I had a routine appointment with my pulmonologist last week after a year. He asked if I was vaccinated against COVID-19, and also if I'd had the virus. I answered yes, I'm vaccinated and no, I didn't get the virus. I complained that, for at least a year, no one came in my house, and I basically went nowhere, and that it was a lonely existence. His next comment was, "You must have done something right because you never got the virus." Hmmm. I never thought of it that way. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to be thankful that my sacrifice wasn't in vain.
Perception is everything. Doesn't even have to be true to be true for YOU. What you believe is your reality, regardless of how twisted it may be. When I was in divorce litigation with my ex, he was asking for "reasonable visitation, with prior notice" with our daughter (age 12 at the time). To me, that meant he would see her whenever it was convenient for him. That isn't anywhere close to parental visitation schedules according to Indiana's recommendations of every other weekend and every other holiday. In my mind, I wanted to force him to be a real father by enforcing the Indiana recommendations, and I told that to my attorney. My lawyer commented, "I thought you told me your daughter didn't have a good relationship with her father." Yes, I did. "Then why do you want to do that to her? Well, duh. I never thought of it that way before. We went with his visitation provision, and the rest is history. But that's another post altogether.
Once upon a time, I was in psych therapy--my choice. I was learning so much about myself and learning about my enabling behaviors before "enabling" was even a term (1970s). I was in a relationship with the man I would eventually marry, but complaining that he wasn't honest about his emotions. He would exhibit behaviors like the silent treatment or resistance to sharing, but when I asked him what was wrong, he would say "Nothing", in spite of the fact that there was obviously SOMETHING. I mean, I may be dumb, but one of my faults isn't insensitivity to emotional signals. My therapist asked, "What do you do then?" My response was that I kept asking, thinking he would eventually reveal what was irritating him. The therapist cut me up short by saying, "Why do you do that?" Huh? Isn't that what I'm supposed to do? "No. You asked; he answered. You have to take his answer at face value. Otherwise, you are playing into a manipulative mind game." Whoa! I never thought of it that way before, yet it was obvious that she was right. It still took YEARS for me to shake free of that, but I eventually did. AFTER the divorce.
One other lightbulb moment came when I was challenged to see things from the perspective of others. Usually, it's a gift. Sometimes, it's a curse. Most of the time, it allows me to forgive people for reasons even I don't understand because...well...they seem to not know any better. They don't even ask for forgiveness because they don't know (or won't admit) that they ever did anything wrong. When I looked at it that way--it's not their fault; they are just emotionally flawed--I realized I had never thought of it that way before.
Don't get me wrong: I have standards, some of which put me on the outs with certain family members, but I'm not willing to give in. Right or wrong, I hold strong to my beliefs, but I am also willing to accept new thoughts that I might never have thought of before. Not sure it matters to anyone other than me, but that's also an idea I never thought of before!
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