From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz)
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: Re: does anybody want ME?
Date: 12 Nov 92 22:17:15 GMT
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences

In article <BxLt4p.CMz@twwells.com> anon-1016@twwells.com (Prisoner) writes:
>Don't read this unless you're able to deal with nasty stuff....
>
>Yeah, everyone wants a piece of me. My wife wants me to be kind
>and caring, so I oblige. The people at work want the products of
>my mind, so I'm giving it to them. Those who run stuff through my
>computer want service and help, so I do my best. And on it goes.
>People want my skills. But no one wants ME.

How do you know? You've been keeping yourself invisible from everyone.

>See, I am not the administrator of my computer, or the genius
>programmer and sometimes philosopher, or the caring husband I
>appear to my wife. Those are just the things I do, the face I
>present to the world.
>
>Buried under all the work, hidden by the tension of my body,
>pushed out of consciousness, that's where the real me, the me
>that is not only a surface, is. But who'd want that? I sure as
>hell don't. Sorry for the pity party, people, but I'm feeling
>self-pitying right now. Why not? Nothing I do will make any
>difference. There's a large part of me that wants to just drop it
>all and go with my feelings, to tell the people at work, my wife,
>the people who rely on my computer, to FUCK OFF, that I'm TIRED of
>trying to be when all that being is is pain or numbness or
>unconsciousness. I really don't know what it is that keeps me
>going. I can't pretend that it's a sense of obligation or what.

Have you tried eliminating all activities that aren't essential
to keeping your life going?  How about bodywork to find out what
your body/life is like without all that tension?

I have my own problems with expressing anger, but sometimes it
helps to figure out what the current infuriation is and change
my circumstances--I think that rage (the desire to destroy 
everything within reach) is based in feeling helpless.

>I can't figure it. I keep thinking that all this hurting is just
>a fake, that the only reason it is there is that I do it is for
>attention. But I can't accept that: I spent ten fucking years not
>telling anyone. Was I just hoping that they'd notice anyway? And
>on top of that, the inescapable logic: no one with their head
>screwed on straight is going to spend themselves that way. But I
>can't unravel the knot past there.

I don't believe that your pain is any sort of a fake. I believe that 
when people are badly traumatized (whether by another person or by
circumstances), they can get physically/emotionally stuck in the
moment of horror. A major way of getting out is by paying attention
to the present, both one's internal states and one's sensory input.

>I know why I don't drop it, of course: if I did that, I'd starve.
>It's just me paying my way. Stupid me hates physical pain, it's
>why I'm not dead, and I tell myself that starving to death isn't
>a fun way to go. Well, bullshit. Someone would come and take me
>away, no doubt, stick me in a fucking mental hospital, maybe
>overdose me again. Hey, did you know that ODing on Thorazine is a
>really nasty trip? Ask my young teen self how I know!
>
>Mind's wandering. Of course, that's what I'm trying to make it
>do. If I engage my intellect, you'll all just hate me again.

I don't hate you, and I didn't hate you when you were in your
more intellectual mode. 

>Yeah, call me FMS, you motherfuckers. Rot in hell, you.
>
Did anyone actually call you FMS? 

>Oops. Forgot the spoiler. Well, here: WARNING, DANGER, SPOILER,
>DEEP BURNING
>
>		****RAGE****
>
>Do you know how much rage I feel? I want to destroy things. You,
>me, the computer screen, everyone, EVERYTHING. My body is shaking
>with the rage I know is there but can't let out. The adrenalin is
>flowing and I'm right in there with the fight or flight. But fight
>what? Flee from what? I want to tell you how very, very angry I
>am, with you, with everyone, with me, my wife. I want to *FEEL*
>that. But I can't. Only little spurts, quickly suppressed.
>
>What to do with this malevolent monster? Stuff it back? But that's
>death. He is me and what I have to deal with. Let it out? You've
>already driven me away, for much less an offense. I can do neither
>so I do a little of both and find that as with any compromise, I
>get the worst of both alternatives. I neither let it out and I am
>distanced anyway.

Is there anything that it would be safe for you to let your
destructiveness out on? (I mean something like cheap crockery.)
(I realize that this wouldn't be as strong as destroying every-
thing, but it might do some good.)

Have you considered writing about all this as truthfully and
fully as you can (in a secure notebook)? It seems to me that, in
this post, you're pulled between wanting to communicate and
believing that you can't.  In a notebook, you could be clear
that you're writing to make yourself understandable to you.

>I was about to say "This is going to kill me..." but I don't know
>that that's true. Hell, I've lasted this long, right? I oughta be
>able to deal with another decade of purgatory. And once I've
>managed that, one more. Hey, only fourty more years to go.
>Someone once told me they were comforted by that thought, that
>their life had an end. But if that's how it is to be, I WANT IT
>OVER NOW!
>
>Shit. I started with "does anybody want me". Thinking not, I hurt.
>Please don't answer and say that I'm valuable to you this way or
>that way; that just misses the point. Is there anyone who will
>want me, as I am, hate, rage, self-pity, perversions and all?
>None and I know it. Yes, I understand the reality: everyone has
>their own shit to deal with and mine is much too much for anyone
>to deal with.

I don't like seeing you in so much pain, but I'd been wondering
how you were doing. I can't save you, but (for no very obvious
reason) I rather like you. Us rage-filled intellectuals have to
stick together or something.

>Including me.
>
>You know, I've not been totally out of contact; I've tried to
>keep e-mail contact and the occasional phone contact. But it isn't
>helping. I'm not real. It's all fake. It feels fake and it looks
>fake.

I've felt considerably more "moved in" in this universe since I've
been paying more attention to my breathing and my senses. (This is
a 10 year+ project that is by no means done, but it's been worth
the trouble.) 

Also, all this lying you've been doing may be part of what's 
making you feel unreal. 
>
>It's funny. Once upon a time, I said to someone that if there is a
>thing I want and it's important to me and it's something that has
>to come from people, I may not have it. Well, he didn't believe
>it. But it's true. However you look at it, no one in their right
>mind will put up with me long enough. And if they might, I'll fuck
>it up so that they won't, right? It sure seems that way. Just look
>at my history here.
>
>Oh, goddamn. Whining and, soon I'll bet, sulking. Well, maybe not.
>I've been awake 24 hours and maybe I'll get to sleep before I do
>that. I hope so. Welcome to my life.

Treat yourself as gently as you can stand , even in some small
matter.  (I know it's very difficult and probably terrifying, but
it might get you off the treadmill.) 

>Well, not really. Do you realize that if you met me in person
>you'd have no idea of this stuff? I've gotten so good at faking
>it that only those people who have known me for years and you on
>the net would imagine that this stuff is buried underneath. My
>wife sure as hell doesn't have the foggiest. I keep pretending
>because that's all that I can do.
>
>Sure, can you see it? Oh, boss, I hate to tell you this but for
>the last year, I've only been working half the time; the rest of
>the time I've spent in a massive depression. And it isn't going
>to get any better, either. Instant pink slip, for sure. And, [my
>wife], you have made my life absolutely miserable by not being
>the sort of person I can confide in. And you've made it worse by
>hanging around with that man, doing it in spite of my expressed
>unhappiness about it. Just how stupid do you think I am? Divorce
>city, here we come. Yes, and for the people who use my computer:
>hey, folks, you know that helpful stuff from the administrative
>account? Well, inside that man is someone who might just decide
>to jump off a bridge one day, leaving you all in the lurch. Yeah,
>that's the way to build confidence.
>
>Yeah. Right.
>
>I'm not going to say those things; with any luck, I won't even
>follow the worst case scenarios. What I will do is keep hiding,
>stay huddled in the corner of my life, pretend that all is well
>for as long as I can. Pretend that I'm alive.
>
>Is any of this getting through?

Quite a bit.

Nancy Lebovitz
nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu 
>