I had this friend, a woman, about 10 or 12 years ago. she was quite a bit older than me, about 30 years. She was in her 70's when I knew her, very active and also drinking daily. She would call me late at night crying about the things her mother did to her when she was little. She just couldn't forget either. She was chained to either a radiator or one of those heavy old table model sewing machines for days at a time.

Last I heard, she has passed away. But not before she burned her house down while drunk. This wasn't the first time either. She often talked to me about offing herself so I have my suspicions this may have been a suicide.

3 of my old friends have died in the past year. I am feeling it today for some reason.

This friend I just talked about was a writer and poet. She had a real gift and has been published. She lost much of her work in the first fire. I guess that might have really affected her. RIP my friend.

Wow, ((((((Wiix)))))),



You've just written what I've been thinking for years now -- I've spent all this time changing myself to be what my Father would "approve of" and he still didn't like me. I've spent my whole life running from pain and hurt and protecting myself from ever getting hurt again (my Brother committed suicide when I was 22) and **THIS** is what I end up with??

SHI*!!

It sucks that we didn't have the instruction manual before we started out on this journey, doesn't it

My doctor keeps asking me if I want to see a psychiatrist. **NO!!** I'm done with that. I've taken every single drug and done every single program that has ever existed since time began. I want somebody to show me how to have fun and laugh and stomp in the puddles and skinny dip. I want to do all the things that I missed because I was too damn busy BEING GOOD.

I need a mentor (or a machine that will turn me into a teenager again) so I can do a *DO OVER*!!

You're not alone, Wiixie, there's TONS of us out here.

BIG HUGS.

Barb

What a relief to actually read someone else feels the exact same way I do. I always tried So damn hard to do the Best I could with everything but always seemed never to live up to anyone's expectations. Even when I did it right, the timing was wrong, or I was too fast or too slow. Always SOMETHING wrong with everything I did even when it was perfect.

Once, when I was married, I picked out this beautiful wallpaper for OUR bedroom. I put it up myself. I went slowly, matched every seam perfecrly. The patterns lined up Perfectly. The tops and bottoms were trimmed perfectly. It was straight, no bubbles anywhere and it was 100% PERFECT. He came in and said something like "What a mess. A Monkey could have done a better job." I re-examined every panel and couldn't find a fault anywhere. It WAS Perfect.

I was baffled at this reaction from him. I looked at that wallpaper for years until we moved, Probably 10 years and I was always looking for the spot where I screwed it up and never could find it. His words stuck in my head everytime I was in my room looking at it. I LOVED the paper, it was beautiful. Pink, blue, lilac and yellow flowers on vines on a white background. I tore myself up over that for years always looking for my mistakes but could never find them no matter how hard I tried. I actually caught myself crying over this once or twice since something beautiful and perfect to me was jaded now. I had mixed feelings when I looked at it. Pleasure mixed with shame that I didn't do it right. Sort of sounds like my life in a NutShell. All that effort only to receive disapproval.

When I came out and asked him years later what Exactly was wrong with it, he looked and looked and looked then left the room without a word. Words stick in my head like that so when I finally asked him after years had passed I never got an answer. People can be so mean and miserable. By the way, he was an Engineer.

Wiix,

The past does seem to haunt us.

For me, I had to leave it. How? By going forward.

I know that as you get older it does come back to haunt you, a dear older friend of mine is having flashbacks that are downright scary right now. My grandmother had to deal with some really bad stuff before she died.

You sound a lot like my father. He was always so much happier teaching my kids and other people. I wished he had been more active in some sort of teaching before he died.

Wiix, try volunteering doing something you love. You can be helpful to someone. Don't need to have a personal relationship with them. You are very intelligent, I can tell from your writing.

Why don't you help with the adult illiteracy program in your area? You'll be assigned a person that you can meet in a library or some place else that will be conducive to your work.

Join a telephone after school homework network....you have internet....you'd be exercising your mind too!

If you like the elderly, what about volunteering at a nursing home? Ask to be buddied up with someone who doesn't have closeby relatives or friends. That might be really wonderfully rewarding for you.

Sometimes reaching out to others is the best remedy for our own misery.

I wish you peace.

I've DONE all that you suggested. I want something else. I want a friend. ONE friend I can count on. A friend like I had when I was a teenager. Doesn't need to be romantic, just a friend, in person, not just online friend. I need another human. All I talk to are my lizards. I need some human compnionship. I need someone to talk to and do things with. How can a person in a world of Billions not have a relationship with ONE person. This just is Insane. It's like the cosmos has conspired to keep me alone until I die. I have been basicly alone for almost 20 years now and it's REALLY starting to get to me. It's not like I'm asking for the Moon, just ONE friend.

Wiix I feel for you. I've been where you've been, so I feel your pain. The pain I went through was both mental and physical, but I understand how you can still hurt so long after the fact. I still have the occassional nightmare after 25 years!

You can find friends in cyber space (and I have the most special, the most loving, the most wonderful cyber friend you could ever imagine), but I doubt a cyber friend would fill your need. My guess is you need a 'person' friend.

It took me a very long time after I'd come to terms with my own "problems" before I had the courage to venture out into the big bad world, but venture I did....very slowly!

It's a case of finding something you like. Go with your diagnosis maybe (for me it's MS), and just turn up to a meeting of people who have the same problem. Even when I eventually went to my first MS meeting, I just sat in the corner and didn't speak.

Try a sport or a hobby that takes your interest. For me it was 10 pin bowling ..........nobody laugh please 'cos I'm deadly serious!

I loved it, so I'd play all by myself. Game after game, week after week. Eventually I started to feel less self conscious when people spoke to me, and eventually (after a long time) I took up an offer to join a league. The rest is history, 'cos I met my DH there, and we now live happily ever after .....

Our 20 year wedding anniversary coming up this October 29 .

There....you have most of my life history! I only hope my baring my soul to you has helped a bit Wiix.

PS. I probably should have said that I'm close to your age as well.

I'm so sorry, Wiix. Huggggsssss to you!

Yes, I too have a special online friend who is very loving. We talk on the phone everyday, went send each other gifts through the mail, BUT, I KNOW it can't go anywhere. We have sent pics of each other but, you KNOW when what you have with that person is all it can ever be. A cyber relationship is different than a real life one. It is something different. If you try to change that then you lose what it is. Real life and cyber ARE different. what we have is special for what it is but it can't be something it's not. I realize that and have told him I don't want anymore than what it is. he knows that and doesn't ever bring it up.

Bowling?? Hahahaha, not me. I am in the Mid-West and all they have are the Huge ball bowling. I tried it once and hurt myself and there was some collateral damage to the alley and a few spectators. ROFL. No, bowling is NOT my thing.

I have thought about WHERE I could go and just hang out. I am not the hanging around kind of person though and Dating Services, NAA, just more Meat Market Style. If I met someone that way you KNOW he'd still be doing that even if he said he wasn't. Men who troll those services don't stop. They are always looking for something better and there IS always something better out there just waiting to scoop him up. I just KNOW too much about how men think.

I do Love the water though. I go to the beach a lot during the summer but I always go someplace secluded. I do EVERYTHING that works against meeting people. That's just my nature. Then when I don't meet anyone I can't understand why I am alone all the time. I AM my own worst enemy in that reguard.

I find that the things that just Happen and that aren't planned are the things that change your life. I am a spur of the moment kind of person. Both times I was married, I met the men by chance. Not that they were anything to write home about, they were BOTH abusive drunks after a while.

Thing is I LOVE living alone but sometimes I sort of wish I had someone here. Just to talk to or cook with or watch a movie or go for a walk.

I am an older person, yes, but people are puzzled by the way I look. I don't look or act my age. I don't FELL old. I feel like a teenager inside. I find that IF I am around people my own age then I feel old. Most people my age are or should I say, not their fault, min you, they act like they are about to die. I mean, they are at their doctor's every month. They take all kinds of drugs and seem to be very unhealthy. The more they go to the doctor the more complaints they seem to have. They are always getting surgeries, new hips, new knees, things like that. They seem to be brainwashed into thinking they NEED all these surgeries when they don't just allow nature to heal themselves. I've been told I needed a new knee OR get off it for a year, which I did and it's fine.

See, people have injuries. The doctors take advantage of these times and tell them they need new parts when if they just allowed themselves to heal, it'd be alright. But no, they take pain pills, keep on doing what they were doing, make it worse, reinjure the parts, back for more pain pills, more tests and finally end up in surgery. See, I just won't buy into all that brainwashing.

I know, people don't want to hear this BUT I see people my age all crippled up. Kidneys burned out from drugs, using walkers and canes and it just breaks my heart to see this.

Well, this is interesting.

Our pasts do live within us to the extent we want them to. I had a pretty nice childhood, but certainly how we are brought up does reflect our lives later to one extent or another.

If you don't let go of your mother's power over you then she is always the winner. Aren't you worth something all by yourself?

I think about people who were POW's and how they (some of them) move on. Some do not; they cannot let go.

I can't say why that is.

I'm sure counseling makes you revisit your childhood to the extent you are uncomfortable. However, your childhood is past and you are now free of that and can move on. What do you want to move on too?

Yes, the world can be scary and also critical. You have to be aware of your surroundings and take some precautions, but if you stand back and think for awhile you will know when to take a step in the right direction.

Keep your faith in yourself; don't place too much faith in others being perfect. They are not, so if you tend to think someone is you might be disappointed.

I know someone who always jumps in and then always gets burned. This person tends to see people she admires in a glowing aura and then if they step out of the glow she gets discouraged and down on them.

Think of taking little steps, not big leaps. You are owed nothing to compensate for the bad childhood so move on from it as best you can. Learn a way to banish bad memories by replacing them or the urge to think of them with a pleasant though. Even if it's thinking about eating a piece of your favorite chocolate or the scent of a beautiful rose.

Don't be unsocial. At least try being friendly, try having fun. Do something entirely for others without expectation of reward.

Good Luck.

Tootsie

YES, you do. I bought a gun 2 years ago and it is closeby at all times. I can't carry it unless it isn't conceled but then people look at you funny. Seems the laws NEED a ReDo. Criminals carry guns all the time and they are OUT THERE waiting for opportunities. I NEVER thought I would own a gun but here I am.

I AM friendly but it seems to repell people.

My First love is animals. Maybe I should look into the animal shelter here in town. I wouldn't mind taking care of them a few hours a week. But still, that's not really being social BUT I may meet other people like myself there. probably adopt a few new pets too while I'm at it.