Yesterday, I wrote about some positive things that came out of visiting my hometown over the weekend. Today I would like to focus on the challenging things as part of processing the trip.
I was much more aware than I usually am of the negative energy of most of the people I visited with. For example, when I visited with family (my father’s side, not momster’s), I was overwhelmed by the constant flow of negativity. Every conversation was about how terrible and hard life is. Yes, I am painfully aware of how difficult life can be, but I also choose not to dwell on the negative stuff 24/7.
When I am visiting with someone that I only see every few years, I ask about how they have been and talk about the good stuff in my life. I reserve the venting for my close girlfriends as I need to process the hard things. When I choose to focus on negativity, I try to have a beginning, middle, and end to the process, not experience negativity as a state of being. I used to be negative constantly, and that was a miserable way to live. No, I am not perfect, nor am I saying that these people don’t have a legitimate reason to be unhappy. My point is that I don’t want to spend the majority of my time complaining about how miserable I am, and it is hard for me to spend time with people who live their lives miserable as a state of being.
I do give these people credit for being authentic, though – they are authentically miserable. There were others I visited with whose energy did not match who they presented themselves as being. A huge part of the direction of my growth is being authentically me. If there is not room in a friendship for me to be myself, then I don’t need the friendship. I might not always be pleasant, but I am (or really strive to be) always me. I need and expect the same from the other person.
The energy of people who are pretending to be something that they are not is actually harder for me to process. The inauthenticity messes with me and is so much harder for me to be around – the dichotomy is draining. What is also difficult (and is an issue whenever I get together with people who “knew me then”) is when others say and do the same things they always said and did, but it’s like it is toward a stranger because that person is not me any longer. The dynamic no longer works because I am no longer that person.
These are the people who were in my life as an emotionally shattered teenager. Being around them was my comfort zone. Now, I am so thankful that there are hundreds of miles between that life and me. I don’t mean this in a judgmental way, nor do I mean that I don’t care about these people. It’s just too draining for me to live like that. I found it interesting that it was the people, not the place (where the child abuse happened), that was so challenging for me on this trip. This doesn’t mean I don’t love and care about them — it just means that I no longer fit in there.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
At “gatherings” I often wonder why are we doing this?
I like to do things when I am with people. No not pound down as much alcohol as we can and talk about all the other times we pounded down a bunch of alcohol.
I often wonder if many people do not gather just to vent and as I do not than it does nothing for me that is why I do not like it. Maybe they get something our of it. I do not understand.
I so wanted to find “my group” I have given up although I find more people to who I can relate that are artists. All artists I can not relate to. Just a higher percentage in that group.
I do not mind talking about problems as long as the goal is a solution.
I swam with a women in the pool last winter and actually said “is this one of those problems you don’t want solved?.” I then figured out she was using me to talk about problems so she could be upbeat around other people. She also had no interest in listening to my story. We do not swim together anymore.
I find it interesting that you say it was the people and not the place this time. I am on the cusp of this happening. I went to make some marbles and I really wanted to see my instructor.
I recently attended a gathering of friends that I have not seen in a long time, back in the town where I grew up. It was both good and bad, but it was difficult. I noticed how hard some of them tried to be someone they really aren’t. I like the phrase “authentically miserable.” I think it says it all for those types of people.
‘What is also difficult (and is an issue whenever I get together with people who “knew me then”) is when others say and do the same things they always said and did, but it’s like it is toward a stranger because that person is not me any longer.’
This is a big one for me. I go out of my way to avoid anyone who met “me” as a child, because they always seem to insist that I’m still that person. Some of them, and ex-schoolmates were always the worst for this, either implicitly or explicitly say that the person I am now is the inauthentic one, that I’m just pretending to be confident and secure, because they can’t handle not having power over me and feeling superior to me any more. I think I hate that the most of all the social challenges in adult life.
I completely see what you mean about it being draining to be around people who knew you as a dysfunctional teenager. Very well expressed.
Faith, as always I admire your courage. I couldn’t consider re-visiting the home area where I was abused, even looking at it on Googlemaps triggers me! But I can identify with outgrowing old patterns of interacting and I’m just so pleased to see you making so much progress, or feeling so much better in your own skin. Well done!
Our parents are a fine picture of not only “authentic misery” but “each other” and “self-inflicted” misery as well – and don’t mind wallowing around in it publicly as long as it isn’t embarrassing to them – meaning they strike out at each other ALL the time – and are unwilling to admit their own faults and mistakes to themselves. It’s always someone else “did this” to them. My recent incarceration in the loony bin was a fine example. This is a couple that divorced – and married a year later (the day after the divorce was finalized: say bye-bye to all that college money!) – and to this day folks around them say they did it to get back at one another – more for revenge (and a sense of self-security on my mom’s part).
You are right: it is often the people. We can look at the house and say “there!”. But without the people it is an empty shell. WITH the people, however – it’s a whole different thing.
We feel really strange when we get around those who know – especially when we’re around those kids who were with us at some of the “parties”. Wondering if what’s going through ‘my’ head is what’s going through theirs – and it might explain why sometimes we all have trouble looking into someone’s eyes. We feel real bad about one kid we met – he was 5 or 6 and we were 10 – our teenage molester had had us have him come over – try to molest him – get him “ready” for him – and we failed. But not before some things were done. We see him in the face and wonder: how does he remember US??? Dang; some of the things we’ve gone through . . . talk about guilty trips sometimes!
Revisiting the physical past – always a strange thing to do. Like entering an empty land after the survival’s done – you always wonder what is there; seeing ghost like images of what went in the past . . .
whut a way to be.
DID.
LOL!