I'm having trouble with this one Write..there seems to be an agreement on the thread that everything rests on each individual's shoulder. The need to get better, the need to recover, the need to nurture self, the need to love self etc. To me, it points to alot of isolation and aloneness..the contradiction is that most if not all of us come from broken promises, double messages, mistrust and distrust, rejection and abandonment..everything negative it seems.
Is it not better to seek balance? I think we need other people..lovers and wives and husbands and children and friends..yet the discourse keeps sending us back to our lonely selves..to ponder and experiment alone..to conquer isolation with more isolation.
Sure, it's fine to take a step back, a timeout on relationships when they've been bad or been avoided altogether. That was me for the longest time, the alone thing, fortress Nic. But i've come to realize that I need other people, other sane people particularly..not perfect people, they just don't exist. This doesn't mean closing doors, it means putting a sign on it that says: "Please knock!"
I think it is a built in reflex for people to look for other people to love..I love you, You love me is not necessarily a heavy and negative thing. Tainted by the misuse of these words, my behaviour in the past has been one of avoidance. I've never feared being alone, in fact i've spent most of my life alone..either by myself or with someone, which makes it easier for me to say I had the problem, I was isolated within myself if you will. Unable to reach in and unable to reach out..what a prison!
Balance, that's where all my new acquired knowledge is being redirected. And I think it's possible. I have to be the right person, not the other.
Mind you I can fully understand and empathize with those of us who wish to abstain from involvement, romantic or otherwise, but I suspect that this built-in need to love and be loved cannot forever be ignored.
I also think men and women differ on this issue, particularly when it comes to sexuality..put bluntly, the act itself! I heard a very old woman being interviewed on tv asserting that " sex is the elixir of life!" Of course, after I got over the embarrassment of hearing this coming out of a ninety year old

I questionned why I was feeling this way. Almost a year later I think I know...
At this point in my life and having purged from my system many of the sequelae of having been raised by two Ns, i'm ready to go on..to go further. I'm very tired and need a break but can't take one because of the financial mahem my N parents have caused in my life..and so i trudge on. BUT, inside my soul, my head, my spirit whatever you want to call it, there is/has been a renaissance.
I've shed much of who I was before, i'm changing and dealing with the new me with as much patience and wisdom as I have at this point in time. There is peace within myself to a degree I cannot accurately measure..but I feel the growth..I FEEL period, and this is very new.
I could go on forever, because despite my tiredness i'm on a roll..things are clear tonight. I am the eye of the storm momentarily..and it "feels" good AND I realize I can do things in order to feel good as well. Change is action, as has been stated here before.
I reject perfection, because I know it doesn't exist..at least not here.
It is with a palpable sadness I realize I must reach out, privately and in public life to others because in reflecting on all the years of loneliness and aloneness i've survived at the hands of two very oppressive N parents ( an N regime really!) the only thing that was missing was the opportunity to be valued.
We're all in the same boat aren't we...and I love and respect each and every one of you very much.
Love, Nic
