Reflecting on Events

My last home in Simi Valley, Ca



My new home in Halifax, Va

I have been looking at my past posts and trying to figure out what I would like this blog to be about.

I have done emotional posts and I have done innocuous posts more about the differences in my everyday life, you know, the writing that will not get me into trouble with anyone. 

Guess which one gets more hits and more comments?  The more emotional writings.

Plus, I believe that there is a lot of my family reading and I did preface this blog with a disclaimer.  I do not want to hurt or offend, but if you are interested in my brutal gut-wrenching facts, which I don't mind sharing, then you need to be willing to deal with the aftermath of emotions.

I was stunned at the amount of guilt others expressed to me when I shared some of the events of my early childhood.  I am glad, guilt is one of the very few emotion that spurns a change in behaviour.  The problem?  I have no need of your guilt.  I have my own to deal with.  I do not like pity either, now I know that certain feeling is connected to my pride.  I feel inferior when it takes pity for someone to be nice to me, but even more than that, things don't normally go well if that is the reason for someone taking an intersest in me because I tend to get abandoned the first chance presented.  I don't blame them.  The person did not invite me because they wanted to be with me, but because they felt an obligation.  That hurts much more then being ignored.  To witness first hand how inept I am with other people, to know that my personality is not enough to overcome the awkwardness.  I figured out pretty early that I needed a PR rep, a scout to run ahead and prepare the others for me.  I badly need an advocate to break the ice and translate for me. 

I also do not dwell on my abuse.  I do not poke at the wound to make it fester.  I am fascinated by the people who hold grudges.  I do not understand why I would want to stunt myself and give the abuser that much control over me.  I feel sorry for the person who makes me atarget to feel better because to me, they have the deficiency.

The point is... I do not share my traumas to get a reaction from others.  I have a very specific reason for writing the abuse down. 

I want you to know why I make my decisions.

I feel that my learned behaviours are often criticised and if I twist my head and squint my eyes I can usually see it from the other persons point of view.  Which then strips me of my defenses because I can see how they are correct for what their eyes see.   What hurts me so much is the fact that they are Wrong! So very wrong about the why of my action and my explanation usually make things worse.  I am not lazy and I am not malicious. And for someone to really believe that of me cuts deeply into my soul.

So the reason I share what effected me while growing up is what I see as the roots to my misunderstood behaviour.  To me I act perfectly normal and I usually don't know I have caused harm until an explosive confrontation.  I do not like confrontation.  I get tongue tied and feel like I have been blind-sided.  I can take criticism, but not when I am being yelled at.  If you don't like sometime I do then TELL ME!  I am not a little kid who will cry.  I will try my very best to change.  I have always felt like an adaptable person, as long as you take me in consideration of your choice I can handle a lot of things.  I do have two problems.  I can't change how I think and things will never work out between us if I don't like you.  I had a roommate I disliked and to keep life civil I did not speak to her.  She asked me why one day and I just said I had nothing to say, which was true.  She kept pestering me to answer why I didn't talk to her and I almost blurted out that I had nothing nice to say to her.  I wanted to go off of her, but I kept control and let her believe what she wanted about me.

I am the kid that touches the hot stove and then tries to figure out what part of that event caused the pain.  That is what I did growing up, it is what I do now.  I never thought I deserved the treatment I received, but I did think that I had done something to trigger the response, good or bad.  I believe it is my job to figure out the trigger and to avoid it at all costs, if that means disappearing or not interacting with others than so be it.  People on the whole disappoint me.  I don't like to be disappointed, so I avoid them now.

I do not believe people as a whole are evil.  I do think their are some born on the fence and something makes them tip, but mostly I have learned that people strike out due to hurt and to fear.  And for some reason I have a target on my back... and on my head...and on my chest....and so on.

I have always felt that if I could figure out why I was considered a target then the ill treatment would end.  Unfortunately, That hasn't been the case.  My best defense has been to disappear.  That strategy comes with many downsides, but I have learned to live with them and even like the quiet.

I don't want to talk much about the recent rampages our society has had to face, but I do want to offer a little sliver of insight into maybe what those young men were feeling because I too would entertain the thoughts of taking a rifle, going to the top of a building and picking off the horrible people who made my everyday life a living hell. 

For me the fantasy felt wrong.  Not only did I know that I could not practical achieve the goal, but I knew I could not deal with the consequences.  I think that is one of the marked differences in men and women.  Men are able to turn off their feeling to get the job done and feel comfort in the practical tasks needed to reach their goals.  Planning is very fulfilling whether it is renovating a bathroom or organising the purchase of weapons, planning in its self is the comfort.

Then to actually go through with the thoughts, well that takes a complete turn off of emotion.  But where is the why? For me, I wanted desperately to be heard.  I thought I wanted my opinions to matter to the world.  I thought I wanted to be a superstar with fame and money.  That wasn't it.  It has taken time for me to figure it out, but I just wanted a safe, non-judgemental person that would listen to me.  I needed to feel connected even if I didn't feel understood.  The men who performed the violence felt in control, they felt feared and the felt power, all of the emotions that were missing from their every day lives and for the short while of the rampage everyone in the world listen.

How powerful is that result.  To know that people across the world were listening to your brutal actions and they understood, maybe not the why, but they understood the pain and fear of the victims and our hearts went out.

We have become capable of huge leaps in technology.  We can talk and see people across the world and that is fantastic, but are we taking care of the people close to us.  I am sorry to say, but for many, there were breakdowns in the families of the people who performed these acts of violence.  And was their a community to back the family up?  Was there a church group?  How about scouts or a Boys and Girls club?  When I felt my family was useless and my school was hell, it ended up being my church friends that made the difference in my life.  We are drifting from the core of where we live for the support we need.  We are looking to professionals to "fix the problems" when we only see them once a week and in reality children are stuck in the house for hours, but they never talk because one person is on the computer while another person is on the laptop.  I know.  I have seen it happen and my jaw drops.  To me when you are in the room with another person you talk and engage, if you are not interested in doing that then you leave.

Teenagers are roaming the mall not in chattering excited groups, but with a cell phone in their hand typing away.  The disconnection and inability to even see the lay of the land on a level deeper that bubble gum frightens me.  I worked with behavioural children that needed deeper ways of connecting because talking about the weather or the local sports them wasn't going to work with them.  Now I am finding we all need to learn how to have an active, meaningful conversation with another person in front of us.

Please, take care of those closest to you.  Choose to listen and observe those family and friends that matter to your heart, because everyone needs to be known well enough that we can be talked down from the ledge.

I know I am "preaching to the choir" when I write this.  I am amazed at the good mothers I see in my close and extended family and I do not envy the sacrifices that are made by the children's parents.