The Unseen Person

I think something that goes often unseen or even unmentioned, yet has been felt by each and every one of us, is that of shame. Often times it is the victim that is surrounded with comfort and “it will be okay”s, that we forget to see the perpetrator in it all. Now, I'm not saying to comfort the perpetrator because they did make a bad choice and need to know that. I'm saying that instead of teaching them, we shame them. But why is that? We blame, shame, put down, tear down, abuse, burden, hate, and even spit on those that have committed an act which accidentally or even purposefully hurt another. Yet, we forget that they are simply humans too. They are like us. They also have feelings and by tearing them down and shaming them, we have now made them the victim and us the perpetrator. But our behavior is so much more socially acceptable, because they did it first right? And they have to be socially punished and ostracized and shamed so that they never do it again right? It’s as if we hurt them and burden them so as to try and rid ourselves of the pain, hurt, and sadness we feel at the incident that took place. We try to make them have an outward expression of the inward turmoil we are experiencing.

I had a dream last night.

taken from http://junglok.org/archives/574

In my dream, I was helping this young girl, about 5 or 6, who was afraid of slides. She wanted to go down one but was terrified so I took her up to a slide and helped her go down. It was a small one and she actually did ok and had fun. So then she wanted to try an even bigger slide. As we were going up to it, a bigger kid took her and told her to go down but she was scared, so he just picked her up and slide her down the slide headfirst. She went down the slide really fast and landed head first into the ground and proceeded to do a somersault, landing on her back. The adults around all quickly ran to her and she was crying. In my dream, I remember turning to the boy who was about 8 or 9, and asked him extremely sternly why he would push her down the slide and told him how it was mean and he was mean and that was a bad and wrong thing to do. I did this all without any kindness or even a hint of trying to help him understand what actually happened. The look on his face as I was saying all of this was of guilt and shame and complete and utter helplessness, hopelessness, remorse, and sympathy. At that moment I stopped. I realized that what I was doing was just as wrong and mean as him pushing the little girl down the slide. I was just projecting my embarrassment at having the little girl be hurt, my anger, and my sympathy onto him.

That was when I realized that instead of dealing with my emotions by acknowledging them and saying it is okay to feel them, I lashed out at the boy. How immature and more hurtful is that?

But then, later I asked myself, what is so hard about acknowledging our own emotions and owning them? Is it because we often don’t understand them or have exact words to explain our feeling? That is often my reasoning, but I also began thinking that perhaps there are more reasons. Perhaps we don’t want to own our emotions because we don’t want to think we can be in control of how we respond to a situation whether it is healthy or not? Like, it’s an excuse to act/respond a certain way. As an example, your spouse cheats and you get angry and instead of dealing with the emotion you hit your spouse. Later, you deny it as just being out of anger and not truly you who was acting and that it was really all your spouse’s fault because they cheated- therefore tossing the blame onto them and walking away with little consequences because of your action.

In reality, this just causes more issues and more pain, unresolved feelings, and a never-ending cycle of blame, shame, and immaturity.

Or maybe, perhaps we don’t want to own our emotions because it is too mentally painful. Like in a situation where a loved one died in a drunk driving accident or was raped/molested, or were even murdered. Only God knows how psychologically painful it would be to have to acknowledge the hurt and pain one feels in this situation. The sympathy for the own who was hurt, remorse and shame over not doing something more to prevent that even from happening, self-blame, anger towards the person who committed it, and sadness over the whole incident. By acknowledging all these feelings, we allow ourselves to become open to wall shattering and brokenness. And this is painful and we don’t enjoy being in pain. . .we try to avoid it, so instead, we blame the perpetrator and shame them. We try to take revenge and place all our feelings on them. We begin to believe that if they suffer, we will somehow feel better. But, having studied witnesses and death penalty and such in psychology, very very few (little to none) people feel better when they watch the perpetrator die for their actions. Why? Because we have only simply postponed the grieving process. And some do this for years. We forget that the perpetrators are people too and we treat them as the enemy. When in reality they truly aren’t the enemy. . . they are simply misled by the true enemy. . . evil itself. They have been misled by a lie. A lie that they can take what they want with no consequence, that murder may be the only solution, that they are completely inept and can think clearly when in reality, they too have also not acknowledged their feelings of anger, sadness, desire, etc.

Acknowledging our emotions is part of the grieving process. 

It is also part of the learning process as well as the teaching process.

With the case in my dream, I should have instead, paused to take a look at my feelings and tell myself the boy is not the enemy and then explain to him how the little girl is now hurt and he needs to understand that what he did hurt her but how he is not a bad person, he just made the wrong choice and how I understand he probably feels bad and that’s ok but that he does need to apologize and how he also may now have a consequence (whether natural or not) to his action.

This would have allowed proper “grieving”, learning, and teaching. The boy would be much less likely to make that same choice again then if I had simply yelled at him. With this approach, he sees the association between action and outcome as well as how emotions play into it.

How much more pleasant would this world be if we could all own our emotions?

Another thought I had was, perhaps we don’t often own emotions because we are afraid that it will somehow make us admit we have false, harmful beliefs. Like an example is with shame. Say we are shaming ourselves for a choice we made. We tell ourselves that we are stupid and we believe it. Well by acknowledging that emotion we begin to become aware of the belief we hold of being stupid. But we know deep down that that is not true and therefore have to change it, but it’s hard to change it and would require us to acknowledge other emotions we feel which can be more painful.

But we do need to remember that it is actually healthy and more beautiful in the long run. . . I mean I would rather have a little bit of pain flushing out a bad belief and be happier afterwards, then to have to live in ignorance of the belief and continue to have painful, bad, shameful thoughts every time I make a “mistake” which will happen God knows how much because I am definitely not perfect.

Free-will

A topic was brought up in my Cognitive Psychology class today. That of free will. That of its very existence.

There have been recent studies of the unconscious and conscious mind showing that we are now able to show (through brain activity) the choice someone is going to make 6 seconds before they consciously make that decision. This raises the debate of if there truly is a free-will.

I came to the conclusion of having to define free-will. Many define it as the ability to consciously make a decisions so then by this evidence, we would not possess free-will since our unconscious minds make decisions before we are consciously aware of it. And after the choice is made, we begin to justify every decision our unconscious mind made by trying to tie it into beliefs and values we hold. We would do this to prevent cognitive dissonance and to keep us believing we are in control of our lives.

Now, if you define free-will as the ability (consciously or unconsciously) to make a decision apart from control of an external source, then that evidence just shows the complexity of the human mind and how there are many things that go on in the unnoticeable parts of the brain before they even reach our consciousness.   

But then you have the debate on the controlling ability of outside factors such as genes, nurture, situations, etc. But in reality, those things just affect the things that may happen to us, but they do not affect our ability to choose how we react, feel, or respond to the situations.

Ultimately, I believe we have free-will. We have a mind, and it makes decisions regardless of if we consciously know of them or not. If we didn't have free-will, we would be little puppets controlled by a god or our own basic desires and needs. But the very fact we can decide to believe in a god or withhold our urges, I believe, provides evidence in itself for free-will (or free-choice as some desire to call it). If we didn't have free will, then we would be as the animals are. . . only living to supply and fulfill our basic needs and urges.

Questions on Life

Life. I find I walk around in life questioning everything around me. Almost never do I simply walk down the road or to class and just listen to my music or think of things I have to do. Instead, I find that I watch those around me and I ask questions.

The question I asked myself today . . . what is the point of life? And yes I know that is that one question that every philosopher tries to answer but I don't ask from the way they want answers- as to why we exist. My question is what are we supposed to do with the life we are given? Why do we go to school? To get a degree so we can work? Why do we work? To earn money to live? But then what is living? Is living simply going to work, earning money, and taking care of our needs? But then why do we stress so much to take care of the sick, the weak, and the ones without love or a home? Why do we make such a hassle and big deal over death? Why do people tell others to not kill themselves? Why do we try to save those around us? Is it because life is sacred? Why is it sacred if our only purpose is to supply for our needs so we don't die?

What is that? Is that life? Do we only live so we can suffer through school and work and maybe sometimes have a moment of connection with others that leads to smiles and laughter? But why is this desirable? Why do we want this? Why do we desire to connect to others when in reality we are animals and our only true need is to supply for ourselves?

Do we only supply for ourselves so we prolong death? Why are we afraid of death? Why are we afraid of pain and hurting? Yes, I understand some argue it is an evolutionary trend that we came to acquire a fear of pain to protect from harmful things. But why do we avoid harmful things if the only purpose of living is to supply for our needs and run from death?

These are the questions I contemplate. These are what lead me to wonder about us people and have a strong desire to learn why we are who we are and why we do what we do. . . It is psychology. But during all this I still wonder about myself and about this thing called life. This thing of breathing. This thing of hearts beating and blood flowing. This thing of thoughts and movement. Why do we have needs for adventure or discovery or to be known or to know or to love or to even simply be at peace?

Honestly, the only answer I have for this is the one thing I always seem to come back to. The one thing I grew up in. The one thing that makes sense to me. That we were created for a relationship with God. To experience his love and power as a human here on earth and he as a being all around us. (The only time we will ever be able to experience him not being face-to-face as we will be in heaven). The only thing that makes sense to me is that he gave us these innate desires to explore the world around us because he gave us this world to enjoy. This is what I keep coming back to. And to what I cling.

"Emerging Adult Crisis"

Ok... I know I am supposed to be studying right now but I am unable to focus if I don't share my mind.

The year is about to come full circle. Summer is approaching. We finally have sun and can see the swampy ground for the first time in 6months here in Minnesota. But with the sun comes not only joy of an approaching summer but also a bitterness as I realize everything is coming to an end. Things have come full circle. Things are bitter. There is not a joy of coming freedom on the wind. Instead, this wind brings an end. An end to the free-spirit I once held last year as I watch my friends slowly lose control of their lives... as my friends are now beginning to live the consequences of their choices from last summer. And it makes me want to collapse. To collapse into a heap on the floor and give up. Life is too much. It came too much at once. I have expectations and desires to either side of me coming from my childhood, my parents, other adults in my life, my boyfriend, my own mind, my heart, my family, my siblings, my world. I don't feel overwhelmed. That is not the issue. I feel, instead, as if everything I do leads to more and more failure and learning. I feel as if I can do nothing properly or in the way others expect from me. I have people expecting me to heal quickly, to pursue my future goals as fast as I can and on time, I have people expecting me to do everything correctly and in the right order, I have expectations to make up my mind soon on topics I don't want to feel rushed in. I have people accusing me of being unable to make up my mind or relying on others too much. I have expectations placed on me to commit and settle down in a way that prevents exploration of life and enjoying the journey. And then I have to sit back and watch my friends try to cling to last summer and the freedom they had, they felt, and the fun they experienced while I am forced to grow up faster than I have ever wanted to.

Neither of these situations are good. Neither are beneficial and I don't know what to do anymore. And the problem is, I have several different suggestions coming from many different sides of me and from numerous different angles.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't want to be like my friends. I don't want to cling onto something I know is slowly vanishing from between my fingers. I don't want to give away my hopes, dreams, aspirations, and morals for a moment of what seems like freedom and in pursuit of something I know will only leave me tattered, shattered, and broken on the rocks.

But what I do want is freedom. I want discovery. I want adventure. I want a moment to myself. I want to know myself better. I want to know what I want in life for once instead of what I think will be a good decision. I want an experience with myself that will allow me to know what I desire from this life. Because right now, my desire for this one thing blocks out every other desire I may want in my life. Right now, I am following blindly a path I made for myself several years ago before many life changing things happened.

Have you ever felt this way before? Have you ever wondered what you are doing with your life? Some call it a "midlife crisis" but it is surely not one for me. Maybe it is an "emerging adult crisis". Ya... that's what I'll call it. An emerging adult, I have no idea what I'm doing because no one ever told me what to expect, college life crisis. Why couldn't school have actually taught us something useful? Like how to balance a check book, or how to write a resume/cover letter, or how to do taxes and sign a lease or take out a loan or even how to find a good/decent job. Those would have been good things to know/learn. Oh well. I'm just glad I have been slowly finding people to help with those things. The only sucky thing is that since I am a senior next year (because of my credits) I have even less of an amount of time to learn about how life works while other kids normally have about 3-4 years. I have 1 year. Maybe that's why I've been feeling so overwhelmed. Hmm. Now there's a thought. :P

Hope

Sorry that it has been about a month since I posted. It has been a rocky, rough past couple of weeks. I had a mental breakdown a little over a week ago and am still recovering from it. This past month was rough in every sense of the word and never had I felt so alone. It came to a breaking point where I realized there was nothing I wanted to live for anymore. Again, I was brought to that place of desperation, hopelessness, and loss. It scared me. And not because of the feelings. It scared me because it felt all too familiar. It felt too known and too understood. It scared me because I realized that over the past few years, I really hadn't come as far as I believed or hoped I had. My boyfriend found out the following day and decided that he wasn't going to talk to me for the rest of the day until I told someone.

Obviously I know what you're thinking. Seriously? Why would you just stop talking to an extremely depressed, borderline suicidal person? I don't know. And I don't care what his reasons were but I definitely let him know how much it hurt.
I did end up talking to my parents though. They know my past but they didn't really think anything was continuing or was as bad as it had been. But I made sure they knew it never really ended. We discussed plans of action and things and after a trip to the doctor, I am now on a high dosage of vitamin D (since I was very deficient) and a bunch of other random supplements and vitamins. And I am now to give it 12 weeks. If things don't work well, then I'm to go back in and discuss depression medications and other options.

This past week was semi-refreshing. It has been an interesting week. But I have to say I have been blessed by people. My first day back from break I ran into literally every person I know on campus (which honestly is not very many but still). The rest of the week I keep seeing people and I have been staying in fairly good communication with others so as to not be alone. This past week-end I got to hang out with my boyfriend for the first time in awhile and it was nice. One of the first times in the past few months where we weren't fighting and were actually happy.


So ya. That was the month of March in a nutshell for ya'll.

Peace.

"A man begins to die when he ceases to expect anything from Tomorrow." ~ Abraham Miller

Everything Changes so Quickly

Life changes so much in such a short amount of time. It is something that we can never truly predict but the very same thing we call mundane or boring. Life wasn't anything I expected it to be when I was a child. You grow up. . . I grew up. And I realized the way you may view something as a child takes on an entirely different meaning when you're older. I realized the very people I thought I knew, I really didn't. And how much they can change over the course of even just a year. I've realized I don't know what I believe or think anymore. The few sure foundations I had in my life have either turned their back on me or gone down a track completely opposite of me. Life is something that confuses me and I've realized that in the last few weeks I have fallen back right into the old thinking and old feelings that I was stuck in for years and promised myself I would never go back to. I have begun to see (again) no light at the end of the tunnel. I have begun to see that I truly have no plan for my life and I have begun to see that everything I thought I knew was a lie. I have begun to have no hope of a better life because everywhere I look there is pain, disease, death, crying, weeping, and loneliness. I've come to the point (again) where I just want to give up on life. Where I feel, that for once in my life, I am allowed to be selfish.

But at the same time I know that would be foolish. I have been there before and I have seen the outcome from that. Do I really want to deal with that hassle again?

I feel alone in life. I have no hope in life. I have lost friends. I have friends who have been corrupted. I have my own self questioning things and doing things I would have never thought I would have ever done. But in reality. It's not the acts that make me feel bad- it's the thought of what would everyone else think. When in reality that shouldn't bug me because they are who they are and their opinion of me doesn't matter. If they don't know me then why should they judge? But then I also think........ they probably wouldn't even find out, know, or care. I'm just afraid they will.

I don't know what to do anymore. I have lost hope in humanity. All hope. I have lost trust in the very people I used to trust with my life. I have watched as my few friends I have had in my life have slowly been torn away from me... little by little. And it saddens me. And I feel lost. I don't know what to do anymore except curl up in a blanket and cry and never come out again. Because honestly. . . that seems like the only solution.    

Deep Breath, Get Up, Dust Off, and Begin Again

So much school and so must stress. These last few weeks never seemed like they would end. Actually it came to the point that I just broke out laughing while my boyfriend just broke down in tears. The amount of things that seemed to happen in not even a weeks amount of time was just.... seemingly impossible. I swear we made a new record of all the bad things that can happen in a week. First it started with my boyfriend calling me on Monday night of last week telling me that he lost his credit card and couldn't find it. He had it the night before but was missing it. I told him to check his car (since he had already checked everywhere else) but being that is was really late he said he would check on Tuesday. Tuesday came and he called me again and started telling me how he got a random parking ticket for apparently missing his front license plate on his car. . . . which happened to have been stolen. On top of this he couldn't find his credit card. This then rolled into that night when he broke his phone charger (it got ripped out of the wall). The next day (Wednesday) he accidentally left his phone in his car overnight (and if any of you know how cold it gets in MN in February, then you know it is extremely cold at night and just about everything freezes). His phone then decided to rebel and some of the buttons no longer work. The next thing that happened, was his mom decided to take his car and give him hers as they tried to figure out the license plate situation. After this I got a call from Ian on Friday (Valentine's day), he began telling me he received another ticket for apparently parking next to a fire hydrant which was completely buried in snow and which you could not see. He was not happy after this- obviously, as any normal person would be. On top of this, Sunday his car wouldn't start. We had to try to flag down somebody to come help us jump it. No one seemed to have jumper cables but thank God we found someone who could drive us to a gas station to buy some cables in order to jump the car. By the time we got back it was 1 in the morning. The next day (Monday), he found out he missed a mandatory meeting for ROTC and had to figure all of that out. At this point I just couldn't handle it. Nothing seemed to be going right and I just literally failed a test and did horrible on a paper and had two more tests coming up that week. Ian just broke down crying.

Life seems to be way too stressful at times. I know this may not all seem that stressful but within the short amount of time it happened, it was very stressful. A week is too short of a time to deal with so much stress as well as school and in my case, having to also act as a therapist for several of my friends who were also having very bad weeks. Me and Ian just basically came to the point where we couldn't take it anymore. So as a summary. Let me review that week in a little diagram.

Monday:
-Lost credit card

Tuesday:
-Parking ticket
-Stolen License plate
-Broken phone charger

Wednesday:
-Broken phone

Thursday:
-Traded cars

Friday:
-Another parking ticket

Saturday:
-nothing thank God

Sunday:
-Car wouldn't start/ dead battery
-Finally found someone to help

Monday:
-Missed mandatory meeting

Despite the amount of stress, this week has taught me something. Things happen that you can never expect to happen. Life is full of the unexpected but it's how we chose to react to these unexpected turns that makes us into who we are now. I found that I tried to keep a very positive outlook on life during this time when normally I would just have accepted my fate and dwell in self-defeat. And I found that that is what truly allowed me to recover. I had faith the Lord was going to provide and things would be ok in the end. This gave me so much peace throughout the whole week even though I was stretched to my limits. Ian was stressed to the point he just broke down. I remember him laying on the floor in my room telling me he was done. He didn't want to ever get up again and how he was giving up. I told him that giving up means you are never going to try again. I told him he wasn't giving up and he hasn't given up yet. That I need him and that it will all get better in the end. Whether that be in a day, 2 days, 4 months, or 10 years.

This last week (following the horrible week) though, has honestly been a good recovery week. Still stressful but a lot less shit happening. It has been a chance to take a deep breath, get up, dust ourselves off, and take another shot at life and continue on down the road. Because honestly.... that is all you can do and need to do in life sometimes. Accept the difficulties but still chose to arise and not let them knock you down.