Starting Over 3, 01-27-06 – Being Defensiveby LauraBelle
Today is the day Jill has been both waiting for and dreading. Her mother, Lynda, is coming to visit. Lynda walks right in, making herself at home, and walks through the door calling for Jill. Once they meet up, Lynda notes the weight that Jill has lost. As she meets the other housemates, it's interesting to note she doesn't just look like Jill, she laughs like her too.
Jill introduces Lynda to her bedroom and Miss Mabel. Lynda asks why she is so ugly, and asks if the clothing she is wearing is Jill's, and why she has stuff drawn all over her face. Jill sees Miss Mabel as a representation of all her hard work, so it's hard for her to listen to her mother dissing Miss Mabel like this. Jill tells her when she came to the house she expected everyone to be thinking, "You poor thing," but instead she has come to realize no one is responsible for her own happiness and well-being but herself. Sounds like the makings of a good speech for her sentencing hearing.
Lisa2 starts her day in quite the mood. She can't wear makeup. She can't wear her own clothes. And she hates hats, and is stuck wearing this leopard print hat.
Iyanla meets Lynda, and the first thing she says is, "What are you doing with Jill's face on?" Lynda says it was hers first. As Iyanla squires her away for a private one-on-one, Lynda asks if Jill has been portraying her like Cruella Deville.
Leaving those two to talk, Jill joins the others in Group with Rhonda with a topic of being a follower or a leader. She asks if Lisa1 is a follower or a leader. Everyone agrees that lately she has been a leader. As Rhonda asks if she has been using her crutches or cheating, Lisa1 admits the cheating, prompting Rhonda to tell her leaders don't cheat, and not Lisa1's defensiveness.
Rhonda asks what the difference is between defending yourself and being defensive, and explains that being defensive means attacking and trying to show the other person they are wrong. Lisa2 says when she is feeling defensive, she walks away from her husband, and doesn't give him a chance to talk. Rhonda says she would like to believe her, but doesn't.
Jodi thinks defending yourself means stating the facts. Christie believes it means accepting things, and says she's a drug addict and alcoholic. She realizes that and believes it will keep her from using.
Iyanla and Lynda discuss Nonnie, Lynda's mother. She had Lynda at eighteen, and for the first five years, Lynda lived with a lot of other people. Iyanla explains that in the same way she experienced not growing up with her mother, Jill experienced not growing up with a father. Seeing Lynda's realization with this, Iyanla says if Jill wants to look for him, it's on her, not Lynda. Even at forty, Jill is a little girl crying for her daddy, but Iyanla explains that if he rejects her now, she will understand it's his choice.
Lynda says Jill never talked to her at all about wanting to look for her father. Iyanla says she thinks she talked to Nonnie about it instead. Lynda is shocked, wondering why Jill bypassed her in the discussion, and wonders if she thought it would hurt her. Iyanla says she knows that's the reason why.
This all makes Lynda wonder if Jill ever mentioned Barry, and Iyanla says as far as she is concerned Jill got here through immaculate conception. Barry was Lynda's husband, and Jill's stepfather. He was in her life for eight years. Iyanla says Jill never once mentioned it, and Lynda says Barry was murdered. Iyanla starts to understand it more now, and says even though Barry left their lives in death, Jill as a child saw it as the two most important men in her life abandoned her. Lynda is completely shocked at this revelation. And wow, I look at the how much of the show I have just watched on my TIVO, and it's only been twelve minutes worth!
Lynda addresses Jill in the kitchen and asks why she never mentioned Barry. Jill says he wasn't part of her story. Lynda makes Iyanla's point that he was the second man to leave her life. She also wants to know why Jill never told her about wanting to find her father. Jill says she never asked. Lynda says he just left because he didn't want anything to do with either of them.
Jill wants to tell her mom all these things she has wanted to tell her for years. She says when she feels conflict with her, she feels like she is sixteen again. She is open for the first time with her mother, and tells her of her sexual history. She explains he was sexually active at sixteen and seventeen and slept with a guy on the football team. Lynda is totally shocked. Jill says it's not like it was the whole team, just two or three of them. She further shocks her mother by telling her she had an abortion at sixteen.
Lynda says she had no idea, and is amazed that Jill had more than one sexual partner when she was young. She wants to know if she was a hoochie in high school. Jill says technically the football player wasn't her boyfriend, and starts to say "they," and her mother wide-eyed, says, "They?" Jill says it was just the same four guys, not ten or twelve. She tells of how the next day after she slept with the one he ignored her at school. Jill is afraid here of giving her mother another heart attack.
Rhonda finds Lisa1 in her bedroom trying to take a nap. She says Group exhausted her today. Asked why, Lisa1 says it was the realities of being defensive. After Group it hit her about how defensive she has been, and it just made her tired with the awareness. Rhonda thinks that's a pretty good realization. Lisa1 says she is resenting her crutches. Rhonda says she must learn to love them if they are bringing her all this awareness, as resentment usually means we're resisting something.
Proving to be thinking much more about her life than in the past, Lisa1 says she resented her parents for not teaching her things and not helping her grown. She even resented Rhonda, because she couldn't do it, and just wanted Rhonda to do it for her. Rhonda kept saying she was working harder than Lisa1, and now Lisa1 understands. Rhonda still wonders if Lisa1 truly gets it or if she is just tell her what she wants to hear.
Lisa1 says this is all why she has been so defensive. She kept thinking they don't get me. But today, hearing it, she couldn't take it ... the truth. She realized it was her all along. Rhonda instructs her to say, "I love you, Crutch," and tells her to get a plan. She needs to make her house a home, and needs to become a leader, not follower. Coughing, Rhonda throws in "without resentment."
Iyanla, Jill and Lynda now sit down for a deeper chat, and Iyanla believes how Jill handles this will tell a lot about how she will present her case at her sentencing hearing tomorrow. Jill opens by saying she felt she sacrificed herself so that Lynda could be happy. Whenever she talked about moving, Lynda would get upset, then she had her heart attack. Lynda didn't realize Jill was blaming herself all these years for giving her mother a heart attack. She tells her it had nothing to do with Jill wanting to move to New York.
Jill tells her mother that she taught her to be independent, yet she feels like w hen she is, Lynda gets upset. Lynda feels like maybe Jill would have been better off and happier had she not survived the heart attack. Jill starts crying, saying she can't believe her mother would think she wouldn't want her to survive. She says she didn't want to move because it would be better without her mom, she just wanted to be independent. Lynda admits she's afraid of dying alone.
Pointing to the last statement, Jill says she just can't go in peace. Lynda says she was just being honest, and perhaps she should have lied. Iyanla chimes in and says absolutely not. She explains to them both that the situation is that Lynda is afraid to die alone, so clings to Jill, yet Jill feels obliged to make her mother happy. She asks the two what they want their relationship to look like.
Jill says she wants it to look like her mother has a new place to travel to find new experiences. She wants her to be happy for her. Iyanla points out to her that Lynda just hasn't found her own place of joy yet. She then says sometimes as parents we manipulate children into living our own vision for them, and not theirs.
Iyanla explains that her own daughter lived Iyanla's vision for her through her last twelve years of her life. It wasn't until her last six months of life that she realized it wasn't what she wanted; it was what her mother wanted. Lynda has to be willing to let her go. It will be much easier for her to get on a plane and come visit Jill, than visit her in a cemetery. Woah.
Jill tells Lynda she was not a bad mother; she was the best. She says she loves her more than anything, saying she is everything to her. Lynda tells Jill she is always proud of her.
With her great realization, Lisa1 is now acting as life coach to the four newest members of the house, and they aren't very appreciative, knowing she should be more worried about working on her own stuff.
Stylist Diane Bailey comes to help get Jill's look ready for her sentencing hearing tomorrow. Jill believes it's time to lose the 'locks. It's time for her authentic self to emerge. That old hair symbolizes who she was.
Iyanla meets up with Lisa2 and says Rhonda had told her about the discussion about being defensive in Group. Lisa2 tries to explain her way out of it, and says even as they speak now, Lisa2 is being defensive. She points to the landscape of life Lisa2 has been working on, and says it's not about her husband, it's about her. Iyanla also notes that Lisa2 is still wearing that horrible outfit because she hasn't taken responsibility for her own problems. It's not about blame.
Getting out Lisa2's landmark flags, Iyanla has her start writing down things she has learned. About choices, she has learned that it's not about her husband, and that she can be controlling. About being defensive, she has learned about shame, she puts a mask on, that she has lied and that it all leads to dishonesty. Iyanla shows her that all of things things relate back to herself, not to her husband. Lisa2's choices, or lack thereof, are what got her there.
Yet, Lisa2 sat there in judgement of everything her husband did. It was her stuff that got her there, though. Iyanla tells her to take responsibility for everything in her swamp. She forces Lisa2 to look in the mirror and realize the person she sees is responsible for the mess.
To further her point, Iyanla forbids Lisa2 to speak her husband's name, or words about her marriage again. She needs to realize it's all Lisa2. Calling her housemates into the room, Iyanla tells them they need to watch to make sure she doesn't mention these forbidden items, and if she does, she is to put a dollar in a bowl. Iyanla also mentions Jill's sentencing hearing the following day, and suggests they all show up wearing something they would wear to court. Lisa2 asks if that means she doesn't have to wear her hideous outfit anymore, and Iyanla decides to release her from that.
As Jill is getting her makeover, Lynda sits reading the indictment against Jill, and Jill notes that it's funny that Lynda tends to make it all about her, removing Jill completely from it. Lynda tells her she didn't think her childhood was all that bad. Jill says in school she was kind of fat, and her mother answers she thought it was the perfect childhood, and that she didn't know Jill didn't love herself. Jill pints out she was on a diet from the age of seven, and had to get her clothes from the chubby department. Lynda just keeps seeing it as in indictment on her as well, knowing she made mistakes that affected Jill's childhood. She feels Jill excelled in spite of all that, though. Jill answers that her not graduating high school should have been her mother's first sign that things weren't all that rosey.
Lynda goes down to the kitchen and pours herself a glass, not a wine glass, a tumbler of wine, and chugs it as she cries. She wishes she didn't depend on Jill so much, but feels she's the only capable of giving her unconditional love. She knows this is the best for her, but all she hears is that it is someone else that didn't want her.
You can email me at LauraBelle@realityshack.com
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