Kindness Is Now Confusing--

[Kintsugi]

Okay, OKRAD, I cannot help but keep responding to your threads and I know I'm making this a little too one-to-one sometimes, but I can't help it. Your thinking is always traveling near to mine, and I feel compelled to respond.

It makes me wonder if male sufferers have it even harder because there is NOT that innate fear. In essence they are blind-sided.

I feel SO MUCH for male sufferers, particularly of sexual abuse, because it is so taboo. I hate that. I hate that there are men who feel disconnected because they are not typical in their gender and experience. It makes me hopeful to know that there are men who can relate to the feeling of helplessness because it reminds me that I am not merely suffering from the female condition (as doctors used to believe), but it makes me so so so sad that they are an under served population.

That necessary survival fear probably is one of the reasons women are always getting these silly, stupid, and demeaning mental health diagnoses while men generally, no matter what, are given "depression."

(You probably know this but it is one of my most common rants so here it goes)
PTSD used to be the female condition, as I mention above. "Hysteria" was thought to be natural for women to go through because they were women. Then, all of a sudden, when men started coming home from WWI with the same exact symptoms as this so-called 'feminine condition,' they decided that they needed to come up with a whole new term just to cover up the similarity. Shell shocked. Hysteric. These are both degrading, but their separation seems particularly degrading to women, mostly because shell-shocked at least implied there was some kind of trauma, whereas hysteria was just something women did.

I don't think these two terms were synthesized into PTSD until the 70s.

I also believe that this whole survival skill thing is a huge reason why women can easily get caught in the trap of finding abusive husbands and sticking by them silently. I know that I often did or considered finding a man who protect me who was abusive and possessive but would keep me away from other people who could harm me. I saw them as a means of defense even though I was suffering because of them. I thought that it was always better to know my evil and not to rely on the idea that things could be safe without that evil protecting me from evils unknown.

Am I making sense?

Back to kindness... I just don't trust it. I need to know how someone is mean so that I can guard myself against them. Too much sweetness makes me so suspicious sometimes. Sometimes I just think I'm going to break it. Like I have the power to destroy someone else. Like a kid who wants to catch a butterfly but accidentally crushes its wings.

 

[freakofnurture]

It's not so much kindness that confuses me, but consideration. I'm so not used to that. And don't get me started on eye contact. When I'm listening, I stare, and when I talk I look away.

I rescue cockroaches and get very upset if someone stomps one when I am in the room.

I'm just like that. But how do I reconcile this with my flaming hatred for all cute pets that aren't kittens?

 

[OKRADLAK]

Haha! Freak!! I don't know!!Maybe it is just that kittens are soooo dang cute, how could anything really compare?! Do you like little puppies with little wrinkly foreheads?

 

[freakofnurture]

No, OKRADLAK, I don't like dogs. They smell. I've grown to like the cats' independence. They just don't give a darn about what you think or how you feel. I can't not love that attitude.

 

[Kintsugi]

Then you would hate one of my cats. She needs constant cuddling, at least ten minutes in the morning before I do anything else. But you might like my puppy. She gets a bath every week and does not give a f*ck about most people or animals, except for kitties. She loves kitties! Mostly she sleeps all day.

Speaking of overwhelming kindness, Annie (dog) is the same way with not liking/being confused by overt kindness. She doesn't like eye contact and is scared of anyone who is too interested in her (a shame, because she's such a cute little dog that most people will RUN up to her, and then she freaks out). Trauma survivors dog or no are friends of a feather, I guess.

 

[intothelight]

I just never felt like I deserved kindness.

 

[BrazenBull]

Same here, I feel like I dont deserve friends or kindness and sometimes it just triggers my PTSD because I wonder why I didn't get it during those horrible times. When someone does something nice for me I just stand there with a stupid look on my face, because I just don't expect it.

My University is full of nursing student with a natural caring and caring attitude, and the digital art students that have taken a liking to me have such captivating ideas and open-minds and are real friendly and are not competitive. I really like them, though I wouldn't change anything about them. I always do kind things for them when I can, but when they do something nice for me I get all tense and jumpy and wonder "why me?".

I also do that thing with my eyes :x, just the other day this teacher was snapping his finger in my face for 4-5 seconds because I was like @____@ looking back and forth along the hallway, he didn't think I had Asperger's though, he thought I might have taking dissociative drugs lol. I diddnt know he was snapping it in my face though, even though it was in my face..... hard to explain.

 

[Kintsugi]

You should have told him that he would have to search your brain if he wanted to figure out where you got the dissociative drug from. Hurray for having a brain that just spontaneously floods with opiates. >.<

 

[Reclusive]

Kindness, and people trying to get to know me freak me out. I always wonder what they really want, what their real motive is. But my greatest fear is that it's genuine and we'll have things in common and then there will be a friendship and suddenly I'm responsible for them and their well being and I can't take care of me, my fiance, my cats, AND someone else and now I'm going to ruin their lives because I wasn't able to be the friend to them that I was supposed to be and it's all my fault and if they hadn't known me they'd've developed a healthier relationship with someone that could help them and instead I got in the way.

So, yeah, I don't talk to people very much. I don't leave my house very much. But, like, at the vet the other day it didn't bother me because they were being kind to MY CAT. Not me. They probably don't give a fig about me but they obviously love animals, so that's okay.

 

[Kintsugi]

But, like, at the vet the other day it didn't bother me because they were being kind to MY CAT. Not me. They probably don't give a fig about me but they obviously love animals, so that's okay.

This is exactly the reason I have decided to commit to going to the dog park every day. I can talk to dog owners about our dogs. We don't want to know each other. We want to know each other's dogs. I can deal really well with that friendliness.

 

[AzureMind]

I can relate a lot to these feeling, OKRAD. Especially at my school, I go to an extremely small college with a population that is %80 unrealistically idealistic and... I don't know how to describe them. They're sweeter than the dialogue in Disney's Cinderella. They're sweeter than an old lady crafted by Dickens. They're wholesome. They only buy organic food and wear fair trade clothes. They think that they can change the world. They are very, very nice to me and make lots of eye contact.​

This just really scares me. When I meet people like this, I quickly synthesize the perfect fake personality to blend in--I am so afraid of hurting them with myself--and then I leave as quickly as possible and avoid future interactions.​

I don't know why I can't tolerate this. I just feel as if they are going to be destroyed by me somehow, or just realize how f*cked up I am and be appalled. They would be appalled.​

MissAntiSunshine, I don't know HOW you deal with people like that :roflmao: I mean, you read about them, you talk about them, and you doubt they exist, but then out of the blue, there they are with their parentally protected hopes and dreams...yuck :sick: lol

For a while I WANTED to appall them; to shock them into realizing "the only difference betweeen you and me is a simple life-altering experience for the WORSE....I wonder if you could've survived?..." it's a sick, and twisted kind of envy (which I FULLY embrace; lemme tell ya, the flavor is DELICIOUS lol) but I know I'm justified in my feelings; I thought at one point in time I was weird for going through what I went through and feeling the way I did, but I know that it was because what I went through was that bizzare, and in a way, I think the "Shiny Happy People" are right in their idealistic, and wholsome approach to life, but SOME people don't get that life, now do they? ;) lol So, I love the fact that my life made me internally MUCH stronger than them, becuase I know that I have the ability to know that I can survive because I'm still here, and even though I only get flashes of memories coming back, I know I survived something ROUGH....but i'm here, so screw the happy way; it makes you weak!

But back to the main topic :rolleyes:

OKRADLAK, I learned that kindness is confusing too....it sure is.....when people are always trying to intimidate you, threaten you, say things to you that aren't fit for a dog to hear....kindness is alien....it's UNHEARD OF in some cases. Most people who endure trauma sort of get "calloused to kindness" because it disarms you and makes you think that "the worst is over"....I only knew that in my life "in order to survive, you have to be sharp, tough, and competent"...to "Protect" myself in a lot of weird ways that I thought would keep me safe; I don't really trust people, and so kindness is ALWAYS investigated on my part, and friendship? LOL what is THAT!!?

I learned/remembered a WHOLE bunch of abilities that I hadn't known I knew since childhood

-how to shoot (shooting since I was 7 acording to my father; he taught me how though I don't remember)
-some martial arts(shotokan by my uncle and some wushu; I defensively performed a "Soto Uke/Inside Block" when he was play-boxing with me; I asked why/what it was I did, and he told me to "stop playing around! you know what it is!! Soto Uke/Inside block!")

-How to SING!! (I didn't know I could sing so well! Which I do, my uncle told me it started in childhood; I was "Always singing"...I honestly don't remember ANY OF THAT).

Crazy stuff...but so true....:D

 

[AzureMind]

Miss, about the male suffering tid bit....yup, ALL TRUE....let me just say this; around my neck of the woods, "BOYS ARE WEIRD/AREN'T ALLOWED TO CRY"....and my parents are both emotionally/mentally immature/superficial not to mention potential possessors of Personality Disorders....

It's ok, to be MAD, ANGRY, AMMORAL, INSTINCTIVE as a boy, but not SMART, SENSITIVE EMOTIONAL, AWARE ETC.....too bad I have so much "Yin" in my personality.....:(

That's why I have such anger towards men....f*ckers..... ;)