I had some degree of trauma as a child, and even as a young adult. Not what I would consider severe or even terribly bad trauma. Worse than a lot of people but not anything truly horrible like a great number of people had been put thru. But we all experience some forms of trauma in our lives, and as much as very many people aren't even consciously aware of it, it affects us. It continues to affect us throughout our entire lives. Until we take the time and conscious effort to heal from it. I've done quite a bit of spiritual study throughout the past 20+ years as well. Not religious study per se. More along the lines of metaphysical and so called 'new age'. Spiritual concepts, meditation, and even ceremony to communicate or connect more with 'spirit'. During these teachings and sometimes even ceremonies I have touched or learned more of the topic of trauma and healing and it is a very deep issue. Not one that I will delve into during this post. Perhaps a different post someday. What I will say is that 'escape' does relate closely to the topic of trauma as well as other related things not nearly as severe or deep.
At an early age I became aware of ways that I was 'acting out' that were very different than how I truly felt and truly thought that I was. That led me to a deeper analysis of self and why I behave the ways that I do. Which led to an analysis of when these 'behaviors' originated and why. This put me on a life-long observation and self-study of cause-and-affect psychology, affects of trauma on self, and of the concept of 'escape'.
I figure that we all have what we pretty much consider our 'normal' lives. Full of everything. Love, happiness, joy, pain, sorrow, hardships, and everything else in between. Sometimes life is complicated, or hard, or painful, or confusing, or perhaps mundane or boring. We don't always want to deal with it. Sometimes we need a distraction. An 'escape'. Lots of things are forms of escape. Even something simple like taking a break, clearing our heads, doing something 'different'. Anything to get our minds off of what is either troubling, pressuring, annoying, or even just 'uninspiring' us (in lack of a better word). Having fun is even one of the best ways of escape. And its fun too! Lol. Now fun and distraction can take many forms. Some helpful and healthy, - others not so healthy.
The point is that in order for our minds to function or
perhaps at least to maintain our own sanity, the mind needs periods of rest.
Not the type of rest/ repair it gets through sleep and dreaming but I mean a rest
from thinking, or rest from various troubles or concerns, or just to do/ think/
focus on something different than the 'ordinary'. Or maybe just different
stimulation to give perhaps a 'variety' to our 'regular' mental processes or
mundane activities or whatever.
At any rate, we need to 'distract' it, or 'rest' it, or give
it some form or variety I suppose. This is why we need to 'take a break',
especially if you are doing something mentally taxing or on the opposite scale
mentally boring. So we vary the things we think about or focus on. This could
be as simple as looking out the window, or else reading a book or article, or
watching tv, or even just thinking about something different for a while or
daydreaming. Or it could be a little more 'involved' or 'intense' such as using
mind-altering (or body altering) chemicals or drugs such as cigarettes, alcohol, or using/ abusing
more severe drugs. These are all forms of distraction. Distraction of the mind.
And distraction can also lead to 'escape'. Which is just a more intense or
lengthy form of distraction.
The 'danger' of escape though, is that it can lead to
'alternate' forms of reality or illusions or delusions. Perception or
mis-perception can also play a hand in this, but we'll probably leave that
topic alone for now. (Though 'perception' is just as big or maybe even bigger topic than 'escape' is. Maybe I'll try to delve into it at a later time.) Now let's say for
instance, you've experience one or more terrible/ horrendous forms of trauma in
your life. Worse so if it were experienced during childhood before you've had a
chance to understand who you are, or how things in 'life' work, or the
difference from 'right' or 'wrong'. While you are innocent and/or
impressionable and/or vulnerable anyway. All trauma affects our minds and bodies
for life. More so if the trauma was horrendous, and even more so
the younger and more vulnerable you are when it happens/ happened.
The problem with very many people is that either their trauma was/ is so severe that they do not want to or just cannot cope with it. They cannot face it because it is too painful or perhaps makes them feel too shameful (only guessing) or just that is was simply too unpleasant so they never want to think about or deal with it. They don't even want to acknowledge that it exists. So rather than facing it, and/ or admitting it, and/ or dealing with it so they can heal, they instead run from it. Live a constant life of escape. These are usually the people who fall into a life of drug or alcohol abuse, or perhaps some other form of self-abuse or at least a life that is unhealthy and potentially destructive to themselves or others. Sometimes forever. Rather than face their trauma, or the memory of their trauma, they live in permanent escape. Never acknowledging that they are in pain. Never acknowledging that they do need healing.
The problem with very many people is that either their trauma was/ is so severe that they do not want to or just cannot cope with it. They cannot face it because it is too painful or perhaps makes them feel too shameful (only guessing) or just that is was simply too unpleasant so they never want to think about or deal with it. They don't even want to acknowledge that it exists. So rather than facing it, and/ or admitting it, and/ or dealing with it so they can heal, they instead run from it. Live a constant life of escape. These are usually the people who fall into a life of drug or alcohol abuse, or perhaps some other form of self-abuse or at least a life that is unhealthy and potentially destructive to themselves or others. Sometimes forever. Rather than face their trauma, or the memory of their trauma, they live in permanent escape. Never acknowledging that they are in pain. Never acknowledging that they do need healing.
Most people do not fully understand or comprehend how
severely trauma affects us. And affects us for the rest of our lives if we do
not take measures to truly heal from it. Most of us will simply 'push' the
memory of the trauma aside and try to act like it never happened. Determine
that its over and then proceed to going on with our lives. More sever trauma is
so 'unpleasant' or 'horrifying' that people will often repress the memory
entirely or at least pretend it never happened and try to tell themselves that
it either didn't happen or that it didn't matter and doesn't affect them. These
are more severe forms of escape in themselves. And the pain that is being
repressed and never allowed to heal will severely affect a person until it is
healed. Seeing its never addressed or often not even acknowledged, then it will
never heal and therefore will have adverse affect to that person for their
entire lives.
Now you've got this unresolved or unacknowledged pain that
is being ignored and repressed that is eating away and damaging you. Most
people are even unaware of the pain. That its affecting them. Damaging them.
Eating at them and making them feel or think worse. They aren't even aware
of it, or aware of what is causing these thoughts/ behaviors/ reactions/
emotions or whatever. The cause of their 'ills' are totally unknown, and totally
unseen, and even the fact that they have pain or 'ills' at all is often totally
unknown to them. Without even knowing that you are in pain, you would
never know about finding the 'root' or 'basis' of this pain. Let alone taking
the time and effort to actually start or more-so complete the healing process
from it so that it will no longer be affecting or hurting you.
Pretty much everyone has these forms of trauma within them
that is affecting and/ or hurting them and the greater majority of people have
no awareness of it what-so-ever. Often the 'distractions' or 'escape' that we
do is not just to take a temporary break from 'reality' or just from
'thinking', but its an attempt to escape from the pain and 'suffering' inside
of them that they are mostly unaware of and/ or have no idea what is causing
it. This is what drives many people's need for distraction or escape and many
times this is what leads to more severe and/ or unhealthy forms of escape such
as severe (or even functional) drug and alcohol abuse, or forms of self-degradation or loathing as
well. Especially if a person does not have the 'basis' or strength to deal with
the pain from the severe trauma they've experienced. That's the situation that Breda (and countless thousands of
others like her) is faced with. So I believe anyway. But I'm not going to delve into that in this
post.
I'm going to focus most of the rest of this post with how
distraction and escape has affected my life and my lifestyle choices in the
past 15 years. I will start out with a bit of a disclaimer. The childhood
trauma I did face was not terribly severe. In the sense that it did not involve
anything sexual and did not (much) involve my parents or any adults for that matter.
Not too much anyway. The bulk of my trauma did involve physical and mental
abuse and some abandonment but only by people closer to my own age, and not by
people who would have 'guardian' or authoritative roles over me. Thankfully, by
sheer 'luck' I started analyzing the affects that this had on me, which caused
me to identify what was causing these affects, which led me to understanding
the trauma that affected me and led me to mostly heal that trauma from the
age of 17 thru the age of 21 years old. Then thru some of my spiritual studies
which often focused on healing, I was able to determine that I didn't actually
fully heal from my trauma when I thought I had, and was able to use various spiritual guidance to
further heal as an older adult. Just like everyone else, I do still have
affects from my various traumas but have healed a great deal of it, and have
greatly reduced the affects of it. I've written about this in my past, and also
during some spiritual journals so I'm not going to delve into that in this post either. Once again, perhaps I will at a later time.
What this post is going to deal with is how distraction and
escape has played a role in why I've made some of the lifestyle choices that
I've chosen over the past 15 years and why I'm often living a slightly
'less-functional' lifestyle than I would still consider my 'normal' lifestyle.
In many ways, I'm not fully being 'me' and I've been aware of that all along.
Before I continue, I will add one more blurb about what I
mean by 'trauma'. I'm not only talking about extreme or horrendous traumas such
as rape, incest, extreme violence, etc. I'm also talking about events that
aren't traumatic themselves, but still invoke traumatic responses.
These are the traumas that truly go unnoticed. For instance, it could be as simple
as this example, that I have one friend who is in his 50's, and will never eat eggs
because his parents forced him to eat eggs every day for years as a child.
Regardless of whether he wanted them or not. That is not a traumatic event, BUT
the response that he steadfastly refuses to eat eggs - EVER, is a traumatic
response. The same person feels his father wasn't supportive enough of him as a
child, and to this day still goes on these rants about it, and in general is
often a very miserable person. Still blaming his father for it. These are not
traumatic events. They are not even painful or unthinkable. You'd never call
them a trauma. Yet at the same time, they have invoked a painful or unpleasant
enough memory that 40+ years later his disdain for it is so severe that it is
still negatively affecting this person's actions and life. Nobody would ever
call these events a trauma, but they still had a traumatic affect. One that
will affect his life until he actually takes the time to heal from these
memories. And he never will, because he's not even aware enough about it to
realize it affects his behavior. I can site hundreds or thousands of minute
examples such as this that are a part of all of us. So when I talk of 'trauma',
I don't only mean the extreme or horrendous things that are horrendous and
atrocious but also all these little things that none-the-less affect our
thoughts, actions, or behaviors for the rest of our lives.
What I'm going to delve into now though is only partially
about 'trauma' though. It is amazing about how much trauma does affect the
actions and behaviors of our lives but that is only one of the complex set of
factors that govern us. That give us need for distraction or escape.
***Okay, its been six months since I've written in this post. So what I think I'm going to do is delve just a bit more on this topic and just wrap it up and save the subject of 'myself' and 'lifestyles' for another post.
I am currently out of town selling products at the Summer Exhibitions/ carnivals. Which is a job I do part-time whenever I am in between attempting to form a career job again. Its fun, and for that matter 'different' so in a way a distraction as well. Lol. Anyway, I went out last night and met up with a guy I know who used to be a friend, but now is just an acquaintance. He'd basically shown me in the past (and tried to/ partially did screw me over for money) that he is a very superficial, partially dishonest (but more like conniving), and for-the-most-part a 'fake' person. Or at least fake in the sense that he thinks he is so 'clever' that he can be everyone's 'friend' whether he genuinely likes or cares at all about them. Then he figures he can 'pull the wool' over their eyes and get what he wants from them. He basically thinks that he is so clever that he can manipulate the world to get what he wants and in the process have a lot of fun while doing it. I think he's only partially aware that he's doing that as well. In that sense, I see a lot of 'Me' in him. Sadly enough. We're both 'intelligent idiots' in that sense. Lol. In many ways we are very different 'creatures' and have very different perspectives and approaches to 'life'. But in other ways I do see so much similarities in the two of us. I wish I didn't. I should take measures to correct that. Time will tell whether I do or not. Lol.
If you ask me, he lives pretty much his entire life in denial and escape. He can be very charming, and a lot of fun. Genuinely a very sociable and in that sense 'momentarily' caring person. I'll give him that. He makes sure that he knows everyone in a room, acting like everyone is a friend, and carries his 'alternate personality' heart on his sleeve. But for a guy like me that lives in partial analysis my entire life, everything about him seems fake or not genuine. You know that the real 'person' and his real 'motives' are lurking underneath, thinking they can act and pretend and have fun while 'getting what they truly want' from these unaware 'simpletons' around them. Many people are like this. Unfortunately, I see a lot of me in that too. Especially when I'm hanging around these partially-dysfunctional places, around all these partially-dysfunctional (but often but not always sincere and honest) people.
I do make a note also, that he is always 'broke' and he never lives up to his bold statements, and that he is not happy and not living the life he wants to live. Perhaps he never has. So far 'life' has escaped him. Sadly enough, I'm not living the life that I want either. Not yet. AND similar to him, I'm not really 'exposing' my true self to most of 'this' (as I say 'partially dysfunctional') world either. Like him, I think I'm 'above' the people in this environment. That I am 'better' than that, and only living in 'their' world for fun and some basic 'necessity'. Such as I need to make money and keep busy so need to work and interact among them, until I solve the 'riddle' of getting back to my 'real' lifestyle. Or at least find a true and rewarding 'career' job again.
Its all a sham of course. Both he and I are just fooling ourselves. We may be intelligent, and even somewhat clever. But we're not better than anyone else around us. We may be more intelligent and clever than some, but our perceptions aren't any more acute or 'accurate' than anyone else around us. The only way that anyone will ever be truly 'happy' is by being totally sincere and honest. Both with themselves and with the entire world that they are interacting with. I know this. Yet I don't do it. Not at the moment anyway. Perhaps I never did. I will get there though. Sooner than later I hope.
We'll talk more about me in a later post though.
:)
***Okay, its been six months since I've written in this post. So what I think I'm going to do is delve just a bit more on this topic and just wrap it up and save the subject of 'myself' and 'lifestyles' for another post.
I am currently out of town selling products at the Summer Exhibitions/ carnivals. Which is a job I do part-time whenever I am in between attempting to form a career job again. Its fun, and for that matter 'different' so in a way a distraction as well. Lol. Anyway, I went out last night and met up with a guy I know who used to be a friend, but now is just an acquaintance. He'd basically shown me in the past (and tried to/ partially did screw me over for money) that he is a very superficial, partially dishonest (but more like conniving), and for-the-most-part a 'fake' person. Or at least fake in the sense that he thinks he is so 'clever' that he can be everyone's 'friend' whether he genuinely likes or cares at all about them. Then he figures he can 'pull the wool' over their eyes and get what he wants from them. He basically thinks that he is so clever that he can manipulate the world to get what he wants and in the process have a lot of fun while doing it. I think he's only partially aware that he's doing that as well. In that sense, I see a lot of 'Me' in him. Sadly enough. We're both 'intelligent idiots' in that sense. Lol. In many ways we are very different 'creatures' and have very different perspectives and approaches to 'life'. But in other ways I do see so much similarities in the two of us. I wish I didn't. I should take measures to correct that. Time will tell whether I do or not. Lol.
If you ask me, he lives pretty much his entire life in denial and escape. He can be very charming, and a lot of fun. Genuinely a very sociable and in that sense 'momentarily' caring person. I'll give him that. He makes sure that he knows everyone in a room, acting like everyone is a friend, and carries his 'alternate personality' heart on his sleeve. But for a guy like me that lives in partial analysis my entire life, everything about him seems fake or not genuine. You know that the real 'person' and his real 'motives' are lurking underneath, thinking they can act and pretend and have fun while 'getting what they truly want' from these unaware 'simpletons' around them. Many people are like this. Unfortunately, I see a lot of me in that too. Especially when I'm hanging around these partially-dysfunctional places, around all these partially-dysfunctional (but often but not always sincere and honest) people.
I do make a note also, that he is always 'broke' and he never lives up to his bold statements, and that he is not happy and not living the life he wants to live. Perhaps he never has. So far 'life' has escaped him. Sadly enough, I'm not living the life that I want either. Not yet. AND similar to him, I'm not really 'exposing' my true self to most of 'this' (as I say 'partially dysfunctional') world either. Like him, I think I'm 'above' the people in this environment. That I am 'better' than that, and only living in 'their' world for fun and some basic 'necessity'. Such as I need to make money and keep busy so need to work and interact among them, until I solve the 'riddle' of getting back to my 'real' lifestyle. Or at least find a true and rewarding 'career' job again.
Its all a sham of course. Both he and I are just fooling ourselves. We may be intelligent, and even somewhat clever. But we're not better than anyone else around us. We may be more intelligent and clever than some, but our perceptions aren't any more acute or 'accurate' than anyone else around us. The only way that anyone will ever be truly 'happy' is by being totally sincere and honest. Both with themselves and with the entire world that they are interacting with. I know this. Yet I don't do it. Not at the moment anyway. Perhaps I never did. I will get there though. Sooner than later I hope.
We'll talk more about me in a later post though.
:)
