From: anon-1280@twwells.com (Alaska)
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: Re: ...Goodbye Etc.
Date: 15 Dec 92 04:54:53 GMT
Organization: Anonymous Posting Service at twwells.com
X-Email-Accepted: yes

In alt.sexual.abuse.recovery David Nelson writes:

>anon-1280@twwells.com (Alaska) writes:
># I CAN'T ***BELIEVE*** WHAT I'VE DONE!!!!

>Dearest Alaska,

....
>Plus, a lot of us grew up in households where there was much
>contention and rage.  And arguments make a lot of us feel very small
>and vulnerable just like we felt when we were being abused.  Sometimes
>when people argue, I feel overwhelmed so I have to get away.

Thank you for this post, I'm sorry I couldn't answer you sooner.

Conflict usually makes me run and hide which is kinda strange,
because my household was not a violent, physically abusive one.
(I honestly don't count a couple of whippings and spankings. That's
milder than mild compared to what some people have to go through.
Whatever else my parents did, they never put us through that. There
really wasn't any verbal abuse either. My dad was gruff, but not
terrifyingly so.)

Still, sometimes I throw myself into situations I have no business
being in, and sometimes I'll jump right into a flame war without
enough proper thought.

Funny, last fall, after I had gotten myself fired and the depression
was really starting to kick in strong, I got into a series of flame
wars on a newsgroup. They were counterproductive and just made me
look like a right royal bitch. (Though, in my own defense I will
say that I was defending the right to show emotions in this group,
and flaming people who took great pleasure at stomping on those
emotions.) I sometimes got *very* nasty, and I lost a lot of
supporters. I realized that I was taking out my aggressions on
these other people through the flame wars and I swore off flame
wars forever. I've managed to keep my promise in that group, but
jumped into the middle of a few others elsewhere. Sometimes I just
can't keep my mouth shut. 

>Obviously, Holly expresses her pain in that goodbye note.  I suspect
>that her pain is resonating with your own pain.  Inside myself, I
>often feel that there is no greater sin than hurting someone else.  So
>then I start to punish myself for having been so "bad."

Yes, to it all :-(

>Alaska, you not only deserve to be here, *I* need you here.  We all
>have our issues to work out.  And sometimes we bounce off of each
>other as we process things.  The recent flamewar is just a relatively
>spectacular example of that.  

Thank you.

># I always fuck up. I always have and I always will.

>Dear Sister-In-Healing, I believe that that is your internalized
>abuser speaking.  My rational, adult mind knows that those statements
>which start with "always" are false.  When I form sweeping
>generalizations like that, I know they're formed by my wounded inner
>child, handed to my inner bad parent, and used to beat up myself.

Anika suggested I use a Nerf Bat :-)

>Okay, I will presume to step in here and forgive you.  I forgive you
>for being human.  I forgive you for being wounded and sometimes
>confused. I forgive you for making mistakes and sometimes speaking
>words that are ill-advised.  I forgive you for having been too weak to
>defend yourself when you were abused.  And I forgive you for hurting
>yourself, someone I care about, by using Holly's words as a weapon.

<sob> Thank you again.

  ________
  |alaska|    US: anon-1280   Finland: an881   Australia: anon.34



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