Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Jennifer Jill Schwirzer
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR00091A
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00:11 Welcome to Celebrating Life In Recovery.
00:13 I'm Cheri your host and we are going to talk with Jennifer 00:16 today, Jennifer were going to talk about 00:17 never feeling good enough. 00:19 So come join us, if that is your issue you're going 00:21 to have a blast. 00:50 You know I would like to start this program a little bit 00:52 different way is that last Sabbath I was at church and 00:56 I got to hang out with my favorite pastors. 01:00 That is John Lomacang, he is amazing, he's so funny and he 01:03 always has these brilliant things to say. 01:05 But he started the sermon talking about the anatomy of 01:10 a fall, and I thought that was interesting title. 01:15 The anatomy of a fall was a study that he had on 01:18 demolitions, like when some body comes in and they are 01:21 going to blow up a building. 01:23 They have to take a coliseum down or they have to take 01:26 a stadium down or they have to take an office building 01:29 down that is 18 or 20 stories high. 01:32 You knows strategically they have to set charges in 01:37 different parts of the building to take it down in 01:39 a way that is controlled. 01:43 So it is not just a chaotic thing, you just don't go 01:45 and nuke it, you know. 01:47 I would think you would put some dynamite in different 01:51 parts and blow it up, but you don't because usually 01:54 there's buildings on either side and so you really have 01:56 to have it fall a certain way. 01:58 In fact on some buildings there is a natural lean in the 02:02 building and they will take advantage of that lean and 02:06 set charges so that the entire building goes down in the 02:09 way of that lean. 02:11 And by the time they are done it is amazing, 02:14 all you have is this little pile of rubble. 02:16 You could have 18 stories, but you have this little pile of 02:20 rubble and it looks like, are you kidding me. 02:23 At one time you watched video of a sports stadium going 02:28 down and it went down almost like an orchestra thing, 02:31 it went down like in a spiral. 02:33 Starting from the outside all the way to the inside it 02:37 fell and again in a little pile of rubble. 02:40 In our recovery, I want you to think about this, 02:43 throughout your life the devil sets charges up and it 02:47 is a strategic thing, he knows where your weaknesses are. 02:50 He knows where you're going to lean and he knows what 02:53 our natural tendencies are going to be. 02:55 He sets the charge right there and at the best time those 03:00 charges are off and you are down. 03:03 The people around you aren't even going to be touched. 03:05 They're not even going to notice what happened to that guy? 03:08 This was not an overnight thing, this was something that 03:11 happened throughout your life and what God is saying, 03:15 I love what God is saying, don't let that happen. 03:18 Jump into a relationship with Me and I will be your 03:22 strength, to those weak spots, I will strengthen 03:26 those weak spots and when that charge goes off, nothing. 03:29 It will not even affect you because I will take that spot. 03:32 I will take that hit for you and you will be safe. 03:36 So what we are going to talk about today is not just one 03:39 event, not just one part of an addiction, not just one 03:43 part of sadness or injury or whatever. 03:46 We're going to talk about the strategy in this person's 03:50 life that brought her to a place where she almost fell. 03:54 But luckily, she didn't and I love that. 03:58 So Jill I want to say welcome to the program. 04:01 I'm glad you are here because knowing a little bit about 04:03 your story, but not all of it. 04:05 So I'm going to ask you and we are going to talk about 04:08 even from the beginning, long before the stuff you dealt with 04:13 that is so obvious to everybody. 04:15 We are going to talk about what you think started it or maybe 04:19 even kicked in those weak areas of your life? 04:21 Oh boy, that is such a big question. 04:22 I know, can you shrink it down just a little bit? 04:25 Yeah, where were you born? - okay! 04:29 Is that little enough? All right, all right. 04:31 Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio at the time were in the Cuyahoga 04:35 River was so polluted that it caught on fire. 04:37 Wow, wow, so you and I have known each other for a while. 04:43 I don't know any part of your growing up other than you 04:47 went through that whole hippie thing. - yeah I did, 04:49 but that was later. Okay. 04:51 So I would say I was raised in a real idyllic home, 04:54 at least outwardly speaking. 04:56 You know it looks good, my parents stayed married and 04:59 that is rare anymore and there was enough money, 05:02 we weren't in poverty, we were educated, we went through 05:05 the public school system. 05:06 We went to church, nice family boy, girl, boy, girl. 05:11 My mom couldn't get pregnant for a while so it was perfect 05:14 in many ways we were evenly spaced. 05:16 Everybody was relatively healthy and nobody had any 05:20 I would say serious learning disabilities or anything like 05:22 that so outwardly speaking we were like the Walton's or 05:26 the Brady Bunch but without the remarriage factor. 05:30 But in a way that made it even more difficult. 05:34 Because anybody looking in just says wow I would like to be 05:38 that family. Well for years when I was struggling with my 05:41 recovery I was saying what was wrong with you? 05:42 You had such a better life than people like Cheri Peters. 05:45 Look at your life and people with similar testimonies as 05:49 yours and I would say you have no excuse, you have 05:51 nothing that explains how you ended up where you ended up. 05:55 So even with all that normalcy, all that household where 06:05 everyone is fine and all that stuff, what's the feeling? 06:09 Did you have feelings of insecurity, were you sad? 06:14 It sounds like with all that there was something that 06:17 started really early. 06:19 Things are really good as a little girl, I have to say 06:22 there is a lot to be said for an intact home. 06:25 You know poverty tends to be a problem, wealth can be 06:29 a problem because it tends to separate families, but that 06:32 middle-class lifestyle is a very good lifestyle in terms 06:35 of the growing up years so I had a really good childhood. 06:38 I have many good memories but I would say, here's how 06:43 I would say it, that the relational skills, the bonding 06:47 skills that my parents possessed were not sufficient to 06:50 get us through adolescence. 06:53 So now you got a, I'm like what? 06:55 You are, hold on, hold on, you are a psychotherapist for 07:00 a living now, and so right now somebody is out there going 07:03 what did she just say? So turn that into regular language. 07:08 Connect, we didn't connect on a level or at a depth that 07:12 it was good for childhood but then when I went through 07:16 adolescence the attachment didn't hold. 07:20 So family became or my relationships specifically 07:23 with my parents became fractured during those years 07:26 when your hormones start rolling, and boyfriends 07:29 came into the picture. 07:30 Let me just interpret for her, because she is having 07:33 a hard time telling it. - Wrong? - No not wrong? 07:36 But even what is interesting is with families like that 07:40 everything seems to be going well or whatever and it's 07:43 like all of a sudden I actually need to know where your 07:47 heart is and that your heart is towards me and you're connected 07:50 to me and all that stuff is real and we know how to do 07:53 that and it has to be more tangible. 07:56 At that time you find out that maybe people were not as 08:01 comfortable with loving each other and maybe we weren't as 08:05 connected as we thought we were. 08:07 I don't know where it started, or why it started, or why 08:10 it is happening but right now I just feel like 08:12 I'm floundering, I don't know who I am. I don't know 08:15 how to connect anymore. 08:17 Yes, So specifically like my dad and I, my dad is a strong 08:20 personality, in fact I have inherited a lot of his traits. 08:23 I'm a lot like him, very strong leadership tendencies. 08:29 I like to organize people, to organize things. 08:32 It is a standing joke in our family when we get ready to 08:34 go on a trip to Florida and he had to pack the car. 08:37 When he packed the car every body else knew to just 08:40 stand by and observe silently, nobody tried to help him 08:44 or anything because he had a very specific way he was 08:46 doing it and so we would get in the car and go off. 08:49 My dad was like that, he was very particular and had 08:53 strong leadership tendencies but that sometimes translated 08:56 to him being bossy at controlling of the kids. 08:59 - and you're not doing it right. - yeah, and that 09:01 yeah and that worked out fine when I was little for 09:05 the most part, I have some memories of my dad censuring or 09:08 being harder on me for things that he could have let go. 09:13 But nothing huge or terrible or awful, just a feeling 09:19 I would say, a basic feeling of him not accepting me, 09:23 or wondering if he really likes me and then I got into 09:26 adolescence and become very clear he really didn't, 09:29 because of some of the choices I was making. 09:32 Let me just say, what do you think about this? 09:34 You are looking at underlying themes during this whole 09:37 season and sometimes high expectations and all that 09:40 stuff in households are very much unspoken. 09:44 When they are unspoken it makes it to where, for a child 09:48 what you know all the time is not enough, I'm just not 09:51 enough. - the atmosphere of, and I would say since 09:55 I've gotten into the counseling field, I notice that 09:58 a lot of families that have it outwardly together seem 10:01 to do well that have good incomes and intact marriages 10:04 and so forth, and they function pretty well. 10:06 There is often a spirit of criticism in the family 10:09 where people do not feel accepted. 10:11 It seems to me that is even worse in families that are 10:15 outwardly together, I can't prove that. 10:18 - that's the sense you have. 10:20 I think that was what was happening when I was growing up 10:23 is the spirit of criticism was there and me feeling over 10:26 sensitive, a very sensitive individual and me feeling 10:30 sensitive about that. 10:33 So coming into adolescence with that problem already in 10:38 place - and the hormones - and then you meet the guy and 10:42 he thinks you are just wonderful and you're not really 10:46 well attached to your father, then you attach to this guy 10:50 and he supplies the place that an attachment to your 10:55 father would have supplied and its disastrous 10:58 from there on out. 10:59 You see that as love and that's what I've been starving 11:02 for. - yes and I remember coming home one night, it 11:06 was actually funny because my boyfriend and I, and I had 11:09 been going out with the same guy for three years and 11:11 we were like attached at the hip. 11:13 We got into a lot of trouble together and did a lot of 11:15 things that my parents didn't know about, involving 11:18 drugs and sex and all that stuff. 11:20 But this one particular night we went to a bird sanctuary. 11:24 We were really into nature and we were into riding our 11:26 bikes because we didn't have cars yet. 11:28 So we're riding our bike's and we parked our bikes in the 11:31 bushes and climbed over the fence of this bird sanctuary. 11:34 We went walking in the bird sanctuary holding hands, 11:36 I mean it was so innocent, I was even - how romantic. 11:40 I know it's was great and I was riding home and I thinking wow, 11:44 we didn't even do anything terribly sinful tonight. 11:45 We are so innocent here. 11:47 Well amazingly the cops pulled me over on the way home 11:51 and they had seen our bicycles in the bushes and 11:54 they pulled him over to on his way home because 11:56 we went two separate ways. 11:57 So the cop put my bike on his car and got me in the back 12:01 seat and drove me home and escorted me to the door 12:03 and told my dad what had happened and so I sat for half 12:07 an hour while my dad screamed at me about 12:10 this boy he couldn't stand. 12:11 I don't like him at all and I don't like it one bit. 12:14 I don't like his long hair and I know you're up to no 12:16 good, I mean he shouted at me for half an hour and I just 12:18 stood there like wow. Finally I screamed and ran out of 12:22 the room you know. 12:24 But that was like the blowing of the volcano after such 12:29 a low level percolating for years. 12:33 So finally somebody said it out loud. - yeah. 12:36 - this right now is being spoken, I'm screaming and 12:40 dad's screaming - and I would say it there was a pattern 12:43 in our home of not saying any thing until it got to a certain 12:47 point and then blowing. 12:49 So was an all or nothing communication pattern. 12:51 Usually it was attended by a lot of criticism and put down 12:56 and that type of thing whereas if we had sat down and 12:59 talked through things. 13:00 I don't really feel quite right about this boy you're 13:03 dating talk to me about him, and what is he really like? 13:05 What are you guys doing when you're together? 13:07 If it could of been like that it would've been 13:08 a different thing. 13:09 Instead of a lot like a pressure cooker all 13:11 the time, there was always pressure and nobody could point 13:14 to it. - exactly, it was always brewing, it was always 13:17 there and it will blow once in awhile. 13:19 Then things will calm down and we would think everything 13:21 was okay now, but it wasn't okay because 13:24 we weren't communicating. 13:25 I wish that somehow, with really outward dysfunction 13:29 you can point to it like crazy, but this is more common 13:33 than the outward dysfunction. 13:35 The family that argues is more typical. 13:37 - and most people can't point to it. 13:39 That's right but as a counselor I work with stuff like 13:42 that all the time where people are maybe outwardly looking 13:45 okay but they are having disasters in the relationships 13:48 in the home and trying to teach them how to communicate. 13:51 How to actually sit down and talk through an issue without 13:54 blowing their stack. 13:55 Once you learned that it's amazing, once you learn that 14:00 it's amazing. So during that time you jumped into drugs, 14:04 alcohol, relationships and all that stuff. 14:06 It was during the time that a lot of people were taken 14:10 that jump, the hippie time. 14:13 I'm going to date myself here but it was during the 14:16 Ashbury hippie days in the 70s and 80s. 14:18 I could picture you there - totally, okay. 14:20 People have told me that, okay so anyway I do bathe 14:24 so just reassuring you, I'm really into hygiene so I have 14:28 some similarity with hippies and some dissimilarities. 14:33 So yet was during that time, I was the kind of kid coming 14:38 into the peer environment I couldn't be with the kids, 14:42 I couldn't hang with the kids that were on the sidelines, 14:47 I had to run with the fast horses. 14:48 I was the kind of kid that whoever was the coolest, 14:51 whoever was the most outrageous I had to be friends with 14:54 them, I was drawn to people like that. 14:56 Do you know why? Do I are you asking me that? - yes. 15:00 You tell me you know why? - no do you know why? 15:02 Oh do I know why, - don't interpret my question she's 15:05 definitely a therapist, I'm like I just asked a question. 15:11 So I think it's probably temperament, part of it, 15:14 probably compensating you know. 15:17 Because just listening to you I'm thinking that as soon as 15:21 you got out and the pressure was lifted I would have went 15:25 crazy, and it sounds like, see we never had pressure in my 15:28 home, my dad would be gone like, you want some of this. 15:32 So is a whole different thing. - I wish for experiences 15:36 like that where we would talk about let's try to 15:38 get my mom high. 15:39 Because you're relaxed. - there's a rumor in my family 15:42 that my mom smoked pot with her friends and we just all 15:45 cracked up about that and laugh because 15:47 We would've loved it. 15:49 So when you got out you just kind of said I'm not going 15:52 to put myself under that kind of pressure, I'm going to 15:55 do whatever I want to do. 15:56 Here's another factor, when I was 10 years old we moved 16:00 from a really idyllic sweet, quaint little town in Ohio 16:04 to a more Cosmopolitan area in Milwaukee, 16:08 Wisconsin, should I say what that word means? 16:11 City, citified, it wasn't urban but it was just a racier 16:17 neighborhood, let's put it that way and more influences 16:22 from the city and the kids were way, way more 16:25 sophisticated, and way, way more edgy and racy than the 16:29 town I came from. 16:31 So I came to school first-day wearing these little white 16:34 ankle socks and a long billowing dress and I was 10. 16:38 The girls were all wearing short skirts and nylon 16:41 stockings and they were all done up. 16:45 I was immediately ostracized a nerd. 16:49 So one thing led to another and again I wanted to run 16:53 with the fast horses and to make friends with the kids 16:57 that were on the edge so I fell in with the crowd. 17:01 But they were so mean and so cruel and at one point 17:04 we were reading, this was interesting because we were 17:07 reading the book the Lord Of the Flies, I don't know 17:09 if you know that book. 17:11 It's a book about a bunch of kids that crash on an island, 17:13 a soccer team are some that crash on an island and they 17:16 basically turn into animals and preying upon one another. 17:18 There is one of them like a good kid, and they are just 17:20 about to kill him when the book ends and the Coast Guard 17:23 comes, so that it is this whole book about the animal 17:26 within each of us. 17:28 I'm going through that very thing on the playground as we 17:31 are reading this book. So again on with this group of kids 17:35 and they would turn on a person, it was a very strange 17:38 pattern, but they would pick one person and turn on them. 17:41 Like they'd have this kind of feeding frenzy. 17:43 So at one point they turned on me and decided that they 17:46 were going to abuse me and they drug me out to the baseball 17:49 diamond and I went through sexual and physical abuse at 17:52 the hands of a bunch of girls, it was very bizarre. 17:55 This was with guys watching on. 17:57 It's interesting because the girl that was the ringleader 18:00 recently contacted me because one of our mutual friends 18:03 had died and she wanted to send me some things that were 18:06 hers, all those feelings came up again. 18:09 The Lord got a hold of me again to forgive but. 18:13 Did she ever mention anything? Now she talks to me 18:16 now like we're old friends and say I got married but it 18:19 didn't work out, had two sons in running a bed and 18:21 breakfast and blah, blah, blah. 18:23 But I'm like having all these emotional responses, but it 18:26 was really terrible, it was terrible. 18:29 You know the common thing for the last few years is 18:32 bullying, and you're saying that it has always been 18:36 around. - oh yeah. - I think people would be surprised 18:39 and how intense it is and how ugly it is. 18:43 When you are the kid that is being focused on that it can 18:47 almost destroy you. - yeah exactly, grass matted 18:51 into my hair, mud all over my face was red with crying. 18:55 I still remember the dress I had on and what they did 18:59 every detail of the event. 19:01 So I went through that it was a severe, I was put on the 19:06 margin socially because of that and I felt like 19:09 an outcast socially. 19:10 I don't have this real strong bond at home, I don't have 19:13 the kind of relationship with my parents were I can go 19:16 home and say this awful thing happened to me, help me. 19:19 I had that with my kids so now I can make a comparison and 19:22 say I wish I had that. 19:24 Yeah because what you did was not talk about it to anyone. 19:27 And there was a reason why, if you tell your parents they 19:30 do something about it then you get more attacked by the 19:33 kids so there was a reason for that but on the other hand 19:36 if the bond had been close enough I would have told them 19:39 and we would've worked together towards a solution. 19:42 - Exactly - you know so I didn't tell my parents 19:46 because I didn't want them to say my friends were bad. 19:48 I really wanted those kids to like me and accept me. 19:51 - exactly and you know Jennifer what I want to say is 19:54 I've known you over the years and didn't 19:56 know that about you. 19:57 I want to just say I would like to care for that, just as 20:01 your friend, I don't know how I'm going to do that other 20:05 then just praying that if there is anything left from 20:08 that incident that God brings a place for you. 20:12 Well I tell you I think it did impact me and I am really 20:15 into cognitive behavior of real therapy now that I am in 20:18 this mental health field, I still get triggered. 20:21 I don't have a lot of fear of it happening a lot, 20:24 I'm pretty confident around people, but occasionally I get 20:28 around someone who I sense is just feels they are better 20:30 than me and that I'm going to get condemned by them. 20:33 I just sense it, and it all comes back to me. 20:36 Especially if there is any kind of banding together, 20:39 like if people are talking to one another about me 20:42 it triggers me and I go into orbit. 20:44 It is almost overwhelming and I had to fly to Jesus and 20:47 say all the CBT in the world is not going to fix it, 20:50 I just need you Jesus to get me through this. 20:53 I'll stay away from them at least for now. 20:55 I love what you're say because a lot of us when we are 20:58 fighting for our recovery, were turning it over to God 21:01 and doing all that stuff, but triggers are triggers are 21:03 triggers and we can end up being that kid 21:06 on the playground, that quick. 21:08 You know sometimes, and I don't know if this is right but 21:11 I just avoid certain people because I just know being 21:14 around them, or I avoid certain situations with certain 21:17 people, not very many it's not like it's a whole bunch of 21:20 people, but there are certain people that are toxic 21:24 combination and I just realized that I can't push it too 21:28 far and I have to accept my limitations. 21:30 It's incredible important at this point in your recovery, 21:33 is that you have the right to do that. 21:35 I used to exactly, used to be I have to get them to 21:38 accept you, I have to prove your okay, or a least you have 21:42 to learn how to relax around them and how to be okay. 21:45 Now I just say, I don't, I don't have to feel all right 21:47 around them, there might be something wrong with them. 21:50 I might be picking up on something, I'm not going to 21:53 condemn them, maybe Lord hasn't talked to them yet 21:56 about that but I'm going to accept it, 21:57 it is not working right now. 21:59 - exactly so you went from that to? 22:01 So I went from that to then I got more into high school 22:05 and then the boyfriend came so I had that trauma to my 22:10 very core, my self worth, my self esteem and then I got 22:15 into high school and this guy came along and fixed all my 22:18 self esteem problems, because he thought I was beautiful 22:21 great and wonderful and fascinating. 22:24 But somebody has to hear this, somebody has to hear 22:27 this more than you hear anything else is that when we 22:31 fix our stuff outside of us, it's always going to bite us 22:35 eventually. - Amen! - what is really cool is you got 22:39 that Band-Aid - for the time - for the time. 22:43 But then it created a worse, a worse wound in the long 22:46 run because when you get too involved emotionally and 22:49 physically too young you are not old enough. 22:52 You're in high school and not committed... it creates, 22:56 it just hurts people. - and it's not easy to fix, all 23:00 our damage and stuff, Jesus says let me fix your wound 23:04 and your heart and let Me stand you up so you are whole 23:08 before you reach out. 23:09 That's what we miss, that whole step. 23:11 Can I bring in a teeny bit of theology here? - yeah. 23:15 Okay so in the Garden of Eden the original sin was the 23:18 apple right? The original sin or, the original sin or 23:21 the first sin after the fall was fig leaves, the first thing 23:25 they did was made fig leaves which is self fixing 23:27 like you're talking about. 23:28 The Bible says that, I think it's Isaiah 64 where all 23:32 our righteousness, and He puts it in a plural, 23:34 are filthy rags, here's my thing. 23:36 I just see this in the mental health field that people try 23:39 to fix themselves - they grab a rag - that's right 23:42 and that's literally menstrual cloth which is really 23:45 shocking, but when people try to fix themselves the self 23:50 fix is in of themselves is sinful and sin hurts people. 23:54 So when we engage in a sinful self fixes we end up 23:58 deepening the wound and that is exactly what happened. 24:01 But it was in total ignorance at this point, I wasn't 24:04 a Christian and I didn't know anything about people or 24:07 how they function, the do's and don'ts or what was right. 24:10 You just knew I felt better when I'm in a relationship. 24:14 I feel better when I'm smoking some weed. 24:17 I feel better when I'm not having to just think 24:20 about all the stuff. 24:21 And my dad would say, my dad was someone who's father had 24:26 told him to sow his wild oats before he got married. 24:29 In other words go around and have some immoral relationships 24:32 and then get married. 24:34 My dad chose to wait until he was married, he had that 24:37 much sort of innate morality in him. 24:40 So he would preach that to me, my father told me this but 24:45 I waited and so should you kind of thing. 24:47 Here's a man that I don't have a really good relationship with 24:50 telling me that I shouldn't have a relationship with this 24:53 man that I do have a strong bond with, I just could 24:57 not figure it out. 24:58 It would set you up for rebellion at all kinds of stuff. 25:01 Because then we have to start we rebel, start lying, 25:04 start sneaking around and start doing things then all of 25:08 a sudden we have talked about those charges being set. 25:11 We are going to go ahead take a break, but those charges 25:15 are set really early and for Jennifer's life she learned 25:18 to really early on that there's not some real connection, 25:22 enough that she could hold on to that makes her feel 25:25 safe and okay about herself and finds them in these 25:28 relationships at school and some charges are set. 25:32 So strategically she's being set up for the fall. 25:35 But in her life it doesn't happen so we are going to 25:39 come back and find out why. 25:40 But remember I want you to think about your life. 25:43 Where was that charge set in your life? Is it still 25:46 there? And do you have a protection in your recovery 25:49 because that is the coolest thing, God says let Me 25:51 protect that area because I don't want you to fall. 25:54 It is not in His plan that we fall. 25:56 We'll be right back stay with us! |
Revised 2014-12-17