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from GoldenMic Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 15:13 (Agree/Disagree?) Rainy, I am probably one of the older SGA's in this group, having left my cult after 25 years and now living "free" for 25 years. After I tore my way free, mainly because I saw what was going to happen to my babies if I stayed, I the spent most of 20 years staying alive only for my children. Your words echo strongly to me. Year after year, I managed to get on the highway, just inches from jerking the wheel to the right or left, but hanging on forjust another day because of my belief that my children had a right to their father's presence. I feel your words strongly, about having a debt to pay after having done them the disservice of entering them into a world I hated. But, But, But... it is now a few years later. I found that the years of service and love for my children gave me the time to slowly come alive again. My children's love for me was far more real than my own love for me, but it also started a healing process, since I had to see that the father they loved was somebody different than the man in the mirror I had come to fear and despise. Then, as they began to draw away, starting to live lives that I could never have imagined living, feeling loved and knowing they had a right to life and love, I found that there was finally a time when I could begin to start some real self-work and healing. I guess what I am saying is that this approach, hanging in there for no other reason than love of my children, actually WAS just enough to keep me from killing myself for 15 years, and then I was finally just barely ready to begin the process of loving myself. Almost as if life was rewarding me for having been decent enough to love my children through the pain. Anyway, thanks a lot for sharing this. It hurt to read, it made me nauseous and I got all spaced out... but I thank you for the raw honesty of your words, and for reminding me what a miracle it is to finally begin healing from this horrifying legacy we share. In the last few years I have actually stopped being blatantly suicidal and self-destructive, and some days I actually look forward to living all day long. I think that, having not stopped the process by making irrevocable decisions, and hanging in there out of sheer love for my babies, is finally giving me the time and space to begin accessing some substantive relief and healng from my cult past. (reply to this comment)

from Vacuous_Sapience Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 14:27 (Agree/Disagree?) Share some of Schopenhauer's pessimism, E.g. ...Will has no fixed end, which if achieved would bring contentment. Although death must conquer in the end, we pursue our futile purposes, 'as we blow out a soap-bubble as long and as large as possible, although we know perfectly well it will burst.' There is no such thing as happiness, for an unfulfilled wish causes pain and anxiety and attainment brings only satiety. Instinct urges men to procreation, which brings into existence a new occasion for suffering and death; that is why shame is associated with the sexual act... And why you feel ashamed for having given birth? Lol, pessimism... (reply to this comment)

From Samuel Wednesday, March 28, 2007, 17:06 (Agree/Disagree?) They have a point, Rainy. I was wondering about that too. Why do you feel ashamed for giving birth?(reply to this comment)

From Haunted Wednesday, March 28, 2007, 17:32 (Agree/Disagree?) I don't think that's what she way saying Samuel... Rainy, words fail me...I've been where you are...I understand. Hang in there!(reply to this comment)

From Haunted Wednesday, March 28, 2007, 17:32 (Agree/Disagree?) "was" not "way"(reply to this comment)

from smashingrrl Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 13:22 (Agree/Disagree?) Even in the depths of my winter, I finally found that within me, there lay an invincible summer.-Albert Camus I hate it when you make me cry. Somehow you just said everything that's been floating around inside the circus that is my brain. (reply to this comment)

from madly Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 03:11 (Agree/Disagree?) Wow, rain…that really affected me and left me in a daze with thoughts running wild. I have been sitting here for almost an hour, trying to understand what it is you made me feel. What to say to something that raw, real, and personal? Beyond poetry, beyond words or pretenses…nothing left, but the brutal hard cold truth. Can’t life be brutal… can’t it seem overwhelming and almost too much to face? Can I say…beautiful? Can I find something that you find so ugly, beautiful? The torment of life…the depth of it, the honesty and strength it takes to face ourselves… our most powerful, conniving, lying enemy…ourselves. The hate we possess within us, the turmoil that we hide from surfacing. We are scared to face it, to look it in the eye. Do we even want to see it? Do we want to know and if we do…can we live with what we find? I would dare to say that most of us are strangers to ourselves and we like it that way; in fact, we have purposely allowed it. We create ourselves… the beauty we want to possess; even if we only fool ourselves… it is enough. We then hide the ugly side, the part we don’t want to be reminded of away… hoping if we ignore it, starve it, forget about it, that it will die, but we forget that if it dies, we die, because we can’t kill the real us and live in our fictitious, self created, and perfect little world. Real is ugly and beautiful, life is ugly and beautiful and we all have both within us. We may not want both, but we are both and we need them in us to be real, to be human… to be more than just a pretty picture with no depth or use. Maybe we must examine both, and learn to accept what it is we hate in order to find what it is we love. Maybe you reaching this point of honesty means you are ahead of the game…I know I find myself ready to be where you are standing. I am ready to look long and hard at myself, my inner workings and I admit to the fear I have of what I am to find. I feel ashamed of part of who I am and I feel hate for the lack of who I am and for what I know I could and should be. Hmmmm… so much to think about… (reply to this comment)

From rainy Wednesday, March 28, 2007, 12:59 (Agree/Disagree?) Madly, you've said the only words that could possibly have been said that would genuinely make me feel better about myself. Thank you for truly seeing what this is. All this pain and self-hate has been there a long time. It's too much to go into, but I am the survivor of a long abusive relationship. Out of all the types of abuse, it's the mental abuse, the lengthy, torturous character attacks late into the night that haunt me. Sometimes I think I've let it go, moved on, but it only takes a few strong reminders, and I'm flopping like a fish on a pier again, completely helpless. All the words of hate that were so venomously said to me are still there, but now they have my own voice. And like you said, I starve it, ignore it, bash it on the head when it surfaces, but sometiems, like an evil twin, it bursts to life. That was the first time I gave it voice, and doing so has actually helped me restore some equilibrium. At least I've looked my demons head-on, analysed them, and thought about how they came to be there.(reply to this comment)

From madly Wednesday, March 28, 2007, 15:41 (Agree/Disagree?) It is amazing how someone we love can affect us in such a way, the power we hand to them and the way they see us can become our eyes. Almost as though we give them the power to build us up or destroy us…love is a tricky game we play and maybe it is only intended for the strong in mind as it is the strong in heart. Through love we are looking for the validation that we are special and worth the love being given to us and someone can give that or just as easily take it back again. What a game…the cruel game of love…winner doesn’t take all, for the loser is left with the hurt and image given to them by their opponent. I feel the way you do, but not because of a certain relationship, but because of my past, the lack of love I was given as a child…being torn down for years and told what a monster I was and no matter how hard I tried, the monster became real to me, in me, and now finds a home within me still. Their words and abuse has made me have severe doubts of my worth and the idea has stuck with me, deep inside, that I do not deserve love, nor will I ever know how to feel or accept it. The part they built up in me has become me, my fear of who I am and what I will be if I were to allow someone to love and see that part of me and so I run and continue to shut that part of me down. I find myself never allowing the love it would take to expose the ugliness I know that lives behind my idea of what someone would see in me, what I see in myself… the hate I feel for myself, the hate someone handed to me and I willingly made my own. I don’t think all depression is wrong, or should be suppressed, but rather used to find ourselves… to allow ourselves to be taken to the darkest places and really examine what we are… the truth is only to be found if we are willing to go deep enough to find it and this isn’t a picnic or a pretty stroll in the park, but a long weary walk down dark haunted halls with webs of memories under lock and key. This is not a place to be taken to if you aren’t strong enough to allow it with out being taken over by it. It is a tormented place with the dark evil guard, the mental pain, which we have placed there to protect ourselves from ourselves. I am starting to believe that half of what we store away is not us, but only the lie we were made to believe was us. The hurt, the pain, the idea we allowed them to instill deep down inside, to the point we allowed it to grow in us and it has now found a home, but it is not who we are and it does not have to stay implanted if we can somehow get to the place, were the seed was born, dig it up and know it for what it is…lies. Maybe we need depression to take us to that depth in order to face all our monsters, the ones that are us and the ones others gave to us. Maybe we can find ourselves there and slaughter the monsters that have no right to us and face the ones that do, accept them and realize they have no power, but what we choose to render to them and the lies that others gave to us are only real if we believe them.(reply to this comment)

From rainy Wednesday, March 28, 2007, 23:47 (Agree/Disagree?) I believe you're right you know. It's been two years since I've been on my own, and I haven't had the strength to allow myself to FEEL. I've just had to repeat to myself Scarlett O'Hara's mantra, "I'll just die if I think about that today. I'll think about that tomorrow". I guess now I'm finally getting around to it. I knew it would be awful. The way you have expressed this as a means to an end rings true, and I feel a weight lifted from me. Thank you Madly, for giving me hope, and helping me not to hate myself for hating myself. (reply to this comment)

From madly Friday, March 30, 2007, 23:45 (Agree/Disagree?) You know rain, I have been thinking about why I viewed your article a little different than others seemed to… how I didn’t feel sorry for you and although I thought it was nice and sweet that so many were trying to give you words of comfort… I found myself almost jealous of your state of mind for the honesty it was bringing about in you. I felt myself wanting to tell you, “stick it out, see it through, don’t band aid it, but pick at it, dig deeper, let it bleed and let it heal”. I guess I believed you to be strong enough to overcome your pain, fears, and hate and use it to find yourself. What I am trying to say… and this may sound a little strange… I don’t feel badly for you, if anything I feel envious. So many times in my life, I feel I have been at the point where I could really come to terms with my demons… I feel the storm brewing and just as I think I am strong enough to face it… to stand my ground and let it hit me… I cower and run… but this only leaves me with nothing, but the fact that I will have to face it again one day. I have learned it isn’t going to just go away… it will blow through this time, but it will only build and grow stronger for the next storm. If I could only find the strength to give in, get tossed about, to maybe almost drown in it… in order to learn that I can swim; then maybe, just maybe, I could let the storm take me, blow through me and take the parts that only a tornado could remove. I keep thinking of this song by Sheryl Crow: Good is good and bad is bad But you don't know which one you have She put your books out on the sidewalk Now they're blowing round But they don't help you when you're down Loves on your list of things to do To bring your good light back to you If you think everything's unfair Would you care if you're the last one standing there And every time you hear the rolling thunder You turn and run before the lightening strikes And does it ever make you stop and wonder If all your good times have passed you by I don’t hold no mystery But I can show you how to turn the key Cause all I know is where I started I was so downhearted And that's not where you want to be And every time you hear the rolling thunder You turn and run before the lightening strikes If you could find a rock to crawl right under and let your good times pass you by When the day is gone and the world is sleeping And the moon is on its way to shine All your friends are gone You've got a soul worth keeping You feel you don't belong but you don't know why And every time you hear the rolling thunder You turn and run before the lightening strikes And does it ever make you stop and wonder why all your good times pass you by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov6OZ7tihts (reply to this comment)

From Samuel Wednesday, March 28, 2007, 04:56 (Agree/Disagree?) Wow. Rainy and madly, that is beautiful. Life truly can be brutal, overwhelming. It can seem like too much to face, but ti can also be beautiful. "The hate we possess within us, the turmoil we hide from surfacing. We are scared to face it, to look it in the eye." I see that all the time. It's sad. It's not that we're cruel people and we want to hate, but it seems almost as if we are ingrained to. But if what you say is true, that hatred is the real us, then why do we want to change it so badly? I definitely agree with your point about learning to accept what we hate in order to find what it is we love. (reply to this comment)

from Benz Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 01:51 (Agree/Disagree?) RC, please don't think you're the only one who feels that way. Hope your winter passes quickly and you smile again. (reply to this comment)

from SG b 73 Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 22:35 (Agree/Disagree?) To be committed to an asylum has long been the dream I have in the face that my other dream is cruelly denied. I, too, shall pass. (reply to this comment)

from shikaka Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 18:24 (Agree/Disagree?) Thanks for sharing yourself with us, rainy. This, too, shall pass. (reply to this comment)

from SeanSwede Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 13:39 (Agree/Disagree?) It is always on my mind, always on my mind. Just throwing in the rag for good. (reply to this comment)

from valhalla Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 09:42 (Agree/Disagree?) i can definitely relate to that last part about wondering weather or not you are healed from past angish and pain. very well writen, feels like some true emotions are being put down here. (reply to this comment)