about the lies post

about the lies post
MrDon

MrDon

Registrant
I don't want to take away from that post, but I just wanted to say, that this post of lies is a very powerful one. I'm thinking that maybe we need to put this as one big long list because those who are just starting out on this journey, will feel not so alone... or at least I would think they would feel not so alone.

Anyway, just a very powerful post and I'm glad it was started.

Don
 
Don,

This IS a really great string of posts! It has been helpful because it is so simple. It asks for the phrases that sum up so much more for us.

Usually, I try to say too much about it to myself because I am obsessively in need to understand it, to root it out, to track its symptoms and make their connection with the abuse experience. There are so complicated, so many threads going back 50 years. But I think the simple phrases are how I have carried the abuse forward in time. They are the truths that have buried me in denial, created roadblocks to my efforts to be happy; to be a better person, to overcome the depression cycles. They have invaded so much of my life.

When I went to write mine, it was easy! They came to mind like old friends. They rolled off my tongue since they had been spoken to myself over and over, repeated so often, reinforcing themselves, confirming their truth by setting me up to expect their message and then live it out once again.

With all the work I have done to understand this over the past 4 years, I am amazed to see that these lies are still there! Like poison settling in my fat cells, they permeate every part of my life. I can see that they are no longer true, they are, indeed, LIES, but emotionally I still believe many of them. I am still living them.

Perhaps repeating the real truth to myself, that they are lies, over and over, will begin to unseat my emotional attachment to them. I hope so. Posting them was a good start.

Soon, lets start the new string you mentioned in chat recently, the truths of recovery. For me, they are the stop signs which cause me to think first, look both ways and consider whether my old habits, my lies are at work. Here are a couple of my truths of recovery.

Truth: I deserve more than this.
Truth: I have an inner voice that is me.
Truth: I am not alone.
Truth: If I set good boundaries, I can begin to trust.
Truth: My negative voice is full of LIES.
Truth: The pain I face from change is always less than the sum of the pain from daily denial.

Thanks, Don, for starting it all.

Thad
 
Thad,
This is the other Don... the Don that started that is pretty smart as well... guess we Don's think alike... heheheheheee

Anyway, what you said about lies and being old friends, man that makes a lot of sense to me. I too find myself housing these old friends more than I wish I did. But at least now, I can more readily see them when they come around and take action to kick them out the door. I love this analogy...

Don (the other Don)
 
Hasn't this been a wonderful post ?
And like all the best ideas simple.

Another site I spend time on, a 4x4 site, uses the same software, and it has a system called "sticky's" that keep a particular topic live at the top of the list, perhaps it could be done for this.
what do the rest of you think ?

( Any administrators out there ??? )

Lloydy
 
I like this idea because I think it would have helped me so much many years ago when I felt so alone and like I was the only one experiencing these things. I've found since that time, that I am not alone and that others experience much of the same things that I do.

This not only shows the struggles, but the post shows that you are not alone and that healing is possible.

Don
 
Thank you all for your posts in the "All Lies" thread, and the "More Lies" one in the Gay Forum.

As I believed, your replies have helped me greatly, and I am glad to see that it is helping you too.

I like the idea of somehow keeping this topic active. Perhaps this topic, and a second one we've discussed, "The Truth", could actually become a separate forum by themselves. In such a forum, the ideas could be expanded on.

For instance, I could explain how this lie,
THIS IS A LIE:
I can't tell anyone what happened to me.
Click to expand...
controlled me and how I was finally able to overcome it and see it for the lie it is. I could tell of the strength, and the power and the peace that telling have given me.

And then the Truth. There is a powerful need for this. Listing the lies IS a way of speaking the truth, but it is a negative way, and the Truth deserves to be said directly, distinctly. It must be said.

Thad has given us a good beginning:
Truth: I deserve more than this.
Truth: I have an inner voice that is me.
Truth: I am not alone.
Truth: If I set good boundaries, I can begin to trust.
Truth: My negative voice is full of LIES.
Truth: The pain I face from change is always less than the sum of the pain from daily denial.
Click to expand...
I have printed out three copies of both Lies posts. One copy is now on the wall where I can see it all the time.

One copy I will bring to the NOMSV retreat next week, and I will read it to (or post it for) the group. Your words and your wisdom and your Truth will be shared and spread a little further.

The last copy, I will use in an ancient ritual this weekend. Saturday is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. There is a tradition, called Tashlich, where on Sunday afternoon, you go to a lake, a river, or the sea, and symbolically cast away your sins.

This Sunday, I will cast away something else.

I will wait until Sunday, in case anyone wants to make additions to either "LIES" thread, then I will print them out again. I will shred these lies and then I will burn the shreds.

I will take these ashes to the Atlantic Ocean and I will cast them away.

I know it will not be an end to them. I know their power. I know how they sneak back in. But, it will sure as hell make me feel better.

It will make me feel almost as good as your repies to this topic have made me feel.

Thank you all again.

Donald

--------------------------------------------------
You can be Captain of your Ship, but not of the Sea
 
Thank you Don
I like your plan - and my heart will be with you brothers at the the retreat

Although I'm not jewish I follow the teachings of one, and I will print the lies and take them on Sunday to the Pacific Ocean and send them on their way....

with love to you and my brothers....t
 
Tashlich

All our posts of lies including Blueone's string in gay survivors were printed, burned and their ashes are in the Pacific with my prayers for all of us.

...t
 
Great job, Thad. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I had 15 printed pages (text only), for both posts. As the third page entered the shredder, I broke into a big grin. It felt good and right.

Then I burned the strips in a can. All that crap reduced to less than half a sandwich bag of ashes

The trip to the beach was endless. It's about 3.5 miles from my driveway to the shore, but it took over an hour and a half. The weather was perfect and there were just many many cars heading over at 1:30 today.

Finally, I was standing in the Atlantic. I kneeled down, and poured the ashes into the water. Ugly black specks of LIES floated before me for a second and then they were overwhelmed by pure white foam. And gone from sight.

I do not know the Tashlich prayers. They wouldn't have been appropriate for this really. Instead, I said this:
F*ck You Lies.
Don't want you.
Don't need you.
Click to expand...
I rinsed the bag and walked away, smiling like a winner. A small, symbolic victory, but definitely one for us.
 
Nice one guys
Lloydy :D
 
Nice work, Donald. Somehow, the symbolism is SO liberating. I think the ritual is very empowering for you and others who posted the lies of their perpetrators. Now, if only the truths can be installed in their place....

Ken
 
Hey guys, I know its late notice - but Sunday (9-28-03) is taslich again- I will be printing the "lies" post toward sundown and will burn it and dump it in the Pacific. will probably add some more lies to it -
 
This evening at sundown, I burned a print out of the "All Lies" post and took the ashes to the San Francisco Bay. I know that it was done by my friend in Minneapolis (into the Mississippi) and that it has or will be done on the East Coast. (by the way anyone can perform this until the sixth of October as a part of this ritual - or anytime one needs to let go)

Prayers were said for us and the lies were offered up (cast on the waters) as a collective act of letting go.

As a ritual it was something that helps me and the fact that others are doing it too reminds me that we are not alone. So much of what each of you has put down in the posts I share and I honor your bravery and honesty in saying it here. Let them all be reduced to ashes and spread to the waters of the world.

Thad
 
Thad
A copy will be burned here in the UK tommorow.

I've just got to pick my place.
It's either a fiery - kind of Viking funeral - sort of thing with the lies going blazing into the inlet of the sewage treatment plant where I work, or a nice quiet spot I know on the bank of the River Severn, our longest river.

Both ways they end up in the same river, the first way there's a pile of crap to go through first

I'll see what mood I'm in ?

Dave ;)
 
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