To All Impacted by This, I'm Sorry
Oi, this is gonna be a long read.
It's been brought to my attention that I've not been the nicest person to be around lately...
[sidenote -- of course I'd get one sentence into this entry and end up with that little voice in the back of my mind that calls me a narcissist for continuing to write about myself.]
Yes, I've been an ass to many people lately, and I've only recently discovered some of the reasons this has been happening. Believe it or not, this recent epiphany was brought about by the pain I've been in since the fractured molar! Yes, I've lashed out because of the intense pain, but the issue sits much deeper than that. I guess pain helps me think more clearly. As a friend of mine recently stated:
"Your pain being constant is something that you're gonna live with for a while, but the sudden spikes of pain that happen when your jaw clenches causes a fight-or-flight response. The problem with that is... well, in a normal fight-or-flight scenario, one typically has an external subject of fear, like a person holding a knife or a large animal charging at you, but in your case, your internal pain is the subject of fear. You can't run from this pain, and you can't exactly fight it either. So, you have to fight... something! In your case, this something is acting as a springboard into your Shadow which is taking on the form of unresolved issues in your life. You're not going to like hearing this, but you should take these moments and introspect on them in your moments of pain. You can use these moments to find solutions to these issues and break through your Shadow!"
As you can likely tell, this friend is a behavioral therapist who, like myself, is a fan of Jung.
Anyway, here's what I discovered; I have a long-standing fear of letting anyone get too close. There are a few incidents of betrayal that solidified this for me:
- When I was in elementary school, I had a friend whom I trusted wholeheartedly. About a year after I revealed my atheism to him, I found out that he was talking to someone else about our private conversations and using that information to spread rumors about me. This caused other students in my school to either shun or outright bully me. It got so bad that I intentionally tanked my grades in order to force my parents to pull me out of the school and start homeschooling me. Yes, I ran away from my problem.
- In high school, that previous shame didn't follow me [thankfully, the elementary school was a religious one, and about 80% of the students went on to an out-of-state academy]. I became known as the guy who could give great advice for pretty much anything, so people constantly came to me with their secrets knowing that I could keep their secrets. Well, one day, a girl approached me and said that someone told her about her boyfriend making out with another girl at a local all-ages club the previous night... a club that I frequented. I confirmed the other person's story and thought, "Well, that's that!" Nope. Later that day, her boyfriend approached me [with her not five steps behind him] and confronted me on this. I refused to engage violently, and he proceeded to bitch-slap me multiple times. Hells, I should write about this whole incident because it's... oddly entertaining. So many people offered to intervene during this incident, by the way, but I told them that I "got it under control." After this, I started closing myself off from most people.
- Also during high school, I was seeing a psychologist [member of Health and Human Services, no less] who insisted I was in a safe space and could tell her anything. By this point, I was starting to become quite jaded, but I trusted her because she's a psychologist! That's why she has the little plaque stating that she's a psychologist with a PHD and everything! Four sessions in, and I discovered exactly why I could tell her anything... and why I wasn't having any breakthroughs. The bitch was falling asleep during our fucking sessions! This is one of the few betrayals in my life that I'm still bitter about, by the way. I walked out of that fourth session and didn't look back. Honestly, I should have filed a complaint and recovered the money my parents had slapped down for that counseling, but I ran away from that, too!
- After high school, I got married. If any of my younger friends are reading this, don't get married at 19. Anyway, I confided in her. Told her my darkest secrets and whatnot. Found out she was blogging about it and posting it on her MySpace. Later, I also found out she was cheating on me with a married man... another friend of mine. There are other incidents within this time, but I'd rather not write about those. With friends like this, who needs friends, right? I divorced her right after I turned 21.
- After my divorce, I got involved with a woman who took me for just about everything I had. Well... she didn't do this directly. Her psychotic aunt [who wasn't her biological aunt] somehow wormed her way onto my lease agreement and had me evicted from my own home. All I had was my truck, my tent, maybe six days' worth of clothes, and my full-time job. I took this for what it was, wrote it all off as a loss, and lived in my tent for what was the worst winter that Fallon, NV had seen in decades. By the end of it, I had two full-time jobs and a part-time job. One day while I was getting groceries, I ran into the landlord. She explained to me that the house had been left abandoned for the previous three months and explained that she was trying to find me to ask if I'd move back in. It was a bitter success on my part, as right after I'd moved back in, the woman and her not-aunt started stalking and harassing me. I moved to a new house to stop this, and they either left me alone or couldn't find me.
- There's more, but damn... it's getting really late, and I need to conclude this damned entry.
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