Hello Brother

To me having a teddy ( cat, moose, ect..) is one of our few moments of honest commuication. If we take a truthful look at most of our interactions with people it's laced in lies. Not excluding parent, grands, wifes, children. pastors, bosses, co workers, friends. even ourselfs. We are alway tring to fit in and it seems to do that we have to create something that is not. So we lose another peice of ourself. While in reality we live not only what we really are but through the confusion the lies create. So that teddy is a large peice of peace I so desperatly seek. As I strive to be more truthful everyday, and not so truthful I enjoy my truthful talks with my teddy.

Love to you all
mrd

I kind of have a hard time bringing things to life with my imagination the way I used to.

I kind of did that with an old Plymouth Valliant I drove for about ten years and grew fond of. It became more than just a machine to me.. it was also a friend I took care of and who took care of me in a way too-- getting me where I needed to go.

When I lost it to an impound about a year ago I felt like I had let down a good friend. It was a really hard time for me emotionally and the only way I could deal with it was to remind myself that it was after all just a machine.

How about this? (this is not mine)




Allen

pufferfish

I've got three stuffed "aminals" (as opposed to "animals" that are real). I Lion I named Tut, a dog appropriately enough looking sorta like, and named after Snoopy, and a real, genuine Teddy bear I made myself at "Build-A-Bear Workshop" with a heart and everything. He's got on nice black slacks, a black vest, white shirt, and a black tie! His name is "Little J".

Doug,

One thing we need to do as survivors is offload the very harmful ideas that all boys learn. Things like: I mustn't cry, I can't show weakness, I have to be in control, I must always be the decisive guy who knows what to do, etc.

The reality is that anyone will feel vulnerable, weak, lost, confused, etc., given certain circumstances. By feeling that this doesn't apply to us, just because we are males, we are denying some basic areas of our humanity.

This is something that Mike Lew stresses in his Victims No Longer, and it's also the topic of detailed discussion in William Pollack's Real Boys, where he calls all this judgmental and harmful thinking the "boy code" and trashes it piece by piece. Well worth reading, and these days a copy on Amazon's marketplace can be had for a very low price.

Much love,
Larry

I hate those things where I know better but feel something anyway-- like the teady bear thing. I know it's a load of hoey that it's not manly to hug a teady bear, but I still find myself feeling that way anyway.

I'm getting over it though. I have a role model that I think of to help inspire me to overcome it. Several months ago I saw a young boy about 12 wearing a pink t shirt that said "Tough guys wear pink." . Even though pink isn't as taboo as it used to be when I was his age, I still felt a lot of admiration for him to see him wearing that.

Somehow thinking about him makes it easier.

Well here's a pic of my two teadys. One is a build a bear like walkingsouth has and one is one I fished out of a trashcan. It was clean but needed mending so I salvaged it. The two kind or remind me of the pc guy and mac guy in the mac commercials-- one's cute and hip and the other one's dorky looking.(but in a lovable way.) lol