More from alt.support.depression.flame

From: erminia - view profile
Date: Sun, Aug 19 2001 11:24 pm
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in article 2c40otoshoau11j2uplcrdne42pb3ol...@4ax.com, Janithor at
janit...@pacbell.net wrote on 8/19/01 1:23 PM:
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> On Sun, 19 Aug 2001 15:44:33 GMT, erminia
> wrote:
>> I remember that from school -- the people who earned their place on the
>> totem pole by attacking people like me. It was so obvious what they were
>> doing, I never really took them seriously. Which only made them madder.
>> Once, in eighth grade, some girl threaten to push me down the stairs. In
>> front of some other girls. She was really loud about it. I just looked at
>> her. Kept looking at her until she and her friends went away. From then on
>> I always acted as though she and her friends did not exist. Because what
>> they want really is attention, everybody looking at them.

> Ignoring them didn't help me at all. It just egged them on. But
> sometimes I think, maybe it was because I wasn't *really* ignoring
> them. I used to be extremely hyper-focused on how people were
> reacting to me. I did this as clandestinely as possible, making very
> good use of peripheral vision. I'm thinking now that my behavior was
> probably not normal because of this, and this may have cued them in
> that something was wrong with me, that I was extremely uptight.
> Which, of course, makes me an ideal target of opportunity. Actually,
> probably my whole body language worked against me: quiet, not
> friendly, not open, tense, insecure, everything, really.

> ______________________________
> x-no-archive is in the headers


Yeah, body language can send all kinds of messages that you may not want to
send. And people always get those messages, though maybe not conciously.
At the time of the incident I related above, my body language had started
changing. Some family members say that I developed a particularly lethal
glare at about this time. The reality was that I was standing right on the
brink of becoming a truely nasty piece of work. The constant mental and
emotional abuse of my childhood was adding up to something vicious.

Fortunately for the rest of the world out there, I used to read a lot of
history and biography. Looking for people who'd been through similar
difficulties. Found them. Was not thrilled by what they let their
childhoods turn them into. Decided to find another way. But kept the
attitude and the glare.

It's quite a balancing act, it really is. Keeping the attitude and the
glare without turning into another monster. Gawd, it would be soooo easy to
just slip over the edge.

Erminia

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From: erminia - view profile
Date: Mon, Aug 20 2001 11:28 pm
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in article a6s1otsk526g7eof92u4eq35tfdviqj...@4ax.com, Janithor at
janit...@pacbell.net wrote on 8/20/01 5:37 AM:
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> On Mon, 20 Aug 2001 03:24:13 GMT, erminia
> wrote:
>> Yeah, body language can send all kinds of messages that you may not want to
>> send. And people always get those messages, though maybe not conciously.

>> At the time of the incident I related above, my body language had started
>> changing. Some family members say that I developed a particularly lethal
>> glare at about this time. The reality was that I was standing right on the
>> brink of becoming a truely nasty piece of work. The constant mental and
>> emotional abuse of my childhood was adding up to something vicious.

>> Fortunately for the rest of the world out there, I used to read a lot of
>> history and biography. Looking for people who'd been through similar
>> difficulties. Found them. Was not thrilled by what they let their
>> childhoods turn them into. Decided to find another way. But kept the
>> attitude and the glare.

>> It's quite a balancing act, it really is. Keeping the attitude and the
>> glare without turning into another monster. Gawd, it would be soooo easy to
>> just slip over the edge.

> Interesting. What happened to you, and who did you read about that
> had a similiar situation as you?


My mother found out when I was still a toddler that so long as she did not
hit me or otherwise cause physical damage, she could use whatever other
abusive methods she wanted. Dad wasn't around enough to see what was
happening. The Army kept sending him away, sometimes for a year at a time.
(Dad had an "interesting" career.) At the same time my parents literally
spoiled my brother and sister rotten. They were both raised to believe that
they should have whatever they wanted just because they want it, never mind
who they hurt in the process. (I am continually amazed that neither of them
has turned to crime. Well, they haven't yet.) It was my role to be the bad
child -- worthless, lazy, shiftless, useless, a shame to the family, a
continual source of disappoint to her parents, etc. And I was not allowed
out of that role, no matter what I did.
Oh, and I wasn't allowed to have friends of any kind either, child or adult,
because mother didn't "want anyone to influence me." Her words.
Socialization has been a problem.

I turned 44 this year, and my family still has me in that role.

In the fifth grade the school library suddenly got a lot of new books. One
of them was a bio of Josef Stalin. That made me sit up and pay attention.
An awful lot of the people who get write-ups in the history books have had
difficult or worse childhoods. And if you want me to list all of them, I'm
sorry but I don't think I could. Any of the Valois Kings of France. The
Tudors, especially Henry VII and his granddaughter Elizabeth I. But Stalin
kinda stands out there.

It did take a few years before I could find a balance between doormat and
monster. I read as much history as the librarians would let me, then turned
to psychology. (I still regard Freud with a certain amount of fondness,
despite the silliness of his theory about women and penis envy. Hey, he
gave us all something to laugh about!) In college I earned a B.A. in
History, largely because I find the history books more useful in explaining
people and what they do than the works of sociology or psychology.

Yeah, i could ramble on some more, but this is probably more than you wanted
to know in the first place.

> I developed an angry, silent glare too. It both helped and hurt me.
> It really served it's purpose initially. Cynicism helped protect me
> immensely from my own pathos and stupidity. But in the long run, it
> still hurt me. It's pretty f'd up. It was something I had to go
> through and then had to get out of.

But you need to remember that boys and girls fight differently. Or, at
least, they did back in the 60s and 70s where I lived. The girls were more
verbal, the boys more willing to hit. (I still think that chick who
threatened to push me down the stairs frightened herself more than me.) I
managed to avoid cynicsm, but became *very* skeptical of everything around
me. That has it's hazards too. No, I haven't let go of the skepticism, but
then I live in D.C. :)
> I could easily have turned into a monster. Every day I am thankful
> that I did not choose that path.
> ______________________________
> x-no-archive is in the headers


I figure if I accomplish nothing else in my life, at least I have succeeded
in keeping myself from turning into something horrible. People don't
understand what a stuggle that is, or how very brave and stubborn you have
to be to succeed.
Kudos to both of us.

Erminia