Bullys, Rudeness and Negativity Directed at you!

[NinjaFrodo]

You know I've spent alot of time posting about things directly relating to the diffrent lessons of the program, insights into my own life and such but I wanted to do something a little diffrent.

A very long time ago, when i was first going through the depression and after i found out what my grandfather had did to me...I told myself that i would use my pain to help others and it never really dawned on me that I could actually use the experience of being a bully and what i learned from the program to talk to people about the negative stuff that people direct at us.

I'll give you a little background on me. I came from a family in which it was ok to make fun of other people and to say things like..don't be so stupid or thats really dumb. My Grandfather, Uncles, Mother and even sister would tell my Grandma that she was stupid and so I kinda learned to treat people that same way. I intentionally hurt other people for the fun of it and I saw nothing wrong with that until I had tried to impress this one girl but making fun of another girl and i felt guilt. Since then I've realized that this kind of behavior is wrong and actually its kinda pathetic if you ask me.

My sister was probabbly the worst person to do this. If someone did something she didn't like she would tell them it was stupid. Compliments, people being nice to each other, optimism, i even remember her making fun of someone doing yoga. When it was directed at me I would feel really bad about myself, I would feel ashamed and It made me afraid to do many things because i might look stupid. It kinda lead to that whole thinking pattern of "i'm not good enough" or "I'm stupid", "They must thing i'm stupid" and so on. It wasn't cool and I believe its a big factor in me closing up to everybody and being afraid of voicing my opinion or anything like that. Actually my grandma had gotten to the point where she didn't even have an opinion of anything, nobody knew what she liked or was into (besides yonge and the restless) and when we went to eat at a restaurant she would choose what someone else before her would order. If she wasn't doing something the "right way" (that included dancing) then my family would make fun of her, it still makes me sick. She ended up developing cancer and hadn't told anybody about it, I believe because she was truely afraid of judgement...you know, what they would say to her. My grandpa noticed one day because their was blood on the toilet seat and well she already had her medopause a very long time ago. He had to really fight to get her to go to the doctor and well the doctor had given her a blood transfusion and then booked an appointment for surgery i guess but you know what, she actually died before that. It was uterine cancer and it could have easily been prevented and I thing a big reason it wasn't, was because of stupid comments and judgements like the ones that my family said to her...and you know what, at her funeral hardly anybody had anything to say.

Neways spent so many years thinking about this kinda cruelty well mostly my sister's and you know what, those comments are not a sign of my own weakness...nor would they be a sign of weakness for any one of you people reading this right now if you have someone talking to you like that. In reality this is the weakness of the person saying it. Do you realize how this opens them up to vulnerability? They are pretty much saying hey, here are my buttons you can press to really bother me.

You also want to keep in mind that people that say that to others are very very likely saying that kinda stuff to themselves and you know what that does? It limits their lives and keeps them from enjoying them. Somewhere in their heads they have crossed off many things because they are "stupid"...thats truely sad and the only thing that really brings joy, is hurting other people. I've been there, i know what thats like.

You can turn these things off guys. The way it works is that nobody does things unless they feel they can get something positive out of them (even if the negative is greater...they just disregard that). If you make them take responsibility for their words or actions but actually calling them out, you can take that power back for yourself and they will not benefit at all. The best way to do this is by asking questions that you already know the answers for. You see you don't necessarily have to ask questions just so you can figure things out. Questions can be used to direct someones thinking to a specific path and well people can lie to other people but its very hard to lie to yourself and people don't like to feel bad about themselves. Simply asking them what the purpose of them saying or doing whatever they said or did is a very good start. You may have to repeat that question several times before it actually works because people like to try changing the subject...don't let that happen. Keep bringing them back to the subject with that question until they either A- answer to the question or B- walk away. Regardless of what the outcome is, the chances of them doing that crap to you again is going to be greatly reduced.

If you are not sure if what is being said to you is wrong or not...you need to ask yourself, what is the purpose of what was just said.


Mike

[Guest]

One thing that I can add to your post is some times the people who say those comments are always thinking about themselves. Which makes them have tunnel vison and can't appreciate the differences in other people.
A sad state of affairs. They are usually not working on their own self cultivation. Being more effective and less affected is a great skill to use. Leading life as an example,(as best one can ) of the way you would like to be treated, may be a more viable option. You will have the satisfaction you did your best! You have to believe in yourself. Its not your fault they have a problem.
I needed these tools to deal,and I never did at a young age. Thats what is great about getting older and learning these tools in this program, to not only take control of our lives, but to set a standard of thinking that is healthy and feels good in the heart.

[Guest]

thank you for that post, i really needed it. I kinda got a little emotional on that one and I'm sure you could see the anger in there. Your right they are the ones who have a problem and i really don't need to make it my own and i completely agree with the tunnel vision theory. I spend so much time imagining getting back at them and making them look stupid but really how is that any diffrent then what they are doing? Its not going to change the situation any or get them to change so they don't cross the lines again. The best way of affecting change is to change ourselves and yes to lead life as an example and by not being as affected by the garbage. I guess i sometimes need that reminder. Not to mention all the time i spend imagining revenge I get to experience a dark place and instead of choosing a potential moment for happiness and joy, I choose a moment for misery, anger and sadness. I am literally choosing to feel hurt and for what?


Mike

[Guest]

I also want to add that people who put other people down are just trying to feel better about themselves and their own isecurities. they need to get some help. and you are right. you should not spend any of your precious energy giving them a thought.

[Guest]

Good for you, taking the time to write about how you feel is so cleansing! I am discovering that one as well, and I too have been helped by other peoples post inc. yours! We are all here to support each other, give insight and reminders, it helps me too!

I too have let my anger thoughts work away in my mind and it never does any good. Again with the help of this program, I have realized that I can't change other people, make them treat me any different, give me more credit or what ever I need. I have found out though, that by me letting all that stuff go, I have alot more time to think of good things to do, and enjoy. When dealing with someone who in the past was a problem, I have been very careful not to get stuck in old ruts. Behaving in a mannor that I used to do, that promoted the same out come as before I started this program. If I slip up, after wards I evaulate what I should of said. Its hard!!! You figure we did these things for years, its going to take some years to re-establish how we what to be treated.

Yes the choice to feel hurt, is a worthless pick. Nothing will grow there. It will keep you from yor goals, dreams, & personal growth. You have answered your own questions!

Michelle37, so nice to hear from you too! Sounds like you are doing well.

[Guest]

Yes michelle that is true to. Misery likes company and something about having power over someone else makes people feel better and more in control.

Thank you THH, it can be cleansing but it feels like i have so much more stuff to get out. I am not sure that alot of people here could take what i'd have to say.

It is nice to have this kinda support system and not have the pressure of trying to look perfect or like some kinda Guru...I actually had one person comment in chat one day saying he thought i was a Master at this stuff. I think i probabbly fell off that pedistal he put me on when i spoke about my own insecurities.

You know i never really thought about it but yes thinking about all the injustices and having those mental videos about what i would like to happen actually does bring me closer to who i was before the program. I also have thought about how you said

Its not your fault they have a problem

I tell myself that its not my problem, its theirs and that helps. It also helps to realize that nobody could possibly do such horrible things like that and not have negative thoughts or guilt/shame. Well at most people neways. Somebody who hurts children cannot feel good about themselves, nor can the people that let it happen to others and not stand up and say something...maybe one day i can confront those people and perhaps i should confront the person who hurt me again, I didn't really say what i wanted to say and i let them lead the conversation.

What does forgiveness mean?


Mike

[Guest]

Well Ninja, you have to get it out. I think you have several options, one is of coarse this forum, I think the people who vist here are pretty supportive, but if you just can't do that, I would go buy some balloons, you can get a kit at Walmart, with one of those helium fillers for kids bday partys. Sit down in a park, or someplace quiet I don't know where you live? and on a peice of paper write all the things you want to say that you never got to say. It may take several, then tie it to the balloon and let it go! You know, make a little ceromony out of it. Its kinda of a Shawnee thing that I attended years ago. For me I had to write something that challenged me when I was 20,and what was the out come. Tie it and let it go, 30 same, 40 same ect... So for you, maybe start with the age you can first remember. I think its very good. I felt sooo much better afterwords. Just a thought. It kinda worked for me, goofy as it sounds.

You must believe and I mean in your heart that if someone hurt you it is not your fault! I don't think even if you lived to be 110 that you will ever figure out why or what they were thinking.

We are all here because we are learning new ways of thinking, no one has Mastered anything. One neat thing about being older is that I've learned nobodys perfect!!!

I think forgiveness means, Letting go of your own hurt and resentment. I don't think that its really something you do for someone else ( although forgivness is often apprecated by many ) Its something that can put your own heart at peace. If you truely let go.

Heres a quote from a book I have been reading "Native Thinking For White Minds"

The Past
"Holding on to the past and past resentments is of no use in living. Its important to learn from the past, because only then can our future can be differnt. When we hold on to the past, we deny both our presnt and all the possibilities of our future.
We can not afford to hold on to resentments. Holding on only makes us bitter and angry and robs us of the energy we need to live in the present."

The day before yesterday and yesterday are not the same as today.-Swahili Proverb

I hope there is something in all this that might help some?

[Guest]

The balloon thing sounds intresting...i could do both. It's not goofy its just not what people are used to doing thats all.

I think posting might be a good idea too so i hope you are all ready.

Can people really truely let go? I mean fully let go?

[Guest]

I have struggled so much when i was growing up. When i finally figured out that i was molested I could not get the thoughts of how i was violated out of my head...it consumed me. I was also struggling with my sexuality because i was having sexual thoughts of guys but i was confused as to weather those were my own thoughts or becacuse of the abuse. I was hurting in silence for sooooooo long, I didn't tell anybody. I became afraid of people, afraid of going to school, afraid of waking up, afraid of my thoughts. I couldn't sleep and I developed bad sleeping problems where i would stay up really late and have to wake up really early and it pissed me off during the weekend when my mother and her bf would play Elvis really loud to purposely wake me up and then turn it down once i came out of my room...I was already struggling with trying to endure everything and they just ignored my needs.

I was at my Grandpa's house one day, waiting for my cousin to call. She calls and i talk and he picks up the other phone and tells me i have only 5 minutes to talk to her and he is on the other end at the same time....She was the first person i told and it kept me sane to talk to her, i had nobody else and even that connection was being threatened. Well he hung up on her and i flipped out and he grabbed my arm and i told him not to touch me...you know what he told me, he said "who's going to stop me, you?" That made me furious, friggen sexual preditor telling me that! I told him that i would...he tried to tell me that i couldn't even take care of myself. Thats when all my doubts about what to do vanished, thats when i decided I was going to end this!

My house was a few doors from his and he would call to get ahold of my mother...if she wasn't there i would hangup on him and one day he just got so angry that he came over in a rage. My cousins (mother's bf's niece and nephew) were there and as he was entering the house he said where's that F-ing bastard! He got ahold of me and put me in a headlock and I could not hold back anymore, I said don't touch me you child m..... That incident ended with him yelling that he wished i was never born and me telling him off.

Shortly after that I ended up starting to cut myself and i broke down infront of my mother and her bf and all they could say was, we can't have you doing that...I find out a couple months later that from that situation she figured out what he had done because he did it to my mother too...she also told me that she caught him with my sister and after that conversation she still let him in the house! How could someone be so bloody ignorant? I already told my mother i was suicidal and i had started to cut my arms because of him and still she let him in. I was getting more and more furious, I would stick kitchen knives through my bedroom door and the chairs in the kitchen. My mother wouldn't even take me to councelling which i had asked for. How could a mother, someone who is suppose to love her children unconditionally just do that? I decided to reach out to my aunt who had broken away from my uncle for selfish reasons of her own that i was not aware of at the time and my mother had found out about it. Apparently she was going to use what i told her to get custody of my cousins and my mother gave me crap for tlaking to her.

One day while i was at the trailor park, big trailor park near my place where i knew a few people there i was visiting some friends. I've known these people for awhile but they had brought a friend of theirs up and i heard in conversation that she was an interpreter for the cops. I took that opportunity to talk to her and we went to the cop station and started an investigation. I ended up moving into the trailor park at some other friend's trailor for a few weeks before moving in with another friend outside the trailor park.

A year later i decided to move to another town and shortly after i got news that my mother had died. She was epileptic and well the stress from going to the cops and the investigation was bringing back her seizures which she hadn't had for like 20 years even without having to take pills. The investigators were trying to get ahold of her and the stress from that must have given her a seizure and unfortunately nobody was around and she ended up in a position where she suffocated to death. At her funeral well still having the sleep problems i did not get to bed too early before the funeral and missed the ride there...I got there at the end and the funeral director didn't let me in, she didn't realize i was the son and i got furious and punched a solid piece of wood and broke a part of my hand. People started to come out and I just flipped out, i let them have it. My mother's bf hasn't talk to me since and he has been around since i was born. I leave messages by paper, phone and through other people and still no response. My sister calls me cruel and wants nothing to do with me. I had even put the investigation on hold because she was pregnant and I didn't want her to lose the child.

Sometime after that I started with this program and decided i wanted to go back to school and I had figured that if i wanted to do good in school and get rid of this spacy feeling then i would have to confront the person who abused me. I did it, I was not satisfied with what i had said, i wanted to say more and all he did was change the subject. He did admit and appologize for it but then tried to direct the convo towards someone else who in his mind was worse...my biological father. He had told me that my father tried to kill my sister before she was born by punching my mother in the gut and how he took advantage of my mother while she was having a seizure and thats how i was conceived...I confirmed that with someone else too, its true. I tried to convince him to get help and to do something to fix what he has done, his response was that he was going to turn to the bible. As long as he confesses his sins then I guess that just makes everything that he has done ok again, i guess thats his mentality.

I was ok with that confrontation and i was talking to him again until i saw a councellor and also a picture of my grandpa holding my newborn cousin...that sick smile on his face and remember how i said about my mother walking in on him with my sister, she had made him a deal saying she wouldn't go to the cops if he didn't touch me or my sister again...Well that made me realize that he manipulated my mother by crying and learned from then on to keep the door open so he can stop if he heard anything.

So My sister won't talk to me, one of my uncles won't talk to me, other won't doesn't avoid talking to me but doesn't try to initiate it either, my mothers bf...basically my dad won't talk to me, i haven't talked to my uncles nieces really, but they have no idea whats going on and are fine talking to me but its complicated with my uncle around and my great aunt who i can't say why they don't want to talk to me and how i should talk to my grandpa and she has no idea it was him who did it. I told her that i went through it but i was not able to tell her who because that is her brother.

So now whenever i hear about any of them i feel resentful of how ignorant they can be and how they can just ignore something so big and ignore me and just go living their lives. My sister is planning to get married and has basically thrown it in my face which gives me the impression that she won't invite me, my mother's bf just got a new girlfriend, both uncles had kids and i haven't seen them, my sister has kids who don't even know me and its like i'm the bad guy here. I did what i had to do to protect people, I told mothers of children and made sure there was no chance that this would happen again. I'd like to think that I have saved many lives but still i'm the bad guy? What i'd really want more than anything is for each of them to experience exactly what i went through and my grandfather to confess what he did...though i really doubt that would ever happen.



You right i do feel a bit better.


Mike

[Guest]

You did it! Good for you!!! I'm also glad you feel a bit better for doing it. May the healing begin and fill your life with good stuff!!!

Your question" can people truely let go? I mean fully let go?"

I don't know what the answer is? I know I have known people who have had severe tradgy such as coming home from war, loosing parents at a young age, car accidents ect...to go on and lead good fulfilling lives. I know one man who is a quad. after a accident, who continued to judge feild trials at dog shows, whom reciently got married!

In my opinion, letting go is more a journey then a quick thing that we do. My dad always says " how do you eat a elephant? one bite at a time!"

When you start to entertain those thoughts of the past,Use your learned skills in the Lucinda program to live life in the present, & put your new skills into action! Remember "lifes not fair". The past is the past, live in the now! Move forward, forward motion. Keep practicing... YOU CAN!