You know I wasn't talking about you Mark, you made it about yourself.
You made the point I was making and didn't stop long enough to listen to realize that was what you did.
Why did you make that connection, but failed to see it? You didn't listen well enough.
There are a lot of different ways that people self harm.
Drinking and drugs can be fun, but once you realize that it takes away that pain, continuing to drink and use are no different.
Sometimes all it takes is one injury to yourself, a cut, a scratch, a bruise, maybe.
I suspect that it takes a few more times before it really sinks in that those things too, can diminish the pain.
For myself, it became a game as a way to cover it up
I dare you wasn't the point, it was all the excuse I needed to not only hurt myself, but sometimes come as close to dying as I thought I could get away with.
Nobody ever asked why I would continually do such obvious things that held so much promise of truly hurting myself or even dying from what looked like shear stupidity at the time.
I drank harder, used more drugs at a time, but it wasn't in my nature to become dependent on those things.
I did however find what I was looking for in self harm.
I found a lot of different ways, I cultivated them in a manner.
I found through trial and error, the ones that worked with the least amount of damage.
I didn't find one thing and stuck to it until it would eventually kill me in that slow death spiral that some do.
The people who do that, they don't want to tell you, they want pity.
They don't face the challenge, they succumb to it.
They know the damage and bask in it, they find others to do the same with them.
I've known lots of people like that.
Too many of them I called friends at one time or another, but they never turned out to be real friends, they just wanted someone to ride that long journey into their own hell with them.
I'd walk away from them after a time, they are to weak to face the challenge to live, despite the pain.
They wash it away continually with drink or drugs. The slow spiral of death that takes a long time to form a scar.
But it does eventually. Just not as fast as cutting does. One of the sneakiest forms of self harm out there.
One reason people cut is that it is visible proof to themselves that they did what they did to stop the pain, to lessen it's affect for that short period of time.
In their face, one they know will be a reminder, even if they cover it up. Even if they show it to others.
Not something to be proud of and boast to the others in their group about how much they drank, how much and how many drugs they used at one time.
There are no groups of people who sit around and boast to each other on a regular basis about this scar or that, even though it does occasionally happen.
When you get a group of them together and they do talk about it, they still have a hard time explaining it, even if they have got an explanation that satisfies those who are always asking.
It's never the truth, not the real one, it's the cover story, the short version that lets others think they help by nodding their heads and saying they feel that pain and then they go home, safe in the knowledge that they seemed to have helped by agreement.
There never was an agreement, they never experienced or even tried to feel the pain, they just wanted to feel good by nodding their heads, so they could feel better about themselves.
Go home and drink or use their drugs like they usually do, take out the garbage and go to work the next day, safe in the knowledge that at least they aren't as fucked in the head as someone else.
Too many people trying to talk at the same time, it's hard to really listen, to hear what they are saying.
The exception are those therapists and psychologists who do that with individuals, they come back the next time to listen even harder, because they saw something, they listened.
What if someone had listened to you before you took the slow route to death, the slowest and the one that is the most acceptable way to kill yourself, to drink yourself to death?
Or did some just listen for awhile and then walked away, knowing they felt better about themselves because they weren't as fucked as you seemed to be at the time?
Did you have the failure to be able to actually tell someone well enough that they listened to you without judgement, without being a drinking buddy for a short time?
Do you still hang out with those very same kinds of people and pat each other on the back because you finally stopped drinking?
Do you really get down to the root cause or do you tell war stories about drinking and how it ruined your life?
Does that group make it any better for someone who is struggling to tell you why but doesn't have the words, and is still drinking, because you are all to busy talking about yourselves, instead of just stopping and actually listening to the people who are asking for help?
Do you throw them out if they go back to drinking, tell them to go sober up before they come back?
Or do you each go out and find those others that are still drinking and stop the chatter long enough to actually listen to their story, like you wished someone had for you?
Would that have made a difference for you?
If you did that for another drunk, would it make a difference for them?
Could you stop the cycle of the pain of being? You could if you are strong enough to just listen and not judge.
Sometimes you have to do it over and over until they finally have put the words together well enough for themselves and not for others.
You managed to turn a comment into one about you.
Do you think you could not do that and just listen instead to what they said instead of making it about you?
Because you just made my point, even though it wasn't about you at all, it just happened to follow yours and you took it personally...
Do you think you can just stop thinking about yourself long enough to listen, to really listen and stop judging someones comments because they don't fit your world view?
Do you think you have it in you to take on theirs, because that's all they are asking you to do, they don't want to use yours.
They want someone to just listen, sometimes so they simply make enough sense to themselves, to lessen the pain, that's all.
Because sometimes that will stop the pain long enough for them to get their shit together on that long spiral and they know they just might have a chance.
All it takes sometimes is one person to believe in them, despite themselves and yourself, to simply know there might be a better way and its worth giving it a shot.
Instead of using that slow inevitable path to death, the longest suicide route that a person can take, the continual drunk, who thinks they are a better person because they stopped drinking, but never really stopped the internal dialogue that got them there, that nobody wanted to hear?
Maybe you see yourself as that asshole, maybe you are to busy with your own demons to be able to just suspend your own long enough for another to talk not to you, but to just be able to talk, to form the words, to find the reasons by doing so, to be able to put their hand up at theirs long enough to tell the horror that is in them, to just stop long enough for them to be able to move forward in life, because that's all they want, they don't need this or that, they need a space to be able to say it in their own way and not have to explain it to you, but to have someone listen as they explain it enough that they understand it well enough to move past it.
It isn't for everyone to be able to just listen without judgement, it is often as hard or even harder somtimes than what they have to say, not to you, but to be able to form the words so they can hear themselves think, to be able to put it into the order it needs for them to move forward.
It is never about anyone else, it is coming to grips with their self.
You use a profile pick that says listen on it. Doesn't say anything about judgement, it says listen. Not like an asshole, it just says listen.
If you truly do and suspend your own beliefs and ideas long enough, then you just might not be that asshole you just thought you were.
Because you didn't listen, you stopped right there and failed to hear the rest.
I didn't say you were an asshole, you took that on yourself.
So don't try and take what you should have been hearing and turn it into another one of those assholes that only listen long enough to be able to pat themselves on their back.
It isn't that hard to just listen without making it about you or anyone else or even about advice.
You simply have to let them talk, because that's what they need right then.
No more, no less, they just want to know that someone, anyone, is willing to listen and not place judgement on them by making it about themselves, instead of just listening.
Yep, I most definitely know that I am perceived as an asshole, because I am.
Has anyone here ever asked why? Have you?
Or are you too busy patting yourself on your back because you think you're not...
You might not be as willing to admit it as I am and use it to make a point.
I don't give a fuck if you or anyone here thinks I'm an asshole, because I am.
I make a point of it to get some of you to sit up and listen, just like your fancy rock says.
But if you stop at that point and quit listening, because you feel offended, then who really is the asshole?
How many times is it now that you have made me out to be an asshole?
How many times have you stopped to listen or have even gone back to think about why that is?
Either way, isn't that just another way we self harm?
The scar never shows, like a cut or a burn, but there is a scar, none the less.
You talk all the time like you aren't scarred, but I can see it, I listen to you talk about it all the time.
I'm an asshole because I fly in the face of others demons, the things they don't want to say or face, or let others know about.
What do you think you're going to be able to do, if you let your own demons get in front of you when you should just listen, but can't?
What makes you or anyone else for that matter, think they are any less an asshole, because you hide behind your reasons why?
When you do that, you have stopped listening.
I am an asshole, I listen as best I can, despite that.
That asshole is me when I fail to listen, I don't need to be reminded, I know I am.
But I try to listen as best I can, and I know that sometimes I can't and don't.
It's my choice, whether I am or not, I have limits and don't pretend that I don't.
Ativan