Gossamer threads

I have been meaning to come here and write something about gossamer threads are few days now. The problem always is trying to find time, trying to carve out time to do the things I really want to do.

The notion of gossamer threads came to me in my last therapy session when I was talking about the fact that the exclusive Brethren do not have a list of rules and regulations, but they have a wide range of things that they do and don't do. In other words, the rules are not written but those who have been raised in the brethren know that rules exist we just don't know what they are exactly because they are not explicit. As I was talking about the fact that brethren have things that they do do and things that they don't do but these are never really known, the metaphor of gossamer threads came into my mind. Now, I had a feeling that some time or other Roger Stott used this phrase but sadly no one can find the reference. However, I came across a reference I had made in a chapter I wrote on the person centred approach in which I quoted Carl Rogers (the founder of the person-centred approach) who used that phrase, I wrote:

" Carl Rogers originally felt no need to devise explicit, precise theories-- in fact he was suspicious of them. Trying to fit a person to the theory often meant that the client's experiences and perceptions were ignored or misunderstood. But to foster the continuing development of the person-centred approach he realised that some theory was necessary. He regarded all theories as provisional and expected his theories to be developed by others in response to new evidence from research and clinical experience. Theory stimulates further creative thought but only if it can be seen for what it is
"a fallible changing attempt to construct a network of gossamer threads which will contain a solid facts". (Rogers, 1959: 191)."

So I think what I was talking about captured this fallibility and the notion of a network and that somewhere in that network there might be solid facts such as, you mustn't eat with nonbelievers, but the network seemed so nebulous that we didn't actually know what any of these invisible rules really were. My therapist said it sounded like I was caught in a web that I couldn't see and couldn't articulate. If you have a set of rules that you can read, that have some solidity in front of you then you can decide, you can choose, And you have the freedom to choose, whether or not to object to them or accept them. But these invisible rules caught up in this network of gossamer threads (that was perhaps less of a network but more of a floating invisible collection of loose threads waving in the breeze), could not be opposed, I could not think about them, I could not choose whether to accept or reject because I did not know what they were.

By not clearly stating them my freedom to choose was taken away. The therapist said that the long-term consequence of this is quite paralysing and is frightening and ominous because you don't know what's there. I'm not sure if I have remembered all that correctly. I think I was always frightened that I would do or say or even feel something that would be against these invisible unknowable rules and that somehow the consequences of inadvertently doing something that the brethren would say they don't do, would be terrible. The consequences of course were also unwritten, unspecified, we didn't know what they would be.

I think more certainty may have crept in with JTJnr and with the wider dissemination of ministry.

One thing I did know was that one consequence would be a long lecture from my mother which she would continue with until I broke down and cried with guilt.
I think, but I don't really know, that I also feared this awful God that we were taught about that somehow some dreadful punishment would be meter out that would affect me in this life and also in the eternal one. It all felt very threatening.

Today I still think I am aware perhaps erroneously that I still live trapped in a network of gossamer threads and that for me the evidence of my own research through life experiences has not modified the theories in my head enough.

So I am still seeking to make sense of my past. It does gradually become clearer but still not clear enough. I suppose it wouldn't matter too much if it just bothered me but it is clear that sometimes I behave in ways that upset other people especially my two daughters and that I find intolerable. Much of the time I feel strong, capable, free to think, free to feel as I wish that every now and then something is said or something happens that shakes my world and I revert back to feeling threatened, frightened, trapped, caught up in some invisible gossamer threads that I cannot get hold of.

I may have overdone the metaphor of gossamer threads but when I am trying to figure something out and I do tend to repeat myself. But this is my blog so I can do is I like.
It would be great to hear if any of this resonates for you. So let me know!

1960

I dont remember much of what happened when my parents decided enough was enough in 1960 - I guess memories were not laid down because I was so discombobulated I did not know what was going on and probably was dissociated most of the time. These words seem so dry and empty now but sometimes when I talk about it I can feel the terror I felt then - if only I could remember why.

BUT this year - I can celebrate my 50th birthday, 50 years post EB. And I now have people surrounding me who care for me for who I am YAY open up the bubbly

So who will celebrate with me? There must be plenty of former EB out there who are either celebrating their 50th like me or their 40th - if they left when the Aberdeen incident occurred (incidentally Madeleine Kerr was a relative of mine - I must ask my mine of information brother what kind of relative).

Shall we have a picnic in Hyde Park? (weather permitting) everyone "bring your own" and we share on the day?? (bubbly on me?)

We dont celebrate enough - well I will rephrase that I dont celebrate enough. Yet I have much to celebrate - not least that I have two amazing daughters.

The exEB community is now large and in touch - the EB have tried to close us down but they are foolish to think they could, the more they try to close us down, shut us up, the stronger we become. We have a lot to be happy about - and yet we all know that around us are the vulnerable and lonely ones, I just hope that will all the FaceBook activity the blogs and the websites that they find a place to share their pain as I often do and find healing.

Comment problems

I have been told by two people that they cant leave comments- as far as I can see the settings are correct. Are you clicking on the word 'comments' at the bottom of my posting? That should open up a window. Please do try again!!

Jigsaw puzzles

I have just started seeing a therapist again - it made sense really for me to do so since embarking on qualitative research, it can be daunting and it requires the researcher to bracket off their own issues, values, concerns, thoughts etc etc - well how can I do that until I know what these are.
I have chosen an existentialist therapist because the word 'authenticity' has been resonating with me recently and I wonder how authentic I am, I never feel I know really - wondering how authentic we as children were allowed to be. Didn't we all have to be what 'they' wanted us to be? did we develop a kind of proxy self to survive? I certainly dont seem to know when I am being ME - who is this ME? When I am chattering nineteen to the dozen,.... is that ME? When I am being the life and soul of the party ... is that ME? When I am sitting quietly alone ... is that ME? sometimes when I talk a lot, especially when people are really listening (eg students) I wonder... is that ME, It feels sometimes as if I am observing myself and I would much rather stop doing this.

One thing that struck me during this first session was this. I was telling my therapist - I will call him just G - about how I feel sometimes as if my whole history is a large jigsaw puzzle, 5000 pieces, that someone has knocked onto the floor and during my first long bout of therapy I began to put some of the pieces together creating little cameos of memories. But there is still to much fragmentation. Then I said that part of the problem seemed to be that I dont remember much of my childhood (is that so for others?).

G came back with something that really makes sense. He said 'so it's like some of the pieces of the puzzle are blank, they have nothing on them'. I liked that and have been thinking about it since. It isn't so much that they are completely blank but what is on the faces of those pieces is a kind of greyness, an emptiness, a deadness, nothing there but grey colours and swirling blankness. And maybe just maybe that is what my childhood was like - maybe that is why I cant remember because there is nothing to remember and maybe the dead feelings I have when someone asks me what memories stand out for me - emptiness in my head and I have no answer. I had to be dead to survive.

It makes sense to me and maybe means that it is ok to accept this as an explanation of my feeling of nothingness but emotion - emotions of fear mainly. Well emptiness and void and greyness are scary to a child aren't they?