Dear @BlueBay. What you write makes perfect sense to me. Sometimes we fragment ourselves in ways we then struggle to understand. We start to behave extremely about good and bad situations. We get emotional. We get decidedly uncomfortable. We feel deeply conflicted, inside and out. We even focus our eyes so much on a thing we see as negative or bad in this world of ours, that we forget to look at the true world of wonder that exists before our very eyes...
This world of wonder is a bunch of us human beings, navigating as travellers in the journey of our lives, intersecting with each other, having a huge effect on some people's lives just as they have a huge effect on you. Each day is an opportunity for a thousand smiles, more! A billion, at least, but let's start small... hahaha...
It's part of my Happiness Principle. Even a fake smile is better than no smile, to start with. That's why masks are so important to me. They have a great symbolism about hiding things behind the mask. We all do it, some of us better and for longer than others. But mask wearing is an exhausting job. Sometimes you're carrying so many masks around with you that they start to slip, or you put the wrong mask on at the wrong time...
Am I getting warm yet? Anyhoo, that's kinda been my experience from observing how I used to behave in situations that I may or may not be terribly proud of with regards to my own conduct...
Ouch! That realisation stung me at first. I'd done some bad things, reacting with anger too hastily. The stresses I was under internally and externally from my work were slowly but surely turning me into someone I didn't much like. Angry. Always angry. Always seeing the injustices in the world and obsessing about that to the exclusion of all else. Still angry... angry driver (not proud of that - ouch! That is so not me now...)... shout out loud angry at times...
I hated what I was becoming, but I couldn't control the bucking bronco of my mental health spiralling out of control - I was in a 2-year hypomanic bingefest of feeding the beast - work work work, never head turnoff time, drinking a bit too much in order to switch off at night...
I never got in a fight, but I was loud! Way too loud... and just angry... stressed and angry... and sad because I wasn't who I wanted to be. I was really expecting much better from myself. It really tore me a new one, that realisation...
I felt sad for my inner child. The one that got bashed and bullied at school (and "touched" at the age of 9 in his own home, his sanctum). The inner child that got to see a lot of negative, growing up. Lotta days without a lotta light in them. The inner child who felt hurt and ignored and neglected and let down. The inner child who used to laugh so much, but who now could only cry whenever he dropped the mask in the quiet solitude of his room at night...
We sure do tear ourselves up into different fragments, and those fragments then start fighting each other or helping each other. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good...
I used to focus on a lot of negative things in my life after the childhood I had. I'm still big on social (in)justice issues like the asylum seekers, but that's a discussion for another time...
But back then, the negatives would sweep me away. It was all I could see. No silver lining. Not even a cloud. Just jet black.
Scary place that...
There's two responses to fear like that - fight or flight. And psychologically it's easy to do both. Firstly, I would be flighty and self-deny or self-deceive or self-anything-but-face-the-truth. This would carry on for a while. Then I would have an A-Ha! moment (lightbulb and a bell going Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!) and realise what part of myself was behind these issues I was having. Then would come the fighting, as I fought amongst the fragments of my self).
This isn't like a multiple personality thing that I'm talking about (that must be an interesting and sometimes difficult life, I would imagine). I simply talk about identifiable sub-parts of yourself - the inner child being a classic example of that, and a very valid one in my view. Some things we need to nurture, like that hurt inner child. They've been locked up inside with you for a whole lotta years. There's a lot of hurt to heal, and a few life lessons to "unlearn", either because they were the wrong lessons to have learned in the first place, or because those lessons were good at the time but are now no longer helpful or appropriate...
I do ramble on, don't I? I am so sorry for intruding... I hope even a little of what I've said can be something to identify with, or if there's some obscure life lesson to learn from it, who knows?
Seems a pity to waste all that pain we went through to get where we are now. We can use pain as a motivator for continued change. Good change. Positive change. It's not always easy or possible, so we gotta lay low for a while, roll with the punches. But keep our eyes on the prize (and the price), too... hahaha... lot to do, especially when we are struggling.
Hang in there @BlueBay. I am so amazed at your strength and your courage, and your awareness of self. They are helping you to deal with all this stuff that should never have happened in life. It's so very hard, this journey of self...
And what better way than to travel with fellow journeyers? On this rocky road that we all are on, each of us on the journey of our lives...
It is an honour to walk with you all...
OMD, @Former-Member... you wonderful wonderful person. Your answer is just lovely. Brilliant! The words of a survivor. I don't think I ever thanked you just for being you back in the BlueBoard days? So, thanks for being you. You have incredible warmth and insight. I learn from you with every post...
And once more, I am brought to an OMD. @Sahara... likewise... you wonderful wonderful person. Your answer nailed it too. The warmth and wisdom...
Gotta love us peeps, huh?
Chatting and hugging our way through this.
I say again - it is an honour to walk with you all... 🙂
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