*this entry will not make a lot of sense unless you know the tale*
*or have lived a similar one yourself*
I was a board member.
I knew damn well that I should have spoken up sooner.
The problem with having a sociopath for a friend is that, however twisted his facts may be, there ARE truths within them.
It's true that when we worked together, I bit my tongue a few times toward the end. He was so PASSIONATE about everything...the kind of passionate where you don't want to get in the way or you might get run over. You just listen. You rationalize. You tell yourself the parts that make sense. And you try to ignore the parts that don't, treat it like a handicap for a brilliant mind or something.
I shouldn't call him a sociopath. That's not fair. It might be true, but it's not my call to make. That alone could be the reason I feel sick inside. What a name caller.
Sometimes I wonder if not being able to reach him in the critical days was his way of setting me up to fail him. Or maybe it was my way. My fault, just as he says it. My "hurtful" words. I know I said some- many. I've gone back and read them. Maybe it was me.
I hardly care. But the guilt will drive you mad. Some days I wake up from a nightmare and all I want to do is stand in a confessional with every person I've ever hurt, no matter in what aspect, and pleaded for their forgiveness, and apologized, over and over and over. I could have stopped the topple. I could have saved the Center. I didn't. I sat back and watched it all melt down, watched its director melt down. I resigned. I walked away, just like I have in the past. I have never once gone "down with the ship". When the Corps leader asked me to die, I said no and I left. When the director of the Center told me to deal with it or resign, I quit that too. I'm a coward. I would believe that.
And then I read that one email I saved from the rubble. The one I put in a box away from the pissing match that said, "You've been very courageous and professional." Held onto it for dear life. From a stranger who barely knew me, those words meant more to me then and now than a thousand "I love you"s from a man who couldn't be further removed from their meaning.
What's amazing to me is that I don't miss him. Somehow, in my mind, I've learned that "him", the person, never existed. But I miss the validation. And the closeness. And the realism. I never thought you could fake those things. But you can. And lots do.
And well...I have become comfortably numb, I suppose. But you miss the human piece of it all, and it hurts sometimes.
And there's the guilt.
Because the only actions you can be responsible for are your own.
I get mad when people don't assume their responsibilities.
I'm sorry.
For whatever it's worth, for whoever you are, were, or will be, I'm sorry.
I'd give anything to have the superpower of the inability to hurt someone.
Because I understand what it's like to hurt for something. And real or imagined, everyone...EVERYONE...understands pain.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Sunglasses and Shame
These are the days your annoyingly cautious self warns you about. The days when you can be alone for hours at a time with that all-too-familiar person...yourself...and the wheels in the sky get to turning.
I don't know if its depression or a craving for the chaos that is decidedly absent from my life, but something in my head clicked when I got up this morning.
I had been dreaming about the Corps.
I had been dreaming that, in a twisted reunion of sorts, the leader and my ex-therapist had gotten together in a think tank and hidden their identities until my arrival at this dingy basement-place that looked like an unfurnished version of my parents' house. Demanding to know what I had been up to. Didn't I know the End Days were coming? And where in fuck were my sunglasses?
Sunglasses. That was the word. The cryptogram. I woke up with images of creepy people in sunglasses all day long.
Sunglasses were often worn by the inner circle of the Corps. There was good reason for it. Often, members of the group had to cope with some kind of trauma...real, recent real, imagined, partially imagined...of course, who knows what was and what wasn't...and it was important that no one interrupted anyone else's suffering progress. The idea was that you had to suffer through to become stronger. You could talk about it, sure, but you had to be careful to discuss it in terms of I/me and not use names or images of others. That was gossip. That detracted from the intimacy of the conversation you were having with a fellow member.
Say, for example, you had an abusive boyfriend before entering the group. You could discuss the pain you felt, the reactions you had, the general history. But you couldn't mention the abuser's name. Couldn't speak the names of the friends who helped intervene, or hurt you along the way. The only person you were permitted to talk about was you, and maybe the person directly in front of you with whom you were carrying on the conversation with. There were a few reasons for this. First, it drew you more intimately toward the member you spoke with- they were forced to limit themselves to only talking on the deepest of personal levels. Second, it heightened your empathic awareness...when someone speaks on such an intimate level, it becomes far easier to place yourself in the shoes of their suffering and offer comfort. Third, it forced everyone to come to terms with the rawness of their own personal lives and how things came to be where they were now.
But when the conversation was over, and your face was swollen from the agony of "lifting the burden", you put your sunglasses on and acted as if nothing happened. Normal people wouldn't understand. "Why are you crying?" Was really such a superficial question to the untrained eye. No one truly wanted the answer to the question, not long enough to stick around and solve it, or mitigate it, or even rationalize it. Your true kin were the people that would listen, with no judgment, and integrate your suffering into their pursuance of the path of Truth.
When I think back to my sunglasses days, I remember only a handful of times I ever practiced the doctrine. I was pretty good at ironing out the crinkles in my face from pain; I often told myself it was a divine gift that I could keep the secrets shared within the circle I belonged to. But there were days where I needed them. Like the day my leader confided in me his experience of being molested.
It was late afternoon. It was after school. We were just high school kids, barely driving age at this point. And he had been wearing his sunglasses for two weeks straight. I mean straight- unless the teacher took his sunglasses away from him, that's what you would see in class. I understood. When you suffered, you didn't want anyone else's eyes looking into yours. You were preserving the sanctity of your soul. People would stare weirdly, and I would think, "You just don't understand; if you took just a minute to ask, you'd see how beautiful the whole thing is." At least I liked to believe I thought that. But when people asked me, I would shrug, embarrassed, and walk away, caving to peer pressure and removing my glasses.
He sat me down, in a corner far from most building administration. We liked to be alone where we felt we could talk freely, and after school provided a great service in that. He held my hands as he slowly removed his glasses. He looked tired- like he hadn't slept in days. I pleaded with him to talk to me, to release some of the pain. He looked at me with his heavy, serious eyes, and said with great measure,
"If I open up to you about this, you will suffer too. What I am about to tell you will hurt you because of the love you feel for me. Please understand that I don't want to hurt you. But you will feel a lot of things, things I may not be able to help you with. I don't know how strong I can be for you. And telling anyone breaks our intimacy. You understand the burden you place on yourself?"
I nodded, swallowing hard. It was true that I loved him a great deal, would give anything for him. Now more than ever, I needed to be there for him.
He began to tell me of the molestations that took place in his home, while we had been romantically involved. He gave little detail, because with each suggestion of an act, he would grimace as if he were about to be sick. I, in turn, would hold him, rock him, rub his back and hold his hair in case he were sick. Inside, I burned crimson. Inside, I was being shredded apart. He was right. I was hurting for him.
I remember demanding names. I remember screaming all the sensible sentences in the world- "Wont you let me call someone for you? Why didn't you tell me then? Why won't you tell me who it is?!" He would laugh quietly to himself, pat my hand gently, and tell me that if I knew who it was, he feared I would kill the person. And while it was true that if I knew who it was, malicious thoughts would come to mind, I doubted very sincerely that I could ever kill someone. Still, he shook his head.
In the midst of all this, when he finally finished talking, he leaned in and kissed me, deeply. I still remember that kiss. It stung- it physically hurt to feel his lips on mine, after hearing about all he had been through, and how he had waited so long to tell me...that I might have helped him, might have stopped it, had I ever known. I felt worlds away. I felt like the enemy. And then he spoke.
"Claudia, I want to thank you. For helping me. Your beauty is in the way you suffer for others, like a great sacrificial angel. Oh, darling, don't cry. Will you always cry so deeply when I kiss you, even after the beauty we share together?"
I felt like my body was filled with guilt and anger and sickness. I felt horrible for dumping him years earlier. I felt awful for doubting his pain, his mood swings. I felt like part of the monster in the story. I continued to cry. He hugged me, tightly, nuzzling my shoulder.
"It's all right, I'm better already. It's all right. Seeing you like this helps me to know that love still exists. You are beautiful and I shall always love you too. I know it hurts. Thank you for helping me."
I wore my sunglasses for three days after that.
It would later be discovered that, in all the pain and beauty of intimate conversation we had that day, my very words on those days would be used against me. Would I be willing to suffer the ultimate of injustices to truly understand? And would it matter? And would I go to the limit and carry the burden beneath my own sunglasses?
The glasses never did go back on after that week, but I cherished the need for them. The pain of real intimacy, of truth, of the window in the eyes that lead to the bleeding soul beneath. Those same glasses would stare me in the face and ask me if I was afraid to die in later years.
And those tinted shutters that hid more than I ever imagined I'd see.
Sunglasses.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I don't know if its depression or a craving for the chaos that is decidedly absent from my life, but something in my head clicked when I got up this morning.
I had been dreaming about the Corps.
I had been dreaming that, in a twisted reunion of sorts, the leader and my ex-therapist had gotten together in a think tank and hidden their identities until my arrival at this dingy basement-place that looked like an unfurnished version of my parents' house. Demanding to know what I had been up to. Didn't I know the End Days were coming? And where in fuck were my sunglasses?
Sunglasses. That was the word. The cryptogram. I woke up with images of creepy people in sunglasses all day long.
Sunglasses were often worn by the inner circle of the Corps. There was good reason for it. Often, members of the group had to cope with some kind of trauma...real, recent real, imagined, partially imagined...of course, who knows what was and what wasn't...and it was important that no one interrupted anyone else's suffering progress. The idea was that you had to suffer through to become stronger. You could talk about it, sure, but you had to be careful to discuss it in terms of I/me and not use names or images of others. That was gossip. That detracted from the intimacy of the conversation you were having with a fellow member.
Say, for example, you had an abusive boyfriend before entering the group. You could discuss the pain you felt, the reactions you had, the general history. But you couldn't mention the abuser's name. Couldn't speak the names of the friends who helped intervene, or hurt you along the way. The only person you were permitted to talk about was you, and maybe the person directly in front of you with whom you were carrying on the conversation with. There were a few reasons for this. First, it drew you more intimately toward the member you spoke with- they were forced to limit themselves to only talking on the deepest of personal levels. Second, it heightened your empathic awareness...when someone speaks on such an intimate level, it becomes far easier to place yourself in the shoes of their suffering and offer comfort. Third, it forced everyone to come to terms with the rawness of their own personal lives and how things came to be where they were now.
But when the conversation was over, and your face was swollen from the agony of "lifting the burden", you put your sunglasses on and acted as if nothing happened. Normal people wouldn't understand. "Why are you crying?" Was really such a superficial question to the untrained eye. No one truly wanted the answer to the question, not long enough to stick around and solve it, or mitigate it, or even rationalize it. Your true kin were the people that would listen, with no judgment, and integrate your suffering into their pursuance of the path of Truth.
When I think back to my sunglasses days, I remember only a handful of times I ever practiced the doctrine. I was pretty good at ironing out the crinkles in my face from pain; I often told myself it was a divine gift that I could keep the secrets shared within the circle I belonged to. But there were days where I needed them. Like the day my leader confided in me his experience of being molested.
It was late afternoon. It was after school. We were just high school kids, barely driving age at this point. And he had been wearing his sunglasses for two weeks straight. I mean straight- unless the teacher took his sunglasses away from him, that's what you would see in class. I understood. When you suffered, you didn't want anyone else's eyes looking into yours. You were preserving the sanctity of your soul. People would stare weirdly, and I would think, "You just don't understand; if you took just a minute to ask, you'd see how beautiful the whole thing is." At least I liked to believe I thought that. But when people asked me, I would shrug, embarrassed, and walk away, caving to peer pressure and removing my glasses.
He sat me down, in a corner far from most building administration. We liked to be alone where we felt we could talk freely, and after school provided a great service in that. He held my hands as he slowly removed his glasses. He looked tired- like he hadn't slept in days. I pleaded with him to talk to me, to release some of the pain. He looked at me with his heavy, serious eyes, and said with great measure,
"If I open up to you about this, you will suffer too. What I am about to tell you will hurt you because of the love you feel for me. Please understand that I don't want to hurt you. But you will feel a lot of things, things I may not be able to help you with. I don't know how strong I can be for you. And telling anyone breaks our intimacy. You understand the burden you place on yourself?"
I nodded, swallowing hard. It was true that I loved him a great deal, would give anything for him. Now more than ever, I needed to be there for him.
He began to tell me of the molestations that took place in his home, while we had been romantically involved. He gave little detail, because with each suggestion of an act, he would grimace as if he were about to be sick. I, in turn, would hold him, rock him, rub his back and hold his hair in case he were sick. Inside, I burned crimson. Inside, I was being shredded apart. He was right. I was hurting for him.
I remember demanding names. I remember screaming all the sensible sentences in the world- "Wont you let me call someone for you? Why didn't you tell me then? Why won't you tell me who it is?!" He would laugh quietly to himself, pat my hand gently, and tell me that if I knew who it was, he feared I would kill the person. And while it was true that if I knew who it was, malicious thoughts would come to mind, I doubted very sincerely that I could ever kill someone. Still, he shook his head.
In the midst of all this, when he finally finished talking, he leaned in and kissed me, deeply. I still remember that kiss. It stung- it physically hurt to feel his lips on mine, after hearing about all he had been through, and how he had waited so long to tell me...that I might have helped him, might have stopped it, had I ever known. I felt worlds away. I felt like the enemy. And then he spoke.
"Claudia, I want to thank you. For helping me. Your beauty is in the way you suffer for others, like a great sacrificial angel. Oh, darling, don't cry. Will you always cry so deeply when I kiss you, even after the beauty we share together?"
I felt like my body was filled with guilt and anger and sickness. I felt horrible for dumping him years earlier. I felt awful for doubting his pain, his mood swings. I felt like part of the monster in the story. I continued to cry. He hugged me, tightly, nuzzling my shoulder.
"It's all right, I'm better already. It's all right. Seeing you like this helps me to know that love still exists. You are beautiful and I shall always love you too. I know it hurts. Thank you for helping me."
I wore my sunglasses for three days after that.
It would later be discovered that, in all the pain and beauty of intimate conversation we had that day, my very words on those days would be used against me. Would I be willing to suffer the ultimate of injustices to truly understand? And would it matter? And would I go to the limit and carry the burden beneath my own sunglasses?
The glasses never did go back on after that week, but I cherished the need for them. The pain of real intimacy, of truth, of the window in the eyes that lead to the bleeding soul beneath. Those same glasses would stare me in the face and ask me if I was afraid to die in later years.
And those tinted shutters that hid more than I ever imagined I'd see.
Sunglasses.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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