My therapist and I haven't gotten back together this week... he has taken ill, so I won't be back there until Tuesday. This means I haven't had a chance to talk to him about my potential experiment or my ongoing experiments. The potential one is the photo project and the ongoing experiments are my pathetic attempts at making friends and understanding relationships. I use the word pathetic because the results have been less than desirable... usually the attempts are returned by severe cruelty and verbal bashings lined with harsh accusations. However there has been a minor amount of progress... out of the last 4 people I have written in an attempt to foster some type of friendship, 3 have flat out ignored me and only 1 has openly rejected me. The progress is, none of them have been directly cruel... indirectly however, I am a pin cushion. I don't think people make the connection... it's like they think so little of others or they are just completely daft. Let me fill in the gasps for sleeping lemmings. People of the world: When you ignore someone and project that their existence is limited by your recognition, it hurts... it fucking hurts to be ignored, you fucking assholes! Okay, that helped me feel a little better. Back to the point, not only does it hurt... but it's just fucking rude. It's good to know the Christian community is still very much sensitive to people and doing the right thing... I think it was in one of Jesus's sermons to be diligent and kick people when they are down and to walk in self righteousness. And God said, "Cast those insignificant, mentally ill, pieces of shit to the side... the aren't worth loving!". Can I get an amen?
I'm not certain if anyone takes the time to read through the comments other people leave, but if you do... you may have a question about another social experiment of mine. As you all know, the name Alabaster Frank is a pseudonym... my true identity has been hidden in attempts to protect myself and certain people in my life. A few weeks ago, I thought I would take a chance and invite someone who knows me in real life to read along and learn some more about myself and my illness. It was a new social experiment to try opening myself to people I've know for a long time and try to share some things about myself and my journey and see if I could better understand relationships. It was also a hope of mine that it would be another avenue of redemption... I'm sure it sounds a little odd, but I thought it was a good idea. It turns out to have been fruitful. If you've been reading along, this person goes by the name of Winona... she has been posting quite a few comments lately and in one of the most recent ones, I explained that she knew me before I was Alabaster Frank. I just wanted to share this little bit of information with you all in case some of you were confused by the matter. I am glad I took the chance in sharing that part of myself openly with someone from my past... I've enjoyed the communication and it has been a different type of experience for me. Different in the sense of just sharing my story with a host of strangers and have nothing invested or emotional attachment. I'm not ready to share this openly with more people from my life, and honestly, I don't know if I ever will... but for now, I feel good about the small steps I've taken. As for approaching random people and asking them if they want to be friends or pen-pals... well, I don't know how much more of that I can take. Just because I have a hard time understanding and feeling emotions from people doesn't mean I'm invincible and my feelings don't get hurt... I'm highly sensitive and quite capable of having my heart trampled upon.
Well tuesday will soon be here....one breathe at a time or one Blog entry at a time. I need to find myself a therapist..I've never had one before but I have seen so many of my friends benifit from them and Im definitly kind of screwed up to just in different ways. Actually I think MOST people are screwed up in some way..I believe your social expieiments are very admirable. I love the idea of figuring people out socially. The problem is is that so many people are so stressed with thier lives with work and kids that most people only have small slivers of time for friendships/meeting people thats why I believe facebook is so huge sometimes the only way people can be social is just a fleeting moment or two to just give a "like" button. When you send requests try to understand I dont think people ignorning reqests should be taken as hurtful.I think people actually are just more rude in the way that most of the time friend requests can be denied or accepted or ingnored without even any given thought to the fact that everytime you send a friend request people I think dont actually take the time to understand that when you request to be friends that its almost like standing in front of someone and offering to shake thier hand as in a sighn of frienship that a request is an OFFER of your friendship....people honestly are just thoughtless. Do not even give it much thought.So please do not let those things worry you., you must continue on and concentrate more on the the healing part. Take it from me who is sooo highly sensitive, I getmy feelings hurt alot to.even when when most people arnt trying to hurt my feelings.Sometimes I OVER READ into someones strange humor or think they have mean undertones and at times I've upset myself for no reason at all...most average people wouldnt get thier feelings hurt as much as I do I would say.Im not thick skinned at all. I wear my heart and my thoughts on my sleeve I always have. It's both a blessing and a curse at the same time. I cry ALOT. BUt at the same time my over emotion has helped people in my past maybe this is one of those times....I have more to add to comments on this entry....I will write more on this tommorow. Im getting sleepy and cant think.
ReplyDeleteDear Winona-
DeleteThank you for your kind words and your understanding about my little experiments... I can understand how some people might find it terribly offensive. In some ways, I'm still very much like a child, trying to learn about people and the world... I go about it in the same fashion, just my appearance and speech makes it appear differently. Personally for myself, Facebook is something I try to avoid... I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. I do use it however to get in touch with people I haven't seen or heard from in ages or as a means to contact someone quickly. Anonymity is also problem, I'm not Alabaster Frank on Facebook, and I really can't be... these two lives are completely separate. Several reasons feed into that separation, I can't face the people I've hurt and the people that hurt me so terribly, I want to protect... their demons torture them enough all on there own. I know that from experience. The way that I've been approaching strangers is through Flickr... usually, someone that appears to be kind and understanding. I visit their photostreams, read there comments, look at their favorites, read their bios... all of these things factor into whether or not they appear to be safe. Recently I asked a few, well-to-do Christians, if they'd would like to be friends...yes, I usually those words, well-to-do, with a bit of animosity. Jesus and I have a brutal past... not his fault really, Jesus, the real Jesus not the monster, is fine by me. So I send these people an email through the Flickr site and that's how it goes from there. I had a pen-pal before on there that lasted about a year... then things came to a tragic end and it took forever to recover from the blow-back. For the most part, I've been less than successful in my attempts... the reasoning escapes me. So I give it a go every so often... hopefully one day someone will tell me what I am doing wrong.
I really think you should look into some type of therapy... not because I'm judging you, but because I know how helpful it can be. Finding one that you get along with and that is helpful is hard at times... some want to judge you, some treat you like a piece of paper or lab-rat, and I've even had one that got off on the events of my abuse. Ah, the memories. The thing about having a good therapist is a good relationship and understanding... some days we talk about my issues, or traumas, some days we just laugh and tells stories about yesterday. A good therapist isn't your friend really, but they know how to show compassion and when to push you just enough... I am so grateful for mine, and if you lived over here, in my neck of the woods, I would gladly recommend him. You have to find the strength and have the needed support to take the first step... check out a few people, and give it a go. It could really make all the difference in the world. I may be two sheets to the wind, fucking crazy, but I'm always here for you. I may not understand people and their emotions well, but that doesn't change my heart... I will always be here to listen. I wish you well and much peace, Winona. Until we meet again...
Replying again to the first part of your entry....i always miss stuff I wanna talk about. I did want to address this though..
ReplyDeleteReligious people though uplifting for a short amount of time are the VERY people that with sadly turn thier back because your thoughts and actions do not fit the MORAL Mode of what they are thought. I Think that you may have better chances in choosing people that are NOT so rigid in thier thinking...more in a bigger sense of the world be SPIRITUAl.....not so much directly about RELIGION persay but beening part of spiritualism....people with a BIGGER sense than just the NARROWNESS of scope that religion has. I myself am like that where I can understand that there is a BIGNESS in the world that cant just be explained in ONLY ONE WAY..I only have moments of time here and there today so I'll probably be writing in small snippets here and there.BY the way, what does your therapist think of your photo idea?
Dear Winona-
DeleteThank you for revisiting and sharing your thoughts. When I contacted those people they seemed to be more than religious coils... usually, I'm pretty good at reading people. I guess that's the problem with reading a photograph... the instant it captured, may be the only sliver of goodness in the subject. Frozen in time. I view myself as a spiritual being... one in progress that is, obviously. But I understand what you're getting at and I completely agree. As for the photo idea, he thought it was a great idea... he had some concerns and some interesting insight in the matter. I will post more about it in my next entry... all in all though, it was encouraging.