Revealed

Just completed the reading of Susan Cheever's most recent work titled: "Desire, Where sex meets addiction." The book is personal to me because it deals with issues that I find prominent in my life. I won't disclose those issues here to save everyone from boredom but I will say that the book sheds a new light on addiction. I found the entire work captivating from cover to cover, as a matter of fact it took me four hours to finish the 200 some odd paged book.

The book is not entirely about sexual addiction but it defines sexual addiction as the most acceptable of all addicictions/obsessions. In using sexual addiction as an core or as i like to think of it as a needle attached piece of string it weaves its way through the various views of addiction. Susan takes us through the history, psychology, philosophy, physiology, biology and even the religion of addiction. She address the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and the roots of addiction recognition. The book ends in recent times, six months ago as a matter of fact, and brings us through our understanding of addiction to date as an American society.

The wrap up of her the author's journey is one that is surprising and unexpected but none the less captivating and inspiring. A must read for every person of my generation whether touched by addiction directly or far removed from its talons.

In reading this book it tied into my recent studies and ponderings of life. In my previous blog about child rearing I surfaced my concerns about the four aspects of disciplene. I also brought forth my belief that fostering disciplene is encouraged or motivated by love.

The insight from Susan's newest book, has given me a more through prespective of love and thus allowed me to chip away at the rock that traps my wholeness. I have come to understand that part of the reason I feel anxious about my life, my role changes and my ability to be at peace with myself currently is because of my childhood. I agree that the person I'm now has been shaped by genetics, environment, socialization but I will not deny that before every being molded by those tools my parents and their rearing of me played a great part. I do believe that it was the molding by my parents that influenced the ways in which i interacted with external forces and the ways upon which they acted upon me.

I'm one who is found quick to upset at someone who busies them self with blaming the world around them for their condition, as i firmly believe that possessing and external locus of self control is devistating to growth. I'm one who is disgusted when I catch myself tinkering with believing that the external world is at fault for my happiness or lack there of whichever I may be experiencing at the time.

Despite all of these understandings I have uncovered a certain reason for my destructive desires, addictions and lack of integrity at times. The reason for these destroyers of my wholeness is soley the teachings and devalue that my mother placed on integrity and honesty. My mother was an honest person when honesty benefitted her. I firmly believe that her motives in life where self serving and selfish. Although my mother is not all to blame for these reasoning mechanisims as my mother and my aunt are all apples from the same tree, my grandmother. I'm able to recognize the purely selfish motives that have transcended through the maternal female portion of my family.

My mother and her mother and so on and so forth where all women who dared not blame themselves or take accountability for any wrong doing. They were all victims. This victim mentality can only be traced as far back as my grandmother and great aunts since they were all orphaned as mere children, the oldest being 5 and the youngest, my grandmother 6 months. In being orphaned they were victimized or at least that is the running theme in the stories they have passed onto us. This victim mentality which has been taught to my mother was always something that I despised. In my journals from the lowly age of 8 I recorded the disgust of my mother's actions. In my writings it is evident that I was aware that I was never really wanted or loved by her. I have been told that by her throughout my lifetime in times that she was upset. I never really dismissed the belief.

As I matured and aged, in order to hide these feelings of resentment towards me she would learn to lie to me and teach me to lie. In order to justify and excuse her lack of responsibility and accountability for her actions my mother tried to foster in me the difference between lying and fibbing. All the while I never saw the difference, to me, a lie was a lie. There were great differences between my mother and I in my teenage years that wedged a seperation between us and and today are partially responsible for a distant superficial relationship where neither of us truly accept or care to understand one another. This lack of understanding of my mother has brought me frustration, anxiety and grief. I have almost lost my mother to her illness on two occasions and looking back her life was spared I believe so that I might be given a chance to further examine my faults and their genesis.

Upon reviewing my studies over the past few months I have come to a greater understanding of how to deal with the demons in my life, and how to better prepare myself to influence the life of a child and be a wife and confidant to my husband. The past few years and months have not been with out folley and faux pas, but they have generated a richer understanding of what path I must follow to transcend self deception, and thus avoid destruction.

I'm coming along in the healing process. A month ago I was outraged that my mother had lied to me about something. She still does not know that I know that she lied and is still lying to me. Quickly after the discovery of the lie and manifestation of outrage I became quietly inquisitve. Today through the comprehension of my current reading I was englightened. The reason I was so upset with my mother's lack of integrity was because I was still viewing her as an influencial person in my lifetime, as by all means I should be able to. I know that it is a parents responsibility to foster honesty and integrity and to discourage falsifications as they prevent one from truly living life and developing relationships with others in the personal and professional world. A parent who teaches dishonesty fosters a child who does not trust, who does not understand ethical principles and thus lives a life of despair and constant dissapointment in oneself. I have truly experienced these bleak feelings throughout my growing process more often than not.

With the understanding that my mother did not correctly instill integrity into me, I can now go on to correct that mis step. In correcting that mis step there must also come an embrace of my faults, responsibility for the actions that may have caused others harm from my faults and the forgiveness of my mother. I'm glad to have made this step, although it seems minor at the moment it instinctually feels much greater than I currently know it to be.

I can be a better person despite my past.