Musings on madness, forgiving, JL Unlimited and Grimm's fairy tales

[shadowkat]

Taking a break from my DVD/TV veg fest, to do a bit of writing. Actually it wasn't that much of a fest, I watched two films, fell asleep during the first one, ate dinner during the second. This morning was devoted to Xmas shopping for Dad, and groceries (no food). Dad got two books: Karen Armstrong's The History of God, and the new biography of Magellan's Circumnavigation of the Globe. While there, I saw a book that I lusted after but could not afford yet - "The Annotated Grimm's Fairy Tales". Oh it's just lovely and so cool. Now, I've seen the Annotated Alice, Wizard of Oz, and Sherlock Holmes, and none of them grabbed me, but this baby? OOOOH Shiny. I want it. Badly. It not only the old tales, but it captures the sections of the old tales that were deleted over time as being unsuitable for children. Complete with mythological and psychoanalytical references. For anyone who has ever studied/analyzed fairy tales or folklore - this is a must have. But, alas, too expensive. So I bought, somewhat guiltily, The Princess Bride by William Goldman and
George RR Martin's A Game of Thorns, which has been recommended to me by three people on my flist. Now, I have not read an epic fantasy in ages, so we'll see if I like it. And it may be a while until I get to it - have to read The Dogs of Babel first for my tiny book club. It has shrunk to three women now.

Watched JL Unlimited, Wake the Dead. Interesting episode. The episode was about a former teammate of the Justice League, Shiara, HawkGirl, who had once cruelly hurt and betrayed them, coming back and helping them - but to do so, she had to kill someone who had become her friend, Solomon Grundy the Zombie. Someone who no longer had control over their mental capabilities and was filled with pain and rage, lashing out at everything around them. No one liked this person, but this woman. And it was this woman who had to kill him.

The episode was an interesting take on an old theme - putting down the old rabid dog and how we deal with someone who has hurt us, deeply. First off, it makes me very angry when people excuse horrible actions based on insanity. Almost as if what the person did was okay because well they are mentally ill. BTVS dealt with this concept a lot. Angelus' killing of Jenny Calendar wasn't Angel's fault, because he was insane, he wasn't Angel. You see? I disagree. I do not think the fact that he was insane at the time takes him off the hook. Which is why I liked the series Angel, because unlike BTVS, it did not let him off the hook. I didn't always feel this way. When I first watched the episode in 1998, I saw it differently. But that was before I was on the recieving end of abuse from a mentally disturbed individual. The individual in question came very close to giving me a nervous breakdown and there was nothing I could do about it. That individual is still hurting people. The individual is bi-polar. He went off lithium the year he went after me. I still bear the scars. He was in a way like Solomon Grundy. Destroying everything in his path. Insane. In my life, I've apparently had two run-ins with individuals who are manic-depressive and at the time I dealt with them, in full lash-out mode. I was unfortunately on the receiving end of the lashing both times. For reasons I still don't completely understand. I blame myself for putting myself there - the second time. And for not seeing what was happening until it was too late the first time. And I did not reacte very well. Since I was not emotionally strong at the time myself - I was suffering post-traumatic stress due to experiences surrounding 9/11. The second round, I was coming off of well the first experience, and in a depression that just kept circling downwards. Both were nasty affairs and I am not proud of how I handled either. And I learned after the fact, way after the fact - months after the fact - that the individual had gone off his meds, was in fact manic-depressive and it was not their fault. Now, I've met other manic-depressives who aren't like this. Who didn't hurt me or anyone I knew about. So this is not a necessary symptom of this disease.

Circling back to Solomon Grundy. Solomon has been driven insane. He is no longer responsible for his actions. The others couldn't deal with him - he hurt them. Superman, Green Latern, Vixen, The Egyptian Dude (no clue what his name is), Aguaman - they just want to kill him. But Hawkgirl cared for him, because he had saved her life once. Reference in the episode is made to Old Yeller - who was a rabid dog that became rabid saving his owner's life. And it is heart-breaking that she has to kill him. Before she does so, she tells him to close his eyes, just as Buffy told Angel. And what do I feel? Sympathy?
Kind-hearted fuzzies? No. Anger. It did not work for me emotionally.


At any rate, I have a question for anyone reading this to ponder. How would you react if you found out that someone who had hurt you, really hurt you, was in fact mentally unbalanced at the time and struggling with mental illness? That they had no control. Would this change your feelings towards them? What if you had no way of knowing they were ill at the time? What would you do? Does it make me a bad person that I can't feel sympathy for my own personal Solomon Grundy?

The Grimm's Fairy Tales talk about witches and curses. In the Disneyfied version, there's a handsome prince, the curse comes undone, all's well in the end. In the original, darker version - it's not so black and white. The curse doesn't just break. And the heroine comes out of the briar patch scarred and bloody, but still alive. We kill the witch in the fairy tale as a way of dealing with that inner demon, yet in the older versions, she doesn't die so easily or the way she is portrayed is far less in the favor of the heroine.

I think we all have personal demons. Some of us have names for them. Some of us don't. And everything we do for good or ill affects everyone else in the universe. In our journals, it's all about me. My pain. My ills. My issues.
My art. My creativity. My likes. My strengths. My friends. And I wonder if in all the me-ness and the us-ness we don't inadvertently exclude or circumnavigate around those who don't quite click with us on first glance?
I admit to having a bit of social anxiety. Fear of awkward silences. Which leads to word vomit. There are times, like today, that I fear people. Their judgements, their thoughts, their scorn. While other times, like maybe yesterday, that I don't. I envy those that I perceive don't have these fears, yet I wonder, perhaps they do?

A year ago I vaguely remember having a somewhat emotional and rather heated discussion about forgiveness. At the time I told the person that forgiving was beneficial for the soul, that you do it for yourself not the other person, or some such silly platitude. Now, over a year later, I wonder if it's so easy?
Yes we forget the pains and traumas we go through, but our body doesn't. It
wears them like scars. Sort of like the character Illyria in ATS holds the memories of Fred, like scars on her cortex - shimmering glimmers of light, touch, sense memory that she can't quite understand. I wonder if an emotional scar is not unlike a physical one? The pain is gone. But the nerves remember?
I have a deep scar on my left arm where a biospy was once done ages ago,
it still aches at times. No reason why it should but it does. So yes we move on. The pain fades. We rise above it. Yet, inside...there's still that whisper of remembered pain.

I wonder if the pain is there to remind us not to hurt others? Not to lash out at them. Just because we are incensed or in pain, to somehow pull back, retreat from the world until we are much better. But is that good?
Isn't it better to be with people who can help? Perhaps the way is honesty and responsbility? I'm sorry should count for something. Yet it doesn't anymore.
No one seems to take those words seriously. I say them quite a bit. So much that anom gave me a button to tell me to quit apologizing. It's almost my mantra now. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Because if I say it enough maybe somehow it will resonate. Somehow I can forgive myself for not being strong enough to forgive those who hurt me once upon a time in ways small and large, though oddly the small petty rejections bugged me more. To forgive myself for not being a good enough friend. To forgive myself for not being smart enough
or wise enough to communicate how I feel without bite.

As I continue to push my way through this year, each day getting easier.
I wonder, am I a better person than before? Or just a different one? And where is this road I've stumbled upon leading to? What choices should I make?
And how do those choices affect what leads next? It is a bit like a Grimm's Fairy tale - our lives, I think, we are in the forest, meeting all sorts of fairy tale creatures. Witches that turn into enchanted princesses. Charmed frogs. And little old ladies who eat little children for breakfast. Yet we are also in the glade and the village, each choice twisting and turning us out onto a new and different path. Who we meet on the path and how we relate to them may have a lot to do with who we are at that point on the path in their perspective and who they are in theirs. Are we the witch? The enchanted princess? The cursed bear? The stumbling dwarf? The souled vampire? The chipped vampire? The scarecrow? The pumpkin head? Dorothy? or all of the above?
By the way, in the muppet version of the Wizard of Oz, Miss Piggy is playing all the witches - a stroke of genious, I think, since in reality they are all just facets on the same one. I'm wondering if that's it. Depending on who we are with, we are the Witch of the North, the Witch of the West, the Witch of the East, and the Witch of the South. Wicked. Good. Not so Wicked. Not so Good.
Complicated.

Okay, I hope that made sense. Unedited ramble from my brain.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I may be guilty of interpolation here, but what I also got from your query was that you were being made to feel guilty (whether by the person in question or another agent close to the event(s)) for withdrawing your confidence and cauterizing the raw edges of your trust. And if that's the case, there can be no clearer indication or proof that the person remains undeserving of both sympathy and trust.

Thank you. In a sense that is what happened, but
not directly or deliberately so - it was more an inadvertent thing. Very inadvertent. Random. Sometimes I think we allow ourselves, or at least I do, to feel guilty about something - when people aren't necessarily pointing a finger at us.

That said, your point is a good one and an apt one. It also solves the dilemma in my brain.

I agree with what both you and pony stated on forgiveness and trust. They are separate things, yet also entwined.

Frankly, I see no problems with cutting the moorings when someone has abused our trust. In fact, when people refuse to do so and are stricken by the violent tides of habit and desperate dependence, my patience is tried and I throw up my hands and wonder what the whole point of self-abasement is. And the natural corollary of Pony's point that a person who can't be responsible for his own emotions shouldn't be trusted to deal with the feelings of others is that if we continue to trust this person with our emotions, we are in fact being irresponsible with ourselves.

Thank you for these words.

I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Several chances. But if each time I let myself into their circle, I get trounced, I don't go back into the circle. I protect myself. Because I see it a bit like touching a candle flame - if you know it's going to burn you? Don't touch it. There are people I know who like to touch candle flames, tame them, pass their fingers through the top. Me? I'm the sort who struggles with getting the tip lit, because I'm afraid of being burned.

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

"I may be guilty of interpolation here, but what I also got from your query was that you were being made to feel guilty (whether by the person in question or another agent close to the event(s)) for withdrawing your confidence and cauterizing the raw edges of your trust. And if that's the case, there can be no clearer indication or proof that the person remains undeserving of both sympathy and trust."

"Thank you. In a sense that is what happened, but not directly or deliberately so - it was more an inadvertent thing. Very inadvertent. Random. Sometimes I think we allow ourselves, or at least I do, to feel guilty about something - when people aren't necessarily pointing a finger at us."

I understand that feeling of guilt at not having the same forgiveness or sympathy that one sees others having because I've been there. And I think that your situation, your individual relationship with the person who hurt you is not, and certainly shouldn't have to be, the same as the one other people have. Even those relationships are all based on the individuality of the people involved. But (you knew there was a 'but' here) there's one aspect of the statement "there can be no clearer indication or proof that the person remains undeserving of both sympathy and trust" that I'd like to perhaps make clearer from my point of view. I think rather than discussing whether or not the person 'deserves' sympathy, let alone trust, because someone, or some situation that was "not directly or deliberately so - it was more an inadvertent thing", "Very inadvertent", "Random" I'd simply suggest that there's no real need for feeling guilty because situations are different, nor is there a requirement that you must, at least outwardly, show some magnanimous gesture. You feel the way you do. What this does tie back to, though, is whether or not one can undermine the process of getting better by intimations that the person is undeserving of that chance. That getting better changes nothing because nothing can be changed. It's very easy for someone who is dealing with what could be a fragile situation, and often is when someone is initially seeking help for a mental illness, for that person to lose hope that there's a point to even trying. And that hope can be dashed by a remark just as undeliberate and inadvertent and random. So...has this person earned your sympathy and trust? I'd say it's clear from what you've written that s/he has not. Does this make that person undeserving of sympathy of trust? I'd say that's a different question entirely.

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

I think most people hope to be able to show sensitivity and tactfulness to those undergoing recovery. But that is a separate issue from what the person in recovery needs, which is ownership of and responsibility for one's recovery. Everyone will receive a wide range of responses to such a big life change, and part of recovery is learning to deal with negative situations. The outside world is not what must be changed-the inside world is, and therefore one changes one's self. The point is recovery and acceptance of self, not acceptance by the outside world, which is at least partially always outside of our control.

Speaking theoretically, recovery is an extremely difficult process partially because when the cause of the problem is removed, a person who has relied heavily on coping mechanism finds it difficult to operate without them, and people still have to deal with the ordinary problems and conflicts that occur to us all. What we once were informs what we become--in the sense that sometimes behaviors were not created by illness or extreme situations, they were exacerbated by them, and a person in recovery needs to learn to distinguish between the two. Someone once asked a famous actor if great fame and wealth destroys people. The man replied that it merely amplifies what was already there. It's difficult to deal with ordinary personal failings, illness or trauma, and coping mechanisms, all at the same time.

Theory aside, I think most people are content to respond as the situation demands, and let the past remain in the past.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this response, aresutha - it answered some of my own questions.

The outside world is not what must be changed-the inside world is, and therefore one changes one's self. The point is recovery and acceptance of self, not acceptance by the outside world, which is at least partially always outside of our control.

I think you are right. We cannot control what others say or do, what we can control is how we react to what is said or done. Or so we hope.
Someone who is mentally ill - has less control over the reactions.
Their struggle is learning how to control what is inside themselves not what is outside, and realizing what is outside cannot be controlled.

But how do we, those who are outside, help them?

Theory aside, I think most people are content to respond as the situation demands, and let the past remain in the past.

I think this may be the answer to the question above. Letting what happens in the past stay in the past. Not rehashing it. Over and over.

People are tough, I think. Hard to deal with. All of us are.
We end, whether we like or not, taking the bitter with the sweet, most of the time.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think aresutha's response below is on target here. I agree much with what she has said.

But to address:

So...has this person earned your sympathy and trust? I'd say it's clear from what you've written that s/he has not. Does this make that person undeserving of sympathy of trust? I'd say that's a different question entirely.

Actually not so clear, since I'm talking about numerous people, not just one. The person online? Yes, they have earned my sympathy, always had it. Trust? No. But I never really gave much of it to begin with, since we were on a discussion board hiding behind psuedonymes and IP addresses which as you know can't tell you that much about the real person. The person offline? Had gotten my trust and sympathy and lost both. I'm not sure I can be sympathetic for the one offline. Of course the two scenarios are different. The online one appears to have sought help and appears not to have intended to hurt others by their actions, the offline one did not seek help and did intend to hurt others.

Two separate scenarios. Both are confusing me a bit. But I think aresutha's post below answers that internal confusion. My question - is not as you might think - about whether they deserve our sympathy or trust, so much as should we feel guilty for not providing it?

I don't know if they deserve it or not. I can't answer that question.
What I wonder is if my struggle to provide it is a weakness that I need to work on? Or a strength designed to protect me from further pain?

As for :
It's very easy for someone who is dealing with what could be a fragile situation, and often is when someone is initially seeking help for a mental illness, for that person to lose hope that there's a point to even trying. And that hope can be dashed by a remark just as undeliberate and inadvertent and random.

I think aresutha does an excellent job of addressing this. The problem with life is no matter where you turn your hopes are dashed
on a whim. I can name at least ten instances this weekend alone that
made me question my place in the universe and hopes for certain things, and I am not ill (as far as I know.).

We hurt each other randomly all the time. Whether we mean to or not.
I know I do. As others have hurt me. And the online world is no safer or easier than the outside one. If anything it can at times be more biting. It is why I've almost deleted my livejournal and left the online world numerous times in the last year. In relationships with others there are no guarantees I think - no safety nets or rail guards. People will inadvertently hurt someone. It's not intentional most of the time. And to go about our lives constantly checking ourselves to see if we've stepped on someone's toes or bruised someone, would make life almost impossible to live. It would also make all our relationships false I think, if we are too careful.

So the question becomes where to draw the line? Should certain topics not be discussed at all? Should I lock this entry and livejournal cut to protect anyone out there who might take the words the wrong way?
(I actually do that a lot and did here to some extent already.)
Where is the line?