changing myself is not easy.
change is easy. Deliberate change, not so much.
I never really felt like I needed friends, but that I might need friends, that friends looked like a pretty important thing, and so I prioritized people and spoke of them as priorities and just followed those rules of good social behaviour.
I don't feel that I've received the same in return. I feel like I've been judged and rejected and subsequently abused far too often and welcomed far too seldom. When I have been, it's been by strangers. Once they knew me, it seems they either drifted off or pushed me out.
I was looking at the spruce trees in front of my house. All adult trees. Five of them. One, like my Father, off to the side, independant and strong. One other very large, at the other end, like my brother, leaning way out. If he was human he wouldn't be there. Another two large ones, one bigger than the other, represent my mother and sister, and which is which I could not say. I think the daughter outgrew the mother. Then there's this little starvling peeking out under the shadow of it's sibling's branches, those branches crowding it and taking the sunshine, their roots taking the water. How even is that little one still alive? That one is me. Right out front of my very own yard, a little vignette of my family.
My experiences of other people have been terrible from childhood onward. I can say it's been different since the cancer, but I'm not sure that's true because what it's been is me not even trying anymore. I still get that weirding feeling around other people but of course I can't say it's them, not at all, and it's much more likely I'm just making it up now. Or not. I never knew. Was I sensing it or projecting it? I only evern thought about it after the fact so could not make any inquiries or tests or examine the situation closer. Plus which that effort wouldn't do me any good in the "not that weird" category.
But you know it's not being weird that bothers me at all. It's others being afraid of me because of it. I was a pacifist before I stopped sucking my thumb! I seriously went through childhood a dedicated pacifist. Why do you think they bullied me as hard as they did? I could not fight them. I did not fight them. they didn't understand and when adults asked, I gave them my speech about fighting being wrong, that I would not fight, no matter what. As a little kid I was having these arguments. People threw that whole "what if" stuff at me and back then, I could only shrug and say I'd figure it out if it happend.
i'm talking about grade school here, it started in kindergarten, well even earlier. Pretty much as soon as I could talk I was lecturing on pacifism, even without having the language to do it.
Well I had a quick hard cry about that child whom I was being so ignored and unvalued.
Ok so why are people afraid? Do they think I'm repressing and going to explode? I sorted that out in my 20s, but anyway, I do wish people would chill the F out.
Ok so I'm taking a people break. Indefinitely. And while I'm doing that it gives me this new power of refusal I never had. I can decide to just not engage and can state outright that I'm just not taking on friends.
So I'm noticing while I do so, that I'm seeing the narcs out there. I'm spotting them by the wrinkles on their faces! i'm spotting little tells and hints. it's all quite alarming because I really worry I'm just seeing it everywhere out of confirmation bias! I think if I just ride it out, though, the perception should balance out in time. Like how I don't spot red cars in traffic anymore because it doesn't mean pinch or be pinched. Why did we have so many "games" that involve excuses to deal out pain? Where did they come from? Who taught them to us and why?
Well so mostly I wanted to examine this whole thing about seeing narcs everywhere. I mean, I think they ARE everywhere. Look how many my family held and how many victims you can find online. They're all over the media industry too. They're very successful in the money world. In fact they're this era's heroes! So to see them everywhere isn't so crazy. I should try harder to spot people who aren't narcs perhaps? but then I don't want to make friends, just learn to avoid people, so I can worry about finding good people when I'm ready to change again I suppose.
I honestly think my life will be better, not worse, and mostly unchanged, by this decision. I will not lose any community or any support of any kind. I will not lose any company or entertainment of any kind. I have already been living this way since the cancer took my energy away. More than 20 years. And when the energy went, so too went a lot of hobbies like kayaking and cycling and hiking and photography. So I picked up new hobbies that can be done from a chair. then new ones I could do lying down. As I was getting sick, my unwellness drove away the rest of the community I called friends. They were disappointed with me and my lack of character or something, because they decided I was being lazy. I was fat because I was lazy. I wasn't showing up for things because I was too lazy. etc. I was even told so by one or two blunt people.
I was so damn sick and fighting it like a demon and if I complained about the exhaustion and pain, being told it was because I was too fat and lazy. And I was still working like an iron man and in fact my energy drop still didn't put me down at the level of an ordinary couch potato desk jockey. But people judged me also a liar and turned away and left me to die, pretty much. Thing is, we don't die, people, we just suffer harder and harder and harder and so, fuck you all.
yeah, so nice people. I don't really know what the fuck they are. I understand a business relationship where I'm the customer or the contractor, and I don't understand much else. I'm too gunshy now to even want to try.
This is why I don't hold that part against Dan too hard, his utter lack of friends. I can believe he feels that way about people.
How in hell do you find good people? See, I think maybe they're just hiding from me because I don't come through as good people and that leaves me wondering why. Or I'm afraid of them on sight and not ready?
I really am hopeful about giving up on people. Hopeful I can keep it up and make it stronger, hopeful I can remake myself in that isolation, hopeful I can get what I need in spite of having nobody to call on.
All that being said, Dan and Tom are still in my world, and that seems reasonable to me. They are two people who have been there in their own way through my journey and haven't judged me. Dan judges everyone stupider and if they've got an innie they're definitely less apt, and that's his idiocy. I mean it's not personal, it's just habitual. oh I can't keep on this, the puppy hates it and keeps distracting me and I can't keep the thread. I think I worked out thoughts somewhere up there anyway. Certainly the realization of utterly rare and incredible it was to be such a pacifist as I was, that's stunning. I don't think i can tell anyone, they'd only think I was lying. But I can hold it close and tell myself there's something precious there and it might mean something in the future. Also, I need to find out when Lobsang Jivaka died. If he didn't outlive me, maybe I'm him come back to redo it differently?
After a brief search, he died the year before I was concieved and born. I didn't get the month but it's not that important, because the time frame is so narrow if you count from conception, not my birth. It could have been just enough time for him to find my parents. It sits right inside of me after I sit with it a bit.
I really must finish reading that book.
I never really felt like I needed friends, but that I might need friends, that friends looked like a pretty important thing, and so I prioritized people and spoke of them as priorities and just followed those rules of good social behaviour.
I don't feel that I've received the same in return. I feel like I've been judged and rejected and subsequently abused far too often and welcomed far too seldom. When I have been, it's been by strangers. Once they knew me, it seems they either drifted off or pushed me out.
I was looking at the spruce trees in front of my house. All adult trees. Five of them. One, like my Father, off to the side, independant and strong. One other very large, at the other end, like my brother, leaning way out. If he was human he wouldn't be there. Another two large ones, one bigger than the other, represent my mother and sister, and which is which I could not say. I think the daughter outgrew the mother. Then there's this little starvling peeking out under the shadow of it's sibling's branches, those branches crowding it and taking the sunshine, their roots taking the water. How even is that little one still alive? That one is me. Right out front of my very own yard, a little vignette of my family.
My experiences of other people have been terrible from childhood onward. I can say it's been different since the cancer, but I'm not sure that's true because what it's been is me not even trying anymore. I still get that weirding feeling around other people but of course I can't say it's them, not at all, and it's much more likely I'm just making it up now. Or not. I never knew. Was I sensing it or projecting it? I only evern thought about it after the fact so could not make any inquiries or tests or examine the situation closer. Plus which that effort wouldn't do me any good in the "not that weird" category.
But you know it's not being weird that bothers me at all. It's others being afraid of me because of it. I was a pacifist before I stopped sucking my thumb! I seriously went through childhood a dedicated pacifist. Why do you think they bullied me as hard as they did? I could not fight them. I did not fight them. they didn't understand and when adults asked, I gave them my speech about fighting being wrong, that I would not fight, no matter what. As a little kid I was having these arguments. People threw that whole "what if" stuff at me and back then, I could only shrug and say I'd figure it out if it happend.
i'm talking about grade school here, it started in kindergarten, well even earlier. Pretty much as soon as I could talk I was lecturing on pacifism, even without having the language to do it.
Well I had a quick hard cry about that child whom I was being so ignored and unvalued.
Ok so why are people afraid? Do they think I'm repressing and going to explode? I sorted that out in my 20s, but anyway, I do wish people would chill the F out.
Ok so I'm taking a people break. Indefinitely. And while I'm doing that it gives me this new power of refusal I never had. I can decide to just not engage and can state outright that I'm just not taking on friends.
So I'm noticing while I do so, that I'm seeing the narcs out there. I'm spotting them by the wrinkles on their faces! i'm spotting little tells and hints. it's all quite alarming because I really worry I'm just seeing it everywhere out of confirmation bias! I think if I just ride it out, though, the perception should balance out in time. Like how I don't spot red cars in traffic anymore because it doesn't mean pinch or be pinched. Why did we have so many "games" that involve excuses to deal out pain? Where did they come from? Who taught them to us and why?
Well so mostly I wanted to examine this whole thing about seeing narcs everywhere. I mean, I think they ARE everywhere. Look how many my family held and how many victims you can find online. They're all over the media industry too. They're very successful in the money world. In fact they're this era's heroes! So to see them everywhere isn't so crazy. I should try harder to spot people who aren't narcs perhaps? but then I don't want to make friends, just learn to avoid people, so I can worry about finding good people when I'm ready to change again I suppose.
I honestly think my life will be better, not worse, and mostly unchanged, by this decision. I will not lose any community or any support of any kind. I will not lose any company or entertainment of any kind. I have already been living this way since the cancer took my energy away. More than 20 years. And when the energy went, so too went a lot of hobbies like kayaking and cycling and hiking and photography. So I picked up new hobbies that can be done from a chair. then new ones I could do lying down. As I was getting sick, my unwellness drove away the rest of the community I called friends. They were disappointed with me and my lack of character or something, because they decided I was being lazy. I was fat because I was lazy. I wasn't showing up for things because I was too lazy. etc. I was even told so by one or two blunt people.
I was so damn sick and fighting it like a demon and if I complained about the exhaustion and pain, being told it was because I was too fat and lazy. And I was still working like an iron man and in fact my energy drop still didn't put me down at the level of an ordinary couch potato desk jockey. But people judged me also a liar and turned away and left me to die, pretty much. Thing is, we don't die, people, we just suffer harder and harder and harder and so, fuck you all.
yeah, so nice people. I don't really know what the fuck they are. I understand a business relationship where I'm the customer or the contractor, and I don't understand much else. I'm too gunshy now to even want to try.
This is why I don't hold that part against Dan too hard, his utter lack of friends. I can believe he feels that way about people.
How in hell do you find good people? See, I think maybe they're just hiding from me because I don't come through as good people and that leaves me wondering why. Or I'm afraid of them on sight and not ready?
I really am hopeful about giving up on people. Hopeful I can keep it up and make it stronger, hopeful I can remake myself in that isolation, hopeful I can get what I need in spite of having nobody to call on.
All that being said, Dan and Tom are still in my world, and that seems reasonable to me. They are two people who have been there in their own way through my journey and haven't judged me. Dan judges everyone stupider and if they've got an innie they're definitely less apt, and that's his idiocy. I mean it's not personal, it's just habitual. oh I can't keep on this, the puppy hates it and keeps distracting me and I can't keep the thread. I think I worked out thoughts somewhere up there anyway. Certainly the realization of utterly rare and incredible it was to be such a pacifist as I was, that's stunning. I don't think i can tell anyone, they'd only think I was lying. But I can hold it close and tell myself there's something precious there and it might mean something in the future. Also, I need to find out when Lobsang Jivaka died. If he didn't outlive me, maybe I'm him come back to redo it differently?
After a brief search, he died the year before I was concieved and born. I didn't get the month but it's not that important, because the time frame is so narrow if you count from conception, not my birth. It could have been just enough time for him to find my parents. It sits right inside of me after I sit with it a bit.
I really must finish reading that book.