Yesterday I bought more than $100 of vitamins. I have ~ 7 days of pot left. I think that will be when I stop. I’m not going to get more to make it through the end of the year. With the break for the Texas trip (I’m not flying to Texas with pot even if I *do* have a medical prescription) That will get me to the 20th or 21st. So Christmas will be interesting. But you have to just go at some point.
I took my vitamins yesterday. I rested yesterday. I didn’t run because for some reason my hip decided yesterday that it hates my guts. My plan for today is yoga, baking gingerbread for tomorrow, and swinging. I may or may not pick up the garage. I haven’t decided.
We went Christmas caroling with the home school group yesterday. I was nominated as choir director at the last minute because the person who had volunteered let us know that she only meant she would run the rehearsal. Uhm, ok then. Pretty much what that meant is I counted off the beginning of the songs. We were not good singers. But we had fun.
Being in a senior assisted living place was kind of hard. Some of the people in the locked dementia ward cried when we sang. I can only imagine what was going on in their heads. I don’t think we cheered them up. One woman was mostly muttering under her breath with occasional louder shouts about how we were all liars and bastards. I don’t blame her for that opinion when we are singing Christian songs about hope and how everything will be awesome for Christmas.
I got bitchslapped on the ptsd forum. I talked about my uncanny ability to figure out that people have been sexually assaulted. Some woman spent way too much time telling me how inappropriate and terrible I am for being able to tell that about people. I should certainly never let on that I have such suspicions or I am violating their privacy. You know… I can see why you are over sensitive. My most frequent experience is that people cry and hug me and are grateful to be seen. I’m not going to stop because someone on the internet objects to my behavior. It is working for me.
Yesterday I was sitting on the floor and my mind was wandering and Shanna wanted my attention. She walked up and flicked me in the face. It was a very near thing for me hitting her. At this stage of my life the flicking in the head leading to violent reaction thing is a reflex. I don’t think about it. That came from many years of abuse.
I talked to her about it then and again at dinner. Noah had the brilliant idea of comparing it to accidentally kicking someone when they tickle you. It’s a reflex. You aren’t consciously deciding that you want to kick someone. It just kind of happens. When someone flicks me in the face I just react. Please don’t do that to me any more. Please. Please. Please. I don’t want to ever hit you and I’m terrified that if you do that to me it will happen before I have the ability to stop myself.
I am really sorry I live in the body I have. At this stage of my life, just don’t fucking flick my face, ok?
Shanna said I scared her when I talked about it. I was trying hard to not be scary. I’m so sorry. But I’m very serious. Don’t flick my face. Truly. Don’t.
I woke up thinking about how after reading eight books on codependence I don’t think I know the difference between codependence and interdependence. I’m still scared I am “inappropriate” all the time. I grew up being told that “we” were just codependent–like it or not. That’s what my mom and sister said.
I feel so guilty for needing things from Noah. I feel like I am suffocating him. He tells me he is fine but when you lie the way I do all the time about being fine you tend to not believe other people either.
I don’t want to hurt my children the way I have hurt other people. I think my kids deserve better. I feel guilty for the fact that I didn’t think my friends deserved better. I shouldn’t have cracked ribs. I shouldn’t have hit people so much. I shouldn’t have tried so hard to make people bleed.
I’m not even talking about the bdsm. Those people consented. I don’t feel guilty about beating someone until they lie sobbing on the floor in front of me if they asked me very nicely to do that to them. I feel very guilty, still, for all the fights as a kid. I was so god damn mean.
I’ve only cracked one set of ribs since reaching my majority. Uhm, progress? That time the person even went to the doctor and had x-rays to confirm it. Yup. I cracked their ribs. When I was younger people just dealt with months of pain instead of going to the doctor.
I regularly talk to men who are very dismissive of whatever “power” I ascribe to them. They don’t see themselves the way that I see them. They think they are powerless. Naw, you’ve just never really learned that you aren’t ten years old any more. I understand that no one likes young men. I get that. When you are a young guy you have the opposite of power, no matter what color you are. But things change.
I haven’t cracked any ribs in ten years. I should stop feeling bad. I did stop. I haven’t made anyone bleed in… about the same length of time if memory serves correctly. I’m getting close to being out of the scene (mostly) for almost ten years. I still bottom to Noah but I’m not in the scene and I don’t top any more.
I am somewhat unlikely to ever viciously beat someone again. That is weird. I have done it so many times over my life that I don’t know what to do with all those feelings. I really am a vicious, nasty person.
But you wouldn’t know it to look at my kids. I’m nice to them. But today I scared Shanna. She kind of melted out of her chair to hide under the kitchen table.
I’m so sorry Shanna. I wasn’t trying to scare you. I don’t want to hit you. Please don’t flick my face. I don’t have time to think to stop myself from reacting. I’m trying. I have worked so hard on my reflexes. I no longer hit instinctively when someone startles me. For many years there if someone thought it was “funny” to jump out and startle me they were as likely as not to walk away bleeding.
I *have* learned a lot of control.
My biological father used to flick me in the head. It usually came along with some deprecation about my intelligence. I learned to fight as hard as I could when I was flicked. You are not going to treat me that way any more.
The last time I hit someone was up in Portland. (She’s a friend. She liked it.) It’ll be two years in February. That was when Noah and I agreed to stop that part of our relationship.
I think a lot about what it means to stop being violent. I have a lot of compassion for military veterans. I can only imagine how dangerous I would have become if I had entered the military. (When I was 17 a number of “official” sort of school people tried to talk me into the military. I was seen as very suitable. That would have destroyed me.)
Life is about a series of choices. Sometimes some people pick violence. Does that mean you are stuck being violent forever? Malcolm X managed to (relatively) calm down.
Maybe I will get to the point where I can say that I haven’t hit anyone in twenty years. Maybe my guilt will reduce over time.
I still feel bad for fracturing Jason’s ribs in high school. He was on the wrestling team and was bragging about how if he took me on he would win. No, he really didn’t. And he paid for months.
That was more than half my life ago. He didn’t hate me forever. He did try to act inappropriately the one time I have run into him as an adult. But that was a different issue. That was sex and alcohol and bad boundaries.
I’m glad I’m off facebook. I’m harder to find. I am less likely to run into random people I hope I won’t run into again.
Sometimes there are downsides to knowing so many people. Sometimes there are downsides to having such a history of hurting people. They find me years later and I get this new rush of shame. Yup, I’m that kind of person. Or I was. Do you ever actually change?
I don’t hit my kids. The worst I have done is smack feet that were viciously kicking the car seat. I was going to drive off the road if I didn’t stop the kicking.
I don’t want to hit my kids. But inside me there is always the potential. I don’t really know how to live with that.
Do you know that the US refuses entry to people from other countries who have documented issues of depression? A Canadian woman was going through the US to get to a cruise. She was blocked from her vacation. Because she was stupid enough to think that a crazy person gets to have normal life experiences.
I don’t imagine the biases against “people like me”. They are well documented. That doesn’t mean I personally experience that much discrimination at this stage.
It’s a lot like white men thinking they have no power.
All of these things are so complicated. Power. Safety. Violence. They all entwine.
I don’t feel good about the progress I’ve made. I don’t feel like I have come far enough. Really I don’t think I will ever give myself much slack because I have already done what I’ve done. I can never undo it.
Are monsters ever redeemable?
I was asked why I won’t consider working Dickens. I can’t deal with my rapists. Sorry. I know that nothing will ever happen to them. They will continue to be Fine Upstanding Members Of Their Community. They have a lot to offer. They are important. They are worthy.
I just…
Regarding the flicking-you-in-the-head – I’m the same way about tickling. I hate being tickled. I have a visceral reaction to it. I warn people ahead of time “I will kick you in the nuts if you tickle me”. I will do whatever it takes to get the person to stop, and if I can’t get away in about 2-3 seconds, I go straight to whatever physical action it takes to make it stop. If the person doesn’t figure out right away that a mistake was made and instead keeps the tickling going, then it’s very likely I will not only try to hurt that person out of reflexive action, but once I’ve gotten away from the immediate situation, I will likely lash out (physically or otherwise) at the person for having deliberately continued.
I can accept the once-in-a-long-while accidental tickling. Like when M is touching me lightly somewhere and accidentally strays into prime tickling territory, or if he’s helping me with something to do with my foot, and it’s almost impossible for my foot to not be ticklish. But he realizes it quickly and stops touching that spot. I don’t like it, but I can deal with it and move on. I’ve had people think I was exaggerating or threatening them in a ‘cute’ way or some other stupidity like that. Then they’re all surprised and shocked when I punch or kick them. At which point, I give no apologies for any damage I’ve done.
So… I’m want to understand from your perspectives.
From where I am, tickling is a temporary discomfort, which stops as soon as the tickling stops. I totally get using a physical means to stop it, if words don’t work, like holding their hands away from your body or even slapping their hands away. It’s uncomfortable and you want them to cut it out.
But punching or kicking? Something that can leave bruises seems like an extreme reaction. Bruises = a couple of days, tickling = stops when the tickling stops.
Is it because escalating now prevents future escalation on their part? Or maybe because tickling in the past had really negative connotations?
I read somewhere that enjoying tickling is a learned behavior. I used to love tickle fights from my older relatives (and later my crushes). So I can see wanting to share that gift of laughter with someone else that I liked. Now that I’m older I understand more why some people don’t appreciate it.
I hope I asked these questions right, I don’t mean to challenge, more that I’d like to understand the visceral reactions.
(And yeah, the flicking also is disrespectful, that doesn’t sound cool. Plus, it hurts!)
For me: The first part, the visceral part, is the “making the tickling stop” part. That’s a reflexive action. Much like when the doctor hits just under your knee with the little rubber hammer. It just happens, there’s no conscious control over it.
The second part, the “I will hunt you down and kill you” part, is the “You didn’t do that by accident, you saw I was in distress, and if you hadn’t remembered my warning before the tickling started, the lashing about and biting should have tipped you off, and you chose to continue anyway” part. You made the conscious decision to keep tickling me, and now I’m making the conscious decision to make sure it never happens again.
I make no apologies for either reaction.
I’ve never liked tickling, as far back as I can remember. I do have a memory of being pinned down by a babysitter’s boyfriend – someone who shouldn’t have been in my house in the first place. He (1) tickled me, which I didn’t like, (2) pinned me down to do so, (3) she – the babysitter – didn’t do anything to stop it. Oh, and (4), I don’t like being touched by people I don’t trust. Which may have been the case before he came along, I don’t know. It’s certainly the case currently.
I don’t know if there were any other childhood-related tickling incidents. I’ve had a handful as an adult, and they were supposedly “all in good fun” – the tickler’s fun, not mine. Usually it’s people who find other ways to push “hard limit” boundaries, and kept doing it even as I said I didn’t want to. In short, assholes.
It occurs to me that I think I may not have addressed the core of your question.
Tickling is NOT a pleasant experience. It is a very very unpleasant experience for me. My “laughing” during tickling is a reflexive action – it happens even when I am having *no* fun, and is mixed with protesting, possibly crying. I don’t like it. At all. To tickle me is to break a trust with me, and I am all about the trust. If you get physically close enough to tickle me, I’ve likely decided I trust you enough to let you in that physical space. If you get physically close enough to tickle me, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ve also been warned not to.
So to tickle me (more than a brief accidental tickle, which may or may not be forgiven, depending on other factors), you’ve made a choice to ignore my warning or to test my resolve in this matter. I do not appreciate people taking my hard limits lightly. It tells me I cannot trust you, and that you are likely one or another sort of danger to be around.
Thanks for going into detail. Yeah… the continuing sounds like asshole behaviors.
I admit though, that I would be so confused by the laughing. While I know that some don’t find tickling pleasant, I might not have realized that you might still laugh involuntarily! I’m sure that even those who like tickling protest and say stop, which definitely doesn’t help those who hate it (and have the exact “same” reaction of protest).
I understand the trust issue. I wonder if those are harder to navigate, as trust is less universally linked to tickling as the binary pleasant tickle / unpleasant tickle.
Thanks for educating me on the tickling! I’ll be much more aware of this now.
Oh, and ha, part two. I just re-read my question. I think the core of my question is the bruise vs temporary question. While that seems like an extreme reaction, bruises for trust breaking seems quite reasonable. So, yes, you answered the core, which explained that the tickling was not a temporary discomfort, but rather represented the larger issue. Thx.