Sunday, December 2, 2012

Some Realizations

As I sat last night in contemplating my situation, I came to some realizations and decisions.

The realizations:

First the big one, yes I am still upset with that individual from past.  But, as has been pointed out to me, I am only punishing myself allowing myself to hate him.  I am not a hateful nor a negative person, and allowing these emotion so much control over my, I am allowing him to still exercise control over my life… something I think he would take great pleasure in knowing.  I am better than that, and I know IT!

Second, I had never realized the abandonment issues I have been suppressing since my Mother’s attempt to take her life, or the resentment I was experiencing toward her for making me the one responsible for her survival.  This was further exacerbated when I was later sent to a psychologist as a trouble youth, and this piece of information was to my knowledge never exposed.  I think it might have helped.  One thing I have learned over time, you can’t fix a problem if you don’t know the cause, and probably one of the foundations of my mistrust of ‘counselors’.

Third, I have allowed these phantom controls to lead me down a path which has jeopardized the future of me, my wife, and my daughters.  In all this, my find that in truth I am most pissed at myself for allowing it happen, and the externalized and internal hatred of myself for allowing it to happen.

Fourth, as I have always known, and have been hiding from for months, I am responsible for my actions, good or bad.  No matter who I might like to blame for my predicament, it’s on me.

Fifth, as I have attempted to find distractions from all this internal emotion, I have discovered that my existence has brought to a place of emotional empathy for my fellow humans.  When I witness someone else’s in happiness, it gives me happiness.  Conversely, everyone else’s pain causes me pain.  Pick an emotion, I feel with you.  I think I always knew this, but, until my strengths were zapped to such a low level, I didn’t see the emotional toll it could take on me.

Finally and most importantly, I have never in my life, before this, been able to share this much of my private feelings with anyone for fear that it would chase people away, or be exploited.  I am so lucky and blessed (no religious affiliation) to have my friends and family.  You have all been so very supportive of me as I go through this period. 

The actions:

I am still not completely out of this funk.  The knot in my gut is still there, but, I am taking actions to move forward. 

One, I know that there others who are worse off and more in need then I am, but, in order to recoup my strength, I am going to going to allow myself to concentrate on as much of the positive as I can find, and not the negative, until I am better able to deal with those feelings.  As I am still not a religious person, I will just say:

Please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

The only thing I can change at the moment… is me.

Two, I cannot concentrate on rebuilding myself and concentrate on building a consulting business which has languished for some time know as has little prospect, at the moment of providing financial support my family needs and deserves.  Effective immediately, IBL is suspending operations.  I started yesterday into a full on job search, and have already sent out a few inquiries.  If you know of anyone needing a slightly used IT generalist, a profile of my skillset is on LinkedIN.

Three, I have realized that the creativity soul will find an outlet, even a negative one if none other exists.  Where I thought that creativity in me had been destroyed all the years ago, I find that not to be the case.  It’s been there all along, below the surface, violently fight for it own survival.  I look to discover way to allow it to live and flourish.

Finally, I will strive to stop trying to be a superman.  I will graciously accept the love and positive thoughts of my family and friend, to become my anchor when I am adrift.

I love you all, and truly cherish your being in my life.

Walt

 

 

 

Friday, November 30, 2012

Exercising the Demons, AGAIN

Or maybe better put; exercising my demons.  I have never before been one to share my personal life and emotions.  The thought of that kind of vulnerability, and the trust needed to personally expose myself, has always created far more fear than those shadowy demons in my psyche.  Recent experiences seem to lead me to a need to face this fear.  So…

  • A young artist, with some promise, discouraged and stifled at every stroke of the brush.
  • A young writer and poet, again with some promise, discouraged and stifled at every stroke of the pen.
  • A young musician, with some promise, discouraged and stifled at every beat of the drum.
  • A young student, of better than average intelligence, discouraged and stifled at every less than perfect grade.
  • A young boy, seeking his father’s approval, never being quite good enough and never understanding why…
  • A young creative mind damaged, conceivably beyond repair.
  • All of this given up, and suppressed for years, and long thought destroyed.

We are all a product of our past, some prefer to be victims of their past.  I long ago understood that I am a product of my past, but, I have tried hard to not be a victim of it.  I, to this day, still find myself struggling with the demons of my past, even though I thought I had already resolved and chased those monsters away, only to find them creeping back into my consciousness once again.  I have acknowledged - so I thought… accepted - so I thought… and forgiven - so I thought.  All this I’ve been told would help me come to grips with my past and move on, guess what?!?... That’s bullshit!  Because, here I am still dealing with the memories, the bitterness, and the emotional void of the things I experienced in my youth, that is still haunting me to this day.  Shortly after I turned 18, I was told that it was all on me now, that I alone was responsible for the direction my live took.  While true, everyone who tells you that it’s on you ‘now’ seems to forget, or fails to see that there are quite often indiscernible demons that come with you from your youth, only to emerge from the shadows of your psyche unplanned and unannounced.  Nor, are there many people capable of helping you slay those demons in they materialize.  All too often you don’t even realize or recognize them yourself until much later in life, and all too often don’t understand the impact they are having on your life.  That is, it appears, to be my condition.
 
 
I realized many years ago that a certain amount of introspection of one life is required, if you truly want to evolve in life.  It became, somewhat painfully, evident when my daughters began asking question about their lives, and I found myself wanting to spew vitriolic explanations on why life SUCKS, Deal with it!!!  Of course, I controlled that aspiration, and managed to find much more benign and instructive elucidations.  After all, will I didn’t really understand it, I did remember the missing encouragement of my youth.  But, the experience left me wondering why their questions evoked such primal emotions in me, and still does on occasion.  I was taught early on that we don’t share our feelings with others, because nobody really wants to hear it.  I have sarcastically quipped that too many people feel that it is their ‘god’ given right to create new lives, and then screw those new lives up in any manner they choose.  I know that this is not the intent of most parents, but, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, even if unintentional.  But when it is intentional, even if unconscious, well…
 
 
In my years of personal introspection, I have found that I, like I believe many people, react to life’s experiences rather unconsciously, without ever looking at causes of their responses, positive or negative.   Because, all denial aside, we are first and foremost habitual creatures, like most all others species on this planet, responding most often blinding to the stimuli of our environment.  I have recently realized that, while probably not uncommon, my story is somewhat unique and by many standards would have probably been considered a FUBAR long ago.  Yet I seem to be unable to give up.
 
 
From birth until about the age of 7, most would have consider my life, at least based on my knowledge then, to be an idyllic youth.  But, at the age of 8, it began an interesting mostly downward spiral, that I have spent years desperately trying to overcome.  I have never shared the following publicly, and something that even most of my closest friends do not know…  At the age of 8, my Mother decided she couldn’t take any more of what life was sending her, and decided to attempt suicide by drug overdose.  It was fortunately an unsuccessful attempt, but, only because of me, and the note she had left.  The note, at her bedside, was address to me, and only said, “Walt, call your Dad.”  I did as I was told and the next thing I knew, the air outside exploded with the sound of sirens.  I went to the front to see what all the commotion was about only to find police and firemen running up my sidewalk and into my mother’s room.  A short time later, my Dad arrived only to leave me in alone and scared.  The only encouragement I received that day was from one of the firemen telling me, “you are a lucky young man; she is probably going to be alright because of you.”  Though I’ve never admitted openly, and it wasn’t until I was in my late 20’s that I realized just how much I resented her for making me (an 8 year old child) responsible for her life.  I have learned in recent years some of the other things that may have contributed to her state of mind, and believe I have reconciled that resentment.  I have recently even been able to broach the subject with my Mother.
 

Now, for my Fathers, we have an entirely different view, and yes, I said Fathers.  Three years of grief and turmoil after the events at age 8, through inadvertently as a result of one of their now routine arguments – I say inadvertent because they seemed to forget I was downstairs during this particularly round of verbal sparring – I discover that the man I have been calling Dad for a decade now, wasn’t…  In three years I had become what was then considered a troubled and unruly child, and no one seemed to be able to figure out why.  Hell, I didn’t even understand it at the time.  So now we add a new wrinkle to that troubled and unruly child’s psyche – the discovery that your father isn’t your real father and that your real father doesn’t even care that you exist.  As I was told time and again, be happy you at least have a Dad that chose you.  As much as everyone hoped this little piece of info would sweep all my problems under the carpet, it barely worked and only sporadically.  That troubled and unruly little boy turned into an even more troubled and unruly teenager. By the age of 13, I was living with my Dad and evil stepmother, and believe me – Cinderella’s could have learned under this one.  It was now that the really pressure began, the results of which I opened this essay.

Later in life I came to the realization of what my father was doing…  Most in the immediate family have joked that my father is so tight, he could squeeze a penny and make Lincoln cry…  In his effort to make me feel inadequate, which he successfully accomplished, his discouragement saved him a bundle of money.  Recently, I’ve come to realize this man’s motivations ran so much deeper.  In order to hide his own inadequacies, my talents and aspirations, whatever they were, had to be sacrificed in order to build his up in his eyes.  Even though he made the choice to adopt he, he didn’t have too… it wasn’t a deal breaker when he married Mom, I wasn’t “really” his son.  So no real familial loyalty was due, right?  He even managed to remove Mom, who probably wanted to do more wasn’t in any position to offer any real help, by diligently avoiding his financial and other familial obligations.  Mom was left to struggle to make ends meet with three children.  Not that she would have at that time because most everyone had already written me off as a hopeless case.  I could and have made excuses for his actions, but, I’ve finally realized that, conscious or not, no matter what his professed motives, he was deliberately intent on transferring his feelings of inadequacy to me.  I just wasn’t good enough, and I’ve spent that better part of my life trying to prove to everyone, but mostly myself, that I am worth having around, only to seem to be thwarted with enough regularly to make one wonder.  So, I guess he was successful.  I’ve recently discovered that along with this self worth issue, my relationship with my father has created in me even deeper buried feelings of abandonment and betrayal.  Sad part, he doesn’t even know any of this, nor do I think he would care if he did know…  We haven’t talked in over 10 years.

Yeah, I can hear some thinking; “this is nothing but a personal pity party of a loser.”  Believe what you wish, but that’s not the case.  I have restarted and rebuilt my lifetime and time and again throughout my almost 60 years, only to find, just as things appear to be going well and I’m experiencing a degree of success, the carpet once again yanked from behind my feet.  I just can’t seem to catch that break.  It seems like about every 10 years since I was about 18, no matter what I was doing, events would occur that would just knock the pins out from under meet, and I wouldn’t have any idea why, so I just chalked it up to poor luck.  I could go into a litany of these events, but that really would serve any purpose.  So, I will just say that it that up until this last time, I haven’t understood why.  I have worked hard for the last 30 years trying to please those for whom I worked.  It would work for awhile and there was a certain level of appreciation and success, only to discover ultimately that I was expendable and had to move on, thus reinforcing that deep seeded and hidden self worth issues, along with the feelings of abandonment and lack of loyalty.  A self fulfilling prophecy, if you will.

While I have reconciled most of the feelings I have, I seem to be still left with my recently discovered deep feelings of inadequacies, abandonment, and the betrayal, along with an even deeper resentment and bitterness of the individual(s) who helped to create these demons.  I’ve always had problems with feelings of hate and try to find ways to move beyond it as quickly as possible.  My aversion to hatred is so deep that I get knots in my stomach when I experience it; image the knots that are there as I write this tome.   As with other things, I know, on an intellectual level that hatred is a destructive and often debilitating emotion, and I know why it is there now.  So, why at this moment can I just not seem to get beyond it?  I hate the man that raised me – I can’t even say the word father right now – so totally that I fear I may be consumed by that hatred even though I know what it is doing to me.  What scares me even more is the thought of what it might do to my wife and daughters, not that I would even consider harming them, but, these feeling have become so debilitating that I have become useless to them as a provider.  Yet another self fulfilling prophecy?
 
I’m just not sure what I have to do to catch a break?  I just exposed my flank in a Facebook status post… something even a few months ago would have been impossible for me, and I have received amazing support.  I guess it’s time to admit I’m not the rock everyone seems to think I am, but I really dislike the idea of being almost 60 and having to start all over yet again, and it scares the hell out of me.
 
Well, now you know…

All I really want right now…  If you are a parent or know a parent, please or let them know how easy it is to crush a child’s dreams…


Your comments or questions are always welcome, and I have added an email address for those not wishing to comment openly in this forum.  Emails can be sent to recoveringcathcon@gmail.com. However, please know that if this account is used to flood me with trash and hate mail, I will shut it down.

 

Thursday, September 20, 2012

October Surprise

I’d like to start this entry out with a little note of interest, well at least of interest to me.  I write to two blog right now with any regularity, this one and another of apparently much less controversy and concern to some.  I make that statement because of an interesting stat that has emerged from my blog statistic logs.  I use Facebook as a method to communicate new blog entries to those of my friends there that might be interested.  Whenever I post on Facebook that a new article is available on one of my blogs, I can see an almost immediate corresponding Facebook hit in my blog logs.  Okay, that does make sense, in this area of almost rampant IP (intellectual properties) violations which occur via the web, it seems appropriate that Facebook would want to check to make sure that these violation are not happening or being supported via its services.  However, over the last few months, Facebook has a “bot” trolling this blog on a regular (every couple of days) basis, regardless of when there was a last post, or a link posted to my Facebook profile.  Since I have had some experience with Facebook’s policies and method for shutting down content which they or a few of their users consider “unfriendly”, I am left to wonder if they or some users are seeking something that posted to this blog which they use to shut down my account on their site.  Time will tell, but, if I disappear from Facebook, you’ll be able to figure why.  ;)  Dear Facebook, hope you don’t find this too offensive.

Now on to the October Surprise…

While you can find prior examples, the term October Surprise began its political life during the 1972 Presidential election between Richard Nixon(R i) and George McGovern (D) as a result of the announcement from President Nixon’s administration of a possible end to hostilities in Vietnam in October 1972.  Since that time, there have been several events occurring in the last couple of months of the Presidential election cycle which held stay on the election.  I do not subscribe to the idea that there are many conspiracy theories that hold any real validity.  First, a secret know by more than one person is not a secret.  Second, the number of people required to pull off most covert agendas is so large, that keeping it quiet is almost impossible.  Individuals can and do successfully take covert actions singularly, but, a conspiracy by definition is a covert agenda conducted by a group of people.  And third and finally, it has been my experience that most people who have secrets want to share it with someone close, or at very least divulge that they possess a secret because of the imagined power and prestige that can come from knowing a secret, and sometimes it is simply a crisis of conscience that will cause someone to reveal his or her secrets.   I think history has demonstration quite well that in the realm of covert actions, if there was a conspiracy effort it will eventually be exposed.

So do we have an October surprise happening in this election cycle, or more accurately a September surprise?  Let’s look at what is happening around the world right now, with the recent outbreak of violent protest from the Muslim community over a film not just providing visual representations of the Prophet Mohammed (against the precept of Islamic doctrine), but doing so in a rather negative manner.  While I say Muslim community, one should not assume that I think it is the entire Muslim community involved, but rather that small radical or extremist element of that community.  This protest was ignited by video, produced here in the United States by a Coptic Christian Egyptian-American, called the “Innocence of Muslims.”  Not wanting to pass judgment based solely on the opinions of others, I watched the trailer for this video, and would not even be interested in seeing a full length feature.  As an Agnostic, who has studied the theologies of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and a few others, I find the video – contrary to the opinions of several friends – to be extremely odious, and I understand how and why Muslims would find this production offensive as well.  Especially with the knowledge that the English language version post to YouTube in July was translated into Arabic and reposted to YouTube just a few weeks ago.  I neither condone nor support the violent protest that has occurred as a result, but, I do understand it.  I don’t think it unreasonable to assume that Mr. Bacile – one of 15 aliases for on Mr. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula – had any intend other than to deliberately inflame the Muslim community.  I support my assessment by the reaction of some Muslims to the printing of cartoons in Danish publications in the recent past.  I also think that Mr. Bacile is very aware of the strained relationship between the America and the Muslim community outside of the U.S., as one would have to have lived under a rock for the last decade not to know.

As these protests began to gain strength, the extremist element of the Muslim faith seized on the opportunity to exploit the situation with an attack on the Libyan consulate in Benghazi, which sadly resulting in the death of 4 Americans.  Then we have a GOP establish here in this country that see their opportunity to exploit.  Knowing that American over the last 30 years have generally held the misconception that the GOP was the stronger party when it comes to foreign policy and national defense, and that calling out Muslim terrorists as the main threat to our freedoms has been a mantra of the far right for more than a decade.  So it should be no surprise that the GOP, which really should be renamed the TPP, would jump on the issue to claim that this attack on the Libyan consulate is one more failing of President they want so desperately to replace in a few short weeks.  Bingo… You have an October/September surprise.  And it will probably extend into October, as we have others throwing additional fuel on the fire.

So is this surprise a conspiracy?  Not likely, other than being a conspiracy of coincidence or convenience.  Will it have the desired impact on our election?  Again, not likely, I think the die has been cast.  But, it will be interesting to see how the TPP tries to extend or expand these protested in their attempt to wrest control of the country from the current administration, as they have IMO reached a point of desperation, and may be on the verge of complete collapse.  My real fear is that we have extremists on both sides intend on starting a religious civil war.  That event would be a real tragedy.

 

Your comments or questions are always welcome, and I have added an email address for those not wishing to comment openly in this forum.  Emails can be sent to recoveringcathcon@gmail.com. However, please know that if this account is used to flood me with trash and hate mail, I will shut it down.