I look pretty damn good to women through rose' (read ROH-zay) colored glasses. Call it a closing time charm. I listen; I am everything every other guy is not. I'm like them, but not like them, if I were to paraphrase a recent conversation, which, I suppose, I just did. I get to be almost desired for a few hours. Then, in the harsh, cold light of the next morning, I am back to being a candidate unworthy of romantic consideration - too this and not enough that. Tender hearts and strong spirits do not mix well.
I get used. I have a friend who was in a bind and needed to "borrow" (I have since learned to lend without the expectation of recompense) some money. I took this person twice as much as they told me was needed. The next day, that friend said they remembered they actually needed three times the amount of their original request. I didn't throw bad money after good, and so I imagine I will not be high on that friend's list of concerns any longer. This happens in family, too. I actually got criticized, just this Monday, for not being in one place to be able to help my father, while I was out picking up dinner for him and Mom. True story. My family often tell me that I should not let my friends use me. I feel like asking, "Why? So you can do it first?". Sometimes, I wonder if I'd get more respect and more romantic attention if I were to act like an indifferent ass.
I have been passed over for promotion twice in the last five years at work - both times to the choice of junior colleagues. My boss just quit. People are telling me that his boss said I will be named acting supervisor; no one asked or told me. I'm tired of having my loyalty and services assumed. Unfortunately, I want the job because I know I can do it better and more efficiently than I've seen it done. Maybe success is the best revenge.
I recently had one of my closest friends tell me that more than one woman in our social circle thinks I would be a good catch - with a catch. That catch - again - being if I were like me, but different. I'm not. This is it. I am me. Apparently, its not enough.
Rejection does not bother me; universal rejection does. There are things women like about me, but the entirety of the package is unacceptable. I'd almost prefer to be rejected flatly, than to be rejected by way of guised compliment. Sorry, ladies, I take no comfort in being almost worthy of your affection; either, I am, or I'm not. This is what gives rise to those dark feelings of depression and self-hatred, which seem to be coming home for the holidays. That, in itself, has become a bit of a tradition.
Please pass the cranberries and a bit of social indifference. Why, thank you!
"No One Is To Blame", Howard Jones.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Monday, November 5, 2012
Sweet Freedom
I'm not there yet; but, I'm not where I started, either.
I still have bad days. I still feel very darkly negative feelings. I still beat myself up. But now, when those things happen, I have the sense of those negative instances being temporary. I am not that bad person or that loser or that worthless punching bag I wanted to revile myself as being. Revulsion, you see, and self-loathing give you an excuse to not try to improve your situation. Now, I do not by any means have all of this - or even any of it - down pat. I'm not sure I'm even particularly good at appropriating internal feelings and impulses. I only know that I am doing better than when I started, and better than I have been doing even recently.
Improvement came when I stopped isolating my perception of self and began to place it into context based in reality. How do I treat people? How do they react to me? How have I handled past challenges? What did I learn? How did I apply those lessons? How can I do this better? Do I want to? The most freeing feelings I've ever felt came by way of placing myself within the context of the big picture. It took inclusion to begin to set me free. When you make a list of people you know and whose opinions you respect, then you look at your interpersonal relationships with those individuals, you begin to get a reality based sense of the general external perception of the person you are - what people really think about you. For folks who have suffered or are suffering like I have, that external perception will almost invariably be better than the one you've spun up in your own mind about yourself.
Isolation of yourself or your perception of self is one of the most harmful things you can do, I think. With isolation it is entirely to be all the horrible things I told myself I was. It is only when I presented my evidence for that argument against the reality of the big picture that I saw how false it actually was. I'm not that loser or that failure or that ogre. I'm just a guy. I'm a guy who has done what he thought would bring about the best turn of circumstance for the greatest number of people possible. I am the kind of guy I would want in my corner, in my life, and among my circle of friends. By using isolation, I was able to make myself out to be a horrible monster. The truth is I could just as easily have spun myself up to be an orange polka-dotted horse - none of it was real.
So, onto seeing the big picture. How do people interact with you? What do you contribute? Its something, else they wouldn't stick around for very long 'cause people just don't have time for kicking a dead horse, orange polka-dotting be damned. Do people rely on you? Are you funny? Do you make people laugh in a good, healthy way, or dry their tears as they are getting their cry out? Do you listen? Then, guess what - they need you as much as you need them, and I guarantee you most certainly matter - to them, if not to yourself. But if not to yourself, then why not...and is your why not based on who you are in the big picture, or who you want to make yourself out to be so that you can justify poor or abusive treatment from someone whose validation and approval that you sought but was withheld for reasons that were never your fault or yours to control? These are hard questions. Sometimes, they will require you to see abuse and belittling is not love, and that it never was intended to be. Ultimately, though, it will make you stop doing the same thing to yourself, ergo breaking the cycle of continuity of abuse that you are perpetuating internally instead of toward others. It will make you look to see if there is some way to improve the circumstance for your abuser; and, sadly, sometimes to realize that some abusers do not wish to heal, change, improve, or be forgiven. Sometimes, the really rotten stinkers will even go back to some of their old abusive ways and push the buttons of your most fragile sensitivities. In that case, you need to give that person space to enjoy their misery, and to dole that space out in such a manner (physically and/or emotionally) so that it does not encompass you.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.". Love the ones who love you, and love the ones who don't. Know the difference between them, and give power and influence only to the ones who want to help you progress and make life better. Bitterness is best left to the bitter. Never try to cajole or manipulate, and that includes yourself. Honor your friends and honor yourself for the person you are. Give everyone, including yourself, the freedom of their own action and opinion. Draw from as many positive sources as you can find, and always return the favor in abundance. Love frees and empowers; meanness represses and constrains.
"Set Them Free", Sting.
I still have bad days. I still feel very darkly negative feelings. I still beat myself up. But now, when those things happen, I have the sense of those negative instances being temporary. I am not that bad person or that loser or that worthless punching bag I wanted to revile myself as being. Revulsion, you see, and self-loathing give you an excuse to not try to improve your situation. Now, I do not by any means have all of this - or even any of it - down pat. I'm not sure I'm even particularly good at appropriating internal feelings and impulses. I only know that I am doing better than when I started, and better than I have been doing even recently.
Improvement came when I stopped isolating my perception of self and began to place it into context based in reality. How do I treat people? How do they react to me? How have I handled past challenges? What did I learn? How did I apply those lessons? How can I do this better? Do I want to? The most freeing feelings I've ever felt came by way of placing myself within the context of the big picture. It took inclusion to begin to set me free. When you make a list of people you know and whose opinions you respect, then you look at your interpersonal relationships with those individuals, you begin to get a reality based sense of the general external perception of the person you are - what people really think about you. For folks who have suffered or are suffering like I have, that external perception will almost invariably be better than the one you've spun up in your own mind about yourself.
Isolation of yourself or your perception of self is one of the most harmful things you can do, I think. With isolation it is entirely to be all the horrible things I told myself I was. It is only when I presented my evidence for that argument against the reality of the big picture that I saw how false it actually was. I'm not that loser or that failure or that ogre. I'm just a guy. I'm a guy who has done what he thought would bring about the best turn of circumstance for the greatest number of people possible. I am the kind of guy I would want in my corner, in my life, and among my circle of friends. By using isolation, I was able to make myself out to be a horrible monster. The truth is I could just as easily have spun myself up to be an orange polka-dotted horse - none of it was real.
So, onto seeing the big picture. How do people interact with you? What do you contribute? Its something, else they wouldn't stick around for very long 'cause people just don't have time for kicking a dead horse, orange polka-dotting be damned. Do people rely on you? Are you funny? Do you make people laugh in a good, healthy way, or dry their tears as they are getting their cry out? Do you listen? Then, guess what - they need you as much as you need them, and I guarantee you most certainly matter - to them, if not to yourself. But if not to yourself, then why not...and is your why not based on who you are in the big picture, or who you want to make yourself out to be so that you can justify poor or abusive treatment from someone whose validation and approval that you sought but was withheld for reasons that were never your fault or yours to control? These are hard questions. Sometimes, they will require you to see abuse and belittling is not love, and that it never was intended to be. Ultimately, though, it will make you stop doing the same thing to yourself, ergo breaking the cycle of continuity of abuse that you are perpetuating internally instead of toward others. It will make you look to see if there is some way to improve the circumstance for your abuser; and, sadly, sometimes to realize that some abusers do not wish to heal, change, improve, or be forgiven. Sometimes, the really rotten stinkers will even go back to some of their old abusive ways and push the buttons of your most fragile sensitivities. In that case, you need to give that person space to enjoy their misery, and to dole that space out in such a manner (physically and/or emotionally) so that it does not encompass you.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.". Love the ones who love you, and love the ones who don't. Know the difference between them, and give power and influence only to the ones who want to help you progress and make life better. Bitterness is best left to the bitter. Never try to cajole or manipulate, and that includes yourself. Honor your friends and honor yourself for the person you are. Give everyone, including yourself, the freedom of their own action and opinion. Draw from as many positive sources as you can find, and always return the favor in abundance. Love frees and empowers; meanness represses and constrains.
"Set Them Free", Sting.
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