I was talking last night with someone very dear to me - got a text from him, and then called him on the phone and spent nearly 2 hours with him. He needed to talk and he needed someone to listen who wouldn't judge him. As he poured out his heart and his frustrations about being condemned for being different from family members and the members of their social group, I realized that there are people in this world who will never quite understand that if someone believes or behaves differently from the accepted norm, it doesn't mean that person is a bad person.
It means that he/she is different.
And I also realized that such "poison people" believe what they want to believe because they have their minds made up already - and if we don't tell them what our truth is, they'll fill in the blanks themselves based on what motives they have previously attributed to us (and that's not going to change, ever). And they'll get it wrong, every time. If we continue to not tell them, to not set the record straight, they'll assume that their version of events is correct - and spread their perception of us far and wide. (Um ... I think that's called "backbiting." Maybe even "slander.")
I've been guilty of spreading such poison in my life ... and of late, I've been guilty of not setting the record straight with those in my life who have filled in the blanks and have spread their poison so far and wide that I am "persona non grata" (person without a status) in some places (places, I might add, where I no longer wish to go - because they are there.)
Judged. Condemned. Executed. Just for speaking the truth. Just for trying to help someone who might want to be helped. Yes, I'm talking about what I tried to do when I wrote and published Get Unwrapped! ... and the people of whom I am speaking are the very people who should have supported me - but never have. I've mentioned their vitriolic reaction before on this blog, earlier this month.
I used to care what those people thought of me. I used to. Then I saw them - really SAW them for the first time, without the rose-colored glasses they thrust upon me from my birth - SAW them treat the man I was talking to last night like the scum of the earth just because ... well it doesn't matter about the because. Let's just say he isn't a 'clone' of them.
Thank God.
The whole experience showed me that I didn't want to continue subjecting myself or my husband or children to that kind of self-righteous, hypocritical garbage any more. So I withdrew from hanging around with them. Months ago.
What a relief that was. For me, that is.
They were baffled by my refusal to keep in contact. So, they filled in the blanks about me, too. (I suspect that this activity began even before I broke contact.)
Their answers/guesses haven't been very pretty, and (naturally, to make them appear saintly and me, villainous) they have painted me in the worst possible light. I know they're 'projecting' - a psychological term that means to attribute to others a motive that is actually hidden in one's self. In other words, they say I'm vindictive because they are vindictive; it's what they do without even realizing it. Yet they don't want to admit that they're vindictive - so they accuse me of it. It's how they get to sleep at night.
I've decided to give them the answers that should have gone into those blanks they filled in. Of course they'll continue to believe what they want to believe, just like always - and it will change nothing in how they behave toward me - or toward the man I spoke with last evening. But the right answers will be out there. I'll have spoken up. I'll have said it.
"Saying it" has always been taboo. We didn't talk about the elephant in the room even if he WAS standing on our toes. It just wasn't done! And if someone committed the cardinal sin of even saying that there WAS an elephant (never mind in the room!) that person would be taken out and (emotionally) executed: crucified, so to speak - a slow, sadistic, and painful death in front of as many people as possible. And the executioners would feel perfectly justified in their actions - because for them, the illusion of perfection is preferable to the reality of brokenness, after all. ("What would people think?" prevents so many from getting the help they so desperately need.) When I wrote my book, I exposed the elephant. They couldn't get past the fact that I had the gall to do that, so as to see the wonderful reality and healing that came of my brokenness. And so, they have been nailing me to the cross of their self-righteousness.
So if I'm going to be condemned to such a fate anyway - it might as well be for the right reasons.
It means that he/she is different.
And I also realized that such "poison people" believe what they want to believe because they have their minds made up already - and if we don't tell them what our truth is, they'll fill in the blanks themselves based on what motives they have previously attributed to us (and that's not going to change, ever). And they'll get it wrong, every time. If we continue to not tell them, to not set the record straight, they'll assume that their version of events is correct - and spread their perception of us far and wide. (Um ... I think that's called "backbiting." Maybe even "slander.")
I've been guilty of spreading such poison in my life ... and of late, I've been guilty of not setting the record straight with those in my life who have filled in the blanks and have spread their poison so far and wide that I am "persona non grata" (person without a status) in some places (places, I might add, where I no longer wish to go - because they are there.)
Judged. Condemned. Executed. Just for speaking the truth. Just for trying to help someone who might want to be helped. Yes, I'm talking about what I tried to do when I wrote and published Get Unwrapped! ... and the people of whom I am speaking are the very people who should have supported me - but never have. I've mentioned their vitriolic reaction before on this blog, earlier this month.
I used to care what those people thought of me. I used to. Then I saw them - really SAW them for the first time, without the rose-colored glasses they thrust upon me from my birth - SAW them treat the man I was talking to last night like the scum of the earth just because ... well it doesn't matter about the because. Let's just say he isn't a 'clone' of them.
Thank God.
The whole experience showed me that I didn't want to continue subjecting myself or my husband or children to that kind of self-righteous, hypocritical garbage any more. So I withdrew from hanging around with them. Months ago.
What a relief that was. For me, that is.
They were baffled by my refusal to keep in contact. So, they filled in the blanks about me, too. (I suspect that this activity began even before I broke contact.)
Their answers/guesses haven't been very pretty, and (naturally, to make them appear saintly and me, villainous) they have painted me in the worst possible light. I know they're 'projecting' - a psychological term that means to attribute to others a motive that is actually hidden in one's self. In other words, they say I'm vindictive because they are vindictive; it's what they do without even realizing it. Yet they don't want to admit that they're vindictive - so they accuse me of it. It's how they get to sleep at night.
I've decided to give them the answers that should have gone into those blanks they filled in. Of course they'll continue to believe what they want to believe, just like always - and it will change nothing in how they behave toward me - or toward the man I spoke with last evening. But the right answers will be out there. I'll have spoken up. I'll have said it.
"Saying it" has always been taboo. We didn't talk about the elephant in the room even if he WAS standing on our toes. It just wasn't done! And if someone committed the cardinal sin of even saying that there WAS an elephant (never mind in the room!) that person would be taken out and (emotionally) executed: crucified, so to speak - a slow, sadistic, and painful death in front of as many people as possible. And the executioners would feel perfectly justified in their actions - because for them, the illusion of perfection is preferable to the reality of brokenness, after all. ("What would people think?" prevents so many from getting the help they so desperately need.) When I wrote my book, I exposed the elephant. They couldn't get past the fact that I had the gall to do that, so as to see the wonderful reality and healing that came of my brokenness. And so, they have been nailing me to the cross of their self-righteousness.
So if I'm going to be condemned to such a fate anyway - it might as well be for the right reasons.
