…imagine a young child, very sensitive, and the child’s environment is bewildering and scary, emotionally, for the child lacks an adult-understand of what everything “means.”
all manner of things that would be neutral, even enjoyable, are instead filled with fear and guilt and shame and pain.
all except for a few that feel super duper WOnderful. ADHD High Stimulation things, of course. (I seriously don’t know WHAT life would be like without such things, and I pity those who don’t have it.)
… …
how could I afford, to care about others…
when I was so busy protecting myself from this scary world full of hurtful scary people and mean kids who were just jerks…
how could I have managed to even understand that sometimes you can do things that make OTHERS feel good, even if they don’t make YOU feel good….
how could I, when I had developed a very real sense from a very young age,
that people were scary, that I felt very afraid, and that no one seemed to understand ME…
I felt alone…
I couldn’t be GIVING…
how could I have been?
I was too busy DESperately clinging to and corralling the various instances of High Stimulation things that in addition to feeling good, also were pretty much the only time I WASN’T scared, I presume. I don’t “exactly” remember how things felt 30 or more years ago. it’s like trying to use a betamax or even a vhs tape today…
perhaps I am incorrect that I am not a Giving Person (I was surrounded by people which might be called Hippies this weekend…. lovey dovey types, who seemed not to have a care in the world, they all seemed to chill, so easy going, so satisfied, so caring, so giving, so kind.
either they all had nothing to worry about, or they pretended they didn’t, or they have all made peace with themselves, or they pretend do, or they know not their own suffering (that is more likely with status quo “non” hippies it would seem.)
perhaps I hate myself, perhaps they don’t.
who knows. …
it feels like I never differentiated (“The Boundaries Thing…”)
myself from others, that I am narcissistic and self-absorbed and that
I never reach out to others just to reach out to others.
it reminds me of how Father seemed. who knows…
I wonder if I CAN develop a sense of this.
if I should. if I need to.
who knows.
I’ll have to keep being courageous in this.
who knows.