Can anyone explain?

[pennyplant]

I did have some interesting dreams last night.  Not ones I would have expected, but with some imagery I might be able to work with.  Now I'm on my way to the nuthouse, otherwise known as work, in a few minutes.  Thank you for these wonderful messages and ideas to start this new day with.

Love, PP

[Sela]

Hello All:

In reading this thread, Penny, there is one thing that keeps popping into my brain:

Maybe it was the rejection that hurt the worst?

Because when we are rejected by others we might believe it our fault, or think we must be the problem.  We're the one's who are not liked and therefore rejected, so there must be something wrong with us, right?  "There must be something wrong with me!!! Why won't they accept me?" (a couple of thoughts that couldl take over thinking in a big way.....especially if the rejection occurs over a long period of time).

On the other hand, it seems you're brain is smarter than even these bullies.  It's like deep inside there, it's telling you ..........

"It's not you.  There has to be another reason for their behaviour."

So, maybe the drive to find out why these people treated you the way they did and what drove them (drives them) and why they don't remember any or half of it........

........is a way to proove to your inner mind, once and for all, that it really wasn't anything about you that made it all happen.

It wasn't Penny.  You were a sweet little red headed girl who others targetted because of something twisted inside them.......not you.

The thing that must feel really weird is to meet one of them and have him smile and look upon you with some kind of wanting, instead of the rejection that was his usual past mode of operi.

The healthy thing I see you doing is NOT  taking some kind of revenge and rejecting these people back.....which you could do with a few snide, cruel words (but those aren't coming to you and that seems really healthy to me).  Instead, you are really trying to understand what made/makes these people tick which may be frustrating in the end because they aren't all that likely to devulge all that are they?

How about a total change of attitude toward these ex-bullies?  What if you were to think of them as:

poor messed up souls who don't have a clue.

??

What if, the next time you must interact with one of them, you simply smile, hold your head up, act as if you are now.....totally unaffected by their past behaviour and as if YOU have forgotten all about it??

The pain they caused is awful and I'm so sorry you went through all of that (and the same to anyone/all who've endured something similar).   The rejection was their way of acting out whatever was twisted in their lives or inside themselves.  You bore the brunt of it and that is so unfair. 

And now that you're an adult.......you can choose not to let people like these affect you.  You can believe that it was not  YOU, the rejected but something... in THEM ...that caused them to reject (and you happened to be the easiest target, since you were sweet and unique and handy). 

Thing is.......do you really need more proof that something wasn't/may still not be quite right about them?  What if it doesn't turn up?

A harsh truth may just be that some people simply enjoy tormenting those they get some power over.
A simple truth may be that that power can be removed....taken back......by not believing it has anything to do with us, not allowing ourselves to feel rejected, not feeling tormented, etc. ??   What would be the fun for them then?

((((((((((Penny))))))))  Toss whatever makes no sense or isn't of use.

Sela

[pennyplant]

It is amazing how quickly a thread "ages" around here!  I had a bad couple of days, due to the feelings stirred up plus work-related exhaustion, and couldn't put any sentences together to respond better.  And now look--page two already!!!

Oh well.  That's okay.

GS--Yes, I want some answers and will open myself up to them.  I do agree that the timing is right.  Even though it raises so many difficult feelings.  Even when it settles back down, then something small will happen and it stirs up the feelings again.  It is better as an adult to have some kind of "objectivity" to use in looking at these things.  It is still unfamiliar to me to let the feelings just exist and float around as they will.  But in the long run it will be beneficial.  I do want to heal from the pain, if only so that it doesn't continue to break through at some of the worst possible times.  Someone says something innocent or maybe even trying to be helpful, and I'm hurt all over again.  The past is present over and over again.  So tiresome.

Hopsy--I think I could tell that about you, that you never learned to bully others.  In fact, I know someone who is "absorbant" as you are and I consider it quite a gift.  It is a hard gift to have, I think.  It takes a toll on the person with that ability.  But it is a beautiful gift.  One I do not have.  At least not to a considerable extent.  I know this about myself.  I do have it in me to hate.  I wish I were different.  And I don't hate very often.  But there are people I hate.  And there are people I have hated.  Sometimes I have matured or learned enough where I was able to let go of the hate for some of them.  When I had to wait on this guy the other day, it brought a lot of hate to the surface.  As well as hurt, anger, grief.  A poisonous mixture I carry around in me.  I know it is poison.  But I have finally learned enough about myself to not try and force it out of me.  It has to dissipate on its own in some kind of natural way.  Until that moment, I will work on my behaviors and behave in a civil way.

Thank you for saying my pain was not wasted.  That would be the worst thing of all, if it was for no good reason.  It would be like not existing at all.

It is funny that I'm coming closer to not expecting any better of my mother.  For whatever reason, she was made a certain way.  She thinks wrong things are funny.  Very little compassion in her.  Thinking of the time (or times) that she laughed at my pain doesn't bring up the kinds of poisonous feelings that were triggered when that guy stood in my line and caught my eye and smiled at me.  The poison came up immediately.  I didn't want to necessarily take any revenge or make a scene at his expense.  I wanted acknowledgement.  And didn't get it at all.  It seems like maybe because he singled me out way back when.  My mother acts the same with any unfortunate soul.

This issue is a real puzzle for me.

Sela--Yes, the rejection was quite painful.  It seemed always directed at me.  It was personal.  My name, my looks, my size, things I had no control over.  Things I thought I should be blameless for.  This isn't very nice--but as a child I would try all the time to figure out why me.  I'd think, okay, I can understand if an ugly person is picked on, or someone is clearly distasteful in some way.  And isn't that just like my tormenters?  An "ugly" person can't help it.  Someone else with a characteristic that is outside the norm or is judged distasteful in some way, can't "help" it.  But that was a puzzle to me.  I was told I was ugly, but I didn't think I was in comparison to someone who was "really" ugly.  My name was twisted and mocked, but it was just a short plain name, and I still think, thank God I didn't have some ethnic name that was hard to pronounce or rhymed with something embarrassing.  What would they have called me in that case.  Oh thank God.  But then I think, well, they twisted my name around because they hated "me".  It really didn't have anything to do with my name, it had to do with me.  And you're right, on some level I thought there wasn't really anything wrong with me.  But to be told so, all the time, it certainly planted some opposite ideas in my head.  I was judged, and I learned to judge.  And in learning to judge, I knew on some level that I wasn't really lacking.  So what was it?  My very essence?  It was sure something.  I was convinced of that.

Now it seems that it was just more a comedy of errors and back luck and bad timing.  It was just my cosmic turn.

I think Mum is the one who talks about our souls choosing a path or a question to answer or an experience to understand before going into the next life and working on it.  So, when I get a hold of my soul, he or she has a lot of explaining to do!!!  Because I bet you anything my soul did pick this path.  This very difficult and lonely path.  That just sounds like something a soul of mine would do.  For crying out loud.  My soul better be way more careful next time!!!

The power thing.  Yes, I'm starting to learn that.  For a couple of weeks at work one of the guys had been "picking on" me.  I mean it was so juvenile that I was able to see it for what it was.  It didn't engage me too much at all.  It was so 8-years-old, you know?  And suddenly it stopped.  Someone I mentioned it to today said, maybe he stopped because he wasn't getting any reaction.  It may be that it was that simple.  But I didn't have to force myself to not react.  I didn't like the treatment.  But it was so clearly stupid, that I didn't care very much.  Had no desire to force him to stop it.  Other people didn't join in with it or anything.  Perhaps he realized he was becoming a fool.  How I wish I'd had this ability much sooner in life.  Can you believe that, though?  A forty-one-year-old man "picking on" his 45-year-old co-worker.  I guess there are people in this world even more clueless than me.

Thanks to all for your comments.  I'm getting there.  Slowly but surely.

PP

[Dazed1]

Pennyplant,

You are a very wise, deep and sensitive person.  I am sorry for all you have suffered.

I think people bully because they have problems within themselves and their bullying is not a reflection of the qualities of the people they target.   

The psychologist/author Alice Miller in one of her books (forget which one) talks about Hitler and how his father mistreated him as a child.  Miller feels that this mistreatment eventually created Hitler the monster.  Same with Stalin.

Thus, bullys bully due to a deficiency within themselves, not due to a quality of their targets.

Why did your bully forget or pretend to forget?  Because he is deficient within himself.   I think that his bullying and his forgetting has really nothing to do with you.  Don't get me wrong, he hurt you to your core, but if he had become a decent or enlightened person, he would have "remembered" his taunts and apologized.  Bullys operate at a low level of consciousness, while you are at a very high level.

However, expecting a bully to apologize is like expecting an N to apologize:  Highly unlikely unless they have transformed and evolved.

I love whoever posted that your recent encounter with the bully can be taken as a sign that you are on the road to healing.  I'm not sure how to do it, but I think the answer lies within you.  The fact that you posted about this incident shows that you are healing.

By the way, I think redheads are cool!  I am fascinated by all the different shades of red hair.

All the best,
Dazed

 

[pennyplant]

Thanks, Dazed.  I never thought of that, bullies who haven't grown are operating at a low level of consciousness.  Like the Ns.  There are different kinds of harmful people and some of them stay the same all their lives.  That is sadder for him than it is for me.

I do think I need to read some Alice Miller.  She sounds very on target with the issues that I'm interested in.  I will look for her.

Well, time to head off to work.

Thanks for a new puzzle piece.

PP

[Sela]

Hiya PP:

How I wish I'd had this ability much sooner in life.

Yes, that would have probably spared you countless hours of suffering.  However, I'm glad you have developed it now, and regardless of all the efforts of others to teach you otherwise.  Good for you PP!  You've survived and developed a healthy reaction!!  Amazing!

Have a great day at work!

  Sela

[Stormchild]

Hi Pennyplant

I have only read your first post on this thread, so I may be repeating what someone else has already said, but I wanted to let you know that when people do shameful things, they are often so ashamed of those things and of themselves, later, that they can actually 'edit them out' of their memories.

I said something about this on the 'pink flags' thread too. People can do the most amazingly, horrifically abusive things, for little or no reason at all, and just wall them off, and walk away from them as though they never happened.

I've talked about this with my own counselor and he sees it the same way I do: this is a fundamental test not only of emotional health but of basic human decency, because a decent person will either not do the abusive thing in the first place, or, if they slip, they will face what they have done, admit it to themselves and to the person they have wronged, and ask forgiveness.

They will be more ashamed of making a lying pretense out of the relationship, in other words, than they are of admitting to having done something wrong. So they will feel a strong need to set things straight, take responsibility, and make amends.

Unfortunately, by this reckoning, there aren't a whole lot of decent people around. But I think it's better to realize that, and prepare accordingly, than to be forever stunned, speechless, and sucker-punched by abusers who - within five minutes of shredding you - sheath their fangs and claws and are once again pretending to be your nearest, dearest friends.

Watch for people who can bear the shame of admitting their own errors and unkindnesses, Pp - not just in theory, telling you all about how they have done it with someone else, but in practice, able to do this for YOU. No matter how long ago they were unkind, no matter how much they might want their youth to excuse their abusiveness.

These are the people worth keeping. The rest are basically learning exercises, unfortunately. They may attain health and become decent someday, but until they do, the best way to interact with them is from a distance, by observation, whenever you can manage it.

[Stormchild]

P.S. - I know you were thinking about reading that Sue Grafton book - she gives such clear illustrations of this type of interaction there, you will be amazed.

[Hopalong]

I had a dream last night I treasure.
Simple moment...I saw my daughter's dad (deceased) and he was happy and I yelled his name and ran up and he was happy and smiling and we had a big hug.

That felt so good.

 

Hops

[reallyME]

Stormchild:

Unfortunately, by this reckoning, there aren't a whole lot of decent people around. But I think it's better to realize that, and prepare accordingly, than to be forever stunned, speechless, and sucker-punched by abusers who - within five minutes of shredding you - sheath their fangs and claws and are once again pretending to be your nearest, dearest friends.

EXCELLENT INFO HERE!

That description of the person "within five minutes of shedding you- sheath their fangs and claws and are once again pretending to be your nearest, dearest friends."