From: sasnla@shadow.unx.sas.com (Nancy Agnew)
Subject: Re: Let it end soon, please
Originator: sasnla@shadow.unx.sas.com
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 17:31:23 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <C0psKo.4KM@twwells.com>, anon-1280@twwells.com (MelancholyChild) writes:
>[post expressing self-hatred, frustration, and so on not included here]
>
>Well, thank you, but that post brought me a response telling me to
>"quit whining" and I realize that I was whining. People don't want
>to hear how much I despise myself, and how I'm totally full of despair
>and hopelessness. It's just bullshit, it's all bullshit, and it is
>better for me to keep it to myself. It's not going to get better,
>and I can't even write anything anymore that isn't full of cynical,
>self-hating, whiny bullshit. That makes me hate myself even more,
>so I just delete whatever I've written. No big deal.

Ah, well.  I agree with Doug that it is important to have a place to
write this, and if you do it, others will feel its truth for themselves,
too.  I didn't write "whiny, self-hating bullshit" to the net (for
the most part, I think), but I absolutely filled notebooks with it and
sent many, many, many letters to a friend filled with it.  That was
really hard on my friend because, unlike the net, she didn't feel
that she could opt not to read it.  Better to do it on the net and
the heck with the "stop whining" messages.  Those folks don't have to
read what you write.  As Doug (I think) pointed out, you were 
expressing your feelings and your place and your situation, you weren't 
trying to tell anyone else what to do or how to be.

>The bad part of doing that is that this hatred has grown and become
>even more internalized. I have no outlet for it. Not that it matters.
>I'm completely non-violent, so it won't affect anyone but myself.
>I'm not a cutter, but for the first time, I *really* understand the
>motives behind cutting. Not that I plan on starting, I'm too much
>of a wimp about pain. Still, I understand why someone would do it.

My therapist called me a "mental cutter" because of the extent of the
self-hatred in my writing.  For all that I left no visible scars or
wounds, and only somone who read what I wrote knew how I was feeling,
the feelings were there and were trying to be expressed.  Suppressing
them made them worse.  Keep writing (well, it worked for me, anyway).

When I kept writing, my friend asked how it could do me any good.  Didn't
it encourage me to believe the crap my family had told me forever?  Well,
I don't know, in the long run, whether it did or not....but what it
did do, and the reason I encourage keeping on (and keeping on being
uncomfortable about doing it, too), is it got a bunch of those messages
out that had been put onto the most basic level of who I was.  I
found that at some very deep level, I thought I was an object brought
into the world for my brothers' amusement.  They played some fun games
with me every now and then, and they abused me, and neither thing really
meant anything because I was an object and not a person.  Seems like I
already believed it before I ever wrote it down -- the writing was the
letting it out after years of suppression.

Well, finally, when that stuff came out of that writing, I could see it
as tripe -- it finally got extreme enough for ME to see it wasn't true.
And it didn't matter that anyone else told me it wasn't true until I
could get through all the layers of crap I'd had pounded into me.  And
the way that worked for me was to write that stuff, and cut myself to
shreds with words, much more effectively than anybody else could do.

After all, it kept everyone else from trying to hurt me - I was already 
doing it to myself.  A bizarre form of protection, but there it is.

I do it a lot less now, but every now and then (every 5 or 6 weeks??
instead of every 5 or 6 hours, it's an improvement) I do it.  Still.
It usually tells me there is something I don't want to face, so I fall
back on a coping mechanism that no longer serves a purpose.  It stops
again after a day or two, and I can learn from it.  I don't force
myself to stop it, or beat myself up for doing it (much), but I do
encourage myself to ask myself why I'm doing it again, what is it that
is bothering me, why do I feel a need.  Asking those kinds of questions,
and letting a little time pass -- usually I get onto more positive ways
of being fairly naturally.

But I didn't get to this place by "stopping whining" or by suppressing
it.  I was lucky enough to have friends who could bear with me during
that time.  The net is a good place for this - many of us have felt
this way and can identify with what you feel and write.  there are
some folks who keep telling us to stop whining -- just because they
don't understand my/your process doesn't mean we have to listen to
them, you know?  I don't try to make them listen to me.

>MelancholyChild (thanks for liking my name, but I'm actually starting
>to hate it. The way I feel, FatStupidUglyAwfulHorribleBitch will be
>my next name. Just kidding, that wouldn't fit in the header.)
>See, there I go again! I feel this stuff, but I don't want to stink
>up all of my posts with it. <sigh>

gee, your family had a nickname for you that is remarkably similar
to the nickname mine had for me.  they didn't have the AwfulHorrible
part -- I added that myself, along with BeyondRedemption -- they
also elaborated on the Stupid part (SlowUncoordinated -- ironic, it 
didn't seem to matter that I was more interested in academics and
athletics than any of the brothers...and got recognition for my abilities
in those areas...girls weren't supposed to be "smart" or "jocks" so it
wasn't helpful that I was) -- but all in all, maybe they all read the 
same book of "how to mess up kids' minds" together, or something.  
Well, I'm glad it won't fit on the header.  Your dilemma expressed in 
"see, there I go again" is so familiar.  hang in there.

best wishes.
Nancy
-- 
Nancy Agnew                         sasnla@unx.sas.com
SAS Institute Inc,  SAS Campus Dr,  Cary NC 27513-2414
My company's opinions are not likely mine, and vice versa.