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outlier_lynn

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May 4th, 2004

outlier_lynn: (Default)
Tuesday, May 4th, 2004 08:22 am
When left on my own to consider my life, there are two ways in which I have considered myself less than fully human. Two aspects of living in which I have felt inadequate. Over the last 40+ years, I have hidden myself or my defects or both. I have pretended and outright lied.

I really get that I am not defective. Getting that, though, does nothing to put an end to pain.

For clarity, let me define two terms that I use often.
PAIN. Whether physical or emotional, pain is a real and natural reaction to an event.
SUFFERING. The on going reaction to the meaning we give to the event.

Here's an insignificant example from my past. For years, I had a tendency to run into things, like door jams, when walking. It would hurt. Sometimes it would hurt a lot. That was pain. I would give it this meaning: I'm a klutz. Over time, I suffered the humiliation of being a klutz. The pain of running into stuff was real. The suffering was only as real as I made it from my beliefs about it.

That said, I am not suffering about the two areas I mentioned in the first paragraph. I have the hand I was dealt. I am not wasting my time thinking my life should be some other way. I do not feel inadequate or less than human any longer.

However, just as there was new pain each and every time I ran into a door jam or stubbed my toe, there is new pain each and every time I experience the difference. It is a sense of loss that is fresh at each triggering event. I am being provided triggering events three or four times a week.

All there is to do is feel sad while the pain lasts. Treat the wound and continue on. There is value in this. Just as I learned over three decades to miss the door jams, I will learn to brush off this recurring pain. I do want to learn faster, though.
outlier_lynn: (Default)
Tuesday, May 4th, 2004 09:41 am
It's a good day when an ex apologizes (again) and ends the call with "I love you."

Yes. It's a very good day.
outlier_lynn: (Default)
Tuesday, May 4th, 2004 09:59 am
I remember doing the time warp. No.. wait. What I remember is living a life given by fear. Not just fear, but terror. Everything and nothing was not just a potential threat, but what I perceived as a real threat.

Life occurred to me as ongoing daily threats to my physical safety.

Funny what one's perceptions bring to the table. I used to identify with rape victims who then lived in fear of men and the almost certain future they created of being raped again. In my imagination, it was the physical attack just short of being killed which was my fear.

I felt kindred. I learned pretty damn quick to keep that sentiment to myself, though. It was my experience that a victim of rape would become furious if I even hinted that I understood her pain.

My perception of life was that death was coming soon and that I had little defense. Not just death, but painful, tortured death at the hands of some sick and twisted sadistic bastard who was being urged on to higher feats of madness by a brutal audience.

Yep. That was my life for nearly 20 years. The fear never faded. The story, though, changed from fear of torture and death to a fear of emotional torture and humiliation. And that fear still lives in me. It doesn't have much power anymore, but it can still surface.

My reaction to it has changed. I seldom have my feelings hurt -- although it has happened in the last year more often than in the previous five years. I'm in a tougher crowd now.

What I notice, though, is that I am falling back into a pattern I worked very, very hard to dismantle. I am teasing people.

I declare it done. I will no longer subscribe to the "I tease you because I love you" model. I will love you because I love you. There is nothing bad or wrong about the former model, but it doesn't serve me. There is nothing bad or wrong about people who use the former model, but it doesn't serve me.

I love you because I love you. It is what I choose to do. It is how I choose to be. It is the world I choose to create.

This will not come without a cost. And it will be expensive.