Little stones mean a lot

Nope.  Not talking diamonds, although I wouldn’t be opposed to some.  I’m referring to the kind of scree that fill in walls of medieval cities, covers mountains and in some places is what passes for “landscaping”.  Little stones, rocks and pebbles of all kind of shapes and weights and colors – creating a conglomerate, that, depending on your positioning, can seem impossible to break through or walk across.  Think on it for a moment, each piece of stone being a piece of a larger one, and somehow protecting the bigger bits because they’re tiny.  Maybe they’re slippery, or packed dense, but these rocks work together – much like the words in abusive relationships.

It doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to jump from stone to words – we’re all familiar enough with both.  One of the most common aspects of being in an abused state is the feeling of isolation.  We’re reminded that we’re stupid or fat or whatever it is that we should be disgraced by.  That we don’t talk about it outside of family.  Or the relationship.  That it’s no one’s business but yours, and it’s your fault anyhow.  No one wants to hear about it.  These sentiments are repeated over and over again, until the words are there, part of the scenery, as obvious and true as the pea sized gravel in your driveway.  But we’ve seen/heard it so many times, it stops being gravel/words – it just IS.

If one is able to breach that wall, there are several unhealthy ways it gets expressed.  Some people will become even more withdrawn and quiet.  They don’t really leave their head space much, and when they do it may be within the same “safe” parameters, repeatedly.  This can create issues if you’re, say, playing an RPG and this guy always has to tank.  For 20 years, he’s played the same character, had the same responses to different bosses, and always makes the heroic self sacrifice.  Not much fun to play with, right?  But they feel “safe” playing with you, and knowing their history, you decide to give up gaming for something else, to save hurt feelings.

An alternative result is the overshare.  Sometimes on social media, often on public transport, this is someone who wants you to know everything about them.  Talking over you?  Check.  Grisly details?  Check?  Inappropriate content?  Double check.  This is someone who has suddenly discovered the freedom to spill the beans, and doesn’t really understand that their 16 years of emotional abuse isn’t really something to knock out on a 20 minute bus ride (if you’re lucky!  Heaven help you on an long trip…)  Lonely is the kindest thing that can be said here, and they are lonely, lonesome folks.

Then there’s the third kind of response that I am most familiar with – someone who doesn’t understand how to create a safe wall or even a barrier for themselves.  I have very little experience or skill set when it comes to boundaries, which is an incredibly hard thing to explain.  Look, having someone say “You just have them for God’s sake!” is not massively useful. (Or, to be more accurate, it’s not something you want to explain because opportunists love this kind of shit.)  It’s like walking around with a t-shirt, with the word “doormat” on it.  You can’t very well create things you’ve never been really taught.  I say this, coming from a point where I see some people’s lack of boundaries to be….  tiresome.

There’s a feeling of insecurity about having these walls in place.  It’s not just the doubting your own skill in creating them, but there’s the bonus belief of all the brutish words that, much like pebbles in a Puritan “pressing”, weigh one down.  That the instability of those words acts as an unreasonable foundation.  From my own point of view, it’s almost claustrophobic.  I can “see” what has changed by tearing down old beliefs within myself, but will I like the “sights” so much when I put up my own fortress?  Maybe I should leave it all up – it’s been protective, right?

I had been pretty open about some things in my life, when a co-worker friend dropped a line (in reference to another co-worker who was former military) that still boggles my mind,  “How many people do you think he’s killed? Have you asked him?”   *cue jaw scraping on ground and me falling over my own tonsils*   Horrified didn’t come close to my emotions.  If there is anything, anything I have learned in this life, it’s that you don’t fucking ask the military about that.  Maybe if you’re in the same unit or deployment – but as a civilian?!?!  It’s beyond rude, and if you think playing 30 hours straight of COD is the same, you’re absolutely deranged.  I learned that in less than 3.0 seconds I can not only create a boundary, I can use that as a rough blueprint for other lines of sanity defense.

What I learned from that experience was that I can do it.  The topic has to be something that I have some pretty strong feelings about.  That I have the ability to say “No.  Not going there.” and be so grounded in that belief that there is no push back.  The terrifying thing being that I am more likely to make that stand for someone other than myself.  That I still have the loose scree of self belief that makes it more difficult to say “I deserve this for me, just as she deserves it for her..”

I still struggle with them.  I batter myself trying to determine which point of view is “right”.  There are days no one can run roughshod over my core values, and others when 6 oz of mama squirrel has me running, apologetically, for the bird food.  It’s okay.  I’m never going to be an inflexible stone monolith, dominating the horizon.  It wasn’t a goal of mine anyhow.  I’m learning to appreciate my own flexibility on some things, the ability to shift with the tides in others.

 

 

I guess you could say I’m learning to balance some.