Count me as "other", I just see a guy working really hard on his stuff.

Speak you're mind my friend

Mike

Thanx, Mike


...now THAT has been getting me into trouble lately in other posts - so for a while i may lay low. But i sure appreciate your support

m

Mark, remember always, that if that's the way you're feeling, then that's the way you're feeling. Is all the advice you get to "not feel that way" helping you not feel that way. Sounds a whole lot like "get over it" to me.

Again Mark, speak you're mind. You can't please everyone.

Don't even try.

Love ya
Stay strong, know you are
Mike

this is true. even when you know you've made a bad mistake - you can apologize all day - and it makes no difference to some.

unfortunately that's the attitude that triggers me the most - so much like my father's ... my older brother ... the only "help" was to criticize, or worse, to mock. i honestly don't know if i should say anything or not. i sit here and stare at the screen hoping to get some kind of idea - but nothing. no matter what i say it won't be right.

i know - that's not how everybody feels. strange though - it's the few - the one-in-a-crowd, that triggers the most. catches me off guard. makes me wish i wasn't.

Mike, thank you for reminding me that if it's how i feel - it's how i feel. But ... i'm not so sure i should be saying anything about it. ya know?

m

OUR WALLS:

"unfortunately that's the attitude that triggers me the most - so much like my father's ... my older brother ... the only "help" was to criticize, or worse, to mock. i honestly don't know if i should say anything or not. i sit here and stare at the screen hoping to get some kind of idea - but nothing. no matter what i say it won't be right".

"it's how i feel".

Mark:

I sat here for a couple of hours, looking at the screen too. I have tried really hard not to be the man that my father was. He was a Korean War veteran, a tank commander, an insecure hard guy, and an asshole type-A business executive, who got off on making me look and feel small his whole life. He found out the hard way when I was almost 17 that there was a limit to how much physical abuse I was willing to take. His emotional abuse of me went on until very late in his life. He died nine years ago and left that issue substantially unresolved.

This is the way that I feel: I try to be supportive in my own way, and you react and throw your walls up. I didn't try to put you down, but that is how you reacted. Then you fire back over the top of your wall, and to your surprise, my walls suddenly go flying up too. We both reacted the same way to something that reminded us how small we felt in our past. Neither of us were expecting the other's reaction.

And suddenly we are like two guys in castles shooting cannons at each other.

A couple of people PM'd me as a first step. I was still thinking in a very defensive manner. I saw your apology, which I felt started out good, but then slipped into something that began to make me start going over it. I reacted with a somewhat softer but still defensive entreaty.

I have long been prone to using sarcasm as a defense. I have long tried to get away from it, but it still can be a problem on occasion. I have noticed lately that one of the side-effects of Interferon multiplies my reactions several fold. Just in the last 3 months, I have lost 45 lbs using it, mostly just sitting here in my desk chair.

It took me all day long to begin to relax and start to pull down my walls.

And then I saw your last post. Now your reaction makes much more sense to me.

Sorry to make you throw-up your walls. I didn't realize that I was making you do that.

I swore up and down my whole life that I wouldn't be the kind of guy that my dad was.

You have a right to believe and feel whatever you want to, and so do I.

A good first step would be not using my text against me in a negative manner.

It reminds me way too much of how my dad treated me. I am very sensitive to it.

Just wanted to wish you better days in your future.

Mark too.

You didn't make me do anything - i reacted out of my own history/past/present/how-i-was-raised - take your pick. The main thing is - i truly AM very sorry for anything hurtful i may have done.


Seems we both got hurt by the same kind of cannon fire.


Yet another thing we have in common.

For what it's worth, i far more angry at myself than i could ever be at you. i was sure you wanted to help and i was just missing it, but then, like you said, walls went up - and soon the "war was raging".

Thank you for each attempt you made. i wish i had been smart enough of mature enough or "whatever" enough to catch myself and not start digging the trenches.

i wish you peace, health, and hopefully the understanding that i do not consider you a bad person. i dunno if that means anything - and it doesn't have to i suppose ...

Thanx for not giving up.

M&m

People who live in glass castles shouldn't fire cannons at each other.

TM

i'm assuming that's a double-pointed arrow.
and you're right

and there are still people who say CSA has no lasting effect?

M

Mark,


Yes, I've heard there are such people - the same ones who have spotted Elvis in their local Taco Bell.

Much love,
Larry

Just wanted to share a thought about:

therein lies the reward
the total glory of it all
knowledge
that you never gave up

that's why you keep going?
vain ego?

Words have such power to shape our reality. When I read the lines about the glory of knowledge that you never gave up, I was momentarily inspired. Then the next two lines dashed the inspiration to pieces. Why? I think it's because the words "vain ego" reduce the essence of inspiration and will to overcome to a mere personality flaw. That contrast though is what made it meaningful to me.

I think it shows what great care we need to take choosing the words that shape our reality so we don't dash precious parts of ourselves to pieces.