...
So, I haven't posted in forever and a day, but I don't care. I read this article (warning: Cracked.com, timesink, etc) and it made me think. So now I have a lot of *~feelings~* and that's what your own journal is for so here we go.
Prelude to this: I have anger issues. Pretty bad ones. They only come out when I'm talking real-time with someone, because when I can go over my comment and edit it I almost always think better of it and fix what comes out of my mouth/from my fingers. However, part of my anger issues do come from my disorder (yet saying that on the internet tends to open one up to mockery), and I really do have rage triggers that make me do things I don't remember afterward. (Try explaining that to anyone who hasn't actually witnessed you do that IRL, though. They'll call you a liar.) Said episodes always tend to leave me shaking and nauseous and crying after, with the feeling that I know I did something I'll probably regret horribly later, but no idea what, or what caused it either since that gets blotted out too. I've always gone to pass out and sleep for hours right after.
Blah, blah, police your own triggers, etc. All three times this has happened to me there was no previous warning. Some people also say they doubt me, as there is 'no way I could do things like seem to act rationally or type or be actively vindictive instead of just HULK SMASH,' and that's why they doubted me. Bullshit. Rage episodes don't mean you lose the ability to think and turn into a mindless animal, they mean you get really, even unreasonably, mad and do something you wouldn't normally do. In my case, twice I apparently yelled at people things I would never normally say (or even think), and once I did something stupid with my keyboard.
Other people do tease for the whole 'black out' thing, or maybe they think I made it up. (Apparently they've never had to go through that! How lovely for them. Welcome to the world of mood disorders, shit does not make sense, here's your day pass.) Or say 'take your meds' like meds are a cureall for mood disorders. Riiiiight. I sincerely hope none of those people ever run into someone they care about with severe depression or bipolar disorder or anything of the like. If medication fixed everything, the fuck would I have therapy for? The fuck would anyone have therapy for? Ugh.
(I actually ran into someone with the gall to say one of those episodes was entirely my fault because I was off medication by doctor's orders at that point since they were making me sick. Apparently I should have gone on with the throwing up for several hours a day and feeling like shit for the rest. Fuck him.)
Apparently people also think I'm likely to do this again. Fair enough, I suppose--it's probably entirely possible. On the other hand, they say it like it would be entirely my fault. Entirely.
I don't deny that I have some culpability--after all, it is still technically me doing things--but really? It's not spontaneous. It's not out of nowhere. No, you don't have to handle me with kid gloves. There are very specific things that piss me off, and I have told most people most of them.
1. I don't like being accused of lying, in any form. Laughing at me when I continue to deny something that isn't true will only make me froth more. (Unless I am having a mixed episode, in which case there is nothing anyone can do to make me give a fuck about anything.)
2. I don't like being blamed for shit I didn't do. I out and out admit it when I have done something wrong. It is near-impossible for me to avoid saying something about it. The one time I'll deny it successfully is when I make off the cuff statements due to my emotional state that I don't mean anymore when asked about them. Then I tend to deny it, even when pressed. I don't know why, I guess it's because it doesn't feel like me making them? It's weird.
3. I don't like it when people start blaming me for shit they let slide in themselves and their friends. (This happens to me a lot! Maaaaaybe I am hanging out with the wrong people online.) When a group of people are sniping at me = a-okay, when I am involved in being harsh to anyone else = I (and none of the other people doing it at the same time usually) am evil. Part of this is that I do not like it when people let asshole behavior slide. So many times I've been sitting there, mentally going 'come on, you've got to see it, they're being horrible, you've called other people out on this before' and...nothing. It gets especially galling to be called a dick by a self-admitted complete asshole. Wow.
4. I don't like it when I feel like someone has been completely disrespectful to me or a friend of mine. (This only applies when I feel like my friend is not completely in the wrong, though.)
Really. This is not difficult. I have even told people who ask, flat out, that I do not deal well with this shit. Apparently it's still my fault when it happens, though.
My other triggers involve my parents, and no one I know from the internet knows either of them, so!
Now, relevant to the article. I'm 4 for 5 on that one, though with one of them it wasn't the exact same thing, or at least being for #4 didn't mean romantic love.
Number five was basically my childhood in a nutshell, any time I tried to deal with my parents. Unlike most people on that article, I don't have a shitty teacher story. I had awesome teachers. One of them even went up to bat for me in one of those instances. But it got to the point that when the school gave me aptitude tests at the end of grade 2, since I'd been doing grade 3 coursework for a lot of the year and they wanted to just skip me to grade 4, my parents automatically assumed that I was failing. No matter how much I told them otherwise, they didn't believe me until they actually talked to the teachers. My second grade teacher took me aside after class the day after that (it was near the end of the school year), and said she was completely shocked that any parents could express such disbelief in their own child doing well, and if things were terrible at home I could tell her. I told her no, they were never around, and they never went to parent-teacher interviews or anything anyway. (Or, I imagine, they would've gotten a stern talking-to.) I did admit that my sister and I forged our parent's signatures on hot lunch day forms and other such things that needed signing. She was silent for a while after that and then said that she would pretend she never heard that. It was one of my first experiences with an authority figure who was not just plain good, but kind of awesome. However, even after all that, my parents still treated me like I was special needs at home. Despite me skipping a grade.
Fuck, I am such a middle child.
Number four, well. I have had friends like that. It is rather painful, some of it was more recent than the rest. When I feel like being friends with someone, I am pretty damn loyal. I have been told I even act like I have crushes on my closer friends. It kinda sucks when it turns out that was stupid of me.
Number three, well. Again. All the time. Then again, I recognize that I am slightly dramatic and most things I call injustice are probably things that people think are normal. My list up there, for example. Yeah. That part I am working on. However, I have been pretty badly wronged and stepped on before, so.
Number two. I've actually had less negative actual experiences with authority than most people perceive of me, unless you can call a childhood of neglect a negative experience? Hm. I was pretty much raised by my aunt and uncle (so was my sister; most of this applies to her too, and the 'later' parts also to my brother) and later on, babysitters and daycares. My parents have always been workaholic types. We were latchkey kids from the point my sister was nine; my brother joined us on that when he was old enough to be in school--so the year after we moved to BC.
Oh, and our parents always signed us up for after school activities we didn't want to be involved in. My sister suffered through several years of jazz tap, and I through a childhood of baseball. (My brother was more adept at manipulating them into stuff he actually wanted to do.) They didn't want to take care of us, so they had no issues dropping us on the carpooling parents and coaches and instructors. When we moved to BC, they actually tried to enroll us in a Christian school. (None of us are Christian. Partly due to forced church services and Sunday school as children, and partly because we just aren't.) My sister and I fetched our brother from the elementary side the second we had been dropped off and walked the eight blocks home. She was on the phone with the public school right when we got in, but that's the story of how we all missed several days of school at the start of the year while that got sorted out.
I did have one fucked-up teacher, I guess. Grade eight gym. But everyone knows what 'that one gym teacher' is likely to be like. So. Yep, asshole who yelled at everyone. But I suppose my authority issues come from my parents, they never knew jack shit about any of us and still really don't. My brother's graduating high school this year, he said he's moving out as soon as he can. He's probably sick of getting bounced between them, really, but apparently they're no better separately than they were together.
I can't say #1 ever applied to me. Because, well, I don't expect authority to be reasonable due to my parents. I don't expect things to be awesome if you listen to authority. Apparently I'm 'too cynical' for whatever reason. Sure. Maybe. I do have anger issues boiling under my skin.
Oh yeah, I saw The Avengers last night, before the blackout. It was awesome. Although all I'm thinking regarding it right now is 'boy do I empathize with Bruce Banner when he said his secret to coping is always being angry.'
Prelude to this: I have anger issues. Pretty bad ones. They only come out when I'm talking real-time with someone, because when I can go over my comment and edit it I almost always think better of it and fix what comes out of my mouth/from my fingers. However, part of my anger issues do come from my disorder (yet saying that on the internet tends to open one up to mockery), and I really do have rage triggers that make me do things I don't remember afterward. (Try explaining that to anyone who hasn't actually witnessed you do that IRL, though. They'll call you a liar.) Said episodes always tend to leave me shaking and nauseous and crying after, with the feeling that I know I did something I'll probably regret horribly later, but no idea what, or what caused it either since that gets blotted out too. I've always gone to pass out and sleep for hours right after.
Blah, blah, police your own triggers, etc. All three times this has happened to me there was no previous warning. Some people also say they doubt me, as there is 'no way I could do things like seem to act rationally or type or be actively vindictive instead of just HULK SMASH,' and that's why they doubted me. Bullshit. Rage episodes don't mean you lose the ability to think and turn into a mindless animal, they mean you get really, even unreasonably, mad and do something you wouldn't normally do. In my case, twice I apparently yelled at people things I would never normally say (or even think), and once I did something stupid with my keyboard.
Other people do tease for the whole 'black out' thing, or maybe they think I made it up. (Apparently they've never had to go through that! How lovely for them. Welcome to the world of mood disorders, shit does not make sense, here's your day pass.) Or say 'take your meds' like meds are a cureall for mood disorders. Riiiiight. I sincerely hope none of those people ever run into someone they care about with severe depression or bipolar disorder or anything of the like. If medication fixed everything, the fuck would I have therapy for? The fuck would anyone have therapy for? Ugh.
(I actually ran into someone with the gall to say one of those episodes was entirely my fault because I was off medication by doctor's orders at that point since they were making me sick. Apparently I should have gone on with the throwing up for several hours a day and feeling like shit for the rest. Fuck him.)
Apparently people also think I'm likely to do this again. Fair enough, I suppose--it's probably entirely possible. On the other hand, they say it like it would be entirely my fault. Entirely.
I don't deny that I have some culpability--after all, it is still technically me doing things--but really? It's not spontaneous. It's not out of nowhere. No, you don't have to handle me with kid gloves. There are very specific things that piss me off, and I have told most people most of them.
1. I don't like being accused of lying, in any form. Laughing at me when I continue to deny something that isn't true will only make me froth more. (Unless I am having a mixed episode, in which case there is nothing anyone can do to make me give a fuck about anything.)
2. I don't like being blamed for shit I didn't do. I out and out admit it when I have done something wrong. It is near-impossible for me to avoid saying something about it. The one time I'll deny it successfully is when I make off the cuff statements due to my emotional state that I don't mean anymore when asked about them. Then I tend to deny it, even when pressed. I don't know why, I guess it's because it doesn't feel like me making them? It's weird.
3. I don't like it when people start blaming me for shit they let slide in themselves and their friends. (This happens to me a lot! Maaaaaybe I am hanging out with the wrong people online.) When a group of people are sniping at me = a-okay, when I am involved in being harsh to anyone else = I (and none of the other people doing it at the same time usually) am evil. Part of this is that I do not like it when people let asshole behavior slide. So many times I've been sitting there, mentally going 'come on, you've got to see it, they're being horrible, you've called other people out on this before' and...nothing. It gets especially galling to be called a dick by a self-admitted complete asshole. Wow.
4. I don't like it when I feel like someone has been completely disrespectful to me or a friend of mine. (This only applies when I feel like my friend is not completely in the wrong, though.)
Really. This is not difficult. I have even told people who ask, flat out, that I do not deal well with this shit. Apparently it's still my fault when it happens, though.
My other triggers involve my parents, and no one I know from the internet knows either of them, so!
Now, relevant to the article. I'm 4 for 5 on that one, though with one of them it wasn't the exact same thing, or at least being for #4 didn't mean romantic love.
Number five was basically my childhood in a nutshell, any time I tried to deal with my parents. Unlike most people on that article, I don't have a shitty teacher story. I had awesome teachers. One of them even went up to bat for me in one of those instances. But it got to the point that when the school gave me aptitude tests at the end of grade 2, since I'd been doing grade 3 coursework for a lot of the year and they wanted to just skip me to grade 4, my parents automatically assumed that I was failing. No matter how much I told them otherwise, they didn't believe me until they actually talked to the teachers. My second grade teacher took me aside after class the day after that (it was near the end of the school year), and said she was completely shocked that any parents could express such disbelief in their own child doing well, and if things were terrible at home I could tell her. I told her no, they were never around, and they never went to parent-teacher interviews or anything anyway. (Or, I imagine, they would've gotten a stern talking-to.) I did admit that my sister and I forged our parent's signatures on hot lunch day forms and other such things that needed signing. She was silent for a while after that and then said that she would pretend she never heard that. It was one of my first experiences with an authority figure who was not just plain good, but kind of awesome. However, even after all that, my parents still treated me like I was special needs at home. Despite me skipping a grade.
Fuck, I am such a middle child.
Number four, well. I have had friends like that. It is rather painful, some of it was more recent than the rest. When I feel like being friends with someone, I am pretty damn loyal. I have been told I even act like I have crushes on my closer friends. It kinda sucks when it turns out that was stupid of me.
Number three, well. Again. All the time. Then again, I recognize that I am slightly dramatic and most things I call injustice are probably things that people think are normal. My list up there, for example. Yeah. That part I am working on. However, I have been pretty badly wronged and stepped on before, so.
Number two. I've actually had less negative actual experiences with authority than most people perceive of me, unless you can call a childhood of neglect a negative experience? Hm. I was pretty much raised by my aunt and uncle (so was my sister; most of this applies to her too, and the 'later' parts also to my brother) and later on, babysitters and daycares. My parents have always been workaholic types. We were latchkey kids from the point my sister was nine; my brother joined us on that when he was old enough to be in school--so the year after we moved to BC.
Oh, and our parents always signed us up for after school activities we didn't want to be involved in. My sister suffered through several years of jazz tap, and I through a childhood of baseball. (My brother was more adept at manipulating them into stuff he actually wanted to do.) They didn't want to take care of us, so they had no issues dropping us on the carpooling parents and coaches and instructors. When we moved to BC, they actually tried to enroll us in a Christian school. (None of us are Christian. Partly due to forced church services and Sunday school as children, and partly because we just aren't.) My sister and I fetched our brother from the elementary side the second we had been dropped off and walked the eight blocks home. She was on the phone with the public school right when we got in, but that's the story of how we all missed several days of school at the start of the year while that got sorted out.
I did have one fucked-up teacher, I guess. Grade eight gym. But everyone knows what 'that one gym teacher' is likely to be like. So. Yep, asshole who yelled at everyone. But I suppose my authority issues come from my parents, they never knew jack shit about any of us and still really don't. My brother's graduating high school this year, he said he's moving out as soon as he can. He's probably sick of getting bounced between them, really, but apparently they're no better separately than they were together.
I can't say #1 ever applied to me. Because, well, I don't expect authority to be reasonable due to my parents. I don't expect things to be awesome if you listen to authority. Apparently I'm 'too cynical' for whatever reason. Sure. Maybe. I do have anger issues boiling under my skin.
Oh yeah, I saw The Avengers last night, before the blackout. It was awesome. Although all I'm thinking regarding it right now is 'boy do I empathize with Bruce Banner when he said his secret to coping is always being angry.'