Defense Mechanisms?
Mike,
Thank you for triggering this post. I don't know what it was about your latest one that did it, but thank you. These are things that I'm just unable to verbalize. You've given me words.
It's always extremely hard to know what to write or talk about. Do those brief entries that seem so meaningful to me actually say anything to anyone else? How do you reponse when you read or think something that completely verbalizes everything you've been feeling for so long? Or at least it gives you a direction to go towards verbalizing it. It's an instant clarification about things that have been confusing for so long. Wonderful and frieghtening all at the same time. And yet, something that I really want to develop. I realize that this post most likely won't accomplish what I hope for it to accomplish, but I just need to get this going....
Last year I spent the first semester conflicted. Where was home? My heart and soul were in Albion, but I was living in Indy. I didn't know where I belonged. Or really who I was...I was, and still am, two different people inhabiting one body. There's the girl that drank her way through her first year of college, got busted for underage drinking, and defined weekends by a guys' name. But then there's the person that I am when I'm honest with myself. When I'm walking though the woods or at Crooked Lake or simply talking to my parents. I still project the drug-free, National Honor Society, Honors Theatre, Student Government, Varsity Guys Soccer, Dancer to the world when I'm in Albion. They all think that I've just matured and not betrayed everything that I used to believe in. I want to shout at them that I'm not the person they all think I am and that they should stop respecting me for the mask that I wear. Stop holding me up to others.
They make me feel guilty about not being the person they expected me to be. But that isn't who I am anymore. I'm a combination of the two people. I enjoy both worlds and appreciate them for what they are, but don't keep me in the mold that you think I belong in. I'm me. And home is both Albion and Indy. Moreso Albion, but I'm working to make Indy home. I'm trying. But how can home be a place where I'm surrounded by people that don't care enough to know about me. Not the person that I project, but about the things that actually matter to me. It's like there is an entirely different person and no one even knows that she exists.
She's the part of me that's been hurt too many times and can't trust people with the dark stuff, the real stuff. Half of my life is a lie. I wonder how many people actually know that. It's not bending facts. It's outright lying. This front that everyone meets. Yea, parts of me actually come through and there are glimces of hope that I can trust people, but I don't. There's a line. Actually it's more like a castle wall, on a cliff that is in the middle of an ocean. People chip at the wall and try to storm the castle, but they can't. I've almost forgotten that there is still so much of me inside. I don't want to be hurt so she doesn't exist.
I'm not just keep people out, I'm keeping me in. But I'm so tired of hiding. I want to be free again. I want to be happy like that again. It's just that I trust the wrong people. People who end up not caring about me or what I need, but only about them. I don't want that kind of friendship anymore.
I occures to me that most of my friends haven't met my parents or siblings and haven't even been invited to go home with me. It's just me keeping myself safe again. Defense Mechanisms 101: an organism will protect itself from harmful stimulus in order to ensure survival. It's basic instinct. Nature vs. Nurture. Will an organism continue to emplyee evolved defenses if it is placed in a safe environment? Given time the organism should "relax" and it's defenses will become weakened or less reactive, but when provoked by the origonal harmful stimulus will it readapt the defenses? will it ever let them down again?
God, I hope so. I can't live inside these walls forever...
Thank you for triggering this post. I don't know what it was about your latest one that did it, but thank you. These are things that I'm just unable to verbalize. You've given me words.
It's always extremely hard to know what to write or talk about. Do those brief entries that seem so meaningful to me actually say anything to anyone else? How do you reponse when you read or think something that completely verbalizes everything you've been feeling for so long? Or at least it gives you a direction to go towards verbalizing it. It's an instant clarification about things that have been confusing for so long. Wonderful and frieghtening all at the same time. And yet, something that I really want to develop. I realize that this post most likely won't accomplish what I hope for it to accomplish, but I just need to get this going....
Last year I spent the first semester conflicted. Where was home? My heart and soul were in Albion, but I was living in Indy. I didn't know where I belonged. Or really who I was...I was, and still am, two different people inhabiting one body. There's the girl that drank her way through her first year of college, got busted for underage drinking, and defined weekends by a guys' name. But then there's the person that I am when I'm honest with myself. When I'm walking though the woods or at Crooked Lake or simply talking to my parents. I still project the drug-free, National Honor Society, Honors Theatre, Student Government, Varsity Guys Soccer, Dancer to the world when I'm in Albion. They all think that I've just matured and not betrayed everything that I used to believe in. I want to shout at them that I'm not the person they all think I am and that they should stop respecting me for the mask that I wear. Stop holding me up to others.
They make me feel guilty about not being the person they expected me to be. But that isn't who I am anymore. I'm a combination of the two people. I enjoy both worlds and appreciate them for what they are, but don't keep me in the mold that you think I belong in. I'm me. And home is both Albion and Indy. Moreso Albion, but I'm working to make Indy home. I'm trying. But how can home be a place where I'm surrounded by people that don't care enough to know about me. Not the person that I project, but about the things that actually matter to me. It's like there is an entirely different person and no one even knows that she exists.
She's the part of me that's been hurt too many times and can't trust people with the dark stuff, the real stuff. Half of my life is a lie. I wonder how many people actually know that. It's not bending facts. It's outright lying. This front that everyone meets. Yea, parts of me actually come through and there are glimces of hope that I can trust people, but I don't. There's a line. Actually it's more like a castle wall, on a cliff that is in the middle of an ocean. People chip at the wall and try to storm the castle, but they can't. I've almost forgotten that there is still so much of me inside. I don't want to be hurt so she doesn't exist.
I'm not just keep people out, I'm keeping me in. But I'm so tired of hiding. I want to be free again. I want to be happy like that again. It's just that I trust the wrong people. People who end up not caring about me or what I need, but only about them. I don't want that kind of friendship anymore.
I occures to me that most of my friends haven't met my parents or siblings and haven't even been invited to go home with me. It's just me keeping myself safe again. Defense Mechanisms 101: an organism will protect itself from harmful stimulus in order to ensure survival. It's basic instinct. Nature vs. Nurture. Will an organism continue to emplyee evolved defenses if it is placed in a safe environment? Given time the organism should "relax" and it's defenses will become weakened or less reactive, but when provoked by the origonal harmful stimulus will it readapt the defenses? will it ever let them down again?
God, I hope so. I can't live inside these walls forever...
posted by Sara Beth @ 1:46:00 PM
1 Comments:
At Wed May 25, 08:39:00 PM,
Sara Beth said…
oh darling,
I know. I'll chaulk it up to habit, but still....I'm working on it. And that's funny because I so wrote orgasm the first time and had to go back and change it! :P
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