MyDoorsAreOpen
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2003
- Messages
- 8,549
I was one sheltered kid. My parents are deeply religious, and both had jobs involved with our church. Through 1st grade, I went to a private catholic school associated with my church. I had friends and was treated normally, so I thought of myself as normal. I did have some marked motor problems and was sent to a psychologist to check it out. The shrink couldn't diagnose anything.
Then my parents lost their jobs, and we had to move. I was in a small town, and went to the local public school in the best neighborhood. The teasing began immediately. I was bullied by the class alpha males, and kids thought I was disgusting. It made them physically repulsed to be near me or even hand something to me, for no apparent reason. It didn't help that my clothes were all 70s hand me downs (this was in the late 80s), and sometimes I had to wear the same ones twice in a row. I had attention problems and continued motor problems like hand flapping and toe walking, so even the teachers' patience with me wore thin.
I became ashamed of my heritage, too. I thought of Irish people as nervous people with strange hangups, over-religious, alcoholic, and not particularly attractive people. I disrespected my ancestors for being the only European people to have been colonially assraped, and the only one that continued to have tribal warfare with its northern neighbor. I even get some of this feeling back when I watch "Gangs of New York". Part of the problem was that all the popular guys in my town who got the girls were of Italian or WASP extraction.
I was a brainy kid too. Schoolwork required no effort. Social skills always struck me as so arbitrary and simple and boring that I underestimated their importance and neglected to pick them up.
My parents were always extremely supportive of me, never abusive or absent. In fact, they encouraged my sensitivity and my leaning on them for emotional support whenever I needed it. I even cried on my mother's lap as a high school boy, and thought nothing of it. Neither did she. It never occured to me that to become a real man, I had to cut the cord with my mother. I didn't pick up on the fact that almost all the boys my age were well on the way to doing that, and that doing that was a natural developmental step, especially for boys. Of course then I never learned to stand up for myself or take much emotional pain. I was fragile as a snowman. Somehow I got it into my head that becoming a real man was a relic of bygone evolutionary years, and that I was making a major breakthrough by rejecting it. I thought that I'd find some "other way" to grow up other than by leaning to stand up for myself and take pain.
I was an idealist. I never fully wrapped my head around the idea that this world is a dog-eat-dog one. I turned my head away from anything that reminded me of this fact. Like my parents, I clung to Jesus like a barnacle clings to a rock on the seashore.
Many things eventually woke me up and set me on the right track, showed me which way the sky is, and all that. They include, in chronological order: 1) Going to Japan as an exchange student, a country I had always been obsessed with. 2) Reading the American Atheists website in its entirety, and really letting it sink in. 3) Trying pot. 4) Swallowing my pride and actually learning a little social convention, and realizing there's nothing bad about it, and 5) Moving away from my folks.
I'm now 24. I'm very comfortable with who I am, and come off as relatively normal to most people I meet. I have friends and a social life. I've been reborn. I still flap my arms and talk to myself when in private. That plus my bizarre obsessions (like my one with Japan) have made me wonder if I'm not mildly autistic or have asperger's syndrome. Awful popular diagnosis these days, in any case.
To anyone who has continued problems with social skills or adjustment, here's my gem of advice: STOP THINKING. Turn off your stream of consciousness, that voice-over inside your head that follows your every move. Stop building civilizations and writing stories and contemplating scenarios all day. Just engage the world directly, and move naturally. If you think too much, you'll hesistate. You can't think yourself toward enlightenment and lasting happiness -- you can only achieve these things by doing and engaging the world head on. Gambling machines in bars in Canada all bear a plaque that says: "A game ought to remain a game." I think the philosophy section of any bookstore ought to have a similar plaque that says "literature ought to remain entertainment."
Then my parents lost their jobs, and we had to move. I was in a small town, and went to the local public school in the best neighborhood. The teasing began immediately. I was bullied by the class alpha males, and kids thought I was disgusting. It made them physically repulsed to be near me or even hand something to me, for no apparent reason. It didn't help that my clothes were all 70s hand me downs (this was in the late 80s), and sometimes I had to wear the same ones twice in a row. I had attention problems and continued motor problems like hand flapping and toe walking, so even the teachers' patience with me wore thin.
I became ashamed of my heritage, too. I thought of Irish people as nervous people with strange hangups, over-religious, alcoholic, and not particularly attractive people. I disrespected my ancestors for being the only European people to have been colonially assraped, and the only one that continued to have tribal warfare with its northern neighbor. I even get some of this feeling back when I watch "Gangs of New York". Part of the problem was that all the popular guys in my town who got the girls were of Italian or WASP extraction.
I was a brainy kid too. Schoolwork required no effort. Social skills always struck me as so arbitrary and simple and boring that I underestimated their importance and neglected to pick them up.
My parents were always extremely supportive of me, never abusive or absent. In fact, they encouraged my sensitivity and my leaning on them for emotional support whenever I needed it. I even cried on my mother's lap as a high school boy, and thought nothing of it. Neither did she. It never occured to me that to become a real man, I had to cut the cord with my mother. I didn't pick up on the fact that almost all the boys my age were well on the way to doing that, and that doing that was a natural developmental step, especially for boys. Of course then I never learned to stand up for myself or take much emotional pain. I was fragile as a snowman. Somehow I got it into my head that becoming a real man was a relic of bygone evolutionary years, and that I was making a major breakthrough by rejecting it. I thought that I'd find some "other way" to grow up other than by leaning to stand up for myself and take pain.
I was an idealist. I never fully wrapped my head around the idea that this world is a dog-eat-dog one. I turned my head away from anything that reminded me of this fact. Like my parents, I clung to Jesus like a barnacle clings to a rock on the seashore.
Many things eventually woke me up and set me on the right track, showed me which way the sky is, and all that. They include, in chronological order: 1) Going to Japan as an exchange student, a country I had always been obsessed with. 2) Reading the American Atheists website in its entirety, and really letting it sink in. 3) Trying pot. 4) Swallowing my pride and actually learning a little social convention, and realizing there's nothing bad about it, and 5) Moving away from my folks.
I'm now 24. I'm very comfortable with who I am, and come off as relatively normal to most people I meet. I have friends and a social life. I've been reborn. I still flap my arms and talk to myself when in private. That plus my bizarre obsessions (like my one with Japan) have made me wonder if I'm not mildly autistic or have asperger's syndrome. Awful popular diagnosis these days, in any case.
To anyone who has continued problems with social skills or adjustment, here's my gem of advice: STOP THINKING. Turn off your stream of consciousness, that voice-over inside your head that follows your every move. Stop building civilizations and writing stories and contemplating scenarios all day. Just engage the world directly, and move naturally. If you think too much, you'll hesistate. You can't think yourself toward enlightenment and lasting happiness -- you can only achieve these things by doing and engaging the world head on. Gambling machines in bars in Canada all bear a plaque that says: "A game ought to remain a game." I think the philosophy section of any bookstore ought to have a similar plaque that says "literature ought to remain entertainment."
I just didn't care what anyone thought anymore because I knew at least one person loved me and that was all I was ever going to need. 
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
