Mary Lynn Plaisance Shares "I Paid Attention" Response by GABixler - "Emotionally Damaged..."

 

The Sounds of Silence

You can't make someone like you.  It's impossible...   I PAID ATTENTION --I paid attention when I didn't get the invite. --I paid attention when I didn't get a thank you. --I paid attention when I didn't get the apology. --I paid attention when a room would go silent when I entered. --I paid attention when folks believed lies about me and never asked me. --I paid attention when they didn''t show up for me. --I paid attention when my important life events didn't even get a congratulatory phone call or text. --I paid attention to the disrespect, and yes, I took it personally. So now I rarely leave my bubble, my space. I choose my peace every time. If I make it to an event I'm invited to consider it a blessing. I raised the bar for who has the pleasure to be around MY SPIRIT. Because I have a good spirit. After three trips to the ER for anxiety from trying to make everyone happy, I'm done fighting the negative spirits that were created to belittle me. It took me a decade of crying and depression to numb three decades of a few envious family members and friends. But I finally did it and I'm at peace with myself. I say thank you everyday that this happened with only a handful of people. But it's always the ones you love deeply who do this, because strangers can't leave a deep wound inside of you. Strangers only leave little scratches. I don't understand cruelty and rudeness. I never will. So put on your crown, cry if you must, and hold your head high. You did all you could. Painting by me -- Mary Lynn Plaisance (c) titled--- "The Sound of Sadness." Web Site: Author Mary Lynn Plaisance ~~~ I've always thought of myself as the Black Sheep of the family... I still do... Though my experiences may have been different from Mary Lynn, still, at an emotional level, we are very much alike... --I knew from early in life that I was different... --I knew that having 4 members of my family touch me inappropriately, that it had changed me in some basic subtle way... --I knew that, even though youngest, I was perhaps the oldest in experience, knowledge...exposure... --I knew that exposure would affect me the rest of my life... --I knew, and recognized, that I had nothing in common with any of my family. --I knew that, at least, nobody was interested enough in me to ask about my life issues... --I knew that, somehow, my involvement in the church would not solve everything, even if that's what I was often told...  --I knew that seeing my mother, alone, working to raise 4 children, was hard... Even when an adult, we never really talked... --I knew that even when something happened in my life, members of my family would have no idea about it, or wouldn't care, if they did. --I knew I was included in holidays because I was part of family. --I knew also that they would never ask about me, my life, my concerns... --I knew that I was different and just a few within the family, 2 or 3 would ever really talk to me... and my life... --I knew that I had developed my work ethic from my mother... --But, when I was emotionally damaged through that work, that nobody would really try to understand exactly how I became "damaged..." --And, when I needed to share, I was sent to the church... or written a letter telling me that she hadn't realized I had been molested... --And, when another learned, she tried to say it didn't happen... --Books became my best and most loyal friend...and through those books, many true acquaintances who became friends, like Mary Lynn and those whose books I've read and talked about. I know that I have come full circle in my life. It has been mostly a happy life since I really never expected much from family, after all, it had never been there along the way... I know that my primary part of the family was that I was a good listener... and I did listen... But my life had become so much more than routine that nobody really could ever understand...and didn't even try to... My friends, my life, has been spent with those outside of my family for the majority of time. Now at my age, I, too, stay in my home, no longer needing any of my family who could never understand "me" as I am now... A totally different person to them, simply because they never really ever tried to know the person I am... and always had been. Two of the family members who most knew me are now gone... Quite accidentally, I met another one... She, too, is a good listener...And, now, I do have one person in the family who "loves my mind..." My damaged mind, still functioning, still alert, but still damaged... I value more and more those online friends and connections with whom I can relate. We talk books, I can learn and exchange ideas without fear of being "not understood..."  And, they would not, like several family members had done, scold me about the books I was reading--never seeing or caring that I "reviewed" books, which may or may not have changed me personally. And, in the end, that itself is sufficient... Thank you Mary Lynn for sharing your life with me...and, being willing to allow me to share my life with you!

But there is always another Friend... who listens, doesn't He? And, sometimes, sends an answer...