| Topic: |
Sociology > Depression |
| User: |
"Nina" |
| Date: |
23 Oct 2003 07:46:21 PM |
| Object: |
A funny thing... |
I had this friend in high school. She moved to my area my senior
year, and we became really good friends. She was funny and smart and
pretty and totally different from anyone I knew. She was what you'd
call a bad girl these days, and everyone I'd ever hung out with had
been good girls. She was so fun. I loved her; she was one of my best
friends for years and years. Our lives were interconnected in all
sorts of ways.
She's the sort of girl who always has to have a guy. Even if she
wasn't really crazy about whoever it was, she'd take that person until
someone better came along. Sounds cold, and it was, but it had a lot
to do with her father, too. A whole lot. She got married to get out
of the Army (long story), moved out to San Francisco for a while...
moved back to Maine eventually and got a divorce... moved in with
someone else... and so on. And by about 1985, she was desperate and
trying to figure out what to do with her life. I was in Kansas by
then, in grad school, and I said, come out here. I will help you.
You can stay with me until you get things settled. I got her into
college, filled out all her financial aid paperwork for her, let her
stay with me.
That was an awful summer for me... not because of her, because I was
desperately unhappy and drinking too much, far too much, and
everything was just bad... for many reasons. Ugh. Not a happy time
to remember. A really bad time. She moved out in the fall... into
the dorms briefly, and then in with a guy, who she married shortly
thereafter. I didn't see that much of her, really, that last year I
was in Kansas, but we were still friends, still close, although there
were strains. Her husband either didn't like me or was jealous of
me... and I was falling apart.
Then I moved to Ohio, to work on my Ph.D. I came back the following
spring, to put the finishing touches on my master's thesis. And of
course I called her; we arranged to get together. The night that we
were supposed to get together, I was sitting in the office at school,
waiting for her. And waiting. Finally, she phoned. They had some
sort of exercise class that night, she'd forgotten, could we get
together some other time? I said, no, I was going back to Ohio in
about 24 hours... And that was it. That was the last time I heard
from her.
I was so angry and hurt. It maybe doesn't seem like so much, writing
it down, but it was about the hundredth thing in a chain of small
things that had been saying, something is wrong, this person doesn't
want to have anything to do with me anymore. And I called my other
friend and got him to come pick me up, and I fell apart. For years I
mused over it all... what happened? Was it me? Was it her? What did
I do? What caused this person, who I'd loved and trusted and helped
and known for years and years, who knew everything about me... what
was so awful about me? <yes, major self-esteem problems here...>
Yesterday, my roommate/husband got an email from her, via that
Classmates site. (Which just confirms my thought that no one I would
actually want to hear from would sign up... I'm probably offending
someone by saying that, but what the hell.) He, of course, had signed
up. Just a brief little email, sending her email address, saying she
was still in Kansas. Misspelling my name. Saying to write.
I thought about it, for a surprisingly brief time. And felt nothing.
I can work up a vestige of the old anger and hurt and sense of
unfairness.... I'm really good at that. But nothing else. Not even
interest or idle curiosity or any desire to write or anything. I
spend so much time and anguish and wondering and so forth on her. But
she waited too long. She could have tracked me down any time in the
last 15 years. Searching under my full name on the internet will
bring up all the information you need. She didn't do that.
I don't know what I think about any of this. I'm just puzzled, in a
way, that I so completely don't care. Once it would have meant so
much to me.
Nina
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| User: "Pinwheel" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
24 Oct 2003 07:58:54 PM |
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Nina wrote:
I had this friend in high school. She moved to my area my senior
year, and we became really good friends. She was funny and smart and
pretty and totally different from anyone I knew. She was what you'd
call a bad girl these days, and everyone I'd ever hung out with had
been good girls. She was so fun. I loved her; she was one of my best
friends for years and years. Our lives were interconnected in all
sorts of ways.
She's the sort of girl who always has to have a guy. Even if she
wasn't really crazy about whoever it was, she'd take that person until
someone better came along. Sounds cold, and it was, but it had a lot
to do with her father, too. A whole lot. She got married to get out
of the Army (long story), moved out to San Francisco for a while...
moved back to Maine eventually and got a divorce... moved in with
someone else... and so on. And by about 1985, she was desperate and
trying to figure out what to do with her life. I was in Kansas by
then, in grad school, and I said, come out here. I will help you.
You can stay with me until you get things settled. I got her into
college, filled out all her financial aid paperwork for her, let her
stay with me.
That was an awful summer for me... not because of her, because I was
desperately unhappy and drinking too much, far too much, and
everything was just bad... for many reasons. Ugh. Not a happy time
to remember. A really bad time. She moved out in the fall... into
the dorms briefly, and then in with a guy, who she married shortly
thereafter. I didn't see that much of her, really, that last year I
was in Kansas, but we were still friends, still close, although there
were strains. Her husband either didn't like me or was jealous of
me... and I was falling apart.
Then I moved to Ohio, to work on my Ph.D. I came back the following
spring, to put the finishing touches on my master's thesis. And of
course I called her; we arranged to get together. The night that we
were supposed to get together, I was sitting in the office at school,
waiting for her. And waiting. Finally, she phoned. They had some
sort of exercise class that night, she'd forgotten, could we get
together some other time? I said, no, I was going back to Ohio in
about 24 hours... And that was it. That was the last time I heard
from her.
I was so angry and hurt. It maybe doesn't seem like so much, writing
it down, but it was about the hundredth thing in a chain of small
things that had been saying, something is wrong, this person doesn't
want to have anything to do with me anymore. And I called my other
friend and got him to come pick me up, and I fell apart. For years I
mused over it all... what happened? Was it me? Was it her? What did
I do? What caused this person, who I'd loved and trusted and helped
and known for years and years, who knew everything about me... what
was so awful about me? <yes, major self-esteem problems here...>
Yesterday, my roommate/husband got an email from her, via that
Classmates site. (Which just confirms my thought that no one I would
actually want to hear from would sign up... I'm probably offending
someone by saying that, but what the hell.) He, of course, had signed
up. Just a brief little email, sending her email address, saying she
was still in Kansas. Misspelling my name. Saying to write.
I thought about it, for a surprisingly brief time. And felt nothing.
I can work up a vestige of the old anger and hurt and sense of
unfairness.... I'm really good at that. But nothing else. Not even
interest or idle curiosity or any desire to write or anything. I
spend so much time and anguish and wondering and so forth on her. But
she waited too long. She could have tracked me down any time in the
last 15 years. Searching under my full name on the internet will
bring up all the information you need. She didn't do that.
I don't know what I think about any of this. I'm just puzzled, in a
way, that I so completely don't care. Once it would have meant so
much to me.
Nina
You know, I just happened to be thinking about a high school friend I
hadn't seen in years just today. I had dreamt that he was married and
that he his wife had planned a picnic with all of his old friends. I
show up, and his wife is very friendly, thrilled to meet her husband's
old friends for the first time. My friend, on the other hand, seems to
be avoiding me. Come to find out that his wife had pretty much arranged
the whole thing, and when I do catch up to him, he sort of laughs
derisively and says "Haven't you been here long enough?" The dream
ended just as I was about to tell him to go to hell.
None of that took place. I'd contacted his mother when I moved back to
where I live now, and she said she'd pass my info. on to him. Nothing
for seven years. I left the ball in his court.
Sorry, that was a long-winded reply, but for what it's worth I think
that leaving the onus on your friend to re-establish contact was the
right thing to do. Maybe you've just finally found your peace of mind.
--
Pinwheel *****
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| User: "Nina" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
24 Oct 2003 08:19:23 PM |
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On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 20:58:54 -0400, Pinwheel <tobin@pyro.net> wrote:
You know, I just happened to be thinking about a high school friend I
hadn't seen in years just today. I had dreamt that he was married and
that he his wife had planned a picnic with all of his old friends. I
show up, and his wife is very friendly, thrilled to meet her husband's
old friends for the first time. My friend, on the other hand, seems to
be avoiding me. Come to find out that his wife had pretty much arranged
the whole thing, and when I do catch up to him, he sort of laughs
derisively and says "Haven't you been here long enough?" The dream
ended just as I was about to tell him to go to hell.
It's funny; I have dreams like this with surprising regularity.
None of that took place. I'd contacted his mother when I moved back to
where I live now, and she said she'd pass my info. on to him. Nothing
for seven years. I left the ball in his court.
Sorry, that was a long-winded reply, but for what it's worth I think
that leaving the onus on your friend to re-establish contact was the
right thing to do. Maybe you've just finally found your peace of mind.
I think so. Finally.
So would you contact the friend if he did turn up after all this time?
Nina
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| User: "Pinwheel" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
25 Oct 2003 11:29:05 AM |
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Nina wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 20:58:54 -0400, Pinwheel <tobin@pyro.net> wrote:
You know, I just happened to be thinking about a high school friend I
hadn't seen in years just today. I had dreamt that he was married and
that he his wife had planned a picnic with all of his old friends. I
show up, and his wife is very friendly, thrilled to meet her husband's
old friends for the first time. My friend, on the other hand, seems to
be avoiding me. Come to find out that his wife had pretty much arranged
the whole thing, and when I do catch up to him, he sort of laughs
derisively and says "Haven't you been here long enough?" The dream
ended just as I was about to tell him to go to hell.
It's funny; I have dreams like this with surprising regularity.
None of that took place. I'd contacted his mother when I moved back to
where I live now, and she said she'd pass my info. on to him. Nothing
for seven years. I left the ball in his court.
Sorry, that was a long-winded reply, but for what it's worth I think
that leaving the onus on your friend to re-establish contact was the
right thing to do. Maybe you've just finally found your peace of mind.
I think so. Finally.
So would you contact the friend if he did turn up after all this time?
Nina
I might. A lot happens in seven years though. Our situations may be so
different from each other that there just isn't enough common ground
left to re-establish the friendship. OTOH I'd be loathe to shut the door
on the opportunity.
--
Pinwheel *****
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| User: "Nina" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
25 Oct 2003 11:54:46 AM |
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On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 12:29:05 -0400, Pinwheel <tobin@pyro.net> wrote:
I might. A lot happens in seven years though. Our situations may be so
different from each other that there just isn't enough common ground
left to re-establish the friendship. OTOH I'd be loathe to shut the door
on the opportunity.
For me, on this particular story, it's been over 15 years. A *long*
time. A different world. I was a different person, too.
Every so often... and it's been a while, since I'm so out of touch
with most of my old friends... someone will stop in when they're
coming through town. And it's always nice to see them, and nice to go
out or have dinner and tell old stories. But mostly, it makes me
realize that so many friendships are based on circumstance, on things
that you do together, and that when you stop doing those things,
there's little basis for the friendship any more. You may have
genuine and deep affection for the person, but it's hard to know what
to talk about.
I think you can avoid that if you keep in touch all along, keep
talking. I have... or had... two very close friends, and we kept in
touch for more than 15 years, talking once or twice a month or more,
seeing each other once a year or so. But when I got really depressed,
I stopped talking to anyone, plus something happened with one of them
that I still find hard to forgive. And I'd like to pick these things
up again; I miss both of them. But it's so difficult to reestablish
that pattern if you lose it.
And hard to make new friends, too.
Nina
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| User: "Naomi Darvell" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
23 Oct 2003 08:20:38 PM |
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x-no-archive: yes
Nina wrote:
I had this friend in high school. She moved to my area my senior
year, and we became really good friends. She was funny and smart and
pretty and totally different from anyone I knew. She was what you'd
call a bad girl these days, and everyone I'd ever hung out with had
been good girls. She was so fun. I loved her; she was one of my best
friends for years and years. Our lives were interconnected in all
sorts of ways.
She's the sort of girl who always has to have a guy. Even if she
wasn't really crazy about whoever it was, she'd take that person until
someone better came along. Sounds cold, and it was, but it had a lot
to do with her father, too. A whole lot. She got married to get out
of the Army (long story), moved out to San Francisco for a while...
moved back to Maine eventually and got a divorce... moved in with
someone else... and so on. And by about 1985, she was desperate and
trying to figure out what to do with her life. I was in Kansas by
then, in grad school, and I said, come out here. I will help you.
You can stay with me until you get things settled. I got her into
college, filled out all her financial aid paperwork for her, let her
stay with me.
That was an awful summer for me... not because of her, because I was
desperately unhappy and drinking too much, far too much, and
everything was just bad... for many reasons. Ugh. Not a happy time
to remember. A really bad time. She moved out in the fall... into
the dorms briefly, and then in with a guy, who she married shortly
thereafter. I didn't see that much of her, really, that last year I
was in Kansas, but we were still friends, still close, although there
were strains. Her husband either didn't like me or was jealous of
me... and I was falling apart.
Then I moved to Ohio, to work on my Ph.D. I came back the following
spring, to put the finishing touches on my master's thesis. And of
course I called her; we arranged to get together. The night that we
were supposed to get together, I was sitting in the office at school,
waiting for her. And waiting. Finally, she phoned. They had some
sort of exercise class that night, she'd forgotten, could we get
together some other time? I said, no, I was going back to Ohio in
about 24 hours... And that was it. That was the last time I heard
from her.
I was so angry and hurt. It maybe doesn't seem like so much, writing
it down, but it was about the hundredth thing in a chain of small
things that had been saying, something is wrong, this person doesn't
want to have anything to do with me anymore. And I called my other
friend and got him to come pick me up, and I fell apart. For years I
mused over it all... what happened? Was it me? Was it her? What did
I do? What caused this person, who I'd loved and trusted and helped
and known for years and years, who knew everything about me... what
was so awful about me? <yes, major self-esteem problems here...>
<snip>
I know, but there are times when so-called friends treat you so badly, it's
almost like there logically *has* to be something you've done to deserve it. It
really does feel that way, I think.
I had a college/grad school girlfriend who let me down in that sort of way--
didn't show up when I'd saved time for her, and gave the same kind of lame
excuse. She made sure to leave the excuse in a message, not talk to me
directly. The next time I ran into her, she was actually not speaking to me. It
really is hard to digest something like that.
Naomi D.
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| User: "Nina" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
23 Oct 2003 08:31:20 PM |
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On 24 Oct 2003 01:20:38 GMT, (Naomi Darvell) wrote:
I know, but there are times when so-called friends treat you so badly, it's
almost like there logically *has* to be something you've done to deserve it. It
really does feel that way, I think.
It does. It is really hard to internalize that sometimes these things
have nothing to do with you, and everything to do with what's going on
with that person. We think it has to be about us, and that there has
to be some good reason.
I had a college/grad school girlfriend who let me down in that sort of way--
didn't show up when I'd saved time for her, and gave the same kind of lame
excuse. She made sure to leave the excuse in a message, not talk to me
directly. The next time I ran into her, she was actually not speaking to me. It
really is hard to digest something like that.
Did you ever find out why?
I've had a number of things like this happen to me. The story above
reminds me of what happened about a year after this story. When I was
working on my Ph.D., I had two friends who I always studied with. We
were inseparable. And then, the third quarter of the year, one of
them just totally stopped having anything to do with us. No
explanation. Just avoided us totally, especially me. He told my
husband, later, that it was because he wanted to spend more time
studying... but that never made any sense to me. Still doesn't. It
was just weird.
Nina
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| User: "Naomi Darvell" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
23 Oct 2003 08:49:49 PM |
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x-no-archive: yes
Nina wrote:
On 24 Oct 2003 01:20:38 GMT, (Naomi Darvell) wrote:
I know, but there are times when so-called friends treat you so badly, it's
almost like there logically *has* to be something you've done to deserve it.
It
really does feel that way, I think.
It does. It is really hard to internalize that sometimes these things
have nothing to do with you, and everything to do with what's going on
with that person. We think it has to be about us, and that there has
to be some good reason.
I had a college/grad school girlfriend who let me down in that sort of way--
didn't show up when I'd saved time for her, and gave the same kind of lame
excuse. She made sure to leave the excuse in a message, not talk to me
directly. The next time I ran into her, she was actually not speaking to me.
It
really is hard to digest something like that.
Did you ever find out why?
Not really. I thought about it a lot. It's possible that we were just going in
different directions and we both refused to admit it. I got the feeling at
times that she was sort of trying to get me ***** and precipitate a break,
but it was only a slight suspicion until the crisis came. And usually I'm
pretty sensitive about pushing a relationship if the other person doesn't want
it.
I've had a number of things like this happen to me. The story above
reminds me of what happened about a year after this story. When I was
working on my Ph.D., I had two friends who I always studied with. We
were inseparable. And then, the third quarter of the year, one of
them just totally stopped having anything to do with us. No
explanation. Just avoided us totally, especially me. He told my
husband, later, that it was because he wanted to spend more time
studying... but that never made any sense to me. Still doesn't. It
was just weird.
That's a little bit like what happened with that other person.
I had trouble with friendships in grad school. One person I met became one of
my best friends ever, but otherwise relations tended to be unstable. Partly,
where I was in grad school, people tended to be very competitive and/or in
various stages of disaffectedness.
..
Naomi D.
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| User: "Nina" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
24 Oct 2003 06:45:12 AM |
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On 24 Oct 2003 01:49:49 GMT, (Naomi Darvell) wrote:
Not really. I thought about it a lot. It's possible that we were just going in
different directions and we both refused to admit it. I got the feeling at
times that she was sort of trying to get me ***** and precipitate a break,
but it was only a slight suspicion until the crisis came. And usually I'm
pretty sensitive about pushing a relationship if the other person doesn't want
it.
I've had a number of things like this happen to me. The story above
reminds me of what happened about a year after this story. When I was
working on my Ph.D., I had two friends who I always studied with. We
were inseparable. And then, the third quarter of the year, one of
them just totally stopped having anything to do with us. No
explanation. Just avoided us totally, especially me. He told my
husband, later, that it was because he wanted to spend more time
studying... but that never made any sense to me. Still doesn't. It
was just weird.
That's a little bit like what happened with that other person.
I had trouble with friendships in grad school. One person I met became one of
my best friends ever, but otherwise relations tended to be unstable. Partly,
where I was in grad school, people tended to be very competitive and/or in
various stages of disaffectedness.
I had wonderful friends in grad school... in a lot of ways, my grad
school experience was like what most people have for undergrad. I
didn't really make friends there. But the sad thing is that most of
them really didn't last. I always wondered, though, if that was a
men/women thing. All of my grad school friends, the close ones, were
men, and men seem to be much worse at maintaining long-term
friendships (on average!), especially with women.
The thing that has really struck me about this particular story,
though, and about telling it and talking about it, is how little I
care. Seems like an odd thing to say, I suppose, but I kind of view
it as a huge improvement in mental health that I'm indifferent. Once
I would have obsessed about the whole thing, about writing to her,
about finding out what really happened, so forth. Now, it just
doesn't even interest me.
And it proves to me that you can, sometimes, completely get over
things that really hurt. That really did hurt, a lot, because she was
such a close friend for so long. Makes me think that maybe, one day,
some other things will stop hurting entirely. Perhaps.
Nina
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| User: "Jernau Gurgeh" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
24 Oct 2003 09:45:17 AM |
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Nina wrote on 24 Oct 2003 in alt.support.depression
<snip>
The thing that has really struck me about this particular story,
though, and about telling it and talking about it, is how little I
care. Seems like an odd thing to say, I suppose, but I kind of view
it as a huge improvement in mental health that I'm indifferent. Once
I would have obsessed about the whole thing, about writing to her,
about finding out what really happened, so forth. Now, it just
doesn't even interest me.
That's what I noticed as well, and I regard it as a good thing.
And it proves to me that you can, sometimes, completely get over
things that really hurt. That really did hurt, a lot, because she was
such a close friend for so long. Makes me think that maybe, one day,
some other things will stop hurting entirely. Perhaps.
Hope can be a very strong motivator, may your realisation above help you to
heal in time.
Jernau
--
By Endurance We Conquer
-E. Shackleton
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| User: "Nina" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
24 Oct 2003 03:45:57 PM |
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On 24 Oct 2003 14:45:17 GMT, Jernau Gurgeh <jernaugurgeh@mind.snuh>
wrote:
Nina wrote on 24 Oct 2003 in alt.support.depression
<snip>
The thing that has really struck me about this particular story,
though, and about telling it and talking about it, is how little I
care. Seems like an odd thing to say, I suppose, but I kind of view
it as a huge improvement in mental health that I'm indifferent. Once
I would have obsessed about the whole thing, about writing to her,
about finding out what really happened, so forth. Now, it just
doesn't even interest me.
That's what I noticed as well, and I regard it as a good thing.
And it proves to me that you can, sometimes, completely get over
things that really hurt. That really did hurt, a lot, because she was
such a close friend for so long. Makes me think that maybe, one day,
some other things will stop hurting entirely. Perhaps.
Hope can be a very strong motivator, may your realisation above help you to
heal in time.
What I want to know, really, is this. Is the hurt less because it's
just so much time and water under the bridge and all that, or is it
really that I've learned to let go of certain kinds of things?
I was cleaning out a file drawer just now, having some time to kill in
my office, and I ran across some pictures that I would just as soon
have left unseen at this particular moment. And, yes, that one still
hurts. Yes, there's some separation from the rawness of it; it's been
some time. But, just maybe, there's something else. Some kind of
inner ability to step back and away from it that I didn't have before.
Maybe. I don't know, and I realize that this doesn't make a lot of
sense, without telling a long story that I don't much want to tell.
I just don't know. I look at these pictures of myself, myself five
years ago, and it's not like the really old pictures, where I can't
recognize who that person was. But it's like that foreshadowing in a
movie, where you just know that the next moment, the plane is going to
crash, or whatever. So much happiness, so much impending doom. I
look at these pictures, and I search for hidden meanings, for signs
that I didn't see then.
This is really stupid. I think I should go do something else.
Nina
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| User: "Jernau Gurgeh" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
24 Oct 2003 05:29:56 PM |
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Nina wrote on 24 Oct 2003 in alt.support.depression
On 24 Oct 2003 14:45:17 GMT, Jernau Gurgeh <jernaugurgeh@mind.snuh>
wrote:
Nina wrote on 24 Oct 2003 in alt.support.depression
<snip>
The thing that has really struck me about this particular story,
though, and about telling it and talking about it, is how little I
care. Seems like an odd thing to say, I suppose, but I kind of view
it as a huge improvement in mental health that I'm indifferent.
Once I would have obsessed about the whole thing, about writing to
her, about finding out what really happened, so forth. Now, it just
doesn't even interest me.
That's what I noticed as well, and I regard it as a good thing.
And it proves to me that you can, sometimes, completely get over
things that really hurt. That really did hurt, a lot, because she
was such a close friend for so long. Makes me think that maybe, one
day, some other things will stop hurting entirely. Perhaps.
Hope can be a very strong motivator, may your realisation above help
you to heal in time.
What I want to know, really, is this. Is the hurt less because it's
just so much time and water under the bridge and all that, or is it
really that I've learned to let go of certain kinds of things?
The latter, in my opinion, and very strongly so. For most of my life I
pretended the things that happened in my childhood did not affect me
anymore. The physical abuse stopped when I was twelve, and twenty years
later I had my big breakdown. Despite all the water under the bridge no
healing had been done, at all. Time heals no wounds, in my experience,
but we can ourselves. And I think that's what you have been doing.
I was cleaning out a file drawer just now, having some time to kill in
my office, and I ran across some pictures that I would just as soon
have left unseen at this particular moment. And, yes, that one still
hurts. Yes, there's some separation from the rawness of it; it's been
some time. But, just maybe, there's something else. Some kind of
inner ability to step back and away from it that I didn't have before.
Maybe. I don't know, and I realize that this doesn't make a lot of
sense, without telling a long story that I don't much want to tell.
Don't tell it then. But if you've been progressing in other areas as well
it only makes sense that a little of that might apply here as well. Not
to say that you should be able to step back from everything that has
happened right now, but it could be that you are on the right path. I
hope you are.
<snip>
Take care.
Jernau
--
By Endurance We Conquer
-E. Shackleton
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| User: "Nina" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
24 Oct 2003 07:44:31 PM |
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On 24 Oct 2003 22:29:56 GMT, Jernau Gurgeh <jernaugurgeh@mind.snuh>
wrote:
Nina wrote on 24 Oct 2003 in alt.support.depression
On 24 Oct 2003 14:45:17 GMT, Jernau Gurgeh <jernaugurgeh@mind.snuh>
wrote:
What I want to know, really, is this. Is the hurt less because it's
just so much time and water under the bridge and all that, or is it
really that I've learned to let go of certain kinds of things?
The latter, in my opinion, and very strongly so. For most of my life I
pretended the things that happened in my childhood did not affect me
anymore. The physical abuse stopped when I was twelve, and twenty years
later I had my big breakdown. Despite all the water under the bridge no
healing had been done, at all. Time heals no wounds, in my experience,
but we can ourselves. And I think that's what you have been doing.
I think that's exactly right. Time heals nothing. It makes certain
kind of pain easier to bear, some of the time, because we get away
from the immediacy of it. But if we've just locked it away, it's all
there, ready and fresh and perfectly preserved when something makes us
turn back to it. That's what I've always done, and that's why I've
taken these things out of their boxes and obsessed about them for
years.
But these days I'm getting some measure of peace, not just of
distance. I realized that with the original story, and I realize that
too about my other story, and the pictures that I was looking at. I
spent an hour talking about it, and, really, it's amazing how little
it matters at this point. I know what I believe about it, and that's
enough, and it's past, and there's nothing about that time that I want
back, other than the happiness and the innocence. The latter is lost
forever, but I still think that I'll have the other. One day.
Nina
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| User: "Naomi Darvell" |
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| Title: Re: A funny thing... |
24 Oct 2003 10:14:38 AM |
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x-no-archive: yes
Nina wrote inter alia:
The thing that has really struck me about this particular story,
though, and about telling it and talking about it, is how little I
care. Seems like an odd thing to say, I suppose, but I kind of view
it as a huge improvement in mental health that I'm indifferent. Once
I would have obsessed about the whole thing, about writing to her,
about finding out what really happened, so forth. Now, it just
doesn't even interest me.
And it proves to me that you can, sometimes, completely get over
things that really hurt. That really did hurt, a lot, because she was
such a close friend for so long. Makes me think that maybe, one day,
some other things will stop hurting entirely. Perhaps.
At a certain point, it can be almost like the other person sets you free by
treating you so badly it doesn't matter any more what your part in it was.
I think it is good to be able to move on.
Naomi D.
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