NuevaVida
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Joined: 8/5/2008
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quote:
ORIGINAL: aromanholiday
Please understand I don't know this person except from the few things I've seen you post, and I mean no offence, but from what you've
said I wouldn't exactly call him a "rare breed." I'd call him mentally and emotionally ill, and that is all too common a breed in this world.
I was using "rare breed" a bit facetiously. I am not at all offended by your words. I don't like focusing on the negative of the past - in fact, I took great care to not allow myself to become bitter from some past experiences. So my choice of words is made in an effort to support my need to not focus on the negative. He was an emotional sadist. Whether or not he is mentally ill is up to the professionals who determine such things. In retrospect I can say he was not a good person, but I'm in a different place in my life now, and what he is has no baring on me. I've moved on...
quote:
Learning lessons about _yourself_ from such a teacher does not sound to me like the best of strategies: all you can learn in such a situation, honestly, is how you respond to emotionally ill people. Deciding a very specific case represents something much broader is an all too common flaw of reasoning, and we all do it, but its popularity doesn't equate to insight or learning.
I disagree. I grew up in negative conditions, spent time married to an actually mentally ill person, and went from the frying pan into the fire with the sadistic owner referenced above. Once free of all that, I learned an enormous deal about myself. Some of it was learned in therapy, some of it on travels alone, some of it through books - - but I had my experiences to reflect on during my "soul searching" (for lack of a better term). I will spare writing a book about it all here in this post, but suffice to say, through my past experiences I discovered what works for me, what does not work for me, what I want for myself, what I like, and who the "real" me is, that will not be stifled again. I learned who I am.
I wouldn't call being with those unkind people a strategy for learning; but I chose to learn about myself as a result of those experiences. I could have chosen to do something else, but I had to come out from it all a happy, healthy, peaceful person. So I did what I needed to, to achieve that.
quote:
Opposites is a bit too mystical for me. The concept's binary nature (positive/negative) sometimes oversimplifies and lends confusion to subjects that have a more mutifaceted or complex reality.
I was recalling some studies on Taoism when I wrote that. Yes, people have multifaceted realities, of course. I was speaking more in terms of universal philosophies (which I can understand may come across as mystical). Up, down. Good, bad. Alive, dead. Love, hate. Open, closed. (I'm totally simplifying it here, btw). My point was that I understand my experiences with "fire" was unique to me, and proved to ultimately be unhealthy, but that it does not mean it would be the same for everyone else. Hence, I was not surprised to see you say your experience with "fire" was good.
quote:
As I said above, I have observed that there are people out there who can successfully impose extremely oppressive total control in a manner that does not destroy the object it is directed toward. Such people, also in my observation, tend to lack traits of emotional illness. So, to me, a negative experience with a specific emotionally ill person has nothing whatsoever to do with one's liking or not liking a much more general experience such as "fire" (or totalitarian control) nor with your tastes being different than mine, it is simply a negative experience with an emotionally ill person.
I think you simplify what my experience was. I agree things can be done with people that, in the right context, would not cause them harm. I also know myself quite well and know that "burning myself up completely for someone" as you referenced in your first post on this thread, would not suit me. I am now more suited to shining brightly and thriving happily, which is a kind of energy that feeds me. This is not to disparage what works for you; it's simply me, knowing me.
< Message edited by NuevaVida -- 5/11/2011 8:10:32 PM >
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