The Fights In Life

Today I had the pleasure of spending the day with a very dear family of mine. I'm not related to them, but I spend enough time with them that sometimes it feels like I am.

Well, I have learned when you are around people enough, you get to see their true real selves-- and don't hold back when they are mad at each other just because you are around. I am not exactly sure when the undertones of conflict actually started, it seemed to be there the entire day. But a simple comment of "wheres my shoe?" as we walked out of Subway cause the big fight of the day that when on-and-on-and on. This fight went from yelling words, to very stern talking to each other, to silences, to " I'm sorry that I spoke to you" apologies and back a few times.

I'm not writing this to recap some people you don't know petty fight from today, but being in the midst of this argument--I spent a lot of time in thought-- thinking about how this fight is going down, comparing it to other couple's fight style and how conflict happen within my family growing up.

My mom was a stay-at-home mom and she is very easy going, but we did have conflict at times. Whenever I had conflict with my mom it was something that I could handle. I never felt scared, I never felt like this situation was more than I could handle. I felt like I could share with her my feelings in the situation, even if I was ugly in the process, I knew it would be okay and we would be okay in the end.

However, when my dad was around conflict was the scariest thing that could happen. He would explode in anger, though he was never violent to any person when he was mad, how he reacted was was in his anger hurt you to the core. I never was allowed to respond to his anger, I could not explain why I did what I did that resulted in the anger towards me.

Often the anger was not justifiable. Most of the time I could easily see the other side of the coin and why the other party did this "injustice" towards my dad, typically it was just a poor judgement call, not out of malice. Often it wasn't even a real poor-judgement call, it just wasn't my dad's prefer way of doing things. But it always killed me that he got to be right, because he set-up the situation to where you can't say a thing, and if you did, the anger towards that person plus 10 times more would be thrown at you AND you would hurt his feelings in the process and have to apologize later for it.

In some ways, I think I was wise beyond my years in the subject of anger, I would get so upset and hurt by the way my dad would treat people. As a high school-er, I wanted to move far away and in a place where I wasn't under my dad's authority because I didn't want this angry and way of living ever to be my norm. I never wanted to be or around that response to anger on a daily basis. I didn't want to live with the fear of having everything be find than "snap" everyone is on edge because of anger. I could see that it was not okay and never want to live where I began to believe that it was okay.

We never make it out of our childhood free and clear of the things that our parents taught, molded and lived out in their lives.

To this day, I am okay in handling conflict with women. I don't like it, but I am fairy emotionally stable during the process. When I have conflict with men, especially men who are powerful, I come back to the mindset of the scared kid I once was.

And I don't know how to handle or react to women who break the rules that my house had of how to behave when dad is mad. Especially when it is a wife responding to her husband. I immediately want to correct the wife--they are breaking all the rules. I immediately expect and see my dad's raw emotions come out of the husband, that the rest of the week is going to be completely ruined by this stupid back-talk reaction that you should've kept to yourself.

That has never been the case. Walking away from these situations and thinking about it later, I see amazing things in these conflicts that I was on edge about before. These women marry men that they feel free to speak openly and honestly to, even if its ugly and terrible in the moment. They have this sense that everything will be okay once this conflict is settled, like how it is with me and my mom. I don't always agree with what they say, it is often very hurtful- but there is something magical in being able to say hurtful things to people we love and they still love you even after you said it.

That could of been the case with my dad. I don't know if he would ever stop loving me if I reacted differently to his anger. But I am too scared to find out. Even now, when I am practically 30 years old, I fear my dad. I fear making him angry. I fear the wrath of his anger towards me. I will not test that water anytime soon if I can help it.

Is that truth?

I work with a girl who worked at camp a few years ago where things were not good-- MANY hours, micromanaged, misguiding leadership that has stories that seem fictional. Well, this girl one day was sat down in the director's office and got fired. A few months went by and she was hired at my camp.

Today at dinner she was sitting at the same table as me and said that "The Lord made it clear that the camp I was serving at in New York wasn't the place I needed to be and thats when I started looking and came here to this camp"

Is that honest?

In a way it's true, The Lord made it clear that she needed to go a new direction because she was no longer allowed on the grounds of the last camp. But is it fair to say "the Lord made it clear" it seems like your old director is the one who made it clear-- because he fired you.

It makes it sound like this BIG spiritual decision, it always seems like we are right when we throw a little "LORD" "God" or "Jesus" into our words when we are trying to make us look better in our mistakes. The verbal image of the past is different in saying "the LORD made it clear that I needed to find a new camp to serve HIM at" than saying "I had a difficult boss at my last job, and one day he fired me. Which worked out great, because I now get to work at this camp where I love to serve at "

I think when you get down at it, they both technically in the "true" column. BUT  I wouldn't call them both honest. Honest goes a lot deeper into saying the true facts, It goes into your heart, motive and sharing other factors that going on that relates to the real deal.

I don't agree with  lying overall, but it really bothers me in hearing and seeing "the LORD" being used to cover up honestly and real things in life. Because being dishonest like this can hurt who you are in the end.

sit and talk-- friends matter

Tonight I got to sit on a friends couch and talk for a really long time (we are talking 3 hours) I love that I have a friend who I can COMPLETELY trust and experiences the same life that I live. I think that talking and being around people that you trust is the best. It helps make all those thoughts that float in your head come out and allows you to see if they are reality or craziness that I made up. My August has been chaos. I feel like I am so out of my routine, out of a stable emotional mind and really need to talk things out.

I often wonder about all the incredible wonderful people I have had in my life. I feel like I expect most to be terrible or at least of untrustworthy, but I have been SO honored by getting to know and do life with and grow with incredible people. I have been mentored and have grown leaps and bounds by the influence of incredible people.

I don't deserve to have my life surrounded by amazing people-- I am really terrible at returning the favor, I am not thoughtful, caring our welcoming in the way that people are with me. I don't give great advice or walk people through hard situations like others have done for me. I feel like I have so many friends that are wise and have this insight that I can't even dream to achieve. I am thankful that they pour into me and make me the person I am now, and the person that I may become.

I know that I can do very little on my own. I have been struggling at seeing my worth and bring myself down this whirlwind of thoughts of seeing me as the problem and that I should leave the picture (my job) so that everything will work out. I can see the real problems, they are clearly in front of me, but I don't see facing them to bring a solution, instead I am the only problem by addressing all these other things going on.

Does that even make sense to you? It's my own thoughts and I get lost in them. I also come to a place where I have all of these feelings but do not know the source of them. I have a hard time identifying the key words that made me feel this way but instead get stuck in swimming around in the emotions I felt when those words were spoken to me.

I will always continue to be a mess until I talk out the feelings that I am experiencing. Sometimes it is here, on this blog-- which explains the crazy posts that you never know what to do with. It also happens with real people. With my boss when it is work related, friends when it is anything. Because we all need to have people in our life that we can trust be real with--to sit and talk about real things with.

lots of feelings for a few words spoken

Words are powerful. They really are powerful. 4 days ago I had a sit-down meeting with my new manager and have been a wreck ever since. I have cried more in the last 4 days than this whole year put together.  The issues addressed in the meeting were a concern of mine, but, the more and more time went by the more I became concerned about me and my reaction to the situation.

I cried a lot, a lot of lot, whenever I was alone, in the office, tears just came out of me. I didn't focus on the conversation that made me upset, but instead, I thought about my worth to camp, and made myself believe that I need to leave because I am wrong and can't do what needs to be done at this camp.

My boss is who I go to when I am over my head, but he was officiating a wedding on Saturday, and he himself was a mess about some other thing going on at camp. After 3 full hours of being this complete fear-filled mess who felt like I have gone to him too many times with very similar things that I have gone through before, I texted him. I asked him if we could meet next week and go over some things that me and the manager talked about.

My boss can't handle not knowing the conflict right away, he needs to know what is going on in real time, I texted him some of the situation and he ended up in the office about an hour after our text conversation. He was PISSED!  Thankfully, not at me, but at the things that my new manager was asking me to do.

In that moment, I felt so much better in having my hurt feelings shared. I was no longer going down this with these negative self feelings, but instead felt like my hurt feelings were acceptable because sharing my experience gave someone the same feelings that I was feeling.

I wasn't instantly better. I continued to cry was I was alone in the office (interestingly, I never cried when I was at my house, only at work) I worked the following day, Sunday, and being alone in the office after the day before, I was a mess, I didn't want to email a soul or do anything at all because I felt so hurt, so worthless. I did the easiest job ever and left early.

I got a text from my boss,

Which I answered honestly to, I sad that "Im still really upset about the conversation yesterday with my manager and I left early partly because of that and that no one was at camp" -- I got the kindest response. My boss wrote me:

That is nice. But now I'm in a big mess, I just went over my manager's head to his boss, how do I actually get this fixed without throwing myself under the bus, plus make it so that me and my new manager can actually work together in the process.

A lot happened, Monday came, the tears didn't stop rolling, I was a HUGE HUGE mess! My boss who was dealing with another big problem (there is a lot of problems where I work) but I made him cut it short because I could not get myself to sit at my desk and start doing what I needed to be doing. My boss came into my office and we talked about the situation, I cried, he looked sharply into the distance and we were silent for a long while, his was hard for him to hear, it was hard for me to share. I couldn't remember all that my manager said to me at this point, I just remembered how hurt I felt and how I so wanted to leave this place forever, simply walk out and not deal with feeling like what I am doing is wrong and hurtful to camp, when I was taught to do it this way.  This ended up being half of my day-- seating with my boss, later him and his wife-- thinking, deciding how to handle this situation and not have me a basket case.

Today came.  The 3 of us had a sit down meeting. I was mainly silent. which was good, I needed to be silent. But it was hard. really hard. I didn't even know what the specifics were being spoken about at times because I was so overwhelmed by this situation. There was lots of circle talk the same subject got talked about multiple times over. My assignment tonight was to text my boss my thoughts on the conversation. I don't really even know what they are. I kinda feel great about it, because good and big things became address, i also feel horrible about it because the heart of the matter wasn't addressed and will need to be talked about tomorrow in part 2 of this meeting and part of me still feels so unwanted, and that I cause and create all this conflict and without me in this picture or within a leadership role we wouldn't have to do these meetings or deal with these type of situations.

I have stopped and thought about it, I still do not know what I am to write to my boss, I don't know what to say even.

But after all of this I have had one consistent thought. I need to go into counseling. It is not normal to think or process conflict the way I do. FLEE shouldn't be my every thought and reaction to hard situations. I shouldn't think that me leaving the situation will magically get the situation taken care of. I have been looking at jobs, but none seem to fit  what I want, and I don't even know what I want. so now I am looking into going into counseling.