Am I A Victim?

The ironic thing about help is: the more you need it, the less you want it. Or the less receptive we become to the things around us to the point of blaming the environment for being the problem.

I'm an extremely introspective person. I can spend days alone or without talking, and I can sleep for hours. Years ago, I began to do some work in the shamanic realm with the guidance of a shaman, David Lang. Before any journey work is done, he'll do a journey to find a power animal to assist in the process. Mine happened to be, an Arctic Hare. I told a friend, and her first response was, they are very territorial which describes me well; I like my space. I can often come across as abrupt, rude, and darn right, antisocial. I accept all this labels not as criticism rather a method I developed to create the illusion that I am bigger than I am.... I'm a puffer fish.

My mother will tell you, I'm like the my father, and there is truth in that statement. Dad and I are both minimalists while mom is a hoarder. The more simple and uncomplicated things are, the more her anxiety prevails. She seems to self medicate with clutter and caous. The more confusing and dysfunctional things are, the more in control she feels. And mom likes to be in control; the price of this is usually the sanity of those around her.

My parents remained married throughout my childhood. I lived with them and three other siblings, two brothers and a sister. We moved a total of three times; the first move the most dynamic. All six of us went from a two bedroom apartment in Ft. Scott, Ks. A place situated near a very large extended family ( grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins) to a VW bus. Then, drove, and drove, and drove to until the road ran into the sea. All I remember from that trip ( I just turned 4 yrs. old a couple months before in March. Now it's late June 1969) is mom turning around to face us sitting in the back of the van to say, we're here. Where "here was" was beyond me. Up to this point my life had consisted of hot, muggy summers running through fields of grassy farm land chasing chickens and the smell of corn shucks. Then, the side door opened. A blast of air, heavy with the smell of salt, purposely filled our stale confines as to ease any traces of mid west residue we might have been clinging on too. The afternoon winds blew across the sandy shoreline as the sound of the surf roared. From then, we were, the children of the tide. Our family camped out at that beach most of the summer until we moved in our first house with a giant myrtle wood tree in the front yard. Then, later moved a few blocks north to a larger house with a smaller yard and more rooms to farther isolated ourselves from each other. It was now the 70's, the ending of the war in Vietnam, the start of the oil crisis in Iran, the down fall of the logging industry in Southern Oregon. Being a victim seemed as common as the coastal rains.

I don't have to look to deeply into my first twenty years to come up with numerous reasons, examples, and justification into the why's and why not's of now. There has been some severe repercussions as a result of those formative years. I still find myself paralyzed in the grip of self doubt that extend far beyond reasonable explanation. And for as much as I like to psychoanalyze everything and everybody, I am learning not to take that path; it has proven itself to be a field full of self sabotaging land mines.