September 2, 1998
I was a real goody two-shoes when I was younger. Today, I've decided to
re-establish some of those standards. I've never really cared for crude and
dirty jokes, but over the years, I had "lightened up" a little. I still
would not pass them on, but I wouldn't tell the person telling the jokes not
to tell/send them to me, so they wouldn't feel that I was judging them.
Today, it was more than I could take.
For the past couple of months, I have read many stories of incest and
child abuse and it has made a deep impression on me. During this same time,
an acquaintance has gone from sending humor mixed with a few dirty jokes, to
sending me almost exclusively crude stuff. It is strange, I have been sending
mostly clean stuff, with only an occasional innuendo, and she has repaid this
by sending me even more explicit stuff.
Today, she sent me a joke based on a child observing his parents' sexual acts.
I became nauseous and almost burst into tears. I knew I couldn't read another
one of these things. So, I did what I should have done a month or two ago -
I told her to stop sending this stuff to me. I'm also going to ask an in-law
to stop too. I can't be even a passive partner to this debasing attitude
anymore. I wish I hadn't lower my standards in the first place.
September 10, 1998
Alas, I have been negligent in my journal entries, but I have not put
off my efforts to become better. This weekend I have done some deep
soul searching and typed it up somewhere else. Tonight, I give you
the edited version:
Though I am usually good at judging character, I have a blind spot
when it comes to women who resemble my mother. I realize that part of
it is the psychological need to fix these women, in place of my mother.
I realize that I need to give up this fruitless task.
But what exactly is my blind spot? By its very definition, a
blindspot is something I can't see. It's sort of like a black hole.
Perhaps I should treat it like that? You find a black hole by studying
what surrounds it.
So, what surrounds my black hole? I don't have this blind spot with
men, which may be why I trust them more, because I see them clearer.
The one male I met that resembled my mother the most, I despised
completely. The hairs on the back of my neck would stand up whenever
he was around. He used false flattery to manipulate everyone around
him, and would carefully twist words to cause trouble. It was all I
could do to be civil to him. Finally, I gave up and just let the
insults come out. He's the only person in this universe that I ever
felt the need to insult. He still talks to a few of my siblings, and
they say he has changed, but then, they never understood why I didn't
trust him in the first place. He never asks about me anymore.
hehehe...
Okay. So, we can eliminate men from my list of possibilities.
Hmmmm... Let's see about women. H's mom is a lot like M, but
I mistrusted her before I even realized who she was. M is a lot
like my mother and so is my old friend N. Mom, M, and N are
the top three poeple this blindspot has been the most obvious with.
Well, I guess the next step is to list their more outstanding
attributes and compare them.
Mom - childish, manipulative, wants to be the center of attention,
wants to be revered, short tempered, twists words, likes to take
credit for others acheivements, very strong sense of denial, artistic,
talkative, lazy, inconsiderate.
N - wants to be revered, tries to change people so she can take
credit, likes to be the center of attention, friendly, talkative, very
strong sense of denial, concerned with status, admires creativity but
doesn't exhibit much herself, slave to current trends.
M - arrogant, manipulative, wants to be revered - thinks she should be
considered a wise person, very strong sense of denial, artistic, short
tempered, talkative, lazy, argumentative, inconsiderate.
Excluded:
H's mom - strong sense of denial, manipulative, narrow-minded, frowns
frequently, concerned with status, inconsiderate, dislikes creativity.
Possible blindspot characteristics:
A desire to be revered and the center of attention.
Talkative.
This list didn't do me much good, so I called one of my best friends
and asked what was it about M that worried her to the point of
advising me to stop dealing with her.
Anyhow, my friend said that one of the things she noticed about M was
that she was so emotionally needy that she seem to suck the life out
of the people around her. The same could be easily said for Mom and N
- and for other friends of mine who have caused me frustration in the
past. I could also add a sense of bluster - the ability to sound as
if they are strong, when they are not.
It's probably the bluster part combined with the neediness that gets
me, because H and a few other emotionally needy people I know, don't
cause the emotional and mental damage. As I sit here and contemplate
this, other names fall into this catagory. Twelve women came to mind
without any effort.....some of these women caused more damage than
others...some of these women meant well, but their own problems
blinded them to the effects of their actions.
Hmmm....
I will need to meditate on this for awhile and figure out how I can
erase this blindspot of mine....
September 17, 1998
Seems like I'm doing the weekly journal thing this month...
Well, due to a miscalculation on my part, I missed taking my firbomyalgia
medication twice last week. Yes, I paid for this laspe in my medication. I
was so sore Friday it was unreal and I have been taking lots of naps to make
up for my inability to get to sleep.
Speaking of naps, I took a slight one this morning, complete with dreams.
Twice I came near wakefulness and thought I heard my children playing in the
living room with the television on. It sounded so real that I had a small anxiety
episode, thinking that my children missed the school bus. Then I remembered
that there was no way they go get into the house without me knowing and forced
myself to listen harder. As I did, the sounds of children and television
disappeared and I heard only the sounds of the ceiling fans and
airconditioner.
After the second time, instead of going back to sleep I laid on the bed and
examined what was going on. The sounds of children and TV had to come from my
memory and misinterpeted by my concious mind. The perceived reality of it
all still bothered me and I remembered my mom telling me that she thought that
one of the houses we lived in was haunted. She said she would be wakened by
the sounds of a baby crying, but when she went to find this baby - there was
no one crying. Sometimes we kids were somewhere else and Mom was the only one
in the house. It occurred to me that what my mom had experienced was probably
the some thing that happened to me. She had four small children at the time
and undoubtedly had several memories of an infant crying. The difference was
that I recognized the source to be my own subconcious and she was positive
it came from outside herself.
Using what I know about fibromyalgia, I think I have a pretty good idea what
happened. When a fibromyalgia sufferer is monitored during sleep, they show
an alpha-delta wave distrubance. Alpha waves occur in the semi-conscious
state of sleep. Delta wave occur in the deepest portion of non-REM, when
the body does its daily celluar repairs. People with fibromyalgia will have
alpha waves intrude during the delta portion of sleep, usually causing them
to go back to the alpha portion or wake up. I must of had my alpha waves
interrupting my REM sleep - making the dream seem real.
These brings me to another thought. Could it be that sanity is merely a
matter of awareness? Of being able to differentiate where a stimulus is
actually coming from and acting appropriately? Could my experience this
morning be classified as a hallucination? The doctors tell me I am not
schizophrenic, but could the only thing keeping me from becoming a
schizophrenic be my ability to analytically question my laspes of reality?
The doctors are probably right about me, but I once read a study of
how a certain ratio of niacin and Vitamin C reduced the severity of
schizophrenic episodes, and I have a dietary supplement with the correct ratio
which I haven't been taking for a couple of months. I think I'll go back
to taking it - just to quiet my doubts...
September 18, 1998
Consistency is obviously not one of my strong points ;-)
A friend wrote this to me yesterday, after reading my last journal entry:
"the definition of madness is the inability to respond appropriately to a
situation. that's what i learned in linguistics class, and it was what my
prof. said would be the ultimate undoing of artificial intelligence. you
would never get a computer to respond appropriately to a given situation.
you're able to step outside your box and look at all options in a given
situation, so i find you more than sane...supersane!"
It's so nice to have good friends . . .
Meanwhile -
I've been contemplating the concept of someone being functionally
schizophrenic. After all, people can be functionally autistic - the
human mind has yet to shown itself to be a quantum entity, but rather
a continuous spectrum of function and disorder. So, it is probably
quite possible for someone to have mild schizophrenia and still have
some control over its manifestations.
I know my sister's therapist sees Mom ability to control where she
lost control as an argument against schizophrenia, but I think it's
possible for someone whose mildly affected to still have some control
- especially since it does worsen with stress. Heaven knows the woman
has claimed to have experienced a great many weird things - an alien
abduction, ghost voices, phantom stalkers, and so forth. The most
significant aspect of these paranormal experiences is that they all
seem to center around the theme that she is better than the rest of
humanity. A paranoid egomanic perhaps? According to the entry in
my dictionary of science, this delusion of grandness could still point
to schizophrenia.
September 22, 1998
I may be looking at this blind spot problem from the wrong direction. While
talking to another friend about one of these women who we both had problems
with, I realized that I had warned this friend about her manipulative
tendencies. Thinking it over, I realized I had warned other people of the
destructive tendencies of the other women on my list, while I was still in
constant contact with them. So, I saw their faults, but I ignored them with
regard to myself.
Why?
I hate to admit it, but in practically every case I thought I could change
them. If I could just show them a different way of handling their problems,
then they would see the light and change the rest of their abusive behaviors.
I am such an idiot sometimes.
I know better. I know that you can never change a person who doesn't want to
change. I also know that there are some people who pretend to change to keep
you on their side.
Does the word "Codependency" mean anything to my subconcious?
Okay...maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself. In truth, the people I tried
to change the most were the ones who tried to change me the most. Perhaps
it's not as much a matter of codependecy as it is a battle of wills. Still
a waste time no matter how you look at it . . .
September 27, 1998
God and I had a long talk today.
I've decided to stop letting other people's fears restrain me from doing what
I know to be good.
I have always done sweet things for people. I have gone out of my way to
give an "enemy" their coat. I have spent one birthday washing every dish in
an apartment of someone I didn't even know, while my friends cleaned and
painted it (we got permission from the land lady). I love doing "secret pal"
stuff and I have never failed to blow the socks off of the people assigned to
me. I have spent hours searching for just the right card to send someone I
barely knew. I have walked across town to leave a birthday gift at a dear
friend's door, because I didn't have a car of my own. Even as a child, I gave
up a gift to a neighbor child who I knew was being punished unfairly for
something his brother had done.
I have also written a heartfelt message to a friend and had another friend
mail it from another city, so he could hear the words he needed to, without
feeling uncomfortable with me. I have made things for other people, mailed
care packages, and sometimes stopped by just to listen. Doing these things
makes me feel good. Once, I was extremely ticked off and stressed out,
I went to a craft store and got some dried flowers and other stuff. When I
I got home from work, I made four little baskets and several magnets with
little inspirational messages. I only knew who I was going to give two of
the baskets to when I started, but within two months all of my little gifts
had found a home.
So, not everybody is appreciative of my efforts - big deal. I do it because
I have fun doing it and it makes me feel good.
THIS IS WHO I AM!!!!!And I'm not going
to stop doing it because it makes someone else uncomfortable.
I have also decided that I will hug my husband whenever I feel like it. I
stopped doing that several years back, because my husband told my therapist
that he considered it a method of manipulation. Ever since then, I've been
afraid to show spontaneous affection, because I didn't want to offend him.
Well, tough!
I like giving people hugs and my dear husband is just going to
to have to learn how to deal with it. I have already warn him of this
coming increase of affection.
As I have said, this is who I am and if someone can't handle it, then they
can just go jump in a lake--the swim will do them good.
