05-05-2011, 11:59 AM
I understand your actions, Brother. The only reason I haven't hit some pretty abhorrent people in my life is that I'm a tiny little girl and I realized they would clobber me.
I feel like if we were all honest with our feelings to begin with, a lot of such "outbursts" wouldn't happen. But we hoard our feelings and let it build up and build up until it explodes, and then there's usually no going back. When I was younger my dad had a serious drug problem. He and my mom were always fighting about it, and I was stuck somewhere in the middle. They told me not to tell anyone (most likely so that he wouldn't be sent to jail and then our family would be in the streets for lack of money), but I didn't understand the reasons at the time.
For years I kept it all bottled up inside and I felt like I was dying from the inside out. It caused a lot of blockages in my system- a lot of oppositional behavior on my part. I became quite the menace in high school because I had so much repressed hatred and fear. Then, finally, when I hit college I said "screw this" and told people what was going on. I let out all that pain and fear I'd been keeping for so long, and it was like the knot inside of me was slowly coming undone.
I often wonder what it would have been like if I had just told someone to begin with. Could I have avoided all that pain? People, especially children, should never feel like they have to bear the burdens of their parents alone like that. It is a great way to screw up a kid.
We're supposed to have reliable systems in our schools and stuff...trusted counselors kids are encouraged to talk to, but it doesn't always work out how it should. We live in the days of flooded systems and corrupt officials, so a lot of these kids just get pushed to the side or, even worse, made to feel as if they are doing something wrong.
I think our whole system of doing things needs a major overhaul. We ignore the emotional issues of today's youth and then you wind up with kids snapping and shooting up their schools, or, at the very least, getting into fights and winding up delinquents. We look at those children like they are monsters, but the are just products of the system. We need a new system.
(Btw, my dad has been clean for years now, and he's a wonderful man. I don't want it to seem like I'm slamming him.)
I feel like if we were all honest with our feelings to begin with, a lot of such "outbursts" wouldn't happen. But we hoard our feelings and let it build up and build up until it explodes, and then there's usually no going back. When I was younger my dad had a serious drug problem. He and my mom were always fighting about it, and I was stuck somewhere in the middle. They told me not to tell anyone (most likely so that he wouldn't be sent to jail and then our family would be in the streets for lack of money), but I didn't understand the reasons at the time.
For years I kept it all bottled up inside and I felt like I was dying from the inside out. It caused a lot of blockages in my system- a lot of oppositional behavior on my part. I became quite the menace in high school because I had so much repressed hatred and fear. Then, finally, when I hit college I said "screw this" and told people what was going on. I let out all that pain and fear I'd been keeping for so long, and it was like the knot inside of me was slowly coming undone.
I often wonder what it would have been like if I had just told someone to begin with. Could I have avoided all that pain? People, especially children, should never feel like they have to bear the burdens of their parents alone like that. It is a great way to screw up a kid.
We're supposed to have reliable systems in our schools and stuff...trusted counselors kids are encouraged to talk to, but it doesn't always work out how it should. We live in the days of flooded systems and corrupt officials, so a lot of these kids just get pushed to the side or, even worse, made to feel as if they are doing something wrong.
I think our whole system of doing things needs a major overhaul. We ignore the emotional issues of today's youth and then you wind up with kids snapping and shooting up their schools, or, at the very least, getting into fights and winding up delinquents. We look at those children like they are monsters, but the are just products of the system. We need a new system.
(Btw, my dad has been clean for years now, and he's a wonderful man. I don't want it to seem like I'm slamming him.)