...is really just a form of torture. I find myself doing it when I get scared. I guess I could describe it as some sort of need to be taken care of, but it's a screwed up way to do it.
I find when I get scared, I yearn for something — anything — to make me feel better.
I guess that's why people take drugs or act out, but since I'm not into that anymore, I'm really, really trying to go deep and see the things that I do to myself emotionally to torture myself.
As I'm writing this I see how crazy it is. In a healthy world, if I were scared I would want a hug, and if there is no one around for a hug, then I should at least be gentle with myself.
Believe me, I've gotten much better at this. I used to wake up in the morning and not be able to get out of bed until I found something to worry about.
Once I did, I would jump out of bed and begin my day.
I guess that is the same effect that drugs have on your body.
They give you a false sense of moving forward, all the while taking you down.
Imagine what that does to my nervous system?
My career is taking off again and with that comes all the feelings about why I shut it down to begin with.
Growing up, I looked like a boy and all I wanted to do was look like a girl.
But once I did, I experienced what it felt like to be a girl and sometimes it was painful.
I used to think that boys had it made, that they didn't have any feelings and that they got away with murder.
I remember a therapist telling me that that was not the case. Oftentimes it's much harder to be a guy because their emotions are all jammed up inside them.
It's easy to hear it, but to integrate it is a whole other ball game.
Ha! Ballgame. I have forever been jealous of boys and their sports and the money they make.
I've been jealous of them my whole life (boys I mean).
Some of it is old feelings and some of it is a reality.
Sexism is alive and well today and oftentimes it's perpetuated by women.
Even I can be guilty of it. If I hate being a woman sometimes, then what will I manifest with other women?
And don't even get me started on the guys. If I'm so jealous of them, how can I ever get outside of myself and be loving and compassionate towards them.
The anger that I feel sometimes when I suffer a some slight because of sexism is almost unbearable.
It used to be any slight of any kind.
I think that it’s the anger that made me shut down.
I couldn't tolerate it, I couldn't process it. I remember being in therapy one time and being so mad inside, but on the outside I was weepy.
My therapist asked me why I was weepy.
A year later it hit me: I express my anger through weeping because that's the socially acceptable thing for a girl to do.
Here's my theory: guys are terrified of a woman's anger because they couldn't tolerate their mommy's anger. They hated how powerless that made them feel so they never want to feel that way again.
Well as sad as it may be, we are all grown ups now and just as I need to look at my own reasons for holding myself back and not having enough love and compassion for men, the men need to do the same.
They say that sometimes the anger or feelings are so intense when you first feel them because they are repressed childhood feelings. Those feelings are harder to feel, but if you can allow them to come out and process them in healthy way, they will not always be that intense.
I think they call that the maturation process.
Which is much more difficult to go through in you later years, but never impossible.
So for today, I'm going to let all my childhood feelings come up about how mad I was that I was born a girl and how jealous I am of how guys get it easier sometimes.
I will sit here and think about how when I was little no one let me feel my anger. They were beating the shit out of me and I wasn't supposed to have anger. I would spend hours in my room sleeping and repressing my anger.
Flash forward to my sitcom Costello. The executives hid behind the walls telling me not to be a bitch and "don't be like Rosanne."
I had appropriate reasons to not be happy about what was going on on that set, but what did I do?
I went home to bed.
I had a director (a man) say to me, "I wish I had a Mercedes when I was 30." I had a guy who was jealous that it wasn't his show. A guy that I fought to get on that show.
The show was called Costello and they all had jobs because of me and what did I do? I went to bed.
Well now I am able to feel the powerlessness that I have over the fact which will fuel me to my healthy anger to get something done!
Being a girl has gotten me fucked and not in the good way.
I'm beginning to feel worthy of what I have and being a girl is very powerful. I mean we do create life.