Growing up with people in denial

The problem with growing up with people in denial is that they're all basically liars.

I think that, in my family, I am the only person who tells the truth. Perhaps the reason I am TOO truthful is that I had to compensate for all the lying happening around me. (I've been too truthful in that I have rarely considered a person's feelings when telling the truth. I have only been working on that for the last couple of years, so much learning is needed in that department.)

Interestingly, though, I just noticed, in the last few days, what huge liars they all are. I guess I knew of individual incidences, but I never put it all together and admitted it to myself.

On my previous post I wrote a comment about the blue room. They all said it was red, but I saw blue. For saying it was blue they made me pay, harshly.

I am currently thinking of the consequences of seeing the truth, expressing the truth, and being told it isn't so. Wouldn't that make a person insane? Isn't that a form of brainwashing? You get rewarded for admitting a lie and punished for seeing the truth.

What does that say of a person like me who went through the torture of brainwashing and didn't completely fall for it, or "convert?"

Personally, I think the consequence is emotional deformity--as in a metaphor for deformed body parts as a result of torture.

Another result is partial insanity or emotional dyslexia, if you will. In other words, the doubt is always there. Is the room red or blue? I am just not sure, because sometimes they told me the truth, so how do I know they were completely wrong? Maybe the room is purple.

Put another way, I think I go trough life judging everyone and everything. There is no such thing as taking anything at face value for me. The doubt will always be there. Are they right or am I right?

My perception of reality is skewed, yes. But also my brain works overtime. It's a wonder it hasn't actually burned as in a short-circuited wire. Always trying to figure out if things are as real as they look adds up a humongous layer of stress to my life. Right this moment, I feel so sorry for me.

I have to think about this some more.

Guilt from Teenage Years

Traditionally, when I've looked at past wrongs, my default position has been, "It was all my  fault." 

I've rarely considered the possibility that other people's behaviour may have triggered my poor reaction. Perhaps a "mea culpa" syndrome I learned as a Christian?

When a teenager, I was--at times--a real bitch to my mother, and the guilt about that comes back to haunt me every once in a while. Most of my bitchy tantrums had to do with disbelieving anything Mother said. 

She claimed something was dangerous, for instance, and I ridiculed her. Then she swore at me or slapped me.

I've come to understand, though, that I had good reasons for distrusting anything she said. She was a pathological liar. When she was sick, for example, and she was lying silently in bed, she started moaning the moment she suspected someone was around. She knew very well how to look as if she was dying.

I was only nine or ten when, every time she became sick, I looked at her, turned around, and mentally classified it as acting.

She also lied about many other situations. There were lots of stories she told that as soon as I started to think for myself I dismissed as huge lies.  There was absolutely no reason why I should believe anything she ever said. The truth rarely came out of her lips.

One time she came to our bedroom, early in the morning, and from behind the ajar door said she'd been in a car accident. I laughed. "Yeah, right," I said.

Then she opened the door and I saw a two-inch bleeding cut on her forehead. I still feel guilty about that.

Of course, there were lies she said that I did believe. I am not sure that I have completely gotten her half-truths out of my system yet.  Who she truly is and what her life has really been like I will never know. But it is little wonder that every time I mention awful stories from my childhood she denies them and gets really angry.

In fact, that's the main reason we can't have a relationship. She wants me to delete from my mental records every unpleasant experience I had in my life at home and go around saying that I was the happiest child ever.

It appears that my mother failed to make me into a liar like her, and she can't forgive me for that. Seeing me, I believe, makes her face reality, and she can't stand it, so she hates me.

Isn't compulsive lying a symptom of sociopathy? I think Mother should give herself to science. She would make an excellent subject of study.

As for me, it seems only logical that I would distrust every person in the universe. I find it incredibly difficult to believe anyone is trustworthy. I'm going to raise this issue in counselling, as it seems foundational to many of my troubles. 

Fuck the brilliance

I grew up in a family where people where illiterate by a developed-nation's standards. They went to school but didn't work very hard, and never read anything that wasn't homework.

I was different. Schoolwork was my entire life and read anything I could put my hands on. I got good grades, but I worked hard for them. Everybody thought I was incredibly smart, though, just because I thought algebra was easy, and they found it impossible.

I, therefore, grew up with the burden that I had to accomplish big things in life, go far, make lots of money, because I was brilliant.

It happened. I did lots of things. But it was a lot of work. I had to give my entire life to accomplishing, because truth be told, I am smart, but I ain't a genius. My IQ is in the 120's not the 170's. By North American standards, I am normal, as opposed to outstanding.

I have always suspected deep down inside that I am not that special, but I still carry the burden of having to accomplish great things on account on somehow being gifted. Well, fuck the brilliance. I am tired of trying to be someone I am not.

I am who I am and have accomplished what I have accomplished: no more no less. I may never accomplish anything in my life ever again, and that will (should) be perfectly fine. As it turns out, I am not Wonder Woman, or Oprah Winfrey, or any other woman that will make the pages of history.

I wonder if I can drop the "burden." Can I just be me? Can I, for instance, work as a clerk at a bookshop and do not feel that I am underachieving?

Can I accept that my body is broken down, aging, and achy, and stop thinking that I should be out there making a large yearly salary? Can I stop hating myself for not even trying to get there?

Can I? Can I?

Is that what I want, though? What the f* do I want?

Do I hate people or do I need people? Can I even stand them? Am I willing to compromise just to be with them? Should I develop some tolerance?

A person with so much shit in the brain can't possibly be that brilliant, so to hell with it.

Feeling Inadequate

I have 50-something followers in Twitter, but I hardly ever establish conversation with anyone. I use Twitter as an information getter for breaking news of my kind: new blog posts by friends, breaking news, sports news, etc.

Once in a while, though, somebody will say something that makes me "talk."

A woman who lives relatively close to me (couple of hours) is one I talk to once in a while. She is a riot. I like her a lot.

Today we talked Canadian politics and she ended up confessing she thought I was brilliant. My first thought was, how do you know that? You've only read a few of my twitts. Of course, she's probably been to my blog, too.

But she didn't say it once. She said it again and again. And the more she said it, the more I felt like crying. I felt like saying, "Stop it already. I can't take it anymore."

Of course, I returned the compliment, but, why do I feel so inadequate when people praise me? Modesty aside, I am sort of used to hearing that. I hear it so often it isn't even funny anymore.

I have a theory.

I feel terrible to be so "brilliant" and to be doing nothing with the so-called talents, other than socializing on line and working on my career occasionally. I'll be doing a website for someone next week.

That must be it, because after writing that, the pressure I was feeling on my chest went away. I must get out there. But I find it so hard to sell myself. To go knocking on doors looking for work.

But, I am making slow progress. Resume ready. Business card ready. Website almost ready. Just need to print out my design and writing samples and I'll be ready to "shine."

Here is where I would like to say, "So, help me God."