I had a really bad shake up last night which made me contemplate a lot of things I imprinted in my mind when I was a young girl. A few key decisions I made which have shaped a good deal of my character and have proved extremely destructive and detrimental.
Important Decision One:
When I was around eight years old, I remember listening to my mother talk on the phone. I was not purposely eavesdropping (most of the time), I was simply near her, or could hear her, and short of becoming suddenly deaf I could not shut out from my hearing the phone conversations she had. She seemed to be under the belief that she could talk as much, and as loud as she wanted, around me and that I couldn't understand a whit of what she said, or couldn't hear her, or didn't care to listen.
None were true. I listened. Since I could. But it was not eagerly, and honestly, often, I wished I could stop my ears, I wished I could stop her incessant driveling because of what she spoke of.
She was well liked. By everyone. She was presented as a perfect, well loved creature. It had been ingrained into me that she was perfect, and I believed her so.
She had many "bosom" friends. And when she talked on the phone, it was them I would hear her talking to. Them, or her own relatives.
She would talk to one of these "bosom" friends, and agree with this friend on every point. She would laugh and cry and sympathize and in general "love". She would then hang up the phone, scowl, and growl and complain to my father about the person she had just talked to. She would then call another "bosom" friend, and agree with that one (sometimes thusly contradicting the beliefs she had stated to the first "bosom" friend), and harshly abuse the first "bosom" friend, and my father. She would then go back and call the first "bosom" friend, and agree with that one again, and abuse the second "bosom" friend. It was also her habit to abuse all of her relatives (including her own mother and father) to each other.
But no one knew. No one ever knew what she was doing. None of her friends could ever see her duality. Everyone loved her. Everyone believed her genuine, but from what I could see, she was dual, base, cruel, uncaring, and unkind.
I would sit aside and consider all of her actions and what this must mean. If my mother was so perfect and if this is how my own dearly beloved mother acted towards everyone, why would all the lesser people of the world act any better? I even examined myself. Even at that young age, I was very desperate to please and be accepted by everyone. This caused me to be very fair weather. I would agree with one friend, and then turn around and have another friend disagree, and then I would have to agree with them. So I could be sure that they'd still like me. When they put down one of my other friends, I had to join in, or I felt I wouldn't be loved or accepted and I couldn't handle that. So I even had this duality problem myself. If my mother had it, if even I had this problem, how could this not be a widespread epidemic among humanity?
So at the tender age of eight, I decided that not a single person in the world was genuine. Or more specifically, not a single person who was elder or superior to one, was ever genuine in what they said they felt. I also decided that I would not be that way. That I would be genuine and determined always. That I would not be so dual and base. I believe, by now, I have accomplished that. And I also do still believe that not a single soul elder or superior to me, is genuine when they say they love and care for me. I don't believe a one of them. I want to, so desperately, but it's become an impossibility. I have tried everything I can think of, and I can get very temporary relief from this malady, from this parasite on my heart and soul, but it will not become permanent.
The only way I can ever believe people really care, is when I find them desperately passionate and serious. Which is why I often go on my far fetched trips of drama. I know that when I evidence so much negative and passionate emotion, I will get positive passionate emotion to balance it out, which I view as genuine and confirms to me that people do care and do really genuinely love me.
But it's not a lasting comfort. Eventually, I calm down, and so do they. And immediately, the hysteria and disbelief that they care arise again. Everything is painted as fabrications and lies to my blurred vision and I panic and despair. My mind knows they care and love me still, and I can only lean myself on that blind faith, when the rest of me rebels and tells me that they hate me with a passion and find me tiresome and boring.
It becomes a vicious, tiring cycle for me. I am tired of never being able to trust and believe anyone fully. I can't. It's impossible for me. I cannot ever really lean on the arms offered me. I cannot ever really believe the words anyone says to me because of this parasite. I believe the parasite can be killed, I just don't know the antidote. I have tried everything I could think of, and nothing works. The only suggestions of solving I have had from others, are literally impossible for me to carry out yet. I am stuck under the influence of this horrible poison for now. Perhaps for a long spell yet.
Important Decision Two:
Again, as a small girl, around the age of eight, this decision was made.
I was an avid Laura Ingalls Wilder fan. I was also extremely partial to 19th century British children's literature. I read quite a bit of it and it interested me and pulled me in greatly. I would absorb it heartily, and eagerly, and wish with all of my might that I had been born long before my time, in those days and that I had grown up like those girls. Life then, seemed so much more intellectual, so much more ordered, polite, kind, and moralistic. It seemed a near ideal to me.
But I hadn't been born then. I was born near the end of the 20th century. A far more vulgar, unprincipled age. It disagreed with me very much, but I had to bear through it. But, even if the rest of the world was going downhill and was so very immoral, I could be different. I could butt up against this, and follow some of the old codes and rules, and be a perfect, polite, exemplary child.
My first 19th century social rule to adopt was, when dealing with elders, "Speak only when spoken to". I decided that I was going to be quiet as a mouse. Always seen, but never heard when in the presence of superiors or elders. I would allow them to speak to me first. I would never ask questions of them, I would let them question me, and I would answer. And that is how it would always be. Me ever proper and polite like that.
And it has kept that way. It is even that way now. My inherent nature now, is , when dealing with anyone older than me, or anyone whom I feel is superior, to never really speak to them. I let them initiate any conversations because it is too forward of me to venture to begin conversations. I never dare to ask questions because it is far too presumptuous to do that. I must wait for my elder/superior to question me. And then I may meekly answer what I feel is necessary. That is how my mind works. That is how my nature believes things should go, how I should act.
That isn't to say that I am going to give in. That I am going to let this rash decision made when I was so young, always rule my life. I am trying to fight back against it. It's just that its extremely hard for me. It's so much a part of me, this belief is so much ingrained into me, that I can't banish it with a whisper of a wish. I have to fight. Long, and hard. I have to fight and struggle against it, and I fear that I am moving very slowly. If even at all.