Time to go still deeper into shit I really don’t want to talk about in order to cleanse my broken my schools with the fire and blood that brings salvation at east.

Today’s question : what triggered my survival mode and how does it differ from how my life is right now? ^[1]

Good question. Focuses right on the heart of the matter.

There are a lot of candidates as to the factors that lead to my going deep into survival mode for most of my life.

Staring with being raped when I was 4 years old, of course. I am pretty sure I was a healthy, happy, carefree little kid before that. That single act absolutely crushed me psychologically. All the more because I couldn’t tell anyone that it had happened.

I didn’t even have the words to describe it.

Ad that was the worst thing that ever happened to me. But it was also 44 years ago. Nothing even remotely like that had happened since.

So it’s very bad. But it’s over. It’s safe for me to move on.

There’s my lonely home life. No love no hope no protection. Did my best to let people forge I existed. And all that.

And that also sucked deep hard and strong. But my life has not been like that for a long time. I might not be super close to my friends but I love them and they love me and we respect one another and that’s a lot more than I ever got my my family.

There was not going to kindergarten. Not good. And then there was also all the bullying I endured once I had to go to school.

School sucked in general, despite how easy I found the actual schoolwork. I was bored in class and terrified of my fellow students duress recess and lunch. I had either no friends or friends who were as likely as to bully me as be actually friends.

I did not exactly warm up to anyone.

But again, that was a long time ago. I have not been bullied since the middle of junior high school 35 years ago. That’s a very long time to be holding on to carry all this old and outdated pain around. What’s the frigging point?

And there’s the long terms effects of being socially isolated in general. I stayed stifled and isolated for so long. All because I was too scared to follow my instincts at all and too timid to explore at all and stayed locked away reading, watching TV, and playing video games all the time.

But now I have friends I love and trust and hang out with quite often. I broke that isolation and I have my friends to thanks and I love and treasure them for that.

So in conclusion, none of the things that activated my survival mode are relevant any more. My life isn’t like that. Hasn’t been for a very long time,

Ergo it is completely safe for me to let go of all that ancient baggage and let it wither away as I stretch my wings, catch the wingers, and fly off into the sunset.

More after the break.

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Phew! That took a lot out of me to write. I don’t think I have ever had to work that hard to overcome my own resistance before.

My brain was fighting me so hard that I kept forgetting how to spell basic words and making egregious typos as well.

And all I can say about that its : Fuckin-a. Bring it on. I will eat that up like chocolate cake because I know damned well that this is how progress is made.

The more it hurts, the more good is does me. So bring. It. ON.

More after the break.

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Let it go

Wouldn’t let me embed (???) so I have to do this instead.

When last we heard from our hero, he was (sort of) talking about the need to let all those nasty things from the ancient past go so he can get on with living.

And as I type those words, I realize that I have, in fact, been clinging to them.

But why? Hard to say. Maybe because they gave me an excuse not to deal with reality. We depressed type people have a real knack for hoarding excuses to use to build a wall between us and the dreaded real world.

And they accrue in layers, so that should one excuse fall, another instantly springs into place to replace it. The distance between us and reality must be maintained!

That’s the root cause of those seemingly paradoxical arguments where the non-depressed person tries to show the depressive that things are not as bad as they think and the depressive insists extremely strenuously, to the point of screaming in rage, that things ARE as bad as they think if not much, much worse.

Despite appearances, these two people are not on the same side.

From the depressive’s point of view, you are trying to take their precious, precious excuses away and that feels like a mortal attack.

Most of us don’t know this consciously, of course.

And maybe I cling to my past because I have no faith in the present or the future. Or maybe my illnesses have kept me from getting the sort of stimuli I would need in order to move forward and make some kind of life for myself.

I’ve been in the doldrums for so long that I can’t remember wind.

I want to let go of my past. I want to chuck it all in the recycling bin then hit flush. Be done with it forever.

But I am still scared of how little that will leave me with, too.

The secret is to look at the empty space left behind not as a lack or something missing but as much needed space for a new life and new experiences.

Now if only that didn’t sound so scary….

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.