That Sophomore Year (PreSeventeen)

That sophomore year was pivotal. I was fighting with practically everyone.The only people I remember being nice to me were lower than I was on the social pecking order. Not even they actually liked me. I think they just found me entertaining because I wasn't mean to them like everyone else. I've always had a soft spot for the down trodden. No one liked me. I had one male friend, but he was in the same predicament as I was in many ways. He went the other way in life. He conformed. He ended up being a religious bigot like his parents. I on the other hand was destined to be notorious. I wasn't going to be no factory worker.

I remember there only being two joys in my life, art and wrestling. In my sophomore year I was already taking all the art classes that I was going to be able to take. My art teacher told me once in class that during wrestling season that I was a much better kid. My grades were better, my attitude was better, I was nicer, more calm. Wrestling season gave my life purpose. No one could fuck it up but me. If I lost a wrestling match, it was because of me, and no one else. I hated team sports. That Centralia football team lost every game of the season except one both years I played. I hate losing. Wrestling was the only thing I knew myself to genuinely be good at, and I was legitimately good at it. Everyone agreed. I loved that sport. I've said for most of my life, that if my parents would have supported me at all I would have become an Olympian. I definitely would have wrestled in college. 

Somehow I had talked them into buying me a letter jacket. Not sure how I pulled that off, because those are not cheap. One whole side of the jacket was decked out in nothing but wrestling medals. I won a lot. I did the youth wrestling tournaments too, and I participated in freestyle and greco-roman. In the freestyle season I went to state, and got second place. No one in my family came to watch. It was always this other kids parents who would take me to tournaments.  Matter of fact they were upset that it was going to cost money to send me to nationals. Fifty bucks. I don't remember Barry ever going to any of my wrestling matches or tournaments. Not once. The town of Centralia was small. Home matches were never far away. He would simply rather just be drunk.

Nearly everyone was picking on me. That Darin kid that I've told you about. Even he knocked me out in a fight my sophomore year. They were making fun of me. I said some shit back, we ended up squared off in the showers of the locker room. Darin had a life of being beat up by his older brother, so I wasn't shit to him. It wasn't even a fight. Without hesitation he hit me right in the temple, and down I went. I learned a valuable lesson that day; tall skinny guys with long arms can punch really hard. I never let that happen again.

The only reason that girl wanted to take me to prom was because no one else was stupid enough. She had grown up with everyone else in that town. Everyone knew everyone. Everyone but me, knew the social parameters. I was just the new kid, and naive as fuck at that. I didn't know any of those kids, or their back grounds, or their social status, and I didn't have any friends to fill me in. I was just the son of a factory worker, who was nothing but a drunk. My parents didn't teach me shit about life.

I was friends for awhile with this kid in the neighborhood, who was slightly crippled. Even we got into a fight. Same deal. Talking shit escalated into a fight. There was a neighbor girl who would be nice to me, we hung out for a summer once, but I never saw her at school. She got jealous about other girls and turned mean.

To Barry I was a burden, same as with JoAnn. I was made fun of a lot for not having cool clothes. For not having the good shoes. For not understanding what was going on. Going shopping for school clothes as a major guilt trip. I had to throw straight up fits to keep them from going to Walmart. I had moved to Centralia because I was finally old enough that JoAnn couldn't exactly tell me where to live. Something about being thirteen. It took a lot of bitching, but we all know in her heart she was happy to be free of me even though it probably did hurt her feelings. She had a way about making up shit to have hurt feelings about. She simply could not control me any longer. 

I remember being in the seventh grade, going to a huge school in Jefferson City. There was something like seven or eight hundred kids in just the seventh grade. Biggest school I'd ever gone too. The seventh grade was its own three story building which was bigger than any high school I had seen. It was huge in my eyes. Same story. Everyone picking on me. I had gotten into a fight, with a girl of all things. Fucking bitch was making fun of me in front of a huge group of people. That's a fight, don't care if you have a vagina. She literally wanted to fight me. Was shoving me, smacking me, the works. A huge group of kids gathered around for that one. I ended up in the principal's office of course. JoAnn got called into the school. I was sitting in a chair outside the office, but could hear JoAnn talking to the principal. I'll never forget, she told her, "Have you considered spanking him?" to which JoAnn responded, "You go out there and spank him." No one came and spanked me. I'd have fucked around and went to jail. I'd already had enough ass beatings in my life.

I couldn't stand JoAnn. It wasn't exactly a secret. That year we were living in probably what was the worst shit hole ever. It was worse than the trailer parks. I've driven through Tebbetts MO many times now as an adult, and slow rolled that house in dismay. It is so small I don't know how we all lived in there. She was married to her third husband, and he had two kids too. So sometimes there were seven of us in that two bedroom house, in a town so small there wasn't even a gas station, or a grocery store.  The bus ride to school was well over an hour long.  

Soon as I turned thirteen I let it be known Barry's house seemed like a better option to me. Barry didn't move around all over the place.  Matter of fact, before the seventh grade was over she had moved to another farm house, out in the middle of no where, outside Jeff City somewhere. Barry seemed like a much better option. All our lives we had only ever been with him every other weekend. He had only lived in two different houses that whole time. Both way nicer than anything JoAnn had ever lived in. We'd, my brother and I, would get to go to his house during the summer, so we knew it was different living with him. That seemed way better than always being manipulated and controlled by JoAnn, when all she was ever really doing was picking other dudes over us. He would just be drunk, and play his music.

Barry and JoAnn played this game about who was the worse parent. Both sides of the family would get in on this game too. I always blamed JoAnn for the abuse I suffered. Barry got outed as the every other weekend dad. He played the victim card on that tip, but it is true the courts do it like that. All the same, they all acted like I wasn't the direct result of the abuse I had suffered. It was just easier to blame me.

 

By the time I got to Barry's in Centralia it was simply too late, and his drunk ass wasn't going to lift me out of the mire. Barry had a crazy temper, and he was actually capable of whooping my ass, unlike JoAnn. One time he couldn't get the lawn mower to start. He didn't even try, but for a couple of minutes either. For some reason he had an iron claw hammer in his hand. I'm not sure how that tool is used in lawn mower repair, but he had it. He said some expletive with this insane pitch to his voice, and hurled that hammer into the shed on the other side of the yard with such force that it scared the shit out of me. It crossed a forty foot gap with no arch, and sounded like a gun shot when it hit the shed. That did help keep me reigned in a little bit in the sense that I wasn't out right defiant. His drunkenness though allowed me to be sneaky.  I could sneak out at will. There were times when I would sneak out the front door, which was in the living room, while he was in the living room. Like literally right behind him. He'd have these head phones on, playing his bass guitar, just drunk as fuck. Every night.

I got wasted drunk for the first time when I was thirteen after moving to his house. Mad Dog 20 20. I was puking of course. Acting a fool at this dudes house who was much older than I was. Nothing was said about it. He never even knew. I even managed to sneak back in wasted drunk. I remember one time coming home so drunk, I couldn't get up the stairs to my bedroom, so I just sat at the kitchen table and passed out. My head kept slipping out of my hands and thunking the table. They had to of noticed, but they never said anything. He was the kind of guy, that one time he found condoms in my room, and he just took them, and never said anything. I made fun of him for this stupidity. What fucking good did it do to take my means of not getting a girl pregnant, if you're not even going to say anything about it? This guy had no business having children.

That winter I was sneaking out and stealing Christmas lights off of people's houses. I literally had decked out my room with all these lights. Nothing. Nothing was ever said.  One night I went all over town stealing for sale signs, and political signs, and filled this kids yard with them whom I didn't like. I thought that was just hilarious. 

I use this metaphor a lot nowadays when I'm dealing with others. I had good hardware, but bad software. You know what I mean? I was like a modern day fancy computer, up to date technology, but was running Windows 3.1. I was super intelligent, but just had the shittiest of software running. Malware infections. Viruses. 56k dial up with a 256 color monitor. It's crazy how bad life can suck when you don't know shit about life.

I snuck out once, and didn't come home. I didn't call or anything. I just stayed out. I was gone for two days. I had been running around town vandalizing, messing with people. I had also been messing with a girl. I was never not trying to get a girl to love me. When I finally got home Barry was furious. He started whipping me with a fly swatter. It only took a couple of swings and the rubber end came off. He just kept whipping me with the wire. I would turn to the side, so it hit me on the back of my body, and then just turn back to face him. He was too strong. I couldn't whoop him. 

When that girl toyed with me, she had no idea she was lighting a fuse on a stick of dynamite. None. I was playing poker, without really knowing the rules, with a shit hand. Like back in the day though, like one of those old school western type movies, I had a loaded gun under the table, and was going to rob some people win or lose.

All of this just further hardened my heart. It really is true. If I would have had even the slightest inclination to be suicidal I would have died that year. Instead I turned my rage outward. Fuck the world kinda shit. I had no one to talk too. My grandfather had died the year before too. He was the only guy who ever was nice to me, or taught me anything. I cried for a long time in my room alone after he died. I cried for weeks. Everyone else just told me that something was wrong with me. 

I still to this day cry sometimes, wishing I had a mother to talk to when my life sucks. 

Looking back it was all because I never had anyone to talk to. No one ever understood my dilemma. No one ever let me have my feelings. That shit has happened all my life. A lot of people still say the same old dumb shit to me. They don't even understand their own selves, how they going to understand me?

Not even the juvenile detention peeps seemed to understand.

Rampage (PreSeventeen)

It's been one of the most common themes of my life. There is this huge gap between how I have seen myself, how I actually am on the inside, and how others see me. This gap has existed all my life. None of these people had any idea what my childhood was like. This gap made high school even more challenging, as if that part of life isn't already hard. High school can suck for people who aren't even abused. The main reason this gap made my life so treacherous is because I could never actually tell what was going on until it was way too late, and by then the next cycle of illusions had already begun. I had no way out.

It wouldn't be until my thirties that I figured out why the males had such a dislike of me in high school. I had such a low sense of self. I'm not sure internally I had any self esteem at all really. I knew how to fake it of course. My relationship with JoAnn was such that nothing I ever did was good enough. Neither of my parents, and especially my step parents, they never supported me at all. By the time I was in high school they had effectively given up on me, and were just waiting for me to be old enough to be on my own. I had been truly convinced that there was something wrong with me, and my external experiences only ever confirmed this. How could I know that girls liked me and thought I was attractive? Girls don't just come out and say those things. Even if they had, I wouldn't have believed them. So of course, all the dudes were jealous. Particularly the alpha males. 

I'll give you an idea of the hate. One of the  real issues was simply my total lack of social awareness, and the nature of the people I was dealing with. I was always the new kid too. Being the new kid ensured I was at the bottom of the pecking order. On top of this the ignorance that JoAnn had enforced on me caused me to be incredibly naive. I was constantly in situations where the gap was so wide I couldn't see across to the other side. 

I was stuck in life in my own eyes. I craved attention. To be popular. To have friends. So I had to risk it. I ended up at a house party one night. I had to sneak out after Barry was drunk on the Jack. It was fairly stupid of me to show up at this kind of party, because most everyone picked on me. Like I said, I craved to be cool, and liked, I risked the danger. This party was not in town either. Obviously when the people who are known to pick on me are drinking it can't possible go any better than it did at school. I was walking around the party socializing with people who weren't overtly mean to me, being careful not to engage those who normally pick on me. I was drinking too, so inevitably I had to go looking for the bathroom. Someone said it was down the hall. I opened the wrong door. When I opened the door I saw a guy going down on a girl. I didn't really know this guy, but I knew the girl.  After finding the bathroom, I told some people what I saw, thinking it was funny. 

Fifteen, twenty minutes later I'm outside talking to someone I knew, and this guy comes flying out of the house in a rage. He did not think it was funny. He's yelling for me. I knew I was fucked. I started walking away, and got myself positioned on the other side of a car. He's practically screaming at me. He's pissed I ran my mouth about what I saw in the bedroom. He was totally shit faced. I knew better than to even attempt to fight this guy when he's surrounded by all his jock buddies. Without any warning he threw his beer bottle at me. Straight to the face. I managed to barely turn my head to the side, but the bottle caught my chin. Luckily it shattered off to the side, over my shoulder. I took off running. 

It took me a couple of hours to walk home. The guy who gave me a ride to the party was as low as I was on the totem pole, so he wasn't going to be able to help me. My chin was cut open pretty good. I had to parallel the gravel road, walking through cow pastures, and plowed fields, all the way back to town because they were out driving up and down the gravel road looking for me. They still wanted to kick my ass. His buddies were egging him on to get me. Basically a bunch of drunk red neck kids roaring up and down the gravel road in a pick up truck. I had to lay down whenever the headlights of their truck was facing my way.  Interestingly at school the next Monday he never said anything about it. Sober he was a different guy. 

This is also the same year I won my first fist fight. I had become friends with this girl over the summer who was also a new kid. She wasn't ugly either. She wanted to go to a basketball game, but didn't want to go alone, so she asked me to go. Of course I said yes. As we were climbing the bleachers to sit down this senior started making fun of me. I mean out loud in front of everyone. He wouldn't stop. My blood started to boil. I started talking shit back, so pissed I didn't care. He told me to meet him at the park. I said, right now. 

Someone drove me to the park. At least fifteen other people showed up, none of them my friends except the kid who drove me there. I was in such a fury I didn't care. This guy squares off with me. I faked a left and punched him right in the nose. It backed him up, but he came right back to me. I was in a fury for being made fun in front of so many people. I faked another left, and when he went to deflect it, smashed his nose again with a right. His eyes were watering, blood was running down his face. He did this weird dance while stumbling backwards, but because everyone there was his friends, he couldn't quit just yet. He was losing. He came back at me again, and I did the same damn thing again. Faked a left, and smashed his nose. He was bleeding all over himself. It took all the fight out of him. His friends told him to give it up.  I was so fucking pumped. I just beat a senior in a fist fight. 

By the time I got back to the school everyone knew. There was a group, waiting like a mob down the hall. When I walked into the school, someone shouted, "there he is." All these upper class students started running my way. I turned and ran. Of course, this guy was one of the more popular guys. Of course, he just had to be friends with everyone that mattered. The following Monday, I found out much to my dismay that my history teacher was this guy's mom. I didn't even know why he was picking on me. I had never even talked to this kid. 

One of his friends put me to a fight the following week. This guy picked a fight with me, making fun of me, and everyone was pissed at me because I won the fight. This time though, I was no longer in a fury. I didn't want to fight his friend, but I couldn't back down either. I can't stand being called a pussy, and that is exactly what they were calling me. That guy smashed my nose so hard, when I bent over after the fight, the blood wasn't dripping, it was literally running like a stream. My little brother was the only one who went to that fight with me. He was worried. At least I didn't wuss out. 

This is the same year that I got knocked out several times during football practice. This senior, David Davenport had it out for me. This guy was built like Heman. Seriously. Dude had a six pack. He was short and compact. Dude had muscles that I only dreamed of having. He was setting weight lifting records at the school. He was the buffest guy on the team. He was easily twice as strong as me. He was always trying to knock my helmet off hitting me during drills. I don't know why he hated me. He never told me. The coach never stopped him. I never backed down either. 

In the same way the girls with daddy issues couldn't not be drawn to me, the other boys with mommy issue couldn't not hate me. I wasn't safe anywhere.

It was a perfect storm of sorts. I had this bad boy image, facade. I was the wounded child archetype in effect. This is a magnet for the female energy. Add to this that I was not ugly. I mean, I was never the best looking guy, but not many females have ever said that I wasn't good looking. Add to this I had an ideal physique, and blue eyes that shine. My sophomore year of high school I was six feet tall coming in at 170ish lbs. Add to this the energy of always needing to prove myself, to be competitive, to feign confidence; females liked me, and the other dudes knew it even though I didn't. I was the only one that didn't know it. I did not see what others saw when I looked in the mirror. 

It was the craziest shit ever. After chemistry class, while walking down the hall to my next class, this girl would make eye contact with me. At first I thought I was dreaming. It was a fluke, but it just kept happening. She was a senior. I didn't even know her name. I had to ask others. She was in a completely different clique than I was. None of my friends were friends with her. No one who I talked to knew her at all. As far as I was concerned she was from an entirely different world. I didn't have any idea at all about the goings on of the upper class students. Yet, there was no mistaking it this girl was making sure to make eye contact with me when we would pass in the halls once a day. That was basically the only time I would see her, and she was making sure I knew she was looking at me. 

This girl was fucking beautiful. What the fuck was going on?  

It was consuming me. I was looking forward to her walking past me in the hall. I would be sad the rest of the day if for some reason our paths didn't cross. I would have done anything to get a girl to like me. I eventually worked up the nerve for a hi, waiting for the time we would pass and there wouldn't be so many other kids around.  I had no clue how to approach this girl. None. She was out of my league, and I knew it, but she just kept on locking eyes. After I said hi to her, she did the rest. Maybe she was waiting for the right time to catch me when not so many people were around? I ended up with her phone number. It took me awhile to work up the nerve to call her too. We talked on the phone a couple of times. I even ended up at her house once to watch a movie. I was too young to have a job. I couldn't take her on a date. I couldn't drive. I had zero experience dating a girl. I was only fourteen. What the fuck was going on? How could this girl possibly like me?

I made the mistake one day of saying that I was talking to this girl to some other guys in school, and got made fun of for weeks. This one guy in particular just railed the shit out of me for believing she even liked me. I wasn't the only one who found this situation too good to be true, almost everyone was in shock. He was so fucking jealous.

It got even crazier. This girl asked me to go to prom with her. That shut up that particular hater. Turned out I wasn't making it up, but oh my god did the hating get turned up in general, all the way around. There were a couple dudes so jealous that this girl was crushing on me they were practically starting fights with me during school.  Of course, their pretense for attacking me was her, it just wasn't being said out loud. They couldn't admit their jealously in such a way. I was so naive and ignorant I just thought they all hated me.  This girl was top of her class. She was one of the most popular girls in the whole school. She wasn't the stuck up, too good for everyone, kind of beautiful. She was that cute, sweet, person that everyone loved, and she asked me to prom, what the fuck is going on?

The people in charge of taking care of me let me down big time too. I don't even know how to express how stressed I was about this prom situation. I'm a first born child. I stress out about any and all situations of which I have not done before. I had no clue at all what was expected of me at a prom. I'd never even been to just a regular school dance. I was stressed to the max. Barry waited till the last minute to take me to get a tux. He hated ever having to spend money on me. I think they were banking on the relationship falling through before the dance. They probably couldn't believe it either. I think they were hoping I would screw it up with this girl before the dance, so they wouldn't have to rent a tux. I had to buy the flowers too. Because they waited until the last minute, and my having such a common build, all the popular tuxedo's in my size were out of stock. I was the only kid at the dance in a pinstripe tuxedo. We all know this girl's shit was all perfect. Her father made money. She had support. She knew what she was doing. 

So for me the gap is most visible. My parents didn't support me at all. I had no clue what was going on. Even wearing the pinstripe tux I had to act like I knew what I was doing. I had no idea. All these people expected me to live up to my facade. They saw this good looking kid, who did well in sports, had decent grades, nice smile. They didn't know I was a wreck. 

Even the after prom party was at this girls house. All her senior friends, and their dates were going to her house afterwards. Camping, bonfire, the works. All these seniors were celebrating. Most of them had grown up with each other, and had been going to school together all their lives. I was the new kid, a nobody. We had a spot in the barn to sleep. My parents actually let me spend the night out at fourteen on a prom night. I begged and pleaded of course. I wasn't entirely stupid.  

I didn't have a single friend at this party. I didn't feel like I belonged at all. I never even stood around the campfire, I just hung back in the shadows, and got drunk of course. My first prom, and I didn't win out, but I at least tried to get laid. Somehow magically I didn't end up just completely belligerent. My fourteen year old ass didn't have a clue how to go about that situation. She shut me down. I probably ruined any chance I had with this girl that night trying too hard, but I figured out the scoop anyways. 

He was there too. Her ex-boyfriend was literally the most popular guy in the school. He had the new girl he was dating with him. Blond haired blue eyed dream of a guy. This guy was the best looking dude in the school. I mean this guy was immaculate. He was the stud football player. Quarterback. He was off to some big college. He was literally everything that I wasn't. Turns out she was just using me to try and make him jealous.  

The mommy issues rendered me unable to deal with this. The feelings of betrayal, of being used, of being picked over. The feelings of not being good enough, when I thought for sure this girl liked me; was more than I could handle. The rage came to the surface. Something inside me snapped. 

I ended up at party a couple of weeks later. All these same seniors were there. I got smashed. I was that guy. Stumbling around like a fool.  I ended up laid out on the ground, just acting the emotional fool. People started kicking me. The girl tried to get me out of there, but couldn't.  She got people to stop kicking me at least. That was the end of that.

Like I said I snapped. I couldn't contain my rage any longer. It wasn't up to me after that. I had no way to deal with the pain. I had no where to go. Not only had I been played a fool, I acted the part perfectly. How could I not? I somehow magically had this completely anti suicidal worldview. Killing one's self was the stupidest thing ever in my mind, so my self destruction got channeled outwardly to the fullest.  Had I been the suicidal type; I would have died. 

I went on a crime spree. I broke into into this kids house who was always making fun of me and stole a bunch of money. This bought gas for the car rides. I started sneaking out constantly, vandalizing, and car hopping. When it started catching up to me I ran away, and vandalized even more. I had a couple of friends who were following me around on my rampage. They had cars. I was vandalizing anything I could. Fuck everyone, fuck the world, fuck god; just fuck everyone. I didn't give a fuck.

I ended up in the projects of Mexico MO. The parents of my friends were catching on that I was a run away, and I was running out of places to go. The cops were catching up to my friends. The cops didn't like going into those projects, so I didn't have to worry about being spotted. When the cops caught up to my friends, naturally they all told the cops that it was me who did all the vandalizing, and it was. They really did just watch. I didn't mind them telling on me. In my rage I was proud of my actions. My mindset was 100% FUCK THOSE PEOPLE.

I was too dumb to be a runaway. I didn't' have anywhere to go. Even in the projects I was told I couldn't stay, so everyone was telling me to just  turn myself in. I got a ride back to Centralia, just walked in the police station, and told them who I was.  I was charged with six felonies, and over thirty five misdemeanors. I was sent to a juvenile detention center, and I was proud of it.  Because of the nature of my vandalism, I was asked, told, to not return to Centralia. The whole town hated me. Mother fucking notorious. 

That town hated me so bad, a couple of years later when I was a senior, playing football for a different high school, we had a game in Centralia. When I made my first tackle they announced my name over the loud speaker and the whole place boo'd. They didn't announce my name anymore the rest of the game.  

At my age I couldn't legally be held in a jail cell, so I was immediately taken to a juvenile detention center in Columbia MO.

Dealt a bad hand (PreSeventeen)

My first job was at a Little Caesars pizza in Fulton MO. It was a brand new store. JoAnn found the job in the news paper, and took me to the interview. She wanted me to get my own car. She also needed me preoccupied in the evenings. I was sixteen. The job was super easy. There was no challenge about it at all. I don't remember how I lost the job. I think I just stopped showing up. I do remember this is when I started smoking. I had been at a party, where others were smoking. I was standing among a group of girls, all older than me, and they asked if I wanted a cigarette. I wanted to be cool. I wanted to fit in, so I took a cigarette. Like everyone does, I coughed really hard, and they laughed at me. I had already smoked before, but it was when I was thirteen living at Barry's. When he caught me, he really threw a fit, so I hadn't smoked for years. Well, laughing at me in a group only inspires me.

I wanted to not cough when I smoked, so I started smoking Camel non-filters until the coughing stopped. It only took a couple of packs. Less than a week. Self destruction in effect. This is when kids could get away with buying cigarettes at the gas station. I remember paying ninety three cents for a pack of Marlboro Reds. I preferred to smoke Marlboro, but I needed to get my lungs acclimated. I can't stand being laughed at. Camel non-filters did the trick. I smoked a lot at Little Caesars so JoAnn wouldn't know I was smoking.  

I had to get a job another job, so I ended up working at a Golden Corral. It was much closer to my house. The scene was much more appropriate to my culture too. That is to say, white trash. It was also a actually doing some cooking, which is something I have always loved to do. It's not exactly the easiest thing at sixteen to be cooking twenty steaks at the same time. I was always proud that I could work rush hour shifts and never have any re-cooks. Several adults couldn't do that. I've always been a natural when it comes to cooking dead animals. My bar-b-que is off the chain. The best part of working at that GC was the sense of freedom it gave me. I had never experienced that level of freedom before. 

I was surrounded by what I now know to be fucked up people. Almost everyone partied and did drugs. JoAnn had always kept me on lock down, so this job was a really good cover for the lifestyle I wanted to live. It opened the doors to a world I did not know existed. I was still on juvenile probation, so she would use my probation officer to keep me locked down as best she could. She would call my probation officer, whenever necessary to keep me in line, but what should be obvious by now is that I am much smarter than the woman who brought me into this world. She did not have what it takes to keep me reigned in. Unfortunately being intelligent is double edged, because being really smart without any wisdom, or life experience, is nothing but troubles. I was really good at getting into trouble. JoAnn worked evenings, so as you can imagine I used this to my advantage. 

I met my future wife working at that GC. I invited people over to the house one evening, and Rachel came over. I had no choice in being attracted to the girls with daddy issues. None. And they had no choice but to be attracted to me. It's interesting how the unconscious can make someone seem so beautiful. How the pull becomes a must. Stronger than magnets. Stronger than gravity. Stronger than the pain itself. Blinding. She was beautiful to me.

We were sitting on the back porch. Everyone was drinking. I started talking about the music that I love. We all know alcohol lowers one's inhibitions. This crowd at my house wasn't the rough crowd that I had been trying to impress. There were no macho males around to ridicule me. I wasn't trying to impress anyone. These were people from GC, and some local kids from the neighborhood. I had my guard down a bit, I was being honest. I loved what I call 80's glam rock. I genuinely love that music. When I was a kid in Hermann I would listen to this radio station out of St. Louis. Sometimes I would wait for hours to hear my favorite songs so I could record them on cassette only to listen to them over and over again. 

My first ever vinyl record was a single, We are the World. You know, when all those singers got together. I remember living in Centralia at Barry's and literally being in front of the TV the first day MTV came on. It was amazing. Duran Duran, Madonna, Wham, Boy George, George Michael, Toto, I listened to all that stuff. I had every Madonna cassette. I would go to sleep listening to George Michael's first solo album. Oh my god Depeche Mode's Violator album. Loved it. Loved it all. It turned out my love of glam rock radically changed Rachel's view of me. In her eyes I went from being this dumb jock, to a sensitive guy with a heart. 

Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight, It must have been something you said.
I keep looking for something I can't get, broken hearts lay all around me
And I don't see an easy way to get out of this
.....
Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight, It must've been some kind of kiss
I should have walked away, I should have walked away
Is there any just cause for a feeling like this?
On the surface I'm a name on a list, I try to be discreet but then blow it again
I've lost and found, it's my final mistake, She's loving by proxy, no give and all take
"Cos I've been thrilled to fantasy one too many times
.....
It was a long hot night
She made it easy, she made it feel right
But now it's over the moment has gone
I followed my hands not my head, I knew I was wrong

That was my fucking jam. Cutting Crew in the house.

She was older. She had her own place. I chased her hard. She had several boy friends too. I wrapped her up like I do. She was even messing around with a guy who was in his thirties. I went to high school with this guys son. He didn't stand a chance. Rachel was already out of high school, I was still a junior. I was just a dumb kid true and through. It didn't matter though. This would be a recurring theme through out my life, this attempting to get women who are not capable of loving me, to love me. It's a common theme among abused boys. An almost fanatical attempt to get a woman to love us.This isn't something that is unique to me, but maybe the thing that made it unique about me is that I took it so far. I spent over ten years trying to get this woman to love me, and all the while she was always sleeping with others, always, just like when we first met. 

It had to be obvious to anyone with any sense at all, that my shit was whack. Even fucked up people could tell. One day at work, I was talking to an assistant manager. He loved music too. He would talk about his extensive CD collection of which I was always supremely jealous. I think his name was Bob. He was a legitimately nice guy. He was endearing in that way. Much older than I. He had already been to college. He had a certain wisdom about him. We were talking one day while I was on break, and he asked me about my life. I told him some things about my family, and why I had so much anger and rage. This was the first time in my life someone had some compassion for me. He looked at me and said, "Some people get dealt bad hands in life, and Ben, you got dealt a shit hand." I've never forgotten Bob for that. Someone was actually fucking nice to me, and not just telling me that something was wrong with me. The dude actually listened to me. He understood.

It was too late. Too late for compassion of any kind. My life was not going to get any better any time soon.

The crowd I was trying to impress were all older. They all were drunks. Initially they didn't like me, but the slowly warmed up to me. They would also use me for entertainment. There was a house party. Some of the rough crowd was there whom I desperately wanted to be apart of. These guys were legit trouble makers. Fighters. Just like me they would go looking for fights. The party was boring, so you know what they did? They went and got me a fifth of Evan Williams. Half a bottle in, and I was fucking with every body. Shoving people, being rude. My friends thought this was great. At one point one of them was holding me up by my belt loops as I shoved my way through the house. Drinking straight from the bottle. It was a preppy party, and my "friends" were using me to crash it. None of the preps were going to mess with me since I had these older guys behind me, waiting for a fight.

I ended up stumbling outside to take a piss. Just totally shit faced. When I tried to go back inside a guy had locked the door. I was too drunk to understand what was being said, but I understood what was happening. I wasn't having that, and I started pounding on the door. It was causing a scene so he ended up trying to unlock the door like that wasn't what he was doing. As I stepped in the door, he was up against the wall, like he was holding the door open for me or something. Soon as I stepped inside the door, I decked this guy right in the mouth. His head bounced off the wall, his glasses and hat kind of suspended in air above his face. It was like some cartoon shit. Pop! It was so comical to me I started laughing. He slid down the wall, and right when his ass hit the floor I gave him a couple of knees to the face. Party was over.

The next day I had to work. So hung over. I ended up downing nearly three fourths of that bottle. This guy's girlfriend ends up dragging him into the restaurant, and asked a manager to bring me out to the front. She was literally dragging this poor guy behind her. She demanded that I apologize to him. I was so stunned by this display that I actually complied. The poor guy had braces and his lips looked shredded. Top and bottom. When I got to the back, I laughed so hard. I had no idea who that guy even was, but I went to school with his girlfriend so I guess she felt inclined. I was destined to become notorious.

It's Never Ending

I talk to a kid regularly. By kid I mean someone who's in their early twenties. He has an older brother who was abused, and shows all the signs. He has a different mother, so he escaped the overt abuse. His older brother though, has been to prison a couple of times. He likes to do hard drugs. He has a crazy ass partner, who we all know was abused too. This kid I talk to mediates sometimes when his older brothers life is dark. He loves his older brother, and wishes he wasn't so self destructive. Me being who I am, I am inquire a bit about the situation, and offer what knowledge I can. He says his dad is willing to make amends, wants to make amends. I tell him though, it no longer has anything to do with his dad. The rock has been thrown. It's entirely up to his brother to do the self work. No one can do it for him. Most of the issue revolves around the mother anyways. Much like happened to me, this guy's mother choose other men over him. He got beat for his acting out as a small child, and what followed was a life of anger and rage. It happens to boys so often around here I do not understand how it is not common knowledge.

There are all manner of ways to describe the phenomenon. From spiritual, to religious, to energetic, to basic laws of attraction. It really doesn't matter how it gets described, it is happening. What I tell my abused friends is that it's already the case, you're going to suffer if you repress it, and you're going to suffer if you deal with it. There is no way out of it. If it gets repressed, you're always going to be ignorant of why you suffer. If you deal with it, you'll know why you are suffering, and that sets one free. The truth, sets one free, this dramatically lessens the suffering, but grieving is a life long process.

A couple of days ago I put on one of Louise Hay's affirmation video's on YouTube, and listened to it while I cleaned house. I get tired of chanting in my head, so I decided to let her soothing voice do the work. The order of the affirmations pretty much follows her book, You Can Heal Your Life. When she got to forgiveness, something inside me clicked. I felt a change. This started a chain of synchronicity. My emotions, or feelings, or both, stirred deep within. I started to cry at the sink. Next thing I know I was calculating how to get that kid over to my house because he likes to smoke weed. So there I was, confirmation I've been put in my feels, because my psyche was calculating how to stop the pain. I stamped it out; I'm not mind altering. I'm riding this one out.

"My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication—it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness—it is all that I have—and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well."  Franz Kafka

Ask, and you shall receive. I asked for it, and I got it.

Remember that I said, when you have mother issues, it is the woman you love who will be the trigger of the unresolved emotional trauma? It will be your girlfriend, or wife, or faux mom, who stirs the pot. For me it is my wife. It's just a fact of life if one has unresolved trauma; one is going to manifest the people who trigger the pain. The unconscious wants to bring about healing, so like I said above, one is going to suffer regardless.Whether one chooses to deal with the triggers doesn't matter to the unconscious; it's going to manifest regardless.

Due to my sobriety, and my conscious choice to deal with my feels I have in effect caused myself to be more vulnerable than I have ever been in my life. The resent books, the synchronizing events, are all bringing about the intense feels. I am approaching true grieving. Having recently learned that I've never properly grieved, grieving is imminent. But thinking about grief, reading about it, doesn't heal the wound. The studying is like the first step, a baby step at that. What needs to happen, what must happen, what is happening is a real life experience, with a real life person, and my wife never lets me down.

I'm not going to talk about my wife too much personally, because the truth is it's none of your business. The severity of my mother issues renders it impossible for me to be able to tell what is really going on anyways. The best way to explain it is, I'm two different people. On one hand, I am in total control of myself, but on the other hand I'm a panic filled terrified child. If I'm single, read here, not in love with someone, I have psychic abilities, and operate at a high level of awareness, but the second I love a woman, in regards to that woman, like I said, panic filled, terrified child. I in effect, lose all of my psychic and mental abilities. When in love I cannot tell what the fuck is going on. I've heard this is common for anyone in love, so I must assume having these crazy ass mother issues that it is amplified considerably. It makes what should be glorious times, into terrifying ones.

For instance, say I call my wife, and she doesn't answer, my mind will immediately go to worst case scenario without even a blink. Who is she talking to? What is she doing? What is going on? Why didn't she answer the phone? Say my wife is talking about how much she loves me, then gets home later and seems cold and distant. What happened? What did she do? Why is she cold? Where did my love go? Panic stricken terrified child. The triggers are endless; the fear is real. She doesn't have to do anything wrong. So like I said, there is no reason to talk about my wife because I wouldn't know what is going on anyways. It could be anyone. It has nothing to do with my wife. It has been every woman I've ever been with.

It's important to realize this has nothing to do with thoughts.  I can think all I want that she is doing nothing wrong. Matters not. I am dealing with unresolved emotional content.

This is something that I have carried with me all my life. It has taken a tremendous amount of inner work to even get to the point where I can do this. In the past, the only relief has been to be single, to create incredible ego defenses, walls as they call them, or to maintain such a level of control that I know for certain what is going on at all times. Let me tell you, all of this requires a shit ton of energy. Luckily a childhood of trauma provides just that.

First the Louise Hay trigger. Then the wife trigger. Shit fuck. My chest is tight. I feel panic, fear, creeping in all around me. It is all around me. I feel out of control. I feel like I'm going crazy. I've got no outs, no drugs, no alcohol, no friends. Just me, myself, and my feels. No one is coming to save me. Down into the dark I go.

I get on Facebook. It's my only source of news. Got to keep up on the shithole. I'm a member of a group that is about recovering from childhood trauma. The person who runs the group did a live video, and what do you know, it was about triggers, right at the top of my feed. I give it a listen. She talks to the fact that if one wants to heal from trauma they must use their triggers as a guide. She says a trigger is a sign of where the past unhealed trauma lies. By avoiding triggers one is basically avoiding growing up. You see, no one is responsible for how we feel. I don't even get to blame the woman that gave birth to me at this point. This shit is mine.

I think this is part of it. It must be the case. I was only seventeen years old when they put me in the hole. There is no way I dealt with that emotionally, properly. Anyone who has seen photos of me says that I look totally different after that experience. All alone. No friends. Months and months alone in a cell, trapped like an animal, pacing, talking to myself; no one was coming to save me. It seems as though part of me died in there. My own mother turned her back on me.

The feels are crazy. Maddening. How many times was I abandoned? How many times was I left in the dark? How many times was the shit beat out of me and she never came to save me? How many times did she leave me alone with those men? It's literally a physical sensation. Tight chest, feeling panicked. Terrified. No where to go. No where to hide. No one can help me. No one to blame. This is between me and my own body, my own psyche; this is my life. I lock myself in the bedroom. I tell myself I"m not going to die. I feel like I'm going to die.

Where is she? Where is my mother? Gone.
I am motherless.
I just cry and cry, and cry some more.
I just want a mother.
I just want to fill this hole.
Where is she? Where is my mother? Gone.
Motherless this life of mine.
Just pain, and pain, and pain on pain
I rock myself, I clench my fists.
I just want this pain to end.
Where is she? Where is my mother? Gone.
It's never not the case
I've seeked and sought, and used my force.
Nothing but triggers to stir the pain.
I am this hole
Where is she? Where is my mother? Gone.
The rock has been thrown.

I'll never stop crying about not having a mother. It's not something one gets over. There is no moving on. Self medicating doesn't work. There's no positive spin to spin. Some days are just better than others. The woman who gave birth to me is still alive, but that is not my mother.

“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?” ― John Keats

The pain of my life has awakened me. I can't imagine having woke up had I had a "good" life. I'd be watching TV, voting for Obama, working some shit job making some asshole rich.  I can't say it hasn't been terrifying. All I can say is; I'm wide awake. The day is coming, sooner than later, when I will bridge that gap: I will fill this hole myself. That is my only concern in life.

It's just that today I'm going to cry.

I'll never forget watching that food documentary. It was about this farm to table chef on the east coast. You see, at first I was like, damn! this guy is fucking handling business. Wife, kids, jogs before work, running this crazy ass restaurant, but then the tears. Half way through the show, while interviewing the chef, he teared up talking about how his mother died when he was a young child. Turns out all he was doing was covering up his pain with his work. His marriage wasn't good. He was so busy there's no way he spent time with his kids. His job was his life. He openly admitted to being a screamer with his staff. An addict without the drugs. For all we know he used drugs, it's not like he was going to admit to his bullshit on a documentary about his "success." Everyone praising him for his seeming success.

Not this guy. I know what it is to not have a mother.

The Schism

There is a fundamental property of the average human mind in this culture, and that is duality. I'm not wanting to go into this concept deeply, but there are root causes in Western culture for this type of thinking. I'm saying this because it is not the only way to think. Dichotomy. Us versus them. In this mode of thinking, which I assume almost everyone reading this will have, everything can be divided up into two things, and that is what I'm doing here. It is a dichotomy. It is us versus them. 

There are two types of people, those who repress, and those who feel. Just like good and bad, there is a sliding scale upon which we can measure. There are those who are totally repressed, and there are those who are totally in their feels, and there are all the positions in between. And of course, people fluctuate between the two. The issue is when we break it down into simply repressed versus feeling we've turned something which in reality is extremely complex into something that seems simple simply because we worded it simply. Yet, it is simple, when we get right down to it, the ingredients are simple that is, but the mixture is complex. It's both. In describing the phenomenon there is no dichotomy, but in reality there is. Like salt water. It's just salt, and water, there is no opposition, but once they get mixed together, separating them becomes a chore? It requires some processes, effort, and energy, to unmix the two.  

I laughed so hard. We were in the midst of a painful talk, and it was the perfect distraction. The conversation had turned dark. I was asking my grandmother to tell me stories about when I was a child, trying to take it away from the darkness a bit. A couple of months ago upon my request she mailed me some photos she had of me as a child. The wife was wanting to know what I looked like as a child.  My favorite photo sits next to my screen as I type. In honor of that little boy inside, we mischievously smile at one another. I've got the same shit eating grin on my face, the same ornery look in my eyes, then as I do now.  That part at least did not get beat out of me. I don't mind saying it at all; I was a cute ass little baby. Grandma told me that I was not always easy to deal with. I told her to pray for my wife, laughing, because I still am that exact way. The wife is still trying to figure out how to get me to do things without being able to tell me what to do. 

Grandma told me about this time they bought me this shiny metal dump truck, and I had taken it outside to play. When it was time to come inside, they told me to bring the truck in, but I refused. For days I refused. Now I know what some might think, all babies go through a stage where they are defiant, but I'm telling you, still to this day; I cannot be told what to do. My grandma was referring to the fact that my whole childhood I was difficult. After days of refusing to get the toy truck and bring it inside, grandpa threw it away. I was laughing so hard. My grandma is still trying to get me to bend, at least for a job she says, my life would be so much easier she says; nope, no fucking way. Laughing so hard. This poor woman couldn't even get me to listen as a baby. Poor woman is still trying. 

When I get a job, within the first week there has to be discussion about not telling me what to do. I can be asked, but no one can tell me what to do. I won't fucking do it. I worked for five years once for a guy that screamed at everyone. He never raised his voice to me once. Fuck that. By agreeing to work at a job, I am agreeing to perform certain previously agreed upon tasks in exchange for certain goods (money), and that is it. I do not agree to any other forms of social bullshit. I'm sure most of you are aware that there is this certain idea that people who pay others money own them or something. It's practically automatic in this culture. Centuries of farming humans for a paycheck has taken it's toll on the human psyche. Ya, fuck that. I'll be homeless and without. No one owns me.  I never signed no social contract. A gun is required if you're going to tell me what to do. My poor grandmother thinks my life would easier if I just bowed down a bit, conform, but I told her, it appears to me to be obvious that I was born this way. Laughing so hard. 

She told me another story when I was about four years old. I was riding a big wheel in the drive way. A preacher man had come to visit, and was walking in my lane. There was a small hill, maybe fifteen feet long that went up to a garage. It was like a y, connecting to the main driveway. I would ride the big wheel down the little hill onto the flat stretch of the drive way. My grandmother said she couldn't remember exactly what I said to him, but it embarrassed my grandfather terribly, because I cussed at the preacher man. She said it was something that I must have heard from Donnie. She said they made sure I wasn't around after that when this preacher man would come to visit. Oh my god I was laughing so hard. It appears I was born to put preacher men in their place. He probably told me that I should watch where I was going, or some such, and I bet money I let him know he should watch where he was going. I laughed so hard. No one tells me shit.

These stories from my childhood made me feel such love for my Self. I stayed true to at least that. Still to this day; no one tells me shit.

Could we not easily say, that those who conform, are repressed?

It seems to me, that within my own family, I am the black sheep. I am the one who did not conform. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately too, in my family I'm the only one. I will agree that my own psyche repressed a great many things, but I did not repress in the name of conformity. I don't remember as a child making a decision to not remember the traumatic events. My psyche did that on it's own. This is a different thing than an adult refusing to see the facts at hand. So here, we come to a crux in the conversation. Conscious repression, and unconscious repression. There seems to be a vast difference between deciding to repress one's self, and it happening automatically. This is where I am drawing a line in the sand.

Once upon a time I made a conscious decision. It wouldn't be for many years that I discovered this tactic being used by others. The Alchemists call it turning lead into gold. It's when you take the shit of your life, and turn into something useful. In my own life, all I seemingly had was shit, so in a certain way it wasn't that difficult for me start turning things, my "negative" qualities, into something useful.  Don't forget, that from my own perspective, I believed that I was fucked up, and that something was wrong with me, so from that vantage point it was all shit. Just like these stories of me as a child not being able to be told what to do. All these repressed people thought something was wrong with me for not conforming. Why wouldn't I do what I was told? According to them, something was wrong with me, for simply being who I am. 

Why weren't they figuring out a way to get me to what they wanted without using commands?

In a certain sense, particularly as an adult, it's not that hard, to be a non conformist with this kind of personality. One could say that it comes natural, so of course it's easy for me. Well, that is true, but there are a great many heavy prices, consequences too.  Being a non-conformist hasn't been easy even though it seems to come natural. It has still required work, because I as a monkey, that is to say, my body, wants the approval and affection of others. I got beat as a child for not conforming. I've lost out on countless opportunities that others gained easily because they conformed. Money is also a primary driver of conformity. If I don't bow my head like most everyone else, I don't get to have nice stuff. Unwilling to put up with dumb bullshit, there are literally millions of jobs I simply cannot do. Seems to me, from this vantage point, most adults are still acting like children, am I right? Eat your meat, or you don't get any pudding. I've gone without a lot of pudding.

It lifted my heart so much hearing those two stories from my childhood. When I look at this photo, staring at little me, with that glint in his little eyes. 

What I've noticed as someone who doesn't consciously repress is that people are always asking me to act differently for their sake, so that they do not have to feel, but they never want to act differently for my sake. How is anyone else, any more important than me? So you can see, here now, clearly, this is the foundation of almost all the shadow work that I do. The very second, the millisecond, someone acts as if I should be different so that they can be more comfortable in their own skin, that is the exact millisecond I demand the same from them.

If you've never heard the term shadow work, this is a Carl Jung concept. The Shadow is the aspect of one's personality that is repressed. It is the part of one's Self that one denies. So when I say that I do shadow work, what that means is, I cause people to deal with their repressed aspects. It is hard work. As you can easily imagine this is not something people enjoy. And since literally everyone has consciously repressed their feels, they all give me that millisecond. Matter of fact, if one becomes a full time shadow worker, one will not have any friends. This entire blog is shadow work. I'm writing about the things, no one wants to talk about. Yin/Yang. I'm not making any friends.

Remember my grandmother asking me not to say anything in a book that would cause others pain? She was attempting to protect my brother, but the issue at hand is they are both repressed, and consciously so. It's a conscious choice they make every day. They do not want to face the darkness of their lives. My brother will gladly point out how fucked up everyone else is, but the second I point out that he is fucked up, he will turn his rage towards me. He can easily admit when others have been abused, but he will not admit that he was abused. This is classic shadow projection. The issue here, is, that shadow work is exactly what he needs, but no one is doing it for him. Grandma needs it too. His rage prevents anyone from getting too close. He and I have literally been in fights. My grandmother will turn cold as ice the second I put her in her feels. They are not the only ones consciously repressing their feels. They are just the ones in this particular story giving me that much needed millisecond.

This is what makes me a shadow worker. I know my own rage well, I've never repressed it, so I do not fear my brothers rage. I too can turn cold as ice, I don't repress that either, so it does not bother me to walk on ice. I know how to swim. 

Good and bad. We can always divide it up into good and bad, or here, right and wrong. Who is right? Who is wrong? My brother will tell you he is right. He will go about naming all the ways that I am fucked up in his eyes, to discredit what I am saying, so that he does not have to feel his feels. One time I prevented him from drinking and driving, and all he did was talk about me being high. I must be wrong, because if he can't make that the case, he will be forced to deal with his feels. He was not prepared to own up to the fact that he was a drunk. 

So perhaps its time to acknowledge another duality; ignorant and knowledgeable. We all know how it goes if you tell someone to their face they are ignorant. Oh well. Facts are facts. It's a well researched fact that repressing ones feelings and emotions is not healthy, and that it causes all manner of side effects that are detrimental to life. So it logically follows that anyone doing so, must in fact, be ignorant. It is also extremely easy to make the argument that to be human is to feel, and have emotions, so anyone consciously repressing these qualities is not living fully human so to speak. How can that be good? or right?  They are not in touch with their own being. How can this be a good thing? So why doesn't my brother acknowledge that he was abused too? Because it hurts. He has to maintain this self image that he is not fucked up. Unfortunately for him, that is my favorite image to smash. 

I said to her, why must I not do what I do, for his sake, when he is unwilling to do what I say, for my sake? He gets so completely in his feels that I say it like it is regarding his parents that he practically goes crazy. That is the state of his feels. Why are his repressed feelings more important that my unrepressed feelings?  We all know the answer. They are not. And here we can see what is going on in the world. The repressed feelings people outnumber the unrepressed, or better yet, spontaneous feeling people greatly, and are completely dominating the culture. 

I'm here, now, letting you know, your feelings won't kill you. No matter how badly you hurt, no matter how fucked up it is, you can face it, face your own feels, and it won't kill you. I do it all the time. There is nothing special about me. I stay in the dark more than the light in a certain way. The issue will be all the repressed people criticizing you, and telling you they know, and you don't. Telling you to get over it, move on, grow up, take medication, think positive. Some will be so bothered by it they will punish you, and that is the real issue. What could kill you, is a repressed feeling person. Look around, they are straight deadly.

 

Historically speaking, this is a heretical concept. The idea here is that the truth comes from within, and not without. Conscious repression is actually an outward fixation. It's conforming one's self to the dominate culture. It's an admission that the truth about how one should be is out there. I say fuck that. The truth about how one should be is within. Honor ones self, listen to your own inner voice, your own inner knowing. A couple of hundred years ago expressing this would have gotten me strung up by the church. Burnt at the stake. They would literally burn me alive for those few sentences. The Church repressed everyone, claiming they were the authority over how one should be, and to disagree was a death sentence.  This is exactly what happens to us as children, we are forced to conform, or die. Death here, being the withholding of love, which seems like death to a child. That is a fractal my friends. That is the gist of it all. I never really listened to any external influences about how I should be, or live, despite all the hating. Whenever I did listen, I paid a price in regards to my own soul. 

Nearly all these people have been doing exactly that, killing their own souls, conforming to how they were told to be.

Which one are you?

Sadly, depending on how repressed one is, at first, one's feelings and emotions will be immature. The point is to start growing up. Repressing one's feelings and emotions so that one can better perform in the culture is not growing up. That is literally just domesticating one's self. Fuck that. Everything one needs is already within.

“A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being alive.”  ― Carlos Castaneda

No Wonder (Childhood Memories)

I broke down and made the call. I simply need more info. I can't simply guess. Part of the recapitulation process is just knowing the logistical facts. You know, I lived here then, then moved there, and so on. So I called her mom. She's the only one I can talk to without it just being over the top confrontation. My grandmother is the only one who will speak to me even though we do not agree about life. She does pray for me every day. I'm her oldest grandson. I can tell it bothers her, but she won't say no. I asked her to tell me stories. I could tell it was uncomfortable for her, the questions I was asking. It's not an easy story, but like I said, she wasn't refusing to tell me what I asked.

I've been saying the affirmations. Say it with me; I forgive these people for not being who I wanted them to be. I've spent so much of my life in rage. That is not an easy statement to make. Not and mean it.

So naturally, synchronistically, I got exactly what I asked for. You see, part of that affirmation is understanding they were people too. They were once little children too. Just like me they needed love. So this story isn't only mother fuck them. I'm not that much of a fool. This universe isn't spinning around me. Life is complex. I just seem to take it further than most. Albert Camus once said, "Always go too far, because that is where you'll find the truth." That's my shit right there. I love to run things right into the ground, smash them to pieces, to see what is what, even my own mind; even my own feels. If rage it is, then rage it will be. I ran it into the ground. I say we have to do both, be the rage, but we have to also forgive.

I had to explain to her, that during my studies I learned that it is typical of people violently abused to not develop memories. I simply do not remember my childhood.

She did make a condition though. Before she would answer questions she made me promise not to put anything in a book that would hurt any family members. She was referring to one of my brothers. When Donnie died, I publicly said it was a good day it not so nice a way. From my vantage point he played a primary role in smashing my life to shit after all. Pretty much my whole life has been; fuck that guy. One of my brothers saw my public display and was upset. He called grandma to talk about it. My grandmother cannot stand to cause people pain. Me? Not so much, and this is obviously an area that her and I do not agree on. I will most definitely hurt someone's feels right to the face without batting an eye. So her condition was that I not say anything to upset my brother. She wasn't wanting to tell me anything about Donnie, but she ended up telling me something about him anyways.

My grandmother told me that when Donnie and Doug were young, Doug still being a baby in diapers, their mother put them out on the front porch, and locked the door. Grandma said they never saw their mother again. Mother fucker. Mother fuck. Mother fuck that guy, and yet....I felt sick inside. How could anyone do that shit? No wonder this fucking guy was like he was. No fucking wonder he threw me under the bus. He was young when he married JoAnn. Fuck. Kids who aren't even outright abused don't know what the fuck they are doing in their twenties. No one does.

I know the feels. Most of my issues in life were about my own mother, and had nothing to do with anyone else. The relationship between a boy and his mother is life itself. I've always known there is a separation there. I've always held my mother accountable. He was not responsible for me. She was responsible for me. No fucking wonder this guy was the way he was. No wonder he was with a woman like her. No wonder his brother Doug drank himself to death. Donnie basically did too. That fucking Jimbo guy? Never had a chance.

Mother fuck.

I've studied abused people pretty much my whole life, first hand, with my own eyes. I'm that guy who is always paying attention to almost everything, calculating, evaluating, measuring everyone up. The violence of my childhood made me hyper-vigilant to my proximity. I capitalized on my gains. I used my powers to my advantage. I've spent over a decade now studying abused people as a professional would. I also study those who study them professionally. People like Alice Miller, John Bradshaw, and Thomas Moore. People who've spent their careers counseling abused people. I've read hundreds of books written by professionals of all different kinds.

I always knew his childhood could not have been good. Mother fuck. God damnit mother fuck.

I could hear the pain in my grandmothers voice when she talked about some of the things I had done that had really stressed her out. She talked about the time when I ran away. She thought that I might have gone to her house and was hiding in the woods. She told me she went back to the woods and just yelled and yelled for me. This made me cry. I was no where near those woods.

You see, when it really gets down to it my grandmother has no idea how fucking crazy I am. All these crazy situations I've written about, she knows nothing about. She would be terrified if I ever let out my demons. She would think I was a demon. I told her, that I did what any violently abused male would do when I was young. My life followed that trajectory nearly perfectly. So did his.

No wonder this guy was the way he was. Can you imagine your own mother putting you outside as a small child like that? There's no way life goes well after that. His father was a drunk piece of shit too. What must his childhood have been like? On and on this shit goes. Here where I live; it is the fucking norm.

My line ended with me. I made sure of it. Mother fuck.

I forgive these people for not being who I wanted them to be.

A Recent Manifestation

One of the things about me is that I do not keep track of time, or days consciously. I put zero mental energy into time. My unconscious keeps me on track. When did this particular story start? I've no freaking clue. Maybe a month ago? Maybe two? Fuck if I know. It apparently doesn't matter. This one isn't going to be easy to tell because as we all know life is complicated. The shit is all blended together as far as I'm concerned. This is one of the issues with living a spiritual life; there is so much going on at any one time that life becomes incommunicable. Here a myth, there a myth, everywhere a myth myth. When it is consciously realized that life is a dream, it becomes a symbol within a symbol. This creates the issue of where to begin this particular story. So much was going on. Still is. It's not over yet either. I crossed a significant threshold though, and I want to share it before it's gone to the next. I have no intention of slowing down.

I'm forty two years old now. Once upon a time I was talking to someone in their mid twenties, whose trauma was, like mine, the definition of their life. The twenties are incredibly dark years when one was systematically abused as a child. If we were forced to compare lives this persons childhood was considerably worse than my own. Way worse actually. She was complaining about still having to deal with it. I laughed a little bit, but wanted to cry. If only she knew. I tried to tell her it was something she was going to deal with for the rest of her life, but she didn't want to hear that. I tried to tell her the brain is still developing all the way into the mid thirties. Life changes when this happens. Real growth takes place. She's duped. The culture tricked her into thinking shes an adult already. She already knows, doesn't this sound familiar? We all think we know what's up in our twenties. What a lie. Like I said, I'm into my forth decade now, and the trauma is still the defining characteristic of my life. It's still in my unconscious, my body, projecting onto the world.

There is a very simple explanation for this, but it's not time for that yet. I'm going to drop that at just the right time. I followed my game plan as best I could. Before even attempting to get into my feels I had to get my mind right. I had to learn how to think. I had to educate myself thoroughly. I had to solidify my ego in the appropriate way. All of these things are well documented. The issue is that they are all processes, and they take a considerable amount of time because each of the steps in each of the different processes require experiences. They require interactions with other human beings. It requires synchronicity. There isn't a straight path either.

This little stretch of my life began when my wife told me to read a book by Louise Hay titled You Can Heal Your Life. Just so happened this book came to me when I was writing in my Metaphysical Monkey blog about the unconscious. That is what this book is about; talking to your own unconscious in a loving way. Reprogramming yourself autonomously. I've read more than a few books about auto-suggestion, self-hypnosis, positive-thinking, and the like studying the unconscious, but this book is the best one I've ever read. She lays it out in the most unbiased loving way. I'm saying that you can feel this woman loving you while you read the book, and that in itself has a healing effect.  It is profound how well she put the thought down.

So the issue, having been traumatized as a child is that I am blocked emotionally from my own body. Emotions are as important as thoughts, because they are the energy. Just like one must learn to think, one must learn to feel emotionally. Another way to say this is that I do not ever actually know how I feel. I'm two people emotionally. Now this is probably confusing, because if you met me you would definitely realize I have feelings, and I express them, and use them, matter of fact I project mine into the room, so if I am in my feels everyone can feel it. The issue is deeper. I'm struggling for a metaphor. These feeling I feel are like make up. I can put them on, and take them off. I have a choice in which make up I'm going to wear. Maybe another way to express it would be, there is the real ME, and there is this facade I use.

Ever since the trauma of my childhood I've had to wear a facade, and after having had to wear this facade for so long, I became the facade. In psychological terms my inner child is complete lost. My identification became solidified with the fake me. When it comes to feelings and emotions I do not know who I am. Still. After over a decade of hard work. Sometimes this makes me quite sad, but again, that is just my facade, who knows it should be sad, but isn't necessarily actually sad. Sad isn't it.

You can see why I wanted to laugh and cry when this friend of mine was complaining about the trauma of her life effecting her still. She hadn't even begun to do the work that must be done to heal it when we were talking. So many times I wonder if I"m chasing a ghost. I've always asked this question, who would I be had I not be abused. So many times I wonder if I should just give it up and be an egomaniac like everyone else. Maybe I should just turn on the TV, dive into another video game, go back to getting stoned all day every day. Pretend to be an authentic human being like everyone else. Numb and repressed.

Fuck that.

That Louise Hay book was so good I literally felt a shift inside. The problem with healing trauma is that it is dark. Extremely dark. It is not rainbows and butterfly's. This is why I completed that list I mentioned earlier before diving into it emotionally. If I had not learned to think, educated myself, thoroughly grounded my ego in the appropriate way, diving into those emotions would kill me; literally. It would make me go insane, hurt someone or myself, tear shit up, who knows. These things actually happen to people. It's a serious issue. If those dangers were not the case, there wouldn't be the divide in my psyche. You understand? If it weren't the case that the emotions of the trauma wouldn't destroy me; they wouldn't be repressed.

This is something that Hay doesn't talk about. Talking about it would scare people off. They would put the book down. In that way her book is a spell. Reading the book casts a spell on the reader. I watched it happen to me. While reading the book I could feel things shifting inside my psyche. Not only was I reading the book, but I was doing the affirmations. The Universe loves me. I love myself. I am worthy of love. I even went to so far as to do the forgiveness affirmations. I repeated many times out loud, I forgive my parents.  All of this put powerful things into the works. This unlocked doors to allow for synchronicity.

Interestingly the dream books are the same way, the psychoanalytic ones. They will talk about patients, and their dreams, but they do not talk about how, before the healing, it actually goes down for the patient. They don't give the details. They have the freedom to do so, name changes, changes in story even, but they don't. They can't afford to scare people off. They can't say, such and such, was dealing with this trauma, had this dream, and then got cheated on, lost everything, learned their lesson, and now lives a more full and complete life.

I know better. I've already been applying the knowledge and process of using current life experiences to engage my emotions. I've already fallen in love with women who I knew were going to cheat on me so that I could re-experience betrayal emotionally because I repressed it when I was younger and didn't deal with it. I already knew what this Louise Hay book was going to manifest.

I continued to write my blogs, and I continued to read books. During the scope of this story, from the Hay book till right now I synchronized six different life changing books. All in succession of need. Back to back to back. It has not been exactly fun. I've not had any fun since that Hay book. I've not had much fun in a long time actually. I've been in near total darkness for something like six months now. I got fed up with a repeating cycle in my life, and forced the issue. Darkness upon darkness.

I wrote a blog about childhood memories. I didn't know it then, but I wasn't going back far enough with the memory. Most of my life I've focused on the abuse that occurred at the hands of my first step parent. I had avoided this Motherless blog for some time because it stirs up so much darkness, but the affirmations unlock doors you see. Unconsciously. I was internalizing the fact that my entire life was a lie lived in fear. It was only my facade that was so brave, if even that. It was my broken half that did all those crazy things in my life. I ended the blog with a Shakespeare quote, "Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." After posting that blog my life went dark. I can't stand living lies. The kind of darkness that would have ruined me if I had not gotten my mind right first. If I had no solidified my ego appropriately realizing my life was a lie to that degree would have ended it all. The kind of dark that makes one feel lost and all alone. What was I going to do...

Just a shell. I've still got to do what I have got to do. One foot in front of the other. Just a shell walking around. Unconscious autopilot. I go to my home away from home, and on a whim check the new book section. Synchronous style, I let my intuition do the looking, I'm just a shell. I wish I could teach people this. Can you see the difference between going to the library thinking, or knowing, "I am going to get this kind of book" versus just walking in having no idea what I will come out with, if I come out with anything at all? My eyes lock on a book. Bearing the Unbearable. The kind of book I would not normally read. It's about dealing with death. I pull it off the shelf and go home. 

Right on time. Holy shit. I cried so much reading that book. It was the validation I needed. I associated the death the spoke of with the little boy in me who died long ago, who I've missed dearly ever since. This book shined some much needed light into the dark. The Universe really does love me. This book confirmed one of the major sources of anger in my life, all my life. Real validation for my feels. I've spent almost my entire life surrounded by insensitive emotionally repressed assholes. The author, Joanne Cacciatore, truly understands the feels. Do you know what she repeatedly says through the book? That people dealing with grief suffer more at the hands of insensitive emotionally repressed people than they do over the grief itself. Maybe that is not the best way to say it, it's probably better to say that the actions of insensitive emotionally repressed people causes more harm to the psyche of someone grieving than the incident that actually caused the grief. Grief doesn't actually harm, it's a natural human phenomenon. The coldness of fellow humans though actually harms one who is grieving. This is exactly how it went in my life. The stories she tells about how others were treated during their grief is exactly how I have been treated.

Hey Ben, Get over it, Move on, Think positive, Get some help, You need medication, Something is wrong with you! I've heard all of these, all my life. All the people who refuse to even acknowledge they were abused telling me how to deal with it. Go figure. Never not one time have I received understanding. Do you know why? Because around here child abuse is socially acceptable, and also because understanding costs about a hundred dollars an hour.

Holy shit this book changed my life. That is two books via synchronicity. Boom boom. And we ain't done.

Up and down, round and round, we go. Darkness, then some light, then right back into the darkness. Why? Because reading a book doesn't undo a life of repression. Why? Because life is a process. An organic experience. Reading a book doesn't heal the wound. It doesn't undo the trauma. Real life experience via interaction with other humans does. The books merely lead the way. They guide and assist. They provide support. Books are obviously particularly important in my life. How could I possibly know what someone who has spent most of their adult life studying grief knows? But right when I needed to know, there it was. Same day. When I first began this journey over a decade ago I considered that type of synchronicity an miracle. In a certain way these books could be viewed as the literal voice of the Universe; my unconscious made manifest.

I study a lot if you can't tell. There is always a pile of books around me. Right now one of my areas of interest is on shamans and dreaming. Shaman is a loose word though. A shaman is not only a person in the jungle. For instance, Carl Jung was a shaman. Terrence McKenna was a shaman. There are urban shamans. Shaman and psychoanalyst are synonyms. A shaman is someone who understands the unconscious and who also goes there. Shamanism is without a doubt the most intense, and complicated professions. I'm a member of some shaman pages on Facebook, which I silently troll for information. Dreams are brought up a lot, so naturally people post books. Interesting right? I love books. I keep a Google doc file for books to read. Someone asks about dreams, someone comments, I chime in, and boom, this guy gets brought up who writes books about dreams who is also a shaman. This guy is still alive. I go to the library. Nada. I go to the reference desk, ask for one in particular. Nada. Some time goes by. Perhaps I needed to read that book about grief first. I don't pretend to know the machinations of my unconscious. Perhaps I needed to get through this other dream book I checked out first.

I end up at the library on the other side of town. I can't remember why. Following my unconscious I end up in a non fiction isle. I'm scanning the shelves with my intuition and boom; there he is, a Robert Moss book. The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventure of a Dream Archaeologist. It is a memoir. Mind blown. You'll have to understand that once one begins conversations with the unconscious everything is synchronous, EVERYTHING. This whole situation is symbolic. The profession of the author, the title, the dreams. Life itself becomes symbolic, and everything is a dream. I feel much less alone. I needed this book. This guy travels all over the world talking to people, giving lectures, guiding people in their dreams. This guy does things that every single person I've ever known in my life would say is bat shit crazy, yet there he is; living the life.

What is that saying? Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes. This quote is attributed to some famous people on the internet, but it's just the tweet of a frustrated woman that went viral. Does it matter? I've for a fact, been surrounded by ignorant insensitive assholes all my life. Even the ones who claimed to love me oh so much were just that; assholes. True enough most of them weren't necessarily doing it on purpose. They, like me, are in a certain sense victims of the culture, but at the end of the day, facts are facts. Assholes.

The shaman book was double edged. Yes, I'm not alone here on earth seeking as I do, but holy fuck do I have a lot to learn still. Reminds me of the phenom big fish little pond. If I walk out my door right now and just randomly start engaging people I'm going to be so learned that they won't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Put me next to this shaman guy and I'm barely in kindergarten. I have indeed been surrounded by the most ignorant of people all my life. This ego inflation business is no joke.

I think in all I requested twelve books on symbols and dreams from the library. Still waiting on a couple, already knocked down several. Two were shit. Several of the books came recommended from a Jungian page on Facebook. One of them turned out to be one of the best books I've ever read in my life. Ego and Archetype by Edward F. Edinger. Same as the previous books; right on time. One of the easiest ways to know a book is synchronous is that I do not have to struggle to read it. Nom nom nom. My mind will just absorb them. I can put down a synchronous book sometimes in a single day. Edinger's book was too deep for all of that though. It took a couple of days to get it into the noggin.  The book is truly amazing. I can't wait to buy my own copy. It tied the whole myth, ego growth, dream, unconscious, life into one process so to speak. It relayed a lot of information I already knew in a new way, and brought it full circle. Matter of fact it showed how the psyche grows in a repeating circle. Up and down, round and round; we go. It explains the cycle in depth. It showed me where I got stuck as a child, and where I am stuck here now. That is priceless information.

I can feel my psyche just churning all of this new information. I asked for it. I initiated the process. This is what I live for.

From the affirmations, to the grief, to the shaman, to the ego. I can feel that I am changing inside. I'm still saying the affirmations every day. The Universe loves me. I love myself. I am worthy of love. The Universe loves me. I love myself. I am worthy of love. I can feel it building up. I am going to do my best to not avoid the pain. I'm not going to avoid it.

Remember I said human interaction. Well, it shouldn't be a surprise that the one person who activates the feels more than any other is going to be the ones we love. This is a real inhibitor of growth in this culture. Everyone wants the perfect relationship without doing any of the work growing up. Well, if one hasn't grown up emotionally a perfect relationship is not ever going to happen. In my life, here now, that is my wife. This is obviously double edged. The one I love, is the one who triggers my pain. I knew this going into the relationship. I already knew how it worked. It is after all a fact of life that it is our relationships that heal us. This is why I educated myself during my years of being single. If you ever take up the idea to heal yourself, you will immediately begin manifesting relationships that are towards that end. If you don't know how to think, that process isn't going to go well. These relationships will not be all peace and love. No one grows when everything is peachy king. Just expecting it to be all peace and love will bring about suffering without even adding in the trauma.

All the while, all this is going on, my shit is being triggered by the one I love. It is a constant state of affairs. Constant. Constant. Constant. It's piling up. It's coming to a head. Up and down, round and round; we go. And what do you know, she synchronizes me a book.

I add it to the pile. I've got several going already. It's not time yet.

Half way through the first chapter my world gets turned upside down. He speaks directly to what was discussed in the Edinger book but from a completely different angle. The book is Coming to Our Senses by Morris Berman. The book is masterful, so I'm not going to be able to do it justice summarizing it here, but it is about how us modern humans are not in touch with our bodies, and why. Who would have guessed? That is the problem I have. He explains how when children are not raised as we were meant to be raised, that is evolutionarily, you know, with it in mind that we are 98% chimp and have been around for millennia, which is something the religion that dominates our current culture does not do even a little bit: Breaks our psyche. The psyche break came about, or I should say the scale tipped, in the 1600s when philosophy and religion decided that humans should not be animals. Think about this, everyone is incultured, thinking the way we do it, is the way to do it. This is a huge problem, because despite what anyone thinks we are monkeys.  We are biologically animals just like all the rest of the animals on the planet. He clearly talks about the split in self that all of us modern monkeys have. What is important to realize is that this is the case for anyone raised in the modern way. The way this culture teaches us to raise children, mindlessly passed down from generation to generation; breaks us from our own bodies psychically. Since our bodies are our unconscious mind, this is a break in the psyche. Bad news. You'll have to read the book.

Many months ago I met a woman on Facebook from Europe on a Jungian page. This person has done a significant amount of homework regarding life. She shares books and information with me from time to time depending on what I'm posting. One topic she has studied thoroughly is genital mutilation. Shouldn't be that hard to imagine for anyone with any kind of sensitivity at all that having ones genitals surgically mutilated at birth is traumatizing, and this topic has been thoroughly studied, so it's not really up for debate. Unless of course you're arguing with an insensitive emotionally repressed ignorant ass. Well, I posted a picture of a page from this book, and shared it online because it basically summed up how and when we are detached from our own bodies during early childhood. She liked the post, and said she had read the essay cited on the page. 

All the while this is going on, I'm being triggered by my love. On top of that I'm in the darkness of my life having read all these things. I wake up in the morning, and this woman on the other side of the world sends me a photo of a newborn baby being held. Something inside snaps. The gate opened up. A door unlocked. I know for a fact they mutilated my genitals. I know for a fact my mother did not take care of me when I was a baby. I know for a fact I was abandoned and neglected. I just can't remember it consciously. Well, my body does.

I end up in the bed. I'm purposefully not thinking about it; just trying to feel. Just feeling my body. I keep thinking I'm not going to fight it. I don't want to block it out. I'm not going to run away. I'm not going to repress it. I'm not going to do anything else; just trying to feel it. I sob and cry. Rocking back and forth. Swaying. Feeling crazy and crazy can feel. I end up laying flat on my back, my arms and legs going stiff and rigid, crying and crying. So much energy. My body is raging. I think to myself I look just like a baby would in a crib. My whole body is hurting. Feeling so crazy. Panicked. I can't bear it anymore. I reached out. Got to find someone who understands. I message the woman who sent the pic. She understands. She was abandoned too. She's done her homework. But then, she doesn't understand. She's giving me advice like I have not done my homework. Everyone always does this to me. They always think because I have yet to experience my feelings firsthand that I don't know what I am doing. Back into the darkness. 

I don't fight it. I turn my mind off Eastern meditation style. Just experiencing. Here now. I just let my body do it's thing. Crying and sobbing. My body starts hurting. My whole body hurts. I feel as if I've been working out like a madman. It builds up again. Too much despair. It's been hours now. It's getting too dark. I reach out to my love this time. I attempt to put my feels to words. She listens.

Spent two days recovering physically. The ride isn't over though.

All I know is, had I attempted that emotional episode earlier in my life it would have broken my psyche. Words cannot describe the craziness of that experience. Do you know how crazy a baby feels left alone in a crib with no idea where it's mother is? Probably not. More than likely this culture got you. More than likely this culture got you so badly, that you're insensitive and emotionally repressed. More than likely you think it is perfectly acceptable to leave a baby crying all alone. You have too, otherwise you'd have to come to terms somatically that it happened to you. Facts are facts.

One of the definitions of a shaman is one who heals their self.  I'm manifesting that. My hope has always been that by telling my story it will empower others to do the same. Most people have Stockholm Syndrome, and this is the greatest barrier our culture faces. Everyone loves their abusers because they've been conditioned from birth that it's okay. It's not.