This is a rant, but please feel free to comment, I love to hear what you think.

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This topic has 21 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by manbuddha.

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September 18, 2017 at 6:04 pm #169234

Leocube
Participant

As a kid, I’ve always dreamed of being the lone wolf that goes on adventure and slaying monsters. I think I still have that mentality and I don’t know what to think of it. I don’t have a lot of close friends. The only people that I could call close to me are my parents, sibling, and one high school friend. The only reason why I call them “close” friends is because they have seen some sides of me that most people haven’t seen, and that constitute as “close friends” to me. My family are great people, anyone would be happy to have them, and my friend is a good guy, anyone would be happy to have him as a friend, I just don’t want them in my life. They can still exist (I used to wish that they would die), just not in my sight. Especially my family, I feel like they have seen sides of me that no one else has and if I could change things, I never would have revealed those parts of me to them.

It’s so frustrating to me knowing that there are people out there who have seen undesirable parts of me (mostly of me when I was an elementary kid) . Now that I’ve moved out and have some time to myself, I realize that I truly enjoy being alone and do things alone. I have a russian doll that I have been talking to since I was 6 when I’m not feeling well, and that russian doll is the only person/thing that TRULY 100% knows every single one of my thoughts. I don’t see a future with anyone in my circle, but I do see a future of me living alone with my doll. My family tries to tell me that I will need someone to lean on when in my time of crisis and tries to tell me that I need them, they try to put down my doll saying that my doll is just an object with no feelings and that pisses me off more than anything. I don’t need friends or family, I have my doll with me and to me, the doll is alive. From the eyes of someone else, I might be sitting alone in my room, but to me, there are two people in that room, me and my doll. I am only comfortable being myself around my doll, and that is the only character that deserves to be in my life. It has never judged me or made fun of me, the perfect soulmate.

My family knows that the doll is precious to me, they just don’t know that I’ve been talking to my doll since I was in kindergarten. I want to move far away and leave everything behind and just live out the rest of my life with my doll, who understands me the most.

September 19, 2017 at 5:29 am #169262

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Leocube:

Earlier this year you wrote about how in elementary school you had several maids or babysitters come and go from your life, that you were “close to all of them so when each of them were fired, (you) always cried a lot”. When on 5th grade another maid was fired and you cried, your parents made fun of your crying and you never cried since. You wrote: “from that point on, I felt like I need to disassociate from people so I don’t feel sad if they happen to be gone again.”

The doll will not leave you, nor will she make fun of you if you happen to cry, or if you manage to never cry again, she will not make fun of you if you feel sad.

Following are quotes from your current post and my input:

“As a kid, I’ve always dreamed of being the lone wolf”- As a kid you were a lone wolf already, alone.

” I feel like they (your parents) have seen sides of me that no one else has and if I could change things, I never would have revealed those parts of me to them.”- I think they saw you crying in fifth grade, making fun of you for crying, and that is the side of you that you wish they didn’t see.

You wrote: “My family are great people, anyone would be happy to have them”- not true, not anyone:. I wouldn’t.

anita

September 19, 2017 at 7:11 am #169267
Peter
Participant
The Lone Wolf It’s a striking image: a wild, dominant wolf, alone and on its own seeking prey while ruling its territory. This metaphor is not just popular among young men who seek to define themselves as rugged individuals. The lone wolf is also something of an analogy for a strong leader, a successful executive, or a man’s man..

Yet, there’s something not quite right about this image of the lone wolf. To say that the lone wolf is a myth is an understatement. Myths having meaning that convey a deeper truth meant to teach or inspire. But the lone wolf? It’s nothing but a fabrication! A lone wolf is a distortion of the reality of the lives of wolves.

Wolves are pack animals. Their survival depends on the group. Their innate strategies for hunting are based on group organization. They live in hierarchical groupings or communities, if you will. They take care of each other and depend on each other. It’s the pack that makes individual members strong and successful.

There are lone wolves. Lone wolves typically fall into two categories. One is the senior alpha who used to be the head of the pack. Such a lone wolf was driven out of the pack by a younger rival who took his place. The other is the younger rival who challenged the alpha, lost, and wasn’t permitted by the alpha to remain in the pack. This latter is the wolf that just doesn’t fit in. Lone wolves typically become weak because of lack of nutrition and die. They rarely survive very long on their own and often resort to feeding off dead carcasses and have no territory of their own.

Wolves live with a strong sense of inter-dependence. That’s something that seems almost absent in Western culture today because of our values on individualism. We want to believe that we can make it on our own and be the “master of my own fate,” to quote Henley’s poem Invictus. Such independence is an illusion. What’s true is that we’re all in this together – and depend on each other.

The heart of division is a belief that one is better than others and that one can be strong without others. That false belief is at the heart of the myth of the lone wolf. But the truth is the same for wolves as it is for people: the one who separates self from the larger community in the quest for power ends up dying weak and alone. At heart, it’s our cooperative connections with others that enable us, as individuals and as the human race, to thrive. – Lou Kavar
- This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Peter.
September 19, 2017 at 9:00 am #169323

PearceHawk
Participant

Leocube,

I hope that today you discover peace and happiness in your life and that you find more people in and around your life that will embrace you with the love you need.

The title of your post, “This is a rant, but please feel free to comment, I love to hear what you think.” raises a few questions I have that I hope you don’t mind answering. The first question is, what does your doll think about your “rant?” My other question is, if you prefer to adopt a lone wolf mentality, why would you “love to hear what” people think? Why would you care what others think my friend? I understand the lone wolf metaphor you use, however what Peter has posted, some insight by Lou Kavar, is a something I hope you consider, and, I am interested in your opinion of Peter’s post. As I peeled back the layers of your post I got a strong sense of much anger imbedded in your life. It reminds me of a story I was told many years ago…An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

I think you have been feeding an angry wolf my friend. There is no use for such anger my friend. Sure I have been angry in my life many times. But that moment of anger allowed me the opportunity to question myself, as to why, of all the possible reactions available to me, why would I, why did I, choose anger. It’s about ownership my friend. I owned that choice. Not a good choice either. In the final analysis I realize anger does not serve me well, in any way. You said, “I want to move far away and leave everything behind and just live out the rest of my life with my doll, who understands me the most.” In moving far away, to wherever you wish to go, realize that nothing will change. Life will continue. With reference to what you said about your doll being the one thing that “understands me the most,” one thing I got from that is that you have a long standing history of isolating yourself so much that for any person to understand you, it really isn’t a question of why people don’t understand you, it is more of a question as to why you prefer to isolate yourself. If you truly want an answer as to why people do not understand you, all you have to do to see the answer is to look in the mirror my friend, and there you will see your answer.

Am I correct in guessing that you getting professional counseling is out of the question? I ask that because in doing so, getting professional counseling, would require you to trust someone to understand you. I am not sure why having other people understand you is a threat to you.

I wish you the best.

Pearce

September 19, 2017 at 6:19 pm #169401

Sheya
Participant

What I think is you might want to look into professional therapy. I would if I were you. If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine – but you could be endangering yourself and your family. Maybe you were a hermit in another lifetime, but if that’s not the case, there are other factors involved. You don’t need to be a certain way, but it would be nice for you to figure these things out since you’re asking an online forum anyway.

September 20, 2017 at 8:38 am #169477

quackingphilosopher
Participant

Dearest Leocube,

This is my viewpoint on what you have shared with us (:.

I consider you as someone filled with courage to openly share your story with us all here.

Sometimes, our emotions are very intangible things and it is hard to control them. So my piece of advice is to do what you want without putting in much worry into it. You know your self-worth the best, and you are the captain of your life, you maneuver it however you wish for it to be like.

You are strong.

Regards,

Junna

September 20, 2017 at 6:55 pm #169625
Leocube
Participant
@anita Sometimes I feel like the things that happened to me in my childhood shaped who I am today. However, there are also times when I feel like I was just being a little kid, and little kids cry, little kids fantasize about going on adventures, and how my parents treated me was like how other parents would treat their kids. I came from a different culture where these things are pretty normal. I have been beaten as a kid by my parents, and so were all of my friends. I was teased by my parents and so were all of my friends, it was “Normal” in my culture. My first impression of my home was that it was stressful because my parents (especially my father) were very strict about school. However, there were also times where I genuinely felt happy to be in that family, mostly when we would go on vacations, or when they bought me things.

I’m very attached to my doll because I can be myself around it. That, you are right. I was a shy kid and never had anyone I felt like I could open up to emotionally, and my doll was the only person/thing that I’ve always been close with. I would murder anyone who tries to harm my doll. What I don’t know is whether I was just a sensitive kid that got affected by the smallest things, or whether my childhood was actually as lonely as I felt like it was. I feel like I’m just sensitive

@Peter You are right about that. I used to watch national geographic and wolves are indeed pack animals. I guess I used the wrong term to describe how I feel. This is a rant so I just said whatever comes to mind. As you could see, my post wasn’t that coherent, there were several thoughts that are all over the place.

@PearceHawk It would be better to not dwell much on the “Lone wolf” analogy. I misused it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want any attachment, at least not to the people that I didn’t choose to have that attachment (my family). If I were to have an attachment to someone, it would be an attachment that I chose to create (like with my doll), not one where I was forced and brainwashed into (with my family). Keep in mind that I’m an extreme person, so how I feel may not accurately represent reality. I want to be emotionally free from my family, whom I don’t particularly care for as people, but somehow there is a part of me that is attached to them. I would pity them if I leave, and I would be miserable if I stay.

I don’t know what my personality is. I can look back on experiences and predict how I would react in a situation, and I call that my personality. I can truly be free (live in the moment) when I’m with my doll. Whenever I interact with people, I always put up a front, doesn’t matter who. The thing is that when I put up a front around outsiders (caring, generous, personal), I feel ok, but when I put up a different front around my family (tough, non emotional, jaded), I get kind of pissed off. As if I’m thinking “why the hell are you in my life? why can’t I get rid of you?”. I could choose to feed the kind wolf, I could choose to be happy with my family, I just don’t want to. It’s like if you hate a certain food, and you’re being fed that food everysingle day, your reaction would be to get away from that situation, not wanting to embrace it.

Yes, counselling is maybe out of the question. The thought of paying someone to be your friend is ridiculous to me. I could get opinions from people who have had much more life experiences, instead of paying someone to try to read me and ticking a checklist in the DSM to see which mental illness I may be having, if any of them is real at all.

@Sheya I can’t do that. I can say how I feel online because it’s anonymous. I can’t place trust in an actual human being, that’s just too much risk for me.

@quackingphilosopher Doing what I want is what I desperately want to do. However, emotions are complicated and I’m trying to find a way to make it simple. I wish to just be able to do what I feel like, and not having to worry about how it would affect other people.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Leocube.
September 21, 2017 at 9:50 am #169669

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Leocube:

You make a lot of sense to me in a whole lot of what you wrote to all your respondents.

I understand that the beating, teasing and other mistreatments by your parents are normal, and indeed they are, not only in your particular culture. By “normal” I mean common, widespread. You saw those mistreatments in other homes because they are indeed common.

The fact that mistreatment of children is so very common doesn’t take away from the harm it causes. The mistreatment is so very common worldwide, the harm done so massive, that you can see the affects and effects everywhere you look: world dysfunction, massive loss of life and quality of life to wars, crime, political and economic corruption and waste, so much waste of natural resources, of human potential.

I understand that you are conflicted somewhat about the idea of not having your family in your life. It is clear to me that you are better off not having them in your life, having no contact with them. I think it is not only your legal right but your ethical right, it is okay to not have contact with your parents, siblings, and other more distant family members.

anita

September 22, 2017 at 4:52 pm #169919

Leocube
Participant

@anita I really want to leave my family, but when I do bring this up, my family is very hurt by this. I’m not sure if this is them trying to manipulate me, or if they genuinely feel bad, I’m leaning more on the latter. I think my family genuinely care for me, but because of how they treated me in the past (or what they thought was the right thing to do), I can’t open up to them. I would like to “rewire” my brain so that I could have no emotional attachment to them. How can I do this?

September 23, 2017 at 6:47 am #169933

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Leocube:

First consider this real life possibility: it is possible for you to leave your family, meaning to end all contact with them. It is possible for you to do so knowing that it will hurt their feelings and it is possible for you to maintain no contact while knowing their feelings are hurt.

When you entertain this possibility in your mind, still not believing you can endure the discomfort knowing their feelings are hurt, but still imagining the possibility, you are in the process of rewiring your brain. The introduction of a new possibility is rewiring.

You can’t do a drastic rewiring work on your brain, to magically be okay with having no contact with your family. Rewiring is a gradual process of introducing new thoughts, new concepts and relaxing into them.

Imagine having no contact with them, imagine their faces showing hurt over your choice and imagine you still having no contact with them. Relax into these images- and you started the rewiring you are interested in.

Try it if you will and let me know how it goes, will you?

anita

September 23, 2017 at 4:27 pm #169965

Leocube
Participant

@anita Thank you for your advice. I will familiarize my brain with the images of my family being hurt. Would it help to quicken the process if I also try to focus on all the insensitive things that they did to me when I was a kid? Or would this lead me to the wrong mindset? I don’t want to hate them, I just want to get rid of the emotional attachment that I have for them.

September 24, 2017 at 6:40 am #169985

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Leocube:

You are welcome.

It will help if you remember how you were hurt by “all the insensitive things they did to” you when you were a kid, instead of the things they actually did. I will explain:

For the purpose of promoting your own well-being, your own mental health, you need to focus on you, not on them. You need to care more about your feelings getting hurt than about their feelings getting hurt.

You can’t stop caring about their feelings getting hurt but you can start caring about your feelings getting hurt. Change your focus instead of aiming at not caring for their feelings (undoing the emotional attachment, that is).

Problem is you probably detached yourself from… yourself, from your emotional experience, so you may look back at the insensitive things they said and did and feel nothing. Back then you felt very hurt, scared probably, but presently, you are numb. To know that your feelings are there, you have to feel them. Question is: how can you re-experience feelings you had then, feelings you shut down?

anita

September 24, 2017 at 7:34 am #169993

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Leocube:

I need to correct and complete a sentence I wrote to you in my last post, third paragraph:

Change your focus: instead of aiming at not caring for their feelings (undoing the emotional attachment, that is), aim at caring for your feelings.

anita

September 24, 2017 at 9:00 am #170019

Leocube
Participant

@anita Thanks for your follow up. I was thinking more on the line of if I try and recall the insensitive things that they did, I would feel more justified in leaving them. I don’t know how focusing on how I used to feel would help this process. I think you’re trying to get me to put my feelings first. Will this ultimately help me undo my emotional attachment? How can it do that?

September 24, 2017 at 9:34 am #170025

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Leocube:

You already know rationally that your parents were insensitive and hurtful to you but it didn’t make you feel justified (the verb you used: justified) to cut contact with them. So there is something you need beyond rational understanding so to believe that you are justified to have no contact with them.

You desire very intensely to have no contact with them, but you feel guilty at the thought of their feelings hurt. You don’t believe you are justified to hurt their feelings. If you realized how it felt to be hurt by them, then you would feel justified.

The emotional attachment to your parents is that caring you have about their feelings being hurt, correct? You want to no longer care if their feelings are hurt. My solution is: care more about your feelings of having been hurt by them, care more about still suffering the affects of their hurting you, and it will be this suggested caring that will overshadow the caring for their feelings, diminish and minimize that emotional attachment. It will help you to move toward improved mental health.

anita
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