Did you see me on Dr. Phil yesterday?.........................

Have you ever seen someone that sooo reminded you of you, and not in a good way?

Yesterday, Dr. Phil's show was about couples that are addicted to fighting. His second guest would have been a hit on Jerry Springer. (I think that is the one that has all the real crazies on, isn't it?) Unfortunately, she could have also been my clone as far as fighting style goes. Of course I didn't see the whole thing, but the parts I did see were hysterical! With her husband on one side, and Dr. Phil on the other, she was on fire speaking out on her point of viewNON-STOP, with no regard to what was going on around her. When she would come up for air, Her husband would simply point at her, and make a comment like, "See what I mean," or "now you can understand what I go through." Once, while she was talking, Dr. Phil took hold of her chair and swiveled it around so she was directly facing him. It took her a full thirty seconds to wind down and come back to the moment and stop talking.

While this might have made for entertaining afternoon television viewing, I also found it affirming. After Dr. Phil was able to get her attention, he offered his opinion that a possible reason she may have settled into this style of fighting is because of her past. Having been sexually and physically abused as a child, she made a decision (consiously or sub-consiously) that rather than continue to let people hurt her, she would be the first to push people away. Being brash and obnoxious was a defense mechanism she employed to protect herself. Been there, done that! Of course it isn't working for me........................

Maybe what you normal people out there can learn from this, is it is us, not you, don't take it personally. Ya! Right! That's going to happen. Hard not to take such an in your face personality anything but personally. Okay! Maybe you can continue to love us in spite of our behavior. Kind a like the cute little puppy that keeps relieving themselves on your carpet, and then looks so vunerable you just have to forgive them. This might buy us enough time to deal with the demons of our past. Of course, if times go by, and we are not working towards resolution, we definitely should be moved to the dog house, or any other house for that matter. Because we were abused, does not give us the right to abuse others. Only you can decide when we cross the line, and how much you are willing to deal with. To those of you in my own little circle of the world, I can only hope that you notice that I am trying, have made major progress compared to how I used to be, and understand that I am not there yet. Thank you for hanging in there with me. I love you for it.