From: suhre@meltami.dsd.trw.com ()
Subject: Amends revisited
Originator: suhre@meltami.dsd.trw.com
Reply-To: suhre@meltami.dsd.trw.com ()
Organization: TRW Space & Defense
Distribution: alt
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 20:41:35 GMT


=====Begin post for Adria=====
I'm really intrigued with all this talk about making ammends and
resentments and all.  I just have a few questions that I'd like
answered if anyone can figure them out:
     I have a resentment about a previous employer because
a professor injured me on the job (note:I do not have a resentment
against this professor) and this employer accused me of forging
hospital and doctor papers and told me that I would have to
use the injured part even if it resulted in my permantn
crippling.  This employer then lied about what was going
on to the Dean's office, the Ombudsman's office, and the Office
of Human Resources; when I tried to straighten everything out
everyone yelled and me, blamed me, called ME the lier even
though the prof's story matched mine to a tee and it was
my boss who got caught in the lies.  I also resent this
person because when I'd call in sick she would drive around
my place DURING WORK HOURS (not lunch) and spy on me IN MY
OWN HOME, again lie about it and be allowed to get away
with it.  According to the Big Book I should make ammends
to her because I have a resentment against her.  I would
like to know what I'm supposed to make ammends about:
amd I supposed to apoligize for letting the prof. hurt me?
Or perhaps I'm supposed to apologize for wanting my home
to be safe from people peering in my windows?
     Another one--as a child I was severly abused by my
mother.  The courts said I HAD to be there and every time
I ran away to get away from the beating and poison, and to
get some medical attention (yes--going to the hospital was
considered as running away, I was a minor after all), the
police would bring me back and there was nothing I could do.
I resent this person for purposely trying to kill me; for
doing permanant physical damage (not to mention the emotional
and mental up to and including killing all of my pets in
front of me, telling me every day that I spent in her presence
that she never wanted me, tried to abort me and hated me for
having been born anyway, and would do anything she damn well
wanted to me and that there was nothing I could do about it).
Am I supposed to apologize to her for having been born?  Am
I supposed to apologize to her for continuing to live despite
her best efforts to kill me?  Am I supposed to apologize to her
for having gotten a 40 hr/wk job at the age of 5 to support her
because she couldn't hold a job (ME state didn't have child
labor laws until I was 16, and then it was stated that they
could be ignored at the say-so of the parent--ME is a little
backwards sometimes)?   According to the big book I'm supposed
to appologize for SOMETHING because I resent her.
     In both of these instances I didn't complain until it
was the very end...actually, I didn't complain at all.
Perhaps I should aplogize for not having complained and for
having put up with so much shit.  I don't know.  I was hurt,
I did nothing wrong, so I resent them.
     Perhaps the Big Book is wrong here.  Perhaps we do not
have to make ammends for EVERY resentment we have?  Perhaps
there are some things that happen in which we have no part
other than being there and we owe no one anything.  Perhaps
there were some injustices done to us after all, that we
need to heal from, take time for the pain to go away, before
the feelings of resentment go away.  Perhaps there are some
resentments for which no ammends on our part can be made?
=====End post for Adria=======
-- 
Maurice Suhre
suhre@trwrb.dsd.trw.com