The Collapse of the Lies
Every family has its strengths and weaknesses. What we don’t commonly understand is that by its very existence those family dynamics will try to perpetuate themselves as an imprinted method for survival. When they are too dysfunctional someone needs to break the cycle.
As strange as it may sound I never saw my mother or father hug or kiss while I was growing up. My father was very idealistic and held expectations for both himself and for the family which were too high for any human to achieve. He worked one job during the day and when he came home he worked the farm. He was constantly working and we were constantly poor. Only later in life was I to realize that for him the striving for the highest unattainable goal was merely a way to go as high as possible. He understood that the highest was not attainable. But the rest of us didn’t know that. We grew up constantly knowing that we were not meeting the expectations that he had for us.
My mother coped by getting migraine headaches and becoming addicted to pain medications. As a nurse she stole medications from some of her patients and finally lost her job. For affection and romance she turned to other men in the neighborhood and had affairs with them unknown to any of us. As children we were simply told to go play outside and not bother the adults.
As a teenager my early attempts at dating were disasters because I never had any parental role models. Essentially I was a nice kid, but boring and too sensitive. I didn’t know how to have fun!
The entire home situation was a set up for disaster and when it hit is was massive! I was drawn on a spiritual quest and joined the Rosicrician Order AMORC. For the first time in my life I was exposed to concepts like reincarnation, karma and that the Bible might be taken metaphorically and symbolically, not literally. In addition I was also exposed to the concept that the spark of the Christ Spirit existed within every human heart and spoke through the still small voice of conscience if we would only listen to it.
I had already had my big encounter with my conscience and was very drawn to these teachings as they resonated deeply within my soul. But they went against the teachings and values that my family had imprinted on me growing up. I tried to ride the fence, not choosing one or the other and the split inside me began to grow stronger and wider.
I had a disastrous breakup with my girl friend that I couldn’t understand because I thought things were going well. My mother had run off with another man and was in a car accident. Alcohol and drugs were involved. Her dark secret was out in the open! My uncle died of a heart attack on our sidewalk. My spiritual crisis with the Rosicrucian teachings had reached the breaking point. I had to choose and the fate of my soul depended on my making the correct choice. I couldn’t choose and had a nervous breakdown lying motionless on the basement floor for hours staring up at the ceiling. It was too much!
But in my heart I knew and in my conscience I knew the path I needed to take. I was also confronted by the lies and illusions of my childhood. The life my parents had lived was a lie! I chose to continue on the Rosicrucian path reading and studying my weekly monographs for the next twenty-two years. But something inside of me had broken. I lost my connection to my emotions and to mother earth. My awareness had shifted to that of a secondary personality that I created out of mental and spiritual things. The Rosicrucian studies ensured that I was fairly balanced in other ways and became my foundation and support during those difficult years. They became my new home and my new family.
