My Life In Your Hands

December
Michael Miller

I want to be a passenger
in your car again
and shut my eyes
while you sit at the wheel,

awake and assured
in your own private world,
seeing all the lines
on the road ahead,

down a long stretch
of empty highway
without any other
faces in sight.

I want to be a passenger
in your car again
and put my life back
in your hands.
 

Not Permanently Harmed, But Severely Chastened

The Rock
Louise Gluck

Insignia
of the earth's
terrible recesses, spirit
of darkness, of
the criminal mind, I feel
certain there is within you
something human, to be
approached in speech. How else
did you approach Eve
with your addictive
information? I have paid
bitterly for her
lapse, therefore
attend to me. Tell me
how you live in hell,
what is required in hell,
for I would send
my beloved there. Not
of course forever:
I may want him
back sometime, not
permanently harmed but
severely chastened,
as he has not been, here
on the surface. What
shall I give him for
protection, what
shield that will not
wholly screen him? You must be
his guide and master: help him
shed his skin
as you do, though in this case
we want him
older underneath, maybe
a little mousy. I feel confident
you understand these
subtleties--you seem
so interested, you do not
slide back under your rock! Oh
I am sure we are somehow related
even if you are not
human; perhaps I have
the soul of a reptile after all.

Untangling the Skein

Untangling the Skein of Fuckupedness
Chump Lady

[...]

Figuring out the cheater is energy directed at THEM, which is energy deflected away from YOURSELF. You’re asking why they are this way, instead of asking yourself the harder question of  — why am I hanging around this megabitch who’s not my friend?

I call this stage “Untangling the Skein of Fuckupedness.”

The skein is impossible, but by GOD, you’re going to unknot it, piece by piece, make it linear and you WILL understand it.

Untangling the skein of fuckupedness is a coping mechanism. You want to figure out what makes your cheater tick so you can ensure that they never do anything so devastatingly hurtful again. If it’s their FOO issues with their mom, well, you’ll call and make that counseling appointment for them. Untangling the skein is codependent behavior. Not only will you make the counseling appointments, next you’ll get your magic marker and highlight all the relevant chapters in the affair books you bought for them on Amazon.

Stop it! Stop it right now! It’s not your job to figure them out! You only get to figure out YOU. What your values are, what you will tolerate, and what is acceptable and unacceptable to YOU. That’s it.

[...]

Sweet Lies About Life

Post-Traumatic Relationship Syndrome
ProQuest Information and Learning Company

[...]

Traumatic Stressors challenge one's knowledge of the self and/or world. Maimed or shattered beliefs create a state of psychological crisis until new paradigms can be adopted, for these are the basis of our psychological stability. Trauma can destroy our functional illusions of individual invulnerability. There are four core assumptions fundamental to our belief in such invulnerability:

1. The world is benevolent or at least benign;
2. Life is meaningful;
3. We have control over our lives; and
4. Positive self-worth.

The experience of trauma makes one acutely aware that these assumptions are not true and thus one's ability to act as if these basic assumptions about the world are valid; is lost. One can no longer believe that people are basically good and that good things happen to good people or that by engaging in the "right" behaviours, one can create positive outcomes and avoid negative outcomes.

Trauma impairs beliefs about the meaningfulness of life because one cannot make sense of an unpredictable, uncontrollable, and unjust world. Lack of control yields a sense of vulnerability because this person-outcome contingency is broken. The traumatized state reinforces this belief as one's physical and psychological stability has been eroded - one has literally lost control of one's normal modus operandi. A worthy self is deserving of positive outcomes, but trauma proves this too can be an unrealistic expectation. In trauma, fairness, justice, security and stability seem to be arbitrarily and universally removed. Thus, the defence mechanisms which enable one to maintain psychological stability break down, and as Freud (1949) so accurately pointed out, these mechanisms are critical to keeping intolerable levels of anxiety at bay. Without the so-called sweet lies about life - the distortion of reality that these defence mechanisms provide- we cannot maintain psychological equilibrium.

[...]

An Indifferent Universe

"The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death . . . our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."

-- Stanley Kubrick

The Opposite of Love

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."

-- Elie Wiesel 

It Didn't "Happen for a Reason"

Everything Happens
Emily McDowell

Please let me
be the first
to punch
the next person
who tells you
everything happens
for a reason.