well, alrighty then, lets talk about it.....First, I would like to draw attention to BMW's new signature...it has a lot of significance....finding our voice can be the difference between life, and death. For others, as well as ourselves. A truer word could not be said. Yes, I realize that some of us have had the experience of finding our voice, finally, only, sadly, to not be heard, understood, or gotten the needed help. But that is another issue.
I hope this will make sense, as I will try to just run through it, as I have lost several very well thought out posts that took me a long time to write.
Many of us have 'boogey men' in the closet. We don't know when he, it, or they, will jump out and trigger responses that we don't understand. Why?? Partly because we don't face them. Why?? Because of fear. Fear also comes in many guises, and wears many faces from societal issues to family issues. I am going to try not to get lost here....
The boogey man in the closet can be traumatic childhood experiences...running the full spectrum from sheer terror to fears of expression that result from interactions with adults in our lives. When not resolved they sit in the closet. And when the closet gets 'opened' if they are piled up, and there are many of them, they fall out. They are hard to look at. They are not pretty. They are not fun to pick up and look at. Yet, if we do not, they will pop out at us at unexpected moments in our life. Moments will arrive that will be conducive to dealing with them, if we are open to it. That does not mean that it will be easy.
The boogey man can consist of those stigmas. Like the ones that males face. I have typed a long post on this and will post it in another thread. We have several now going on this 'elephant'...I hope that it doesn't become confusing. Moi, thank you for starting this thread. You are so honest, and open, it really helps.
I am trying to get to the 'why' we don't reach out, and the 'why' we have those thoughts and feelings in the first place. I realize that I have to come from my perspective since those are the lenses that I see through. There are places in our feelings where we 'meet'...all of us do...
I think there are too many possible answers to those why questions to try to answer in one post.
I had an interesting experience at our Thanksgiving table. One that has me quite disturbed. Someone brought up the incident of the young man who commited suicide online. Well, I had been reading about it, so naturally, I became involved in the conversation. I had a lot to say. But, because of the reaction of those around the table, I found myself unable to say what I would have liked to. The attitudes shocked me. They shocked me into silence. And, once again, into my own little world. My children, and my brothers and sisters do not know about my past. They don't know about my suicide attempt at the age of 12. They don't know about my past trauma as a very young child. They know only very little about the suicide attempt that I made while in the hospital, due to psychosis from a non-functioning thyroid that went un-diagnosed. And I'm not sure they realize how close they came to losing me. According to statistics I am very 'fortunate' to be alive.
OK, I am running on.....its hard to communicate when there are emotional walls of anykind. They can be really hard to break through. But, the good thing is, that once you begin to break through that wall, it seems, to become easier to do it.
Moi, I am with you on the quiet type. I don't tell people when I am battling with suicidal thoughts, but I am becoming better at it. At least, we can come here. I guess, when you are a survivor....you learn 'how' to survive better. And I think that we have been given a gift. And I think that when we receive a gift it is nice to pass it on. Especially when it is the gift of life. A gift we were given......before we could help pass it on in this way. Lighting each other's candles...I like that graphic....
Ok...I don't know how this will come out. I am not going to take the time to check it, or I might lose it.....
