CHAPTER 9

Will the Real Mom & Daughter
Please Not Stand Out

   One of the greatest by-products I felt when working with actors and production people was the Hug Factor. True, show business is a touchy business in many aspects, but the element I focused on was the spontaneous hugs so prevalent amongst most performers.

   I didn't give a hoot as to whether they were genuinely loving or not. That hugs simply happened was enough. My need to give and receive tangible affection was undeniable.

   Having solved my short term challenge, my long term challenge would be to discern when I was the only one hugging, and not assuming my desire for uncomplicated and unconditioned affection was similarly shared by the Hugee.

   This conscious Hug Need rooted from receiving my mother's first lesson of how our home picture was to be colored.

   On my 7th birthday (as we were preparing once again to ignore this annual millstone in our strife) I assisted good ol' Chef Boy-R-Dee by heating up a pot of spaghetti for dinner.

   While stirring, my mother took several steps back from me to announce: You are now too old to sit on my lap or expect any hugs from me.

   I thought this odd as she was banning what had never been activated to date.

   I was a big girl, so I was told, thus it was time for me to be more serious. OK. But more serious than what? Or who?

   My LAUGH withIN SHOW had already become my prime time private gig. THAT I would not cancel... no matter what.

   This was also about the time when I was instructed how to address her. "Mom," "mommy" or any variation was no longer appropriate.

   Seems I had already begun looking too old for my age and she wasn't thrilled with how that reflected on her age.

   Ergo! From that moment on I was to call her Ashley.

   "Mom" was gone, which in truth wasn't that alarming. I never felt she was there to begin with. Nor wanted to be.

   Ironically, since tothood, I heard and saw my name as it now sounds, but it began with a "K." Therefore, since we were dishing out our truth along with the prefab pasta, I leaped in to tell her my spiritual name. She countered with: "Oh, no it isn't. I'm the mother, I get to name you."

   I canceled my first thought: But, God gave me my name, in favor of my reply: "But, you just said you weren't my mom." That was not the best timed strategy. I ended up locked in the bathroom for a couple of hours. No hassle. I always hid a stack of paper and pens in there for doodling. Funny. My still-lingering nightmare is being imprisoned or trapped without sufficient paper and pens.

   That night I made a conscious decision to misspell my inner name as: C - H - R - I - S - T - I - A - N - N - E

   It was the easiest spelling I could create on a rush. It's simplistic look was further based on my wanting to meld into the shadows, to keep me ordinary. I worried the unusual spelling I originally visualized might blow my obscurity cover.

   So, there we were. Mom in the role of Ashley. Me, Krystiahn, sheltered behind my secret alias of Christianne, while playing my daily role as Maureen. This could have furthered the confusion in my life. But, not so. It only re-enforced my role as an observer.

   Though it may sound as if I was waltzing down Sybil Lane to the Tricky Town of Multiple Personas, in truth, it assisted my conscious separation from Ashley and our alliance.

   From then on, I signed all my artwork as Christianne. Part of me became autonomous to my then-persistence. My art-self was the ME I'd one day mature into, or so I would later discover.

   No matter how Ashley put down Maureen for not being the daughter she wished she had, (whoever that was, I never knew), no matter how Maureen would be hit, screamed at or berated, I had inner permission for NOT taking it personally. I didn't Sybilize myself from myself. Rather, I juggled to protect my sensitivities.

   I came to think of me as a stand-in for this Maureen kid. Though when the going got rough, I wished Maureen would occasionally rush her butt back to relieve my workload.

   Conceive it or not, it was at this stage that leaving my body became as natural as musical airs. Though I didn't do a "Fly Me to the Moon" projection ala Shirley MacLaine, when her abuse turned painful, doing a side-step out of my physical self enhanced my ability to detach.

   When I heard Ashley yell, I leaped. As I watched her swat my kidself, I also bounced through several emotional valleys from helplessness in not being able to stop the assault of Ashley's misdirected rage upon Maureen's vulnerability, to gratefulness for having this convenient magical levitation trick.

   I had no way of defining what I was doing in Earthian terms, I just knew it worked ― though I never figured how to ease or abolish the pain when I re-entered my body.

   Through the years, I wondered if others used this maneuver. Of late I got my answer. Many did, probably still do.

   I recently spoke to one man who told me of the extreme abuse dumped on his kidself, and how he learned to jump out of his skin when the whipping belts were pulled. He never mentioned it to anyone as he couldn't even explain it to his adultself.

   He also said, it became an addiction.

   Whenever a potentially aggravating confrontation arose, he arose ― literally. And during his 20-plus years of service in the Navy and marriage to an extremely rough bar room brawling wife, life gave him ample excuses.

   Through sharing, we discovered we had both played the same game so as not to be IT when tagged.

   My years of volunteer work with abused children enlightened me to the widespread use of this kid caper. As well as it's benefits, it was easier to play "Catch Me If You Can" rather than accepting what our GUT knew we didn't earn.

   There's a Jimmy Buffet line that goes: "If I weren't crazy I'd just go insane." Had it been written then, I bet I, and others, would have readily related. Many still do, I’m sure.

   Craziness and humor has a way of maintaining sanity.

   I soon felt I could walk into any one of my personas and live as sanely needed, while juggling conscious responsibility for both bodily kids.

   As Maureen, I acquiesced to Ashley, my casting agents and whoever I dealt with in my regular life.

   As Christianne I was free.

   I created my own world with paper and brush, with God as my good buddy and multi-gifting co-pilot. I became my own twin, and sought to protect Christianne's work with calculated care from intrusion from Maureen's mother. No soap opera I appeared in held such complex plot twists.

   As I look through my kidhood and early adult archives, I coped fairly well in spite of my main major flaw:

   It took years for the truth to sink into my reality.

   Being loved by my mother, and others, was totally out of my control, as it would always be... as it is for us all. We can lead, or be led, to the heart, but we cannot make genuine love happen. It does or it doesn't... just ask anyone dug into the I'm-not-interested-side of an unrequited loveship.

   However, don't ask the one on the forcing side as they're probably too caught in their fantasy to risk reality. Even though reality is the only antitoxin.

   I know. Reality saved my life ― spiritual reality, that is. It broke the spell that I let distort my reflections. Reflections that I could have allowed to overshadow my current blend-ships, professional to intimate.

   Indeed. Life is a continual risk.

   However, there's vast freedom when we risk climbing out of the Predictability Pit by letting go of how others once chose to treat or love us, based on their scripts that often had nothing to do with logic, other than: We were there.

   But on the spiritual level, I sense that our main responsibility is to figure out why an angry other has been cast in our lifal script. To obtain the optimum benefit, we need to observe what the setup is seeking to serve us beyond the negative obvious.

   For instance, if another is demeaning, we may be in need of ceasing to make our worth contingent upon another's arbitrary critique. Or, if another refuses to share our love or generosity, we may be in need of ceasing to make our Joy of Giving contingent upon another's ability to receive and enjoy life and love.

   Possibly you might want to contemplate why an abusive other was in your script, and probe for how their actions cosmically occurred to help you evolve. And, how what you endured may have caused you to be as spiritually strong as you now are.

   'Tis a Thot!

Copyright © 2006 by Krystiahn - All Rights Reserved