People Speak Newsletter
May 2009
http://www.MarionDuckworthMinistries.com
“I probably never formed a personal identity growing up.” Raised in a single parent home, Vanessa’s* mother was extremely strong minded. “She bought all my clothes before I married. She decided where I’d go to school.” Trained not to make her own decisions, Vanessa’s pattern of dependency continued. After college, it was a professor who found her a job. When that job ended, a friend helped her find another.
“I married young to a man who had a much stronger personality than I did. He decided how many children we would have, what I should wear, how I should keep house, how we would spend our money.” He even insisted that towels in the bathroom should be folded his way; cups should be put in the dishwasher on the left side instead of the right. “After twenty-five years of putting cups on the left side of the dishwasher the way Brian* insisted, I went on auto pilot.”
He didn’t like it if she wore one color, like a black suit. Once when she dyed her hair, he ordered her to get out of his sight. “I can’t stand to look at you.” He didn’t forgive her even after she dyed it back to its original color.
The only areas in which Vanessa dared express her ideas were ones which Brian didn’t care about, like politics, religion and literature.
In others, she says that she truly didn’t have an opinion.
“I thought that the more I surrendered to Brian’s control, the happier it would make him. Instead, he became even more controlling.” Her world grew smaller and smaller. Finally, she reached the place where she didn’t want to live any more. Her therapist, however, showed her that she could choose to live. Vanessa chose to believe that was true and began making small personal choices. She took a French class and learned to make jewelry.
When the marriage finally ended in divorce, she began to devote part of her creative energy to form a new persona. Still, she admits that even now she’s not fond of herself. “But I’ve had a lifetime of programming. Healing is an ongoing process,” she realizes. “The people who’ve helped me most are a few of my professional peers with whom I have a close relationship.
"The process of changing from my false self to my true self has been frightening. Like a trapeze artist, I have to let go of the one and take hold of the other.”
These days, she clings to the words of St. Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all shall be well.”
Blessings,
Marion Duckworth
*Vanessa and Brian are pseudonyms
Share your own stories of hope and healing on my website, http://www.marionduckworthministries.com
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