Can't Think With the Right Head (pertains to Feb 2nd 2014 Call-in show)

[CaseyC]

It’s been three months since I talked to Stefan and the philosophical world on the Sunday call-in show February 2nd, 2014: Thinking With the Right Head (I come in at around 53 minutes I believe). I haven’t been able to listen to it at all. Every time I get close, or think about listening to it I freeze up, and get this wave of emotion that hits me. It’s a mix of fear, anxiety, sadness… and probably a few I don’t even know the exact word for. (it’s hard to just type this without feeling this) I’ve had panic attacks just thinking of listening to it… and I had one very bad one as soon as I hear my voice and haven’t been able to go back to listening to it again.

I do know I have some anxiety from it, because I KNOW I left some things out that were possibly very crucial… like my age, and such. I didn’t want to let the other callers wait too long so I just kind of unloaded a dump truck onto Stefan, and I feel terrible for that. To clear things up, I am 23 years old, grew up in a very small town in Pennsylvania (my rapists live in PA too, but live 4 hours from the small town I am from), and currently live on St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Living so far from my “parents” has been very very good for me.

My boyfriend is very supportive, and I’ve brought it up to him several times… but I can’t seem to be able to learn anything. It’s like I have this mental blockage that makes me forget what I’ve realized. (Inner foo maybe?) For example, a recent late night conversation we had over this was talking about how brave I was for working up the courage in calling Stefan and the support I got from the chat during my call (I don’t know exactly what was said, because I was standing outside, not looking at the computer. I was on Skype through my phone) My boyfriend was there with me, but sitting by the laptop watching the chat … everytime I hear how tragic or sad my childhood was, I get very very sad. (Like right now) It’s hard to show the emotion and pain I feel through typing, but I’m trying the best I can… I grew up as an only child, and my family never called me brave, or strong as a person. My boyfriend brought it up that maybe I feel so strongly when I hear other people call me brave and strong because I never was recognized for that as a child. I would like to hear other’s thoughts on this if at all.

Does anybody have any suggestions or advice on what could help me get through this? It’s really hard to grow as a person with this cement block chained to my foot…

[Yeravos]

I am very sorry for what happened you. That's god awful, what you had to go through. Such dark evil that has been committed against you. Listening to you talk with Stefan invokes sadness in me as well, to hear you tell the horrible tale of your past.

 

Have you considered getting in touch with a therapist? I think that a therapist could help you from feeling overwhelmed from your memories of childhood abuse, listen to your sadness with empathy, and give you practical ways to help you heal your mind. So you could gain some structure in your mind, so that you won't be hit by an emotional tsunami without someone that knows how to face it by your side.

 

Also, I would suggest that you remind yourself of some of the things in your struggle that can be of value to you, as tools really to help you process your past. Like for example, that you are here, wanting to heal, sharing your strong emotions, fighting to as you wrote, grow as a person. That you have a supportive partner by your side to lean on when it get's really bad. You can do this!

 

It is a difficult road to take, the road of self-knowledge. It can get really hard, and painful. But it gets better. It really does.

 

Just hang in there, and keep fighting!

[Withanametocome]

I remember you;

 

I've heard the beginning of the call again: you say first you've had trouble with self-esteem and THEN that you have been involved in an act that you can't even speak about. You are ashamed of what has happened to you. But you know this is not like choosing the wrong dress for the promo, Casey: what happened to you, you couldn't have possibly prevented it. If the couple would have wanted to go medieval in your ass, you couldn't have prevented it either. And this is easily understood by the fact that the only ones in the world that could have taught you to identify potential rapists failed blatantly to do so.

 

Yet the parents know about it. The mother knows the day you were crying and yet she still threw you off in daycare. And the father knows the day in which he should have been close to you while you were playing, so that you didn't end up hurting yourself. Parents fucking know how lazy they are every day, because they get the cues of having failed to protect and, willingly, neglectfully, immorally slack them away.

 

And to do a proper, multi-generational, slacking job requires you to feel responsible for what they should have been, lest you mouth out their irresponsibility in a family meeting! And this is why you feel bad about your childhood: the horror to which you were submitted it's greater than the one you remember, and you know it: if you thought hard about it, you would come up with ways in which your parents were even more inhuman than what they look like in a paper or a .jpg now. And maybe you still want to think that there is a kernel of truth in the 'we love you' of your rapists, because wouldn't it be nice for rapists to be at least a little capable of love and of genuinely finding good things in you? The truth is other: they were out to fucking get you.

 

And you have survived, Casey. The abuse that your rapists probably suffered (and with which they tried to shit-stained you) and the abuse that your parents probably suffered (so that they can't recognize rapists from non-rapists) ends with you because you have been courageous enough to speak THE HORROR rather than telling 'we love you' to a drugged teenager. And to show now, to those who feel that shit is impossible to overcome, that bonding and love work, turns 'we did the best we could' into 'we are child molesters, and negligent'.

 

I once was talking to the average irresponsible family. I was feeling uncomfortable thinking about the question that I was going to ask to the father: it was going to reveal that he was an ape. I suddenly had the best of ideas: I imagined him with red-gorging eyes and knife in hand, running quickly at me trying to kill me. And I didn't feel fear or discomfort (because I run faster than him!). At that moment I knew that the discomfort wasn't mine and went ahead and dispelled it: 'but you spend more time watching football than with your kids, don't you?' And as soon as I ended the question, I knew whose discomfort I was feeling, and as soon as I knew that, I realized that NEVER again I was going to feel the discomfort of petty, unambitious, irresponsible people.

 

Much less of rapists.

[Pepin]

Just reading your post riled up my emotions.

 

You seem unsure if you ought to be considered brave or heroic. What may help is to define the words and to see if you fit the bill. If you do, then you are that. Screw the overly-modest behavior, examine yourself rationally and draw the conclusions based on your actions.

 

For instance, I play guitar and make music. I am quite good. In the past when people asked me about my ability, I would downplay myself and put in a lot of conditional statements. I did this because I didn't want to seem like I was bragging, so I made myself out to be far less than I was. Eventually, I realized that this wasn't being honest.

 

Speaking about what happened to you in the way you did, in a public form, in a culture that is opposed to this takes an incredible amount of courage. It of course wasn't easy, but it wouldn't be courage if it was easy. You actions meet the definition, therefore you have full right to look in mirror and to see yourself for what you are.

 

Your hesitation to do so is understandable, as you likely fear criticism from others. The impulse to do what is right and to act on it, when few others will, forces them to see their cowardice. Instead of admitting that you did what they couldn't, they will want to reframe your actions in a manner that you do not meet the definition. If you apply the word to yourself, they will lash out to dismiss you in order to preserve their own incapacity to act with a shred of integrity. They will say "no, courage is what MLK did", "that courage? no, courage is going against the Nazi forces knowing you are likely to die", "you're courageous? come back to me when you grow up". The whole idea is to keep the achievement of virtue as far away as possible, from you, and from yourselves. The courage is in pushing against the tide of culture, as the culture does not wish for you to recognize your courage.

 

I can go on with this rant, but seriously, fuck these people. Don't lose your capacity to rationally judge yourself because these people lack rationality.

[cynicist]

Hi Casey, welcome to the forums.

 

It’s been three months since I talked to Stefan and the philosophical world on the Sunday call-in show February 2nd, 2014: Thinking With the Right Head (I come in at around 53 minutes I believe). I haven’t been able to listen to it at all. Every time I get close, or think about listening to it I freeze up, and get this wave of emotion that hits me. It’s a mix of fear, anxiety, sadness… and probably a few I don’t even know the exact word for. (it’s hard to just type this without feeling this) I’ve had panic attacks just thinking of listening to it… and I had one very bad one as soon as I hear my voice and haven’t been able to go back to listening to it again.

 

...It’s like I have this mental blockage that makes me forget what I’ve realized. (Inner foo maybe?)

 

I've been through this. It's almost like, and tell me if it's not the case for you, like you are listening to another person speaking. I sort of, couldn't believe that I had that conversation, and yet it happened. I listened to yours just now so I could remember, and I can just hear it in your voice. You sounded nervous and vulnerable, and it seemed to me like you really had to get the truth of what happened out there. It was scary to me just talking about my issues; I was trained to be quiet about what happened to me, that kind of isolation goes hand in hand with abuse. 

 

I grew up feeling dissociated, so these issues were out of my mind most of the time. Bringing them back to the forefront was both hard and painful. I don't have any experience with sexual abuse but I know the feeling of toxic shame, as if I'm somehow stained by my experience. Hearing the truth of the situation can be shocking to the point that you would rather not think about it. I'm not sure how your situation has changed since the call, but you may be afraid of hearing the call again because there is something there that might push you towards a particular action that you are afraid of taking. So just like with past negative experiences that you might repress, you sort of forget important details that have consequences you don't like to think about. (or have strong feelings of anxiety)

 

It’s hard to show the emotion and pain I feel through typing, but I’m trying the best I can… I grew up as an only child, and my family never called me brave, or strong as a person. My boyfriend brought it up that maybe I feel so strongly when I hear other people call me brave and strong because I never was recognized for that as a child. I would like to hear other’s thoughts on this if at all.

Does anybody have any suggestions or advice on what could help me get through this? It’s really hard to grow as a person with this cement block chained to my foot…

 

It's worse than that, they actively opposed your bravery and your strength. You said that your mother would stop you from doing things, tell you that you couldn't, and that you self-attack about this stuff even as an adult. They treated you as though you were incompetent, and prevented you from mastering anything for yourself. 

 

There is no easy answer for this kind of situation. I think the most important thing is to keep in mind that nothing that happened to you was your fault, and that your choices are perfectly fine. The hardest part for me is the self-attacking or bossing myself around, so I need to remind myself that there is nothing that I "should" do or "should" feel. You've had people trying to control you for most of your life, so maybe now you can show your inner-selves what it is like to be accepting, gentle, and patient instead. 

 

You are brave and strong, simply acknowledging and attempting to deal with these issues proves that. Good luck on your journey.