Reconnecting to younger selves

[Three]

The following text is the result of journal entries that were written in order to get back in touch with my younger selves. I started with my 18 year old self since he experienced much trauma and abuse.  

The day I discovered Richard Dawkin’s book “The God Delusion” was the beginning of a period of extraordinary growth for me that I had not experienced since first learning how to walk and talk. The book was after all what taught me how to think as well as to distinguish truth from falsehood. My enjoyment of this book prompted me to read similar authors such as Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett.  Shortly after evaluating their arguments, I became a full fledged, bonafide skeptic and nonbeliever. I had the scientific method memorized, I had decent knowledge as to how to point out logical fallacies, and had even some skill with the socratic method. The question, “what is the evidence for that?” a regular part of my vocabulary. And it was not only religion that interested me. I also was interested in evolution, theoretical physics, cosmology and occasionally politics. I knew I didn’t have enough information to proclaim a particular ideology in politics, so I continued to expose myself to a wide variety of arguments as often as I could. I would read books about Marxism, I took political science classes in college, and would occasionally even listen to conservative talk radio. I also became fascinated by North Korea and George Orwell’s 1984. I even started watching as many documentaries about the DPRK as I could find. I was shocked that such a place still existed. I had very little of my mind made up about politics,  but I knew that totalitarianism was evil. This learning process was one of the most pleasurable experiences of my life at that point. I had never felt so much passion or meaning in my life. Not only did I want to know more, but I wanted to emulate the thinkers I so admired. I wanted to write and educate like dawkins, while being able to debate like Christopher Hitchens. So, I studied incessantly. Whether it was physical books, audiobook, youtube presentations or debates, I did not discriminate. These study sessions even took over things I loved that had normally been my main focus like playing video games or bass guitar. The only thing that could have made this time in my life better, I thought, was to share what I was learning with others. To use a quote by Carl Sagan, “when you’re in love you want to tell the world”. I was certainly in love with with truth. And share I did. I shared my love with teachers, friends, coworkers, acquaintances, family, lovers, and strangers. Yet, despite all that I learned, nothing prepared me for the hostility, scorn, passive aggression and rejection I received. It did not happen immediately, however. At first, people would tolerate me by, in their mind, downgrading my passion for truth as a sort of hobby, a quircky preference. They’d listen and sometimes send me videos of comedians criticizing religion. Of course, they missed the point. I didn’t wanna merely make fun of something, I wanted arguments, rationality, evidence and rigor for god’s sake, something stimulating. This soft rejection eventually turned into outright hostility, with one girl who I was dating at the time snapping, “NO, I dont want to watch any stupid videos about North Korea!” The more things like this happen the more I felt my enthusiasm and joy turn into frustration, anger, bitterness, and resentment. “What is wrong with these people?”, I thought.  The more I learned, the more I felt I was compelled to hide and the more hidden I felt from everyone, the more isolated I became. Also, because I had a history of being emotionally abused, and because i was being emotional abused on a daily round the clock basis, I had been trained to attack, doubt and blame myself. It was not long before the question, “what is wrong with these people?” became “what is wrong with me?” As I’m writing this I’m becoming aware too of the degree to which isolation exacerbated these negative thoughts. When you’re isolated, you have nothing to interrupt the negative thinking, so toxic thoughts just accumulate. My eighteen year old self really needed intimacy and for someone to reflect back to him who he was. Nothing was wrong with me. Of all the things that I remember during that time,there’s one memory in particular that really stands out. I remember after a party a friend left some vodka over at my house. The next night, all alone, I made the unwise decision to drink my problems away. If anything, that made things worse and I even felt so bad that out of desperation I began to journal. This was prior to me truly understanding the benefits of journaling, so it was new to me. In an intoxicated depression, after I spent a few minutes staring at my notebook paper, with tears rolling down my cheeks, I was able to write one simple sentence, “I feel like I have to censor myself.”It wasn’t until I began writing this that I started to really process the full depths of misery that were imbedded in that one sentence. Here I was, an 18 year old young man who had been reading about the horrors of totalitarianism. I read with goosebumps what happened to Wiston Smith in 1984, who watched with disgust and fascination while learning about the the extreme measures the Kim dynasty took to suppress North Koreans, who cheered with excitement while Christopher Hitchens had said during a debate that he is an antitheist, that to want a god would be to want a celestial dictator who could convict you of thought crime. Here I was, one of the only people within a 50 mile radius who cared even to learn and to express his outrage about the evils of the world, felt like I had to censor myself, which is one of the main weapons a regime uses against people. Yet, there were no guns, no gulags, and no thought police. I was living a kind of soft tyranny. I wasn’t interested in double think and brutal suppression for merely abstract reasons.  I wasn’t attracted to that kind of literature only because I had a bad childhood. It was in many ways a reality I was living. Everyone wanted me to shut up. And these very same people I called my friends.

[marina]

Wow.. that resonates with me a lot... I constantly feel like I have to censor myself.. 

Not with everyone or all the time.. but definitely 80% of the time.. & the other 20% of the time I 'agree to disagree' with people.. which isn't very satisfying either..

I'm not sure where to go from here, but I feel myself withdrawing from all the 'zombies' of the world.. which leads me to look anti-social.  And considering how 'extra social' I was just a few months ago (and for the last 10/15 years) I'm not really sure how to deal with that.. and how to balance it.. 

[rock siles barcellos]

Sorry to hear that, man 

 

things really are geting crazyier and crazyier. Stay strong, the internets is here to save us! o/ 

[Three]

Wow.. that resonates with me a lot... I constantly feel like I have to censor myself.. 

Not with everyone or all the time.. but definitely 80% of the time.. & the other 20% of the time I 'agree to disagree' with people.. which isn't very satisfying either..

I'm not sure where to go from here, but I feel myself withdrawing from all the 'zombies' of the world.. which leads me to look anti-social.  And considering how 'extra social' I was just a few months ago (and for the last 10/15 years) I'm not really sure how to deal with that.. and how to balance it.. 

Hey, Marina . Thank you for taking the time to read my post and for responding. I understand that that is difficult. The irony that I wanted to point out is that when we choose to be around people who we cant be ourselves around, when we feel like we have to censor ourselves and thus, do in fact censor ourselves, we turn our social and mental world into a kind of tyranny and become dictators to ourselves. I was being a dictator to myself while at the same time telling people that to wish for a god would be a kind a desire to be a slave, to have a celestial dictatorship and this disconnect between my values and how I was living (freedom good, totalitarianism bad, yet i must censor myself) created much agony within me. I was telling people about the concept of doublethink yet, what I was doing myself is a perfect example of double think. Also, I just say that you're a realtor. That's a very honorable profession and been doing soul searching about my next career move and it's been pointing me towards sales.by the way, if you liked this post, you might also enjoy this fun review I did of a disney movie called Tangled. I even included video clips of particular scenes I analyse. https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/39739-film-review-tangled/  Enjoy!  :)Rock, thank you too for replying. a lot has changed since then and like I said, this was when I was 18. I just wanted to get in touch with the younger self. until recently, i would look back at this memory and say, "what a short journal entry i made.". i'm 23 now. My solution to this was to surround myself with people who I can be myself around and get hostile people away from me. Unless it's like a business relationship or a coworker in which case, I gladly don't talk about philosophy with them. It's a different kind of relationship. Anyways, i wish ya'll the best. 

[RachelAnn]

In an intoxicated depression, after I spent a few minutes staring at my notebook paper, with tears rolling down my cheeks, I was able to write one simple sentence, “I feel like I have to censor myself.”

 

That's powerful. I can relate to having that same exact moment of realization, and it's extremely painful. Thanks for posting!

[Three]

Thank you for taking the time to read my post! i always appreciate your feedback  

[darknova]

Hey Joel, thank you for posting this. I'm so sorry you were traumatized like you were. Having to revert to self censorship to defend yourself from outside abuses is exceedingly painful.Did you start self censoring at 18 years old, or was that just the realization that you'd been doing it for years? I'm curious when you started censoring yourself.I made a similar realization back in my college days. While I started connecting the dots about my past, I realized that I had been censoring myself since I was about 6 years old. My parents had mentioned in the past that I used to be a really energetic, happy, kid that talked all the time, but I started withdrawing around 6 years old and and finally stopped expressing myself at all around 14. It was so painful to realize this, that I withdrew from thinking about it and surrounded myself with nothing but people that I had to censor myself around.I've been willfully neglecting this aspect of myself for a long time now. This post has helped me realize how much I've been actively ignoring working on myself. Thank you, Joel.

[Three]

Dark, I now that I look back at it, the hostility wasn't anything knew. It was there all along, the only reason it hadn't came out was because I was willing to self erase. Had I been myself at any other time for any other reason I know I would have experienced the same rejection. That kind of rejection had happened long ago and I learned quickly that self erasing was key to survival. Thank you for the time to reply and for your feedback. I wish you the best while you do the work. You're worth it!Take care, man!

[Heam]

Joel, do you believe that your morbid interest in totalitarianism stems from the fact that you felt the need to constantly censor yourself? After all, it's not as if your subjects of study are bastions of free speech.

 

How was your relationship like with your parents?

[Three]

Joel, do you believe that your morbid interest in totalitarianism stems from the fact that you felt the need to constantly censor yourself? After all, it's not as if your subjects of study are bastions of free speech.

 

How was your relationship like with your parents?

Hey, Waleed. That's correct. I not only was being censored, but I was also censoring myself. The totalitarian state was me. With all sympathy to why I did what I did. 

 

 

Just to preface, this is brief and not in detail, but never the less disturbing. I'm also writing this in a hurry. 

 

 

My childhood was incredibly lonely. M parents were not divorced, my mother stayed at home, I got to spend time with my dad on the weekends, and I even had material needs provided to me, but I was indeed emotionally neglected. 

 

I've never had a real conversation with my parents. I had very little guidance, mentoring, or emotional support. When I was "inconvenient" by being depressed during 5th grade and crying almost everyday my mother explained to my teachers, "I dunno what's wrong with him, he just turned into a basketcase. it might be the advil he's taking". 

 

 

I was considered the "good" kid because I self erased and stayed in my room and played video games. This was my plea to be allowed to exist. I was also a great pretender. 

 

 

Later when I was 13, my parents took in two of my neices and one of my nephews. My half sister, who was an alcoholic and 20 years older than me, had them taken away from her by DHR. Then things went down here from there. My parents were even less emotionally available during my teenage years and the 3 bed roomed house was crowded. Eventually, one neice and one nephew left. but it was still me, my sister, my mom, my dad and my neice. Tension built between everyone,  fights between everyone was common. To point out the theme of censorship, there was an implicit, NO TALK rule about anything important. During all the chaos and dysfunction, the family not once sat down to talk about it. Not once did we come together and talk about the difficulties. I stayed in my room, my mom did her thing, my dad went to work and watched tv, eveyone just went along as if nothing was happening, regardless of how bad things were getting.

 

 

 

What was important to my Mom, like with the North Koren government, was things that were not important like presentation.  My mom would clean and make the house emaculate. There were culty, propagandistic family photos all over the house. Opportunities to talk, were always and forever missed, and instead  were replaced by "picture time!" moments like these. What makes these photos so creepy was that, like propaganda photos in the DPRK, they are such stark contrast to the reality of the situation. When you see the measures taken in totalitarian regimes take to present a nice image, it's eerie and enraging because you just know in reality the people are dying. Similarly, the more dysfunctional my family got, the more effort was put into presentation. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At age 17 I still went to the living room to sit next to my dad and lean on him on the couch like I did when I was a boy. Again, without any real conversation. Like a totalitarian state command economy, things were eerily stagnant and repetitive. Frozen.

 

 

 

 

 

Skip to 7:30 to see a lady directing traffic that doesn't exist. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luckly, we had a two story building in my back yard where I stayed. Had I not moved from my bedroom to an outdoor garage, I probably would have ended up like me neice and my sister. 

 

 

This was undoubtedly one of the main protective factors in my life. A refuge. But, it was still not enough to completely avoid the effects of the radioactivity. 

 

 

 

My sister ended up addicted to pills, going to rehad, then having a baby with someone she met in rehab. The baby was born severely mentally retarded. 

 

My neice also ended up on anti psychotics and having a baby at a young age. 

 

 

Now the house was even more crowded with 3 different families. There was my mentally deteriorating sister, her cognitively impaired baby, and her thug baby dady, my neice, my neice's baby daddy, my neices kid, my mom, my dad and me. 

 

Yelling matches were common. Boundaries didn't exist. Then my dad left to work overseas. Once my dad left, my mom was lonely tried to get her emotional needs met from me. She emotionally incested me by telling me about her problems, she would come out of her room at night and tried to hug my and talk in a baby voice. 

 

It was a nightmare. 

 

 

 

Here's a little more info if you're interested. 

 

 

https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/39588-infantilization-and-the-erosion-of-self-efficacy/?hl=infantilization

[darknova]

Holy hell. Joel, that's horrifying. You've got some incredible strength to survive that hell. I'm so incredibly sorry that you had endure that kind of awful childhood.

 

Sounds like we both developed similar defense mechanisms. My family was distant, emotionally unconnected, and verbally abusive. Around 7th grade, I went into full self-erasure mode: every waking minute at home was spent in front of a tv playing video games or immersing myself in my computer in my bedroom. I'd avoid everyone else in the house as much as possible, and basically became as close to a ghost as I could.

 

That part where you mention your mom becoming and emotional vampire toward you once your dad left; how long did that go on, and has that had any lasting impacts on you?

[Heam]

Joel, that is a horrible story and I extend my sympathies to you. It is amazing that you've pulled yourself from the mire of your history and sought to see through the abusers. 

[Three]

Holy hell. Joel, that's horrifying. You've got some incredible strength to survive that hell. I'm so incredibly sorry that you had endure that kind of awful childhood.

 

Sounds like we both developed similar defense mechanisms. My family was distant, emotionally unconnected, and verbally abusive. Around 7th grade, I went into full self-erasure mode: every waking minute at home was spent in front of a tv playing video games or immersing myself in my computer in my bedroom. I'd avoid everyone else in the house as much as possible, and basically became as close to a ghost as I could.

 

That part where you mention your mom becoming and emotional vampire toward you once your dad left; how long did that go on, and has that had any lasting impacts on you?

 

I'm incredibly sorry to hear that. You deserved a fun, positive and encouraging environment. My mother emotionally incested me until I left the house at age 21. 

Joel, that is a horrible story and I extend my sympathies to you. It is amazing that you've pulled yourself from the mire of your history and sought to see through the abusers. 

I really appreciate the sympathy, support and encouragement. I really have grown a tremendous amount and will continue to do so. Thank again, everyone who took the time to read and reply. 

[DasCarly]

Joel, 

 

     I followed your link from Facebook. An incredible read, thank you for sharing. I find it fascinating that these forms of abuse are so quiet! They become delicately intertwined into everyday lives and even appear "good" on the surface. The way you compared your family photos to those of totalitarian North Korea is almost sickening... And you're right, not at all in line with the realities (or fantasies) that the individuals are experiencing daily.

     I bought my first journal a week ago, and have been proactively writing in it as well as making notes and recordings in my phone. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I would destroy my journals and diaries. Reading them would feel embarrassing, and I think now that I had some sort of manager/protector trying to censor that hurt inner child. It was difficult for my inner, younger Carly to relive the painful experiences of growing up with an alcoholic father, an enabling and unfaithful mother, hearing my parents fight in the middle of the night, and never receiving the honest truth from traumatic experiences like those (just to name a few). I am working with those parts of me to achieve strength and inner peace.

     I am happy and proud for you, me, and everyone who is discarding the junk from our lives. How liberating it is to speak the mind!

[Three]

Joel, 

 

     I followed your link from Facebook. An incredible read, thank you for sharing. I find it fascinating that these forms of abuse are so quiet! They become delicately intertwined into everyday lives and even appear "good" on the surface. The way you compared your family photos to those of totalitarian North Korea is almost sickening... And you're right, not at all in line with the realities (or fantasies) that the individuals are experiencing daily.

     I bought my first journal a week ago, and have been proactively writing in it as well as making notes and recordings in my phone. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I would destroy my journals and diaries. Reading them would feel embarrassing, and I think now that I had some sort of manager/protector trying to censor that hurt inner child. It was difficult for my inner, younger Carly to relive the painful experiences of growing up with an alcoholic father, an enabling and unfaithful mother, hearing my parents fight in the middle of the night, and never receiving the honest truth from traumatic experiences like those (just to name a few). I am working with those parts of me to achieve strength and inner peace.

     I am happy and proud for you, me, and everyone who is discarding the junk from our lives. How liberating it is to speak the mind!

Hey, Carly. Thank you for taking the time to read and reply. I'm really sorry to hear about your parents. That must have been horrendous and I really do sympathize. You deserved better than that. I can relate to what you said about discarding journal entries. Out of shame, I too discarded my journal entries that I wrote in 2011. And good for you! I think it is really impressive what all you're doing and have accomplished , especially since facing these truths are so difficult. Again, thank you for your support. Best Wishes, Joel