” she said.

“That’s a start,” I encouraged her.

“You bet,” she replied, then snickering she added, “they are all on my book shelf, and I guarantee you that I read them everyday.”

That was a funny anecdote to me, but now I see some truth and worth in it. I have heard that writers write about their own lives, and that many admit that one reason they write is to grow and learn more about themselves. I am in total agreement here, and I assure my friends, that if not a single person buys this book, that it will be read often by none other than yours truly.

Yes, hopefully, we live and learn. I did not get and maintain a solid support system to help me when I moved in with Mary. I dove in the relationship thinking I could truly handle it on my own. After a few months I was daily asking myself like that country song says, “where did the love go wrong?” Mary and I were fighting all the time. There were more tears than laughter. I even felt hatred for her at times. Then one day to my utter shock, I actually lifted my hand and threatened to hit her. Yes, that can happen to anyone. Far too often the hand does not stop, but winds up striking someone. Then it is time to back off and create some distance. At this point things are definitely out of control. Something has to happen. There is never any excuse for physical violence, barring self defense. To this day I regret drawing my fist at Mary and I am glad I took it no further. My brother and I had a talk about this once. “Well at least you stopped yourself,” he said, “I hit my wife once and it took the cops coming over and threatening to throw me in jail, to wake me up and make me realize that I was a very angry out of control man who had to get some help.”

It was during this difficult time with Mary that I wrote ALONE.

I shared 'the writing' with Mary and she did not care for it. That was fine, it was a catharsis for me. I did feel like I was in an asylum and madness seemed to be everywhere. It was horrible to feel so locked away. These are times when it seems no one loves or understands us. One could say I was having an existential crisis. Like 'the writing' said, “For better or worse I am talking again, does anyone care about me?” I have always been a big talker. When not talking to others I’d often write in my journals. I liked to listen too and seemed to be the one others came to when they needed a shoulder to cry on and someone to pour their troubles to. I liked to think that my words helped people. But my words were no consolation to me now.

I had read many places that our thoughts determine our life experiences. Sometimes I’d imagine my mind like a big jigsaw puzzle. Couldn’t I just rattle my brains around so to speak, scatter all the puzzle pieces and rearrange them so they’d fit into place and give my thoughts some meaning? Couldn’t I just think differently and change my life condition from misery to happiness? I did partly believe that we create the joy and pain in our life, or at least we have a lot to do with it. I had read stories in many inspirational books of people who underwent great suffering. Some of the brave, dignified ones would not let their mishaps break their will or fill their hearts with bitterness and hate. I can’t change some of the conditions of my life I had read, but I can change my reactions to them and my perceptions. No one can take that away.

So why couldn’t I will good thoughts in my life and change my own life circumstances as a result of expecting and desiring good things? It had happened before. Why couldn’t it happen again? I will know happiness and peace of mind I wrote so many times in my journals. I will not let things get me down. I won’t hang my head low and give up. That is the easy way out, and I’m not going down that trail. Such talk was nice but I wasn’t feeling that way when I wrote “Alone”.

I pulled out some old journals and read some old entries: “The conflicts are many. I am my own worst enemy, but I will not remain this way. The road to happiness has to exist, and I will find it. I will crawl to get there if I have to.” I will overcome must have appeared on every page. Ever the optimist, I smiled. I read the lines, “I must walk on, no time to stop. Although teardrops fall in my hand. Fooled by laughter, haunted by fear, in silence I suffer alone.” I certainly was not walking on the road to happiness then. Sometimes I’d even shake my head hoping I could get rid of some of the awful depressing negative thoughts. Once I even freaked out a bit and started banging it against a wall. Fortunately, I stopped after the initial pain, because like my ninety-five year old friend Ruby used to say, “I can take a lot, but I’m allergic to physical pain.”

It is bad enough to feel alone, but to feel unloved by our own self, now that is really bad. It is about as bad as feeling trapped and unable to change our lives. Yet how many of us go through periods when we feel that way. Perhaps this is going to the very bottom where from that point onward we can only go back up. We are locked in our negative belief systems and behaviors though they make our lives miserable. We want a better life but it seems as evasive as the stars. Some of us resort to our vices more during such times to help numb us and to hopefully forget for awhile.

During that period I took a lot of walks and recited “Alone”. “I must walk on,” I’d say over and over, half expecting some new path to show up out the blue that would lead me to somewhere happy. Sometimes I tried to have a sense of humor about it and picked up my pace and skipped. “Lead me to a happy land,” I made up a verse.

“Take me away from this land of woe.

To a happy land I have to go.”

On one really sad day Mary gave me a card with that little verse written down. I assumed she must have seen it in my journal, or I might have sung it so much that she had memorized it too.

Other times I wondered if I would be better off some place where there existed neither pain or joy. It did not occur to me that such a place might not even exist. I just entertained thoughts of going somewhere like that when I needed to get away from it all. “Joy and pain are the foes of peace,” I would say. “Constantly pulling me to and fro, they ask me to love and hate life.” Some days I even thought I found a place in my self where neither joy or pain could enter. Thank goodness for such days. We all need a break from human emotions and attachments from time to time. Some find it through their spiritual practice. Others become recluses and hermits for awhile, enjoying the reprieve from what one friend calls “the daily onslaught of human beings in our face.” I welcomed such times but knew I could not stay there. I am too attached to the human condition, and joy and sorrow are both part of the human experience. So I plugged away as we all do in our own fashion, and when I would get down I Sometimes sang “Take me to that happy land.”