“We don’t see things as they are- we see them as we are.” Anais Nin French Born Author.

I am reading a book called Interpersonal Communication The Whole Story by Kory Floyd, a textbook from NC State University. In DBT my least favorite topic was interpersonal anything because I had zero skills when it came to people, even my own children. When I saw this book at the Cause For Paws Thrift Shop I knew it was for me. For $1.49 I am learning much about perception, verbal and non-verbal communication, and so much else I cannot begin to list all of the topics.

Attribution is what I am learning today and I see how I have used it and how it has been used to explain me.

“We explain behavior through attribution. Although most of us probably try to come up with accurate attributions for other people’s behaviors, we are still vulnerable to making attribution mistakes. These errors can create problems for us because our response to other people’s behaviors is often based on the attributions we make for those behaviors.“

Attribution, as I comprehend it, is similar to stereotyping in some ways, as when we attribute a certain behavior to an only child, a person of color, or a person in line at the check-out using EBT to pay for her groceries. But it is not, I think as simple as that.

There are a couple of ways that people have made attributions about my behavior in error. There may be more that spring to mind along the way.

Behavior: I still talk and write about my abusive childhood. Attribution: She is stuck in the past.

Behavior: Can’t hold a job. Attribution: She is lazy, has no work ethic, is not a productive member of society.

Behavior: In and out of mental hospitals. Attribution: Crazy.

Behavior: Claiming incest and sexual abuse. Attribution: Bi-Polar, that is what they do.

I could go on, now that I have begun. Instead, I will discuss here these examples.

People who do not still talk about their abusive childhoods may also be stuck in the past. The past does not dissolve because you bury it. It is alive and well and controlling you from the depths of your being. There is a saying I heard many times in AA. “You are only as sick as your darkest secrets.” Before I arrived in AA I had worked overtime and in over-drive to hide my shameful secrets believing I would be shunned and hated for who I was. People would look at me in disgust. I began to heal when I began to share my story, in spite of the knee-jerk reaction of people re-abusing me for speaking..

There is no happy ending for me whether I keep silent or speak out. I do see some freedom from the chains of the past and I cherish every moment. I have self-respect at last, no shame, spontaneous laughter, and a heart I am no longer afraid to use because it has been broken so many times and I fear one more time will be the end of me.

I was indeed stuck in the past for decades, silent and alone.

As for not holding jobs there is not one attribution that fits all. In short, I have never been lazy, except in the way that we all go through moments of not wanting to do one more thing today. My work ethic told me to work hard, earn every penny I am paid, and I will get ahead. And there are many ways to be productive and people like me who spend so much of their lives unstable and unable to cope will usually find them. Growing a garden is productive. Cleaning house and helping with children etc. I have had many jobs, otherwise I would not be collecting Social Security off them, and I have always tried my best. What more can one do?

Crazy. A label given freely by people who either do not, and have no desire to, understand, or people who have an agenda to discredit you or perhaps both. I am not crazy. Some of my actions and behaviors might say otherwise especially if you have no desire to know me better. But all my actions and behaviors can be explained much better by the truth I tried so hard to bury. But people who do not want or cannot afford the truth will continue to stick to the word crazy as an explanation. It is short and to the point and most of us probably think we know exactly what that means.

It is true that my sister told people that the reason I cried incest was that I was Bi-Polar and they do that sort of thing. That is a crazy notion all by itself. For one thing, I am not Bi-Polar, I have been diagnosed in years past with that malady, but I do not fit the criteria. I do fit the criteria for PTSD and Borderline Personality Disorder for which my behavioral therapy and changes work to make life easier.

There is no group of people who are prone to claim incest except for the group that has actually lived with incest. And that group is very large indeed because there is another very large group who will cry the broken record of “Shame on you for saying that!” and “He/She would never do such a horrid thing!” or they just turn their back to you and refuse to hear. These are the people, like my parents and over 2/3 of my siblings who will readily form a circle of protection around the accused while reviling the victim/survivor unto permanent exile.

When my sister Joyce said to me in a letter that if only I would be one of them, they would welcome me back into the family, the meaning was clear to me. Abandon me, abandon my healing, and join the incest family system as a proud and true DeGolier. Only by denying my self could I lay claim to being a DeGolier, just as in the year 2,000 Sheila denied her self and signed a legal paper denying her baby’s father was Denis in order for Denis and Shirley to get their hands on their grandchildren. She was coerced by the lethal trio of Mother, Joan, and Denis and she folded and died inside while they nailed the last nail into the coffin of her remaining sanity. I heard my mother cried so afraid she was of her boy going to jail if the truth came out. Someone tell me please if she ever cried for her daughters who are still living with the aftermath of incest and denial.

My sister Joyce called me evil on the basis of many lies and attributions when all I had come to NY for was to know if I had siblings that I could call family. I never shed a tear when she died. She had hurt Wanda and her children and I know that she interfered with my own children because things that were said to me when I returned to Carolina could only come from her. Perhaps one day I will feel compassion for her. She was also a disturbed and unstable person from her own time as a DeGolier. At best for now, I forgive her cruelty.

Reading my book I see so many ways that I and others in my life attribute things to people on the basis of what they already know or presume to know. It is knowledge to be used when I find myself deciding according to who I am and what I “know” what someone else actions or words mean.

Wish I had learned this earlier in life.