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Having been raised and abused by a mother who was at best psychotic I find that as I ripen with age (turning 61 end of this August) that I have increasingly little tolerance for ordinary people’s neurosis. There seems to be a lot of that in the world. People seem to not only accept what appears to me to be unnecessary and ridiculous neurosis in one another, they appear comfortable with it, perhaps expect it, and do nothing visible over the years to improve the quality of ordinary life as it appears to operate in normal American culture.
I know a great deal about what non-sense is. Readers of this blog know that I know — and that they also know – from years of experience living in a chaotic non-nonsensical world.
Personally I find nothing redeeming – or even remotely interesting – in preserving a phony status quo just because folks delight in turning a blind eye to the truth in their own life and in one another’s. I do not nor do I intend to ever again ‘walk on eggshells’ or pussy-foot around so as to not threaten other people’s reality.
Yet every single person does – obviously – have the absolute right to be who and how they exactly wish to be. It is not my job to judge or to criticize — but after those terrible first 18 years as a witness-watcher-observer — I do see what I see and know what I know. Pretending otherwise does not suit me.
Maybe growing up in the way I did, which spared me even the remote ability to pretend to have anything like a public persona — is some kind of blessing. I remain a social outsider. I have always been an outsider even during the many years in my adult life that I did all in my power to fit in and to belong somewhere.
So watch I do — and people appear in my life and fade away just as simply. Perhaps it is true for all adults eventually that in time only quality will continue and anything else will simply disappear. Perhaps this as it really should be.
I tolerate clutter in my home where I live alone — but oh my do I NOT tolerate clutter when it comes to human beings! Clutter in a creative person’s environment comes with ‘the territory’, is part of the proverbial ‘whole ball of wax’. (!! on that one!)
Just saying — giving myself permission to be both who and how I am in the world? Well, of course I have tried to apply that model to others. But I don’t have a choice not to tolerate myself. I do, however, have the choice to be mighty mighty picky about anyone else being a part of my life, also.
Just saying….
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Related post on not being ‘a people person’:
*Age 15 – MY ‘VISION’ – ALONE NAKED IN THE WOODS SINGING
Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »
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Stop the Storm 
In all fairness to myself and to other people I want to mention that a very observant and wise man once noted to me: “You do not need people like most people need people.”
His was a statement of fact, not a judgment. When I first heard these words 20 years ago I could not dispute his statement – but neither did I understand it.
I do now. I was not created on earth from the moment of my birth to need people. This fact makes my perspective, I suppose, far more unique than I might wish it was. I cannot change how I was made, as ‘appropriate’ and as compassionate as I may attempt to be.
Very similar, as I have frequently said, to probably the way a person with autism like Temple Grandin may be, my social brain and all that goes with it was never provided with the kinds of interactions and experiences that I needed to become a regular sort of person in a regular person’s world.
I don’t bother to grieve my reality very often. Grief serves me no good. Mostly I become very tired when I am ‘out there’ in the world of regular people — I find them exhausting, very obtuse, and I will never understand them in this lifetime.
I hope that God does not judge me as being overly prideful. And if I lack an honest kind of humility in these areas I hope God forgives me, and I pray for that. In the meantime – sometimes – I vent and let off steam.
I grew up in the universe Mother created in her mind and imprisoned me within. Nobody ever bothered to reach inside her hell to find me there.
That is just the way things were – and my isolation from being a full regular member of my species is the very high price that I pay for everyone’s neglect and for Mother’s abuse. I believe God does know this entire picture, and that He does care – and will, in the next world, make everything right.